Jim born 1946 One Year After the Long Cane was Invented

Jim said he wished he had had cane travel in grade school – instead of always sitting on the sidelines.

He remembered moving about without the long cane and didn’t recall getting hurt, but when he attended his reunion getting about the campus as an adult he didn’t understand, how he managed without a long cane, because he bumped into a lot of bicycles.

He was taught to believe that long canes were just needed in “big environments” but as an adult he realized that a long cane would have kept him from bumping into bicycles and falling off drop offs.

Jim proves a child can grow up without a long cane. But why should they be asked to do that? It restricts their freedom and puts them at risk. People can survive all sorts of hardships- folks who are smart and have great resilience can survive a lot, but looking back at those hardships comes the sincere wish the adults in his life had found a way to alleviate his hardship sooner. 

Thankfully because of the belt cane – adults have options to get effective mobility tools to toddlers and allow them to grow up only knowing safety and independence.

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Transcript

You can go where you want to, and you found you way here to the Safe Toddles podcast. I’m Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken your host. I am the president and CEO of Safe Toddles – I invented the pediatric belt cane a tool that was imaged after spending years learning about orientation and mobility including the qualitative studies of over 100 employed adults who were blind or mobility visually impaired, extensive reading and teaching O&M for over 25 years. 

This podcast shares the interviews I conducted and I have been uploading them from oldest to youngest. This next one is with Jim Stevenson recorded 7/16/01. 

Jim was born premature in 1946 and became blind due to ROP. 1946 is one year after the long cane was invented for blind WWII veterans. He didn’t get his first cane until after he graduated undergraduate school. Like all of our interviews so far – another very smart man who was successful and more – but who was able to look back and regret those lost years without effective travel tool. Sit back and relax and listen to Jim’s story.

A. Well, it’s James, but I like to be called Jim.  Last name Stevenson.

Q. And your date of birth?

A. ‘46.

Q. And where were you born?

A. L.A.

Q. And where do you live now?

A. I live in Palo Alto, California.

Q. What do you do for a living?

A. I’m a research psychologist, which is my job title, and what that means is auditory display and, uh, sonification, meaning representing as sound, uh, audio, uh, complex data, mathematical structures, statistics, computer programmers…computer programs.

Q. I could use you [laugh] Um, what’s your highest degree?

A. Uh, PhD in experimental psychology.

Q. How long have you had a vision impairment?

A. I was born blind.

Q. And what’s the name of it?

A. Uh, retinopathy of prematurity, they now call it.

Q. OK.  Do you have functional vision?

A. No, I’m totally blind.

Q. OK.  When did you first realize…

A. I have no light perception, no nothing.

Q. Zero.  OK.  When did you first realize your were visually impaired?

A. Well, let’s see.  I guess as far back and I can remember, I knew that my parents could detect at a distance things that I couldn’t and we discussed…  I’ve always known that I was blind.

Q. Yeah.  When did you learn…first learn to travel independent of another person?

A. Well, it’s weird.  I…in high school…let’s see.  Even when I was a kid, my parents would take me for walks and, you know, teach me some kind of pre-cane skills, uh, have me walk independently, uh, down the block and teach me to listen for stuff and, you know…  I’d say, you know when I was maybe eight or nine years old.

Q. So, teach you to listen for what?

A. What?

Q. What’d they teach you to listen to?

A. Well, the sounds of trees, uh, the sounds of traffic.

Q. Neat.

A. And then I had some very minimal kind of neighborhood cane travel training in high school…

Q. You did.

A. …from the Braille Institute.  Unfortunately, they were not smart enough in those days to bring the O&M training into the gym class, but they did come out and give me some neighborhood, uh, cane training.  But, I didn’t really use a cane much in college.  I went to a small college called Pomona.

Q. Um hm.

A. The whole campus was, maybe four blocks by three blocks…twelve square blocks…and I went back to a Pomona reunion with a cane, of course…’cause I got most of my cane training…  I went to the Braille Institute all summer and had some really intensive training after I graduated undergraduate…

Q. Oh, OK.

A. …and I went back to a reunion on campus, of course, with a cane and I don’t understand, uh, how I got around without it.

Q. Hm.

A. I bumped into a lot of bicycles and I…  At the time, I didn’t seem to need it as much in college, but when I went back, I sure realized how much I needed it.

Q. Well, what are some strategies, looking back, that you used?

A. Well, just listening very carefully and I was very familiar with that small campus.

Q. Yeah.

A. So, you know, some friends walked me around the campus a lot during the pre-freshman orientation, so it was an area that I was very familiar with.  It was a very quiet area as far as traffic…  There were no major, uh, uh, thoroughfares to cross.

Q. I see.  So, during grade school, you didn’t have a cane.

A. No.  I didn’t know about…

Q. What…how’d you get around the elementary all those.

A. See, that wasn’t hard.  I mean, it was just a small campus.  I mean, I don’t know how I did it.  It seemed easy.  It’s almost like walking around in the building at work.  I don’t really need a cane.  I, I use one at work in the building just because the drinking fountains are recessed and sometimes people move tables and carts and leave them in the hall.  But, mainly, to protect the other people who could not see me, uh, while they’re drinking in those recessed, uh, fountains.

Q. Right.

A. But, just…  If, if I knew the halls were clear, no way would I need a cane just to, to walk around my work building any more than I need it to walk around my house.

