Books, Lawn Mowers and Bus Rides

Books, Lawn Mowers and Bus Rides

PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer

Concerning Books, Lawn Mowers, and Bus Rides

by Marc Maurer

From the Editor: The following story appeared in Wall-to-Wall Thanksgiving, the

latest in the NFB's Kernel Book series. It begins with Dr. Jernigan's introductory note:

Marc Maurer is President of the National Federation of the Blind. As regular Kernel

Book readers know, he has been blind since birth. In this story he reflects upon his own

experience growing up as a blind child—from how he felt at age six when he came home

from the hospital totally blind after surgery intended to restore his eyesight not only

failed but also caused him to lose the tiny amount of vision he had—to his determined

effort to be a fully contributing member of the family. Here is what he has to say:

When I was growing up, it seemed to me that my parents were always telling me what to

do. Now that I am an adult with children of my own, I am very frequently required to

remind my children to do the things they know they must. Sometimes they pay attention, but

sometimes they don't.

The growing-up years are the time for learning how to behave, for experimentation, and

for seeking maturity. During this period parents are faced with many

decisions—decisions that won't wait: What discipline should be imposed? How much

freedom can the children manage? What experiences should they have? How much direction can

effectively be given? And what is the proper balance between encouraging independence and

maintaining sufficient control to guard against disaster? Too much protection can stifle

initiative, and too little can lead to ruin. This basic set of considerations is as

important for sighted parents raising blind children as it is for those raising sighted

children.

I was born blind. However, I had a tiny amount of residual vision. Nobody ever told me

that I was blind, so I didn't realize it until I was five.

My parents loved me, and they wanted very much for me to be a normal, healthy child.

When I was six, they took me to an eye doctor for a new kind of operation, but it didn't

work. Worse than that, as a result of it, I became totally blind.

For several weeks I was moody and despondent. Late one hot summer night I was sitting

on my father's lap on the front porch swing. He struck a match. The sudden flare startled

me, and I jumped. I had been able to see the light of the flame. All of us wondered what

it meant, and my father hoped fervently that I would be able to regain the use of my eyes.

But this was not to be. I would remain blind, and we must decide how to manage. None of us

knew what to do, but my parents were determined that my blindness should limit me as

little as possible.

During the next summer (between my first and second grade school years), my mother

taught me to read Braille. Reading was part of the accepted pattern in our family, and my

mother expected me to read as much as she expected every other child in our family to

read. But there wasn't much Braille material available. During the winter, while I was

attending the school for the blind, Braille books were fairly easy to come by. But during

the summer, the three months that I spent at home with my family, Braille was scarce.

One year somebody put my name on a list to receive the Braille edition of My Weekly

Reader. It came in a big brown envelope about a foot across and fifteen inches high. The

magazine was about twenty-five pages long, and I looked forward to getting it.

In 1960 Dr. Kenneth Jernigan established a library for the blind in Iowa, my home

state. My father read about the library in the paper, and he asked me if I would like to

sign up to borrow Braille books. I told him that I most certainly would. The next time my

father drove through Des Moines, he stopped at the library to enroll me as a borrower.

Soon afterward the first of the books arrived in the mail.

The packages I received contained three or four volumes. Braille books can be long.

Gone With the Wind is ten volumes, but Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is only one.

Each volume I got from the library was about twelve inches square and about three inches

thick. They came to me wrapped in heavy brown paper tied with string.

I very carefully untied the string and folded the paper— both must be saved for

reuse in shipping the books back to the library. Books for the blind travel through the

mail postage-free. Inside the front cover of each volume was a mailing label containing

the address of the library. The label was to be pasted on the package to return it to the

library. Storing the books, caring for them, and seeing that they were packaged to be

mailed back were my responsibility.

When the books were ready for shipment, sometimes my mother would take them to the post

office for me in the car. However, this was not always convenient. Sometimes I would load

the bundles onto my red wagon and haul them to the post office. The people in the post

office never seemed very glad to see me. They appeared to me to be stern and official. I

was glad to get out of there, but I wanted more books, so I was willing to face the

officialdom of the postal service.

Because the books arrived by mail, planning was required to insure that there was

always a supply on hand. I could get two (or sometimes three) books at a time. If I read

them all and sent them back, I would have no books until the new shipment arrived.

Consequently, I worked out a revolving book loan system with the library.

In the summers in the middle of Iowa, there were certain activities for entertainment.

I could sometimes go swimming, but the pool was more than a mile and a half walk from my

house. Occasionally there were picnics, but not often. There were television and radio,

and sometimes there were rambles in the park or the woods.

