Climbing

Climbing

The Braille Monitor

July 2003

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Climbing

by

Jennifer Dunnam

Jennifer

Dunnam

From

the Editor: Jennifer Dunnam is a leader in the NFB of Minnesota. She now works

as a document conversion specialist at the University of Minnesota. The following

story first appeared in Oh, Wow!, the eighteenth in our Kernel Book series

of paperbacks while Jennifer still worked at BLIND, Inc. Here it is, beginning

with President Maurer's introduction:

The

National Federation of the Blind operates a number of training centers for blind

youth and adults. One of our most effective training techniques is to teach

a student to do something he or she believes to be virtually crazy for a blind

person even to try. Success at something truly unthinkable causes the student

to begin to re-examine all that was previously thought to be impossible.

Jennifer

Dunnam is a teacher in one of our centers, and one of the things she teaches

is rock climbing. Unthinkable? No, not really. Here is her story:

One

of the many joys of being an instructor at BLIND, Inc., (one of the National

Federation of the Blind's training centers) is that the students and staff have

the chance to participate in rock climbing several times a year. Not all of

us look forward to ascending walls of rock with equal eagerness, but I, for

one, am energized every time I do a climb or work with someone else who is climbing.

Sometimes I am reminded of my early childhood when I was willing to try climbing

on just about anything taller than I.

My

parents did not learn that I was blind until I was seven months old, by which

time I knew how to crawl and could pull myself into a standing position. The

doctor told my parents that, since I was blind, they would need to keep me in

a playpen and do everything humanly possible to protect me from harm.

Despite

their disappointment upon learning of my blindness, they saw no reason to follow

the doctor's advice since they had so far treated me as they would any other

child. I also believe that by that time my parents already had a pretty good

idea that trying to keep me in a playpen would probably not have accomplished

the protection that the kind but misguided doctor had intended.

One

of my earliest memories is of climbing a chest of drawers. I am sure I remember

hearing the half-open drawers call out to be climbed like a ladder; being a

most agreeable child, I obliged--my fingers gripped the top of the upper drawers

as my feet stepped on the lower ones.

I

almost made it to the top before the chest and all its contents fell on top

of me. My fingers still smart whenever I think about it. My pain and humiliation

were sufficient to ensure that I did not try climbing on drawers again; my parents

could see that I had been well-taught and did not need them to put any additional

restrictions on my movements.

During

most of my childhood my family lived in a house located on property owned by

the natural gas transmission company that employed my father. My two younger

sisters and I had twenty-seven acres of land at our disposal for play--including

such useful structures as trees, a pond, an empty house similar to our own,

and the compressor station where my father worked. We children were disappointed

that we had no stairs inside the house, but we were delighted when we discovered

them on the sides of the compressor station.

We

(or at least I) could spend hours just running up and down those metal stairs--a

pastime to which my mother never expressed any objection. It seemed very natural

to my sisters and me, therefore, to entertain ourselves in a similar manner

the day we discovered stairs during a visit to the home of a friend of our parents.

My mother did not see the connection at all, but she couldn't stop us quite

in time to prevent my sister Becky from somehow breaking an expensive statue

that stood near the stairs.

At

a very early age I graduated from stairs to the monkey bars in our backyard.

I got to be rather good at climbing on them and was thrilled on my first day

of school when I found out there were higher monkey bars on the playground.

What a shock I got during that first recess when I tried to join the other kids

who were climbing on the bars! As I approached, the children jumped off as fast

as they could, screaming, "Don't touch her! You'll go blind!" It felt

as though the rug had been pulled out from under me. Was it so bad to be blind?

Fortunately,

when I went home that evening (and every evening after), I found my world was

still normal, my family didn't think I had suddenly gotten a terrible disease,

and, best of all, my sisters were still willing to join me on the monkey bars.

My

family did their best to help me keep my expectations of myself high despite

the misconceptions of many others around me. That basic support was invaluable

to me as I went back to school each day and gradually made friends and acquaintances

who, even if they did not always treat me as an equal, were not afraid of me

and would share the monkey bars with me.

At

home we had a swing set, which, together with several trees perfect for climbing,

consumed much of my free time. My sisters and I, like most kids, were pretty

good at thinking up alternative ways to use the swing set--like walking up the

slide or standing in the seats of the swings while swinging. The caps had long

since fallen off the ends of the crossbar at the top of the swing set, so we

liked to climb up the side poles and use the long pipe as a communication device.

Other

creatures apparently made use of the open-ended crossbar as well; on at least

two occasions bees came out to express their anger at me for disturbing their

home. The bee stings were nothing, however, compared to the time I put my mouth

up to the pipe, and a little frog took the opportunity to jump in. All I can

say is that a frog--at least in living form--most assuredly does not "taste

like chicken."

When

I was about twelve, my sisters and I began incorporating the huge pipes behind

the compressor station into our games. They were several feet in diameter, and

some of them slanted upward from the ground at angles that were deliciously

dangerous if you were trying to walk up them. (Oh, and did I mention that we

were expressly forbidden to go near them by my parents?)

For

months and months my sisters and I enjoyed the pipes; they could not be seen

from the house, so we could play without any annoying interference.

Or

so I believed, until the day my father suddenly hauled us all into the living

room and yelled for what seemed like hours about how we should never, never

play around those pipes. How he could have found out was beyond me, especially

since we had not been near the pipes since the week before when we took all

those pictures of each other . . . Sudden dread shot through me as I racked

my brain to recall what we'd done with those newly developed pictures.

It

wasn't long before that question vanished into irrelevance; my dad held up an

envelope, from which he removed a series of indisputable photos of his three

daughters in various poses on the pipes behind the compressor station. He stopped

yelling; and, fortunately for us, his amusement at our humiliation tempered

his anger somewhat.

As

the years went by, I became far too cool and mature ever to think about such

childish exploits as climbing. Then, when I was fourteen, I joined the National

Federation of the Blind--one of the best decisions of my life. I found new friends

and learned that I did not have to be alone in dealing with the problems blind

people face in our society.

It

was with a group of Federation friends that I had my first experience with rock

climbing and immediately abandoned my notion that climbing is for kids. Here

was something much more real and challenging than monkey bars or natural gas

conduits.

Now

as a teacher I am pleased to have the chance to help students believe in themselves

and their abilities as blind people. Rock climbing is one of the ways in which

our center challenges students to go beyond what they believe is possible. I

treasure the time spent in such productive fun.

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