Q. So, did you feel restricted in any way?

A. No.

Q. No.  Um, and during, say, junior high or as you started to get older, um, did you feel like you were participating as much as any other teenager, or…

A. Are your interests only as relating to mobility skills or are you asking this in a more general context?

Q. I guess, with regard to O&M mostly, like, did you feel that…  How would you go if you would go with people?  Or you had arrangements, or…

A. If I…

Q. …you felt like you could.

A. Well, you know, they took us to school and back in cabs.

Q. Cabs.

A. Yes.

Q. Wow.

A. It was, it was a deal where everyone in the San Gabriel Valley…  Have you ever been to California?

Q. Yeah, but I don’t know it very well.

A. The San Gabriel Valley is, you know, maybe 30 miles by 15 or 20 miles and one school district, Temple City, had all the blind students and another had all the deaf, so they didn’t all have to do everything.  So, they would take us to school and back in, you know, maybe a 20-mile radius in cabs…not individual cabs, but several in a cab or sometimes it was, you know, like, a little mini school bus.

Q. Yeah.

A. It was, it was not individual transportation, it was shuttle, uh, transportation with, uh, several blind students.

Q. I see.  So, you went to the school for the blind, there.

A. No.  The, the Temple City had…was an integrated school that they had a resource room…

Q. I see.

A. …for all the blind students.  That was from junior high on up.

Q. Um hm.

A. Before that, elementary school, I went to a school in L.A. called Francis [Frances??] Bland, which was an all-blind school and, you know, I could say some good and bad things about that if…  But I don’t think that’s your focus of interest.

Q. And, and, ‘cause it’s not really related to O&M, you felt like, for the most part, everything was meeting your needs?

A. Ex… Yeah, except that, going from an all-blind school with, maybe, 80 students through the whole elementary school, to going to a junior high of about 600 was quite a shock.

Q. Oh, I bet.

A. Uh, I wish I’d had a little more experience in an integrated environment…

Q. Yeah.

A. …beforehand.  But, the shock was not related particularly to O&M.  It was the, the kind of issues of sighted bullies picking on the blind students, especially in gym class and not getting enough supervision from the, uh, the coaches who were really only interested in selecting football players even at the junior high level.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, uh, you know, I still have some very bad memories about that.  But they’re not really related to O&M.

Q. Well, I, uh, I, I am, sort of, keeping it to that…  And you learned your way around the junior high school by yourself, or with friends, or…

A. Oh, no, the…  Well, I didn’t have any friends.  We moved into the area.  But the teachers were very good at, uh, you know, walking with me and showing me around.  It only took, you know, a very small number of days.

Q. Yeah.

A. Less than two weeks…probably less than one.

Q. And then you had it down.

A. Yeah, it was a small place.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, the whole junior high was, except for the gym facilities…  The whole classroom part of the junior high was less than a square block.  It was, it was a small place.

Q. Do you have any memories of, um, riding bikes, roller skating, any of those kinds of activities?

A. Oh, I tried bikes but I couldn’t balance well, and the same with roller skates.

Q. Um hm.

A. I, I tried them but I couldn’t, uh…  I’ve always been a little overweight but it…I wasn’t  that overweight at the time, but there, there…  I don’t know.  Either I didn’t try it long enough or I had some kind of mild gait disturbance that is, uh, sub-clinical.  I certainly don’t have any problems walking around and, uh, you know, I could jump on a trampoline and do diving off the low and high boards…  So, I could do all that.  But I never could seem to…  If I tried to do anything but stand still on the roller skates, I would fall.

Q. Oh.

A. So, I could only do that if I had a railing to skate along.

Q. Yeah.  Um, so, your first O&M, uh…  Do you remember what was the method that was used to teach you?  Or…

A. Um, no.  No, they just taught me, showed me how to tap, you know, opposite my steps and how to feel for the curbs and, you know, cross the street in front of my house to the playground in another school across the street, and, listen for the traffic and things like that.

Q. And, and he must have given you the cane.

A. Oh, yeah.

Q. What’d you think of it?

A. I liked it.

Q. yeah.

A. I liked it.

Q. Why?

A. What?

Q. Why?

A. Well, it gave me more feeling of independence.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, and it was an adventure.  I loved to learn new things.

Q. Yeah.

A. I, I’m not a very outdoors sportsman but, intellectually and, you know, as far as the cane travel…  I am not happy unless I learn something new, literally, every hour.

Q. Hm.

A. And it’s very fortunate that I was able to land a job in research.

Q. Yeah.  So, did you… I mean, you didn’t use it in college.  You liked the cane but, I mean, where is the correlation there?  I mean, why were…

A. Well, this, this is very hard to explain because, as I say, when I went back for the reunion, I thought that I would have been better off using it, but I just…  I, I didn’t really think that it was a big enough environment that I needed it and, in that sense, it wasn’t, except that it would have kept me from bumping into some bicycles and there was one time when I took a wrong turn and fell off a drop off and…

Q. Hm.

A. …and, uh, so, you know, I was very careful not to do that again.  It was actually a drop off that no one had told me about.

Q. Hm.

A. Because it was, it was the only time in my life that I really veered badly and didn’t know it.

Q. Wow.

A. You know, I really feel kind of silly for not using the cane at least a little more in college and it’s hard to explain why I didn’t.

Q. Yeah.  But, it was a conscious decision that, wow, this isn’t really complicated enough…

A. Yes, yes.

Q. …of a place…

A. Yes.

Q. …that I would take and use it.

A. Yes.  Although if I had it to do over again, I would decide that, uh, most of the time, outdoors, I should use it.

Q. It’s interesting…  I wonder, um, since you grew up getting to know familiar environments without a cane that that really was more…

A. Yes, that’s right.

Q. …what you were used to.

A. Yeah, exactly.  I was, I was used to it.  I, I thought of the cane more as a protection for crossing, uh, major streets, but the street that I was crossing in my neighborhood at home was a major…is a major thoroughfare whereas there…  There, the traffic patterns are really very, uh, sedate and subdued and, uh, very less of a major thoroughfare than at Pomona College.