However, in those days I did not believe a blind person could travel through the park

or the woods alone. My excursions on the nature trails were restricted to times when a

friend or a brother could go with me. My parents bought me a bicycle built for two, which

I could ride if I found somebody to take the front seat.

Then there were the projects to make a little money. We collected empty soda bottles

because you could get two cents apiece for them if they weren't chipped. One summer my

brothers and I started a lawn-mowing business. The local newspaper agreed to help kids try

to find summer employment by publishing ads for them at no charge. We accepted.

My father told me that I could use the lawn mower as long as I maintained it in good

repair, bought the gas and oil for it, and kept our own yard mowed. We got about half a

dozen regular customers, who wanted their lawns mowed every two weeks.

When they called, we would gas up the lawn mower and take it to cut the grass. We liked

to do it in the mornings—because it was cooler. But we would work any time. We wanted

the cash that the mowing produced.

My brother was small enough that he couldn't push the mower very well, but he could

guide it. I pushed, and he steered. When the mowing had been completed, we both raked the

grass clippings and bagged them for the trash collector. We charged four dollars for small

lawns and five for large ones.

It may not sound like much to those who have become accustomed to today's inflated

allowances and pay for teen-agers, but we could earn twenty dollars in a day if we were

lucky. And that seemed like a lot. To me it still does.

All of us in the Maurer family did housework. After the inside chores each of us was

assigned yard work for an hour. Once we were directed to tuck-point the foundation of our

home. When the mortar between the bricks gets old and loose, it must be scraped out and

replaced with new concrete. Of course, not all of the mortar deteriorates. If it did, the

foundation would collapse.

The tuck-pointing process repairs surface damage. It is a tedious and messy job. Each

morning for several weeks we mixed a batch of mortar and applied it to the foundation,

replacing damaged concrete in the joints between all of the exposed bricks.

Even with all of the activities I have described, I had a lot of free time in the

summers. I filled it reading. The library was my friend, but it was a mysterious

friend—one that I had never met. I wanted to know more about it.

I asked my mother if I could visit the library in Des Moines, forty miles from our home

in Boone; and she agreed. Two of my brothers and I decided that we would take the

Greyhound Bus to get there, and I began saving pennies for the trip. The bus ticket cost

$3.30 for adults and $1.65 for children. I qualified for the adult fare, but my younger

brothers could get the cheaper rate.

It took me quite a while to get the money together. This particular trip was planned

before I had come upon the lawn-mowing business. My father might give me fifty cents a

week for my allowance, and there might be some other money from the collection of the soda

bottles, but that was about it.

After saving for weeks, we had the money; and we headed for the local bus

station—a counter at Eddie's newspaper shop. But when we got there, Eddie told us

there had been a fare increase. The spare change we had saved for emergencies had to go.

We spent all our money on bus tickets.

The bus ride from Boone to Des Moines took about an hour. When we arrived at the Des

Moines bus station, we discovered that it was only a short walk to the library for the

blind. I was delighted with all of the books and with the friendliness of the staff

members there. They said I could browse to my heart's content and pick out anything I

wanted. After a while I found a good book, and I started to read. One of the staff members

brought me a chair and asked if I needed anything else. I said that I did not, and I just

kept reading.

After a time my brothers got bored with the library. They are sighted, and they cannot

read Braille. I was the oldest (thirteen or fourteen at the time), so I was in charge. My

brothers asked me if they could visit the state capitol building, and I told them they

could. They disappeared and were gone for hours. I didn't care at all; I had the books.

Perhaps it is just as well that my mother didn't know about the nature of my supervision

that day.

Late in the afternoon my brothers returned; and we headed back to the bus station. All

of us were quite hungry. We had neglected to bring lunch, and we didn't have any money to

buy any. We had spent all we had on the bus tickets. But the ride home was cheerful, and I

carried a book with me to read on the bus.

It was the first trip away from home that I ever planned. I wished that I had thought

about the lunch. But despite this mistake, I was satisfied. I had seen the library, and I

had a book. Not only that: I had the prospect of hundreds and thousands more.

My parents required me to work, gave me independence, and taught me to read. They let

me know in a thousand ways that I was a cherished member of the family. They insisted that

I make contributions, and they made it perfectly clear that the standard of behavior and

the quality of work required would be no less for me than for the other children in the

family. As I look back from the perspective of manhood and with children of my own, this

is the way it should have been.

In the National Federation of the Blind we are committed to help blind children get the

best education their minds can take. Building the right future demands education, a spirit

of self-reliance, and the balance to know when to guide and when to keep hands off.

For those of us who have reached adulthood, the pattern of life is established.

However, for the children the dreams for the future can be as broad as our imagination and

our commitment permit. We believe in our children, and whenever we can find a way to do

it, we will put a book into their hands.