Q. Right, so, it didn’t fit with your model.

A. Yeah.

Q. Yeah.

A. But I think my model was wrong.

Q. Well, it’s an interesting model and it may…  I mean, it makes a lot of sense and, let’s see…  I think it hopefully…  It hopefully it has changed.  It has changed gone now we teach…

A. It has changed, yeah.

Q. …children to use the cane and to travel with it, so…

A. Yeah, I wish I had had more cane travel and, as I said, I, I really like the idea of making it part of the gym class so that the, the blind kids have something to do other than watch the damn football game…

Q. Right.

A. …practice.

Q. Right, so that would be a good time…

A. Uh huh.

Q. It’s hard, sometimes, to fit in when is a good time to do it.  Was all of your cane training that you remember focused outside, outdoors, or did you have any indoors?

A. Well, when I went to the Braille Institute after I graduated college…

Q. Um hm.

A. …I knew I was going to Stanford.

Q. Yeah.

A. and Stanford is, of course, a lot bigger place and it was just obvious that I would going to need some cane training and I really devoted the summer to doing just that.  So, you know, it was systematic and they, they did the indoor cane training…  But, I’m a quick study…

Q. Um hm.

A. …so the indoor phase only took, maybe, three to five days…  I don’t remember exactly. And my whole feeing with the indoor part was, I could…  I don’t even need a cane for this except to find the stairs in an unfamiliar building, but, once I found it the first time, I don’t really need a cane again.  Let’s get on with something I do need it for.  And we very quickly went to outdoor, uh, training.

Q. Do you think that your abilities were accurately assessed and used in training?

A. Uh, there were two cane instructors…one in the morning and one in the afternoon…and the guy in the morning, Matt Ingus [sp??], was a very good, thorough assessor of abilities.  The one in the afternoon took it too slow for me.

Q. Yeah.  So, he really wasn’t, uh, tuned in to what you were capable of.

A. I kept telling her, we need to accelerate this, I’ve only got one summer, you’re going over what I already know.  But, you know, she…  I don’t think that she was that smart herself…

Q. Yeah.

A. … frankly.

Q. Yeah.

A. She was a nice person but I don’t think that she was, was that intelligent or had much experience with an intelligent person.

Q. Yeah.  Um, how’d you locate that Braille Institute?  Was it all your idea, of…

A. Well, it was the only place in the LA area where they were giving cane training, so…

Q. So, you knew that you wanted cane training.

A. Oh, yeah.  And, although I thought I didn’t need it as an undergraduate, it was very obvious that, you know, Stanford was both a much, much bigger and unfamiliar place and there was no doubt in my mind that I needed cane training.  And the, the other, um, the other summers, I had gone to summer school at, uh, a state college, and I just decided, you know, I can’t take college courses this summer even though they’d be more fun because I’m really going to need the cane training before I go to Stanford.

Q. Um, so, how long did you work with the Braille Institute.  That was all summer…

A. All summer.

Q. Yeah.  Three months, or…

A. Three months.

Q. Neat.

A. June, July, and August.

Q. And you progressed through to…what was the final kinds of lessons that you were working on?

A. Well, what they called the light, uh, business district.

Q. Um hm.

A. We never, we never got to, uh, the downtown in a major city…the heavy business district…but, uh, that, that was it.

Q. And you were aware that that was some lessons that you weren’t going to do?

A. Well, they wasn’t time.  I…  And, you know, I lived in a suburban area.  I don’t…  Because of the lack of buses, I need to get carpools to work.

Q. Um hm.

A. So, I don’t take the bus to work and even if I did, that’s still, sort of, light, light, uh, uh, suburban environment as opposed to…  I don’t know what terms you use now, but, uh, you know…  What do they call the, the training where you actually cross the most difficult trafficked streets…

Q. The same…

A. …in a major city?

Q. …use the same…downtown.

A. Yeah, downtown.

Q. Um hm.

A. Yeah…

Q. mm

A. So, I have never had that…  I doubt that it would take very long to do, but I don’t live there and the nearest downtown is so far away, uh, with so many bus transfers, that it’s not something that I would be able to incorporate into my weekly life.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, the, the…  The nearest, the nearest downtown is San Francisco and that’s 40 miles away and the, you know, the…  I know some guys do it from the VA, just to keep in practice, but it’s, it’s several bus transfers…

Q. Yeah.

A. …and I just, uh, you know…  I don’t know what to call it, maybe some, some NFBers would probably call me lazy, I don’t know.

Q. [laugh]  Well, if that’s all they ever call you, what are you going to do?  Uh…

A. I, frankly, don’t care what they call me.

Q. [laugh]  Um…

A. I think, I, I think the NFB does a lot of good…

Q. Yeah.

A. …and I think they do a lot of harm by fighting the wrong battles and I, you know, I learn wherever I can and leave the rest.

Q. Neat.  How about any solo routes?  Did your instructor ever say, do this route but I’m not going with you, or…

A. Yeah.  Well, I don’t know…  I don’t remember if they didn’t go with me or if they, you know, were down the block.  But, yeah, we did some bus transfers and some drop offs, uh, the usual disorient the client, drop 'em off, you know… Sometimes ask directions, sometimes, uh, just try and find it, if it’s a more familiar neighborhood where we'd been doing practice.  So we did those.

Q. So, were those helpful?  Do they come in handy down the line?

A. It was an exciting adventure and I’m, I’m glad I learned it.

Q. The disorienting ones and the…all that.

A. Uh huh.

Q. Good.  How many different types of mobility tools have you tried?

A. Um, I’ve tried the laser cane and I was unimpressed…

Q. Uh huh.

A. …it didn't give enough information.

Q. Uh huh.

A. I have a sonic guide but I seldom go where I need it, but, if I was, if I was going by myself downtown or to shopping, I certainly would use it.  As I say, it’s just the bus system is limited enough that I get friends to pick up stuff at the store for me.  I, I, I rent out a room and I ask them to buy things for me when they go shopping.

Q. Oh.

A. So, I don’t do my own shopping.  If I, if I ever did anything that complicated, or the light business district, I certainly would use the sonic guide more.

Q. What do you use it for?

A. I, as I say, I don’t use it much, but, it’s there if I ever need it.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And I really like the information…  It gives me more information…  I, I evaluated one called the path sound…sounder…

Q. Um hm.

A. …out of Britain and it didn’t give enough information.

Q. So, tell me.  What is the difference?  Where is the difference what do you mean?

A. Well, the sonic guide actually…  The, the, things sound different.  It gives information about the texture, you can hear the difference between a tree and a glass window…

Q. Hm.

A. Uh, have you ever tried it?

Q. You know, I haven’t.

A. Oh, OK, so you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Q. I know just theoretically about the…

A. I see.

Q. …different beeps and the ability to do that.

A. I strongly recommend that you try it.

Q. I will.

A. Uh, it, it would be hard to do these interviews without personal knowledge, at least for a couple hours.

Q. Good point.

A. But it, it…  You, you know what the objects are, whereas all these others, you know that there’s something there but you don’t know what it is or how big it is.  You just know that something has triggered it.

Q. Right.

A. And I, I have a Mowat sensor, but that doesn’t give enough information.

Q. So, again, it’s that it’s there, it’s a go-no-go, but it’s not the quality of filling in for the blanks.

A. Yeah, exactly.

Q. Neat.  So, the laser cane, the sonic guide, the path sounder, the Mowat sensor…  And, uh, what you do is, with your cane, you wear the sonic guide?

A. Yes.  The sonic guide is not a substitute for a cane.  It does…  It gives you no information about curbs…

Q. Right.

A. …and, you know, I think that’s the one really unsolved problem in, in ETA, or one of them is, uh, is reliable, uh, curb detection.

Q. Yes.

A. And even…  The laser cane does some of that but not reliable.

Q. And it’s basically a cane, anyway.

A. Yeah, yeah.

Q. And, so…

A. If, if it was…could be added on the cane for a couple hundred bucks, I’d do it, just for even a little more information, but not three thousand.

Q. Oh, right.

A. But the rehab bought me the sonic guide.  I didn’t.

Q. How far do you have it set?  How far away do you want to get that information?

A. Well, usually, the long, long-range, uh, setting.

Q. Neat.  Can you learn more about your environment through your use of the sonic guide?

A. Oh, absolutely.  And I, I have strongly recommended when I’ve given, you know, interviews to groups that it be, uh, that it be used intensively for concept information even, uh, when it’s, uh…even for a person that isn’t going to, uh, need to use it, uh, to go to work.  But, you know…  Let me, let me emphasize.  If things were slightly different…  If I could take a bus to work without an hour-and-a-half of waits and transfers and unreliability for something that takes ten minutes by car…

Q. Yeah.

A. …if I could take a bus to work, I’d be using that sonic guide every day.

Q. Yeah.  Because…

A. So, the reason that I don’t use it isn’t because it isn’t good…it’s damn good…

Q. Yeah.

A. It’s because of the, just the…  There’s fairly good public transportation in Palo Alto but not to the place where I work, one city away.

Q. Yes.

A. And it’s, it’s just that happenstance.

Q. So, um, have you every heard of the global positioning…GPS…with the atlas speaks?

A. Oh, I’m on the e-mail list that discusses that.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And I am eager to try it.  Uh, I probably…  I…  From what I’ve heard of it, you have to take a laptop…

Q. Yeah.

A. …and a backpack and it’s a bit…

Q. At this point…

A. …cumbersome…

Q. Yeah.

A. …to keyboard it and yet, uh, if, if there were some complicated route that I need to go, I, I think I’ll have one in the next year or two.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, I need to buy another laptop and, so, why not get a little one and the GPS…

Q. Right.

A. …and, you know, even if I don’t, uh, use it all the time, uh, hell, it’s fun to play with and, uh…

Q. I love the thing.  I got to see it…

A. Oh, uh huh.

Q. …and, uh, you know, it’s one of those things where you never have to guess anymore.

A. Yes.  What computer do you use it with?

Q. I’ve only seen a demonstrations…

A. Ah.

Q. …but it was just a basic laptop…it’s just a software program that boots up into a basic laptop…

A. Yes.

Q. …and, uh, it’s a map software that speaks…

A. Uh huh.

Q. …and then the GPS…and then connects the GPS to it.  And things that you can do to it are, add locations, um, so that it tells you, OK, now you’re coming up to the restaurant that you always eat at.

A. Uh huh.

Q. In addition to just knowing the map that is of that area…

A. Yeah.

Q. …so, where am I now?  You’re south of 125th Street.

A. Yeah.

Q. It’s great.

A. That would, that would sure be good when a bus driver, uh.

Q. Doesn’t know…

A. …doesn’t know or lets you off at the wrong stop.

Q. Exactly.  Exactly.

A. It would just be ideal.

Q. You never have to ask another person.  You just…

A. Exactly.

Q. …always can look for yourself.

A. Now, are you blind, also?

Q. No.

A. I see.

Q. No.

A. No.  You’re an O&M trainer.

Q. Yep, yep.

A. Yeah.

Q. Um…

A. That’s, that’s one of my, uh, soon-to-buys.

Q. Neat.  Neat.  Uh, OK.  Um, what…  So, right now, you use a cane?

A. Yes.

Q. Um, how many canes do you own?

A. Oh, three or four.

Q. And what type?  What’s your favorite brand that you use?

A. Well, I’m not current.  I haven’t researched, uh, but my favorite one is a rigid VA cane because it’s strong enough, uh, to, you know, go under a bumper and not break.

Q. That’s the aluminum?

A. Yes.

Q. Um hm.

A. But I’ve been hearing things about carbon fiber canes and that’s another soon-to-look-at thing.

Q. Where do you buy your canes?

A. God, I’ve had my current canes for over ten years.  I don’t remember where I bought the last ones.

Q. How do you decide which one you’re going to use?

A. Oh, there’s just one that I use all the time and then I’ve got a couple spares in various places, just in case.

Q. Like, where?

A. One in my office and one at home.

Q. Uh huh.  Uh…

A. And one, and one in my mother’s home, which I visit every other weekend and which is the house where I grew up.

Q. Neat.

A. I, I’ve had my cane stolen twice.

Q. No.

A. And, amazingly enough, one time at Stanford.

Q. Wow.

A. In the dorms.  And that was really a terrifying experience.  Uh…

Q. What did you do?

A. …in a place like Stanford…  Asked for a lot of help and I got one from the VA within, uh, a day or two.

Q. Hm.  What kind of tip…what kind of cane tip is on the bottom?

A. That nylon tip.

Q. Um hm.

A. That nylon tip that screws into the aluminum.

Q. Neat.

A. Now, you know, when we’re done with this interview, I’m going to ask you what, what is current that I should be thinking about next time I go cane shopping.

Q. Well, if you ever think that that aluminum is too heavy…  You know, those carbon fibers are very light and that’s what I hear people really like that.

A.  I’ve, I’ve actually never tried.

Q. The fiberglass, also, is light.

A. Uh huh.

Q. And they both come in a rigid form.

A. Uh huh.

Q. Yep, yep, so, um…

A. I, I…

Q. …there are a lot of websites now that you can really look them over.

A. Uh huh.

Q. Um, and see…  Where…  How tall is your cane?  How long is it?

A. It’s, I believe, 60 inches, and I am six foot four.  So, it sort of goes up to the middle of my chest and I think if I buy another one, I might even get a couple extra inches.

Q. Why is that?

A. I’m so tall, and, you know…

Q. Yeah.

A. …if I ever take a big step, uh, it’s nice to have a little extra warning.

Q. Yeah.  How do you feel about traveling alone to unfamiliar places?

A. Well, it’s just, just because of, you know, who I know and where I live, I don’t do a lot of it.  It doesn’t particularly frighten me, but there’s, you know, if someone really needed to see me and meet me up at San Francisco, I don’t fear getting there but, yet, it doesn’t happen.

Q. How would you prepare for something like that?

A. Get on the phone, find out…  Oh, I already know the bus routes…half of it…but, you know, get on the phone, check the bus routes and, um, probably make some, some notes.  Uh, there would probably be too many transfers to remember.

Q. Um hm.

A. And then go do it.

Q. Neat.

A. I, I have enough cane travel that, that I can do it without fear.

Q. Have you used…do you use maps of any kind?

A. If there are tactile maps of my city, I don’t know about it and if you think there might be, that will be an immediate get.

Q. Yeah.

A. I, I have not heard of tactile maps…

Q. I wonder that myself.

A. …of the area.

Q. I want to do a thorough investigation because I know, in New York, there’s a grant-funded project at Baruch College…

A. Uh huh.

Q. …that produces tactile maps and, um…

A. Unlike a lot of blind people…  I really liked map study.

Q. Um him.

A. You know, they have a lot of relief maps and it’s, it’s weird…  I’ll tell you a story…  During the Gulf War, I called up where I used to go to high school and I said, hey, let me come over and, uh, borrow your globe for two minutes and, uh, familiarize me with where the Gulf is and where Iraq is and Saudi Arabia is…

Q. Neat.

A. …into more detail.  Not, it isn’t neat.  They said, we don’t have any blind people who could use that globe.  They're all multiple handicapped.  There are no…or virtually no more, or at least no more at that high school…

Q. Oh.

A. …intelligent blind people and we got rid of that globe…

Q. Oh.

A. …uh, three or four years ago.

Q. Yikes.

A. Well, it’s, it’s, uh…  You know, when there were a lot of people with retinopathy of prematurity…

Q. Yes.

A. …and, the…  I’m on the O&M list and the…anybody I talk to, they just say that an intelligent blind person that is not multiply handicapped is quite a rarity these days.

Q. Hm.

A. The do--  Have you found otherwise?

Q. Well, unfortunately, um, there’s a number of kids I work with in the pre-school and, uh, everything is normal but they do have a severe vision impairment.

A. Yeah.

Q. So, they’re still being born.  I will say that, luckily, that we don’t hide kids anymore or…and we do…or are able to save…medically save a lot of kids that wouldn’t have lived before.

A. Yeah.

Q. So, we are able to, uh, include many more kids than ever were included in school, uh, and give them an education, than had been in the past.  And I think that that is really…

A. [cough]

Q. You know, people say, oh, there’s more.  There’s more but, then, there’s also…  It’s just like any of these social issues.  It’s always been there [laugh]

A. Yes.  Yes.

Q. [laugh]   We just had to get them out there in the open and start doing things about them.

A. I never…  I never felt that I was hidden, myself.

Q. Good, yeah.

A. Uh, I was sent to a five-day-a-week residential nursery school for the blind and I am intensely…between ages of three and five…

Q. Um hm.

A. …and I am passionately against that unless there are very unusually circumstances.  I, I am for the use of the nursery school for the day, or, maybe an occasional overnight…But not being away from home…

Q. Hm. No.

A. …for five nights a week for a three-year-old kid.

Q. Right.

A. Um, you can hear that in my voice…

Q. Hm.

A. …you know, I, I don’t go around feeling bad about it but when I think about it, it’s a very bad memory.

Q. Yeah.  And, and your parents just, they were told that was the thing to do, I…

A. Yeah, and they didn’t like me being away from home, but they were told that that was necessary.

Q. right.

A. And that was just so wrong…  They should have sent a social worker, uh, to, to brief them on how to teach me to dress myself and things like that, rather than taking me away.

Q. Yeah.  That’s definitely the hold over that I think we’ve done better by.

A. Yes.

Q. You know, you just separate out and…

A. I, I was born in ’46 and, Christ, a lot of people my age went to residential blind schools nine months out of the year.

Q. Yup.  Yup, yup.

A. I, I…mean  You know, someday, somebody’s going to do some research but I’ll bet a lot of them have an attachment disorder…

Q. Hm.

A. …because they were away so long.

Q. Yeah.

A. I’ll bet a lot of them have an attachment disorder.

Q. Well, absolutely.  I mean, it just affects your ability to make a community out of, you know…  Usually, when you go to school, you go to school with your fellow buds, who live down the block from you.

A. Yeah.

Q. So so they can each other and socialize…

A. In, in, uh…

Q. …after school.

A. Well, I think that’s why a lot of them can…  Seems like all their friends are blind.

Q. Hm.  Yes.

A. You know, I have nothing against blind friends.  Some of my dear friends are blind and a lot of my dear friends are sighted.

Q. Yes.  Yes.  Well, then, they, uh…  That’s where we’re at now.  We’re in…with inclusion with the stress on always being moving more and more…  How can we make this work in the home environment, in the school, in the community… 

A. Uh huh.

Q. …not necessarily that it’s always doing good, because one of the things that, oh, well, then we don’t need to spend as much money on trained teachers.  [laugh] cause they'll

A. Oh, yes, you do.  You have to spend money.

Q. and that doesn’t work.

A. No, it doesn’t work.

Q. You have to have someone who knows the specific skills to teach Braille and mobility and all the other… So…

A.  Now, you know, I… When I the sonic guide, they were talking about using the infant sonic guide for, well, toddlers…

Q. Um hm.

A. …to teach early concept information.

Q. un--

A. Has that been pursued?

Q. Unfortunately, no.  I mean, there has been fits and starts but no one in the O&M community has really pushed it as a thing to be done.  In fact, I don’t know if you get the sense, but, even a GPS is, in some ways, feared for what would it do…  I don’t know.  I don’t know why…

A. Huh.

Q. …but ETAs have gotten a bad rap.  I think it’s…

A. Yeah.

Q. …and unfortunate thing.  I think that they’re an incredible addition…

A. Yeah, they are.  It’s, well, people want them to do everything and they won’t do everything, they say they’re useless.

Q. But, I think the messages…

A. And I think that’s just wrong.

Q. …that you get from professionals also stick with you.  It’s, like, who works with you?

A. Yeah.

Q. Well, my O&Mer says it’s too expensive and it doesn’t add enough.

A. Well, they didn’t stick with me, you know, that’s on my list and, as I say…

Q. Yeah.

A. …if the buses enabled a little more independent travel, I might have had one a year ago.

Q. Yeah.

A. So, I’m completely in agreement with you on that.

Q. What, um, one thing that happens frequently when you’re traveling that you like the least?

A. When people push me where they think I want to go, often without even saying anything.  And, amazingly enough, it happens most in the men’s room, not walking down the street.

Q. Oh.

A. Or they grab my cane.  And, you know, on a bad day, I’ve been known to tell people, how dare you touch me without asking and especially before you washed your hands.

Q. [laugh]  So…

A. I, I try not to do that because I don’t want them to not help…

Q. Yeah.

A. …but I do think that you should ask someone before you touch them.

Q. Um, so, usually the way that’s handled is, um, it’s kind of like a situation it sounds like.  If it’s in the bathroom, it’s pushing you, or…

A. No, when I’m in a reasonable mood, I just say, please ask me what…if I need help…

Q. Yeah.

A. …before you touch me.

Q. So, that’s the advice you give, is to say to pedestrians when they want to help…is ask.

A. I say, I appreciate your help but please ask before your touch and push.

Q. Yeah.  Um, and you get to and from work using a car pool.

A. Yes.

Q. How did you arrange that?

A. Put in…  Well, put an ad in the newspaper for our NASA center.  Got an e-mail…  What, what really worked was e-mailing everybody, saying that I’m looking for a car pool.

Q. Yes.

A. ’Cause then everybody got on their e-mail.  That works better than putting an ad in the newspaper.

Q. I believe it.  Um…

A. And, you know, I have enough backups that I can say to them, you don’t have to do it every day.  But, if you’re willing to do it even 20 percent of the time, that’s better than me getting stuck.

Q. So, how does that work?  What’s the deal here?  You’ve got a lot of different people that you share…

A. In the morning, I have a regular person, but, of course, I need backups when she’s on vacation.

Q. Um hm.

A. But she only works part-time and I usually have to stay later.  So, I usually call…I have to call backups in the afternoon.

Q. Neat.  And, um, do you contribute to the commute in any way?

A. Oh, my yes.  That’s, you know, even with backups, I really fear somebody, uh, saying, well, you know, I’ve done this long enough and it’s five minutes out of the way.  Why don’t you go…  Why don’t you find someone else to ask?  And that has happened.  But I always offer more…  Hang on just a second…

[side B]

A. …emergency.

Q. [laugh]  Well, I hope everything’s OK.

A. Oh, yeah.  He fixed it.

Q. Good, good. Uh, just a couple more.  You’ve been so patient with me, I appreciate it.  So, you, um, I think we covered…  You, you pay, uh, for gas money or for whatever they want to use…

A. Well, for gas money and a little…  I, I try to pay a little extra.

Q. Neat, so that helps to keep them participating.

A. Yes. very, very much.

Q. Nice.  Um, have you ever been…  Or, how do you handle being lost or disoriented?

A. I’ve never been lost or disoriented where I couldn’t find somebody to ask.  Well, but, I guess there were sometimes when I, I just tried what seemed promising and it either worked or I found somebody to ask.  I, I’ve never been lost or disoriented for hours, although I’ve heard other people have been.

Q. So, basically, it’s…  How do you locate someone to assistance from?

A. Listen for footsteps, sometimes just say, is there anyone around here?

Q. Neat.  What kinds of things do you use as landmarks?

A. Oh, everything…trees, buildings, light poles, where is the grass?  And anything I can think of.

Q. So, what function do they play for you?

A. Well, establishing the reference points…locations…something familiar to tell me where I am.

Q. Yeah.  So, the grass line and the tree in a particular area…

A. And the building line in any, and anything…anything and everything…

Q. Neat.

A. …that a cane can, can feel or that an ear can listen for echoes from.

Q. Yeah.  Um, would you pass along any tips or strategies for car pools or, um, using them effectively?

A. You mean, you want me to tell you what I think is important?

Q. Yeah.

A. Uh, be sure to pay my share.  Don’t keep people waiting.  Uh, express appreciation. Uh, if I can think of anything that they would like, uh, buy them a gift. If I run across anything I know they like…

Q. Neat.  What about with buses?  Any strategies you’d pass along there?

A. I sure try to ask the drivers to, uh, tell me where the stops are and, if they don’t, I ask them.  If it seems like I should be a bus long enough that I should be, uh, getting near my destination, I always ask and try to sit toward the front where I can ask them.

Q. Have you ever been let off at the wrong place?

A. Yeah.

Q. What do you do?

A. Well, asked, figured out where I was, asked where the bus was to get me back to where I needed to go.

Q. Yeah, yeah.

A. That’s all you can do.

Q. Um, when you fell off that drop off, were you injured…seriously…or…  Have you ever been?

A. Um…

Q. …from travel?

A. Nothing, nothing more than a major skin abrasion.

Q. Yeah, good, good.  Do you belong to any professional or consumer organizations?

A. No.

Q. Um, what do you attribute to your current level of travel?

A. Well, I, I had good instruction.

Q. Neat.  Would you give any advice to O&Mers?  What advice would you give?

A. To, to, to O&Mers?

Q. Yeah.

A. I…  From what I’ve seen, you guys know the trade pretty well.  I, as, again…  I think the electronic…ETAs should be presented as an option and, uh, even if, even if the person doesn’t like them, if at all possible, the sonic guide or its successors, especially,  should be used, uh, to broaden the concept formation.

Q. Yeah, I agree.  Would you get more mobility instruction?

A. If I, if I lived in slightly different circumstances, I would get the, uh, downtown mobility instruction, if I were ever to need to go there for some reason or, or have to live in a big city…then I certainly would.

Q. Neat.  Well, that’s the interview.  I told you it would take about an hour.  [laugh]

A. Anything else I can to do help?

Q. No.  No.  You’ve been so helpful… 

A. Oh, OK.  Do you like New Yorker jokes?

Q. Sure.

A. Do you know what the opposite of talking is for a New Yorker?

Q. What?

A. Preparing to talk.

Q. [laugh]  What are you saying?  We talk a lot in New York?

A. Well, you don’t act like an aggressive New Yorker.

Q. Well, I grew up in the South.  I grew up in New Orleans [laugh]

A. Oh, oh, so you’re not completely acculturated.

Q. Right, right, although…

A. There’s another one that every New Yorker tells me is exactly right on.

Q. What’s that?

A. Well, it has this four-letter word in it, so I don’t know if you want to hear it or not.

Q. Absolutely.

A. OK, how many New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb?

Q. [laugh]  I don’t know.

A. fuck you.

Q. [laugh]  I wasn’t expecting _____ if I know, but [laugh] go change the light bulb.  [laugh]  That’s funny.

A. What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog stand owner?

Q.____

A. Make me one with everything.

Q. [laugh]  I’ve heard that one before.

A. Oh, OK, OK.

Q. Well…

A. All right.

Q. …thank you so much…

A. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.

Q. You’ve been very helpful.

A. Now, Kent, Kent and I have known each other every since high school, so, in some sense we have, uh, fairly similar backgrounds.

Q. Neat.

A. Uh, but, as a I say, he’s so damn busy…

Q. Yeah.

A. But, if he has the time, I, I think it would help you.

Q. Well, thanks so much.

A. Thanks again.

Q. I really appreciate it.

A. Take care.

Q. You, too.

A. Let me know if I can do anything else to help.

Q. I appreciate that.

A. OK.

Q. OK  Ha e a good one.

A. Bye.

Q. Bye.

Interviewed by:         Grace Ambrose

Interview date:          7/16/01

Transcription             Lenni

Transcription Date:  7/17/01

Reviewed by:            Grace Ambrose

Review date:             11/03/2001

Stevenson, Jim

[tape 2, side A]

A. OK.  Uh…

Q. Uh, what attitudes um, did your parents have about it…travel?

A. Well, first of all, I think this should be looked at a little more broadly.  Uh, they made up their minds and they researched adult blind people and what make them successful and they made up their minds to do everything they could to help me be successful.  And the, the primary on that was really pushing education, you know.  Just telling me that blind people with a BA or less are, most of them, unemployed or underemployed, whereas with a Master’s or PhD, the chances of getting a good job really go up.  And told me that I had to have extra education to prove myself and, in a sense…  Well, my father did it a little too much.  If I came home with a…got a 99 on a math test, he’d say, why didn’t you get 100?

Q. Oh.

A. And then, after he died, I heard that the minute I left the room, he’d call all his friends and, uh, say, oh, my son got a 99 on a math test.

Q. Hm.

A. But I had some perfection and inadequacy issues, uh, to deal with at one point.

Q. Yeah.

A. But, the, you know, the main answer is they, they made up their mind to do a lot extra and my father would take me to the--and I remember they were building a house next door and every evening we’d go over and he’d show me what progress they made.  Let me feel everything through the whole construction of the house.  And, uh, they even…even in nursery school, uh, my, my parents would lift me up as high as they could and tell me to reach my arms up so that I would feel the ceiling as well as the rest of the rooms.

Q. Hm.

A. I remember, uh, they had a model of a house in nursery and I said this, this house is missing a ceiling.  There’s just nothing between the rooms and the roof.  And, you know, they told my parents, your kid’s intelligent.  He’s the first one that said that.  Well, it was because they took the time to have me feel the ceiling.

Q. Yeah.

A. So, just in many, many ways, uh, my, my father, especially, was the aggressive one and, if we’d go to a museum, he’d ask them if they’d open the cases and let me feel, you know, whatever I could feel without damaging it.

Q. Yeah.  Well…

A. So, he was very good.

Q. …what about travel associated with that…being independent, pushing you to go to the store, maybe, or, uh…

A. uh see--

Q. …run errands…

A. Well, see, that they never did.  And maybe they should have done it more because, as I say, I, I don’t do my own shopping.  I know how.  I learned how in…by going shopping with them and we did some of that in the, uh…  I just remembered I had a few more mobility lessons up here, uh, at Stanford and the surrounding area and we went to the shopping center and did that as part of the, uh, sonic guide training.

Q. Oh.

A. And, uh, I was, I was able to learn, uh, sonic guide…all the stuff in their book in, oh, eight or ten hours.  So, we did some of the shopping stuff but I, as I say, when I can, I will see if one of my friends is going to a store and can pick me up something, ‘cause I just…I don’t particularly like to go shopping very often.

Q. Yeah.  So, I mean, do you go out to eat, or…  I mean…

A. Not by, not by myself.

Q. …order in… I mean, how do you get food _________ [laugh]

A. I don’t like to go out to eat by myself.  Uh, I do like to go out with friends and I order in and I have the guy that I’m renting my room, uh…is renting from me, rather, uh, pick me up some food at the store.

Q. Yeah.

A. So.

Q. Neat.

A. OK.  Anything else you forgot to ask?

Q. This is Jim Stevenson, tape 2.  Um, I just wondered, you know, did…  I think we covered it.  I mean, it’s…  Did you implement and use your training…do you see it an immediate impact, um, once…after you started getting it.  I guess it’s, sort of, yes and no.

A. Well, because I went to Stanford next fall, yeah, I needed the cane training and I, I got it and, of course, I used the cane all the time at Stanford.

Q. Yeah.

A. Which was a much bigger environment and it was absolutely crucial.

Q. Neat.  Well, thank you again.  And, I’m…

A. OK.

A. Yeah.

Q. Great.

A. Yup.

Q. Well, thanks again.

A. Very good.

Q. Take care.

A. Thank you.

Q. Night.

A. Bye.

Jim said he wished he had had cane travel in grade school – instead of always sitting on the sidelines.

He remembered moving about without the long cane and didn’t recall getting hurt, but when he attended his high school reunion getting about the campus as an adult he didn’t understand, how he managed without a long cane as a child, because he bumped into a lot of bicycles.

He was taught to believe that long canes were just needed in “big environments” but as an adult he realized that a long cane in high school would have kept him from bumping into bicycles and falling off drop offs.

Can a child grow up without a long cane? Yes, but why? It restricts their freedom and puts them at risk. People can survive all sorts of hardships- folks who are smart and have great resilience are perhaps somehow stronger because of it – but looking back at those hardships comes the wish that an adult had found a way to alleviate that hardship sooner. Thankfully because of the belt cane – adults have options to get effective mobility tools to toddlers and allow them to grow up only knowing safety and independence.