[PHOTO/CAPTION: Dan Frye]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Dan Frye]

Braille Monitor

July

2004

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When

Blindness Mattered

by Daniel B. Frye

Dan

Frye

From the Editor:

Dan Frye is a longtime Federationist now living and working in New Zealand.

He discovered the NFB as a student living in South Carolina. The following story

about Dan's boyhood evokes the hot South Carolina summer and the struggle of

a young blind boy to live a normal life. In recognition that even in the summertime

the livin' is not necessarily easy for a blind child, here is Dan's story:

My sister Debbie

and I were sent to live with our paternal grandparents in the Low Country of

South Carolina following the death of our father in July of 1980. Our mother

had succumbed to critical injuries two years earlier after a serious car accident.

Our flight from Texas to South Carolina during the early hours of that summer

morning represents my first vivid memory of travel on an airplane. To this day

the sunrise I saw during that flight remains the most spectacular phenomenon

I have ever seen: a brilliant orange-red ball of flames sitting alone on what

appeared to be an infinite field of deepest, coldest blue sky. We were served

French toast and given a packet of Eastern Airlines playing cards. After a few

hours we landed in South Carolina to start our new lives in the country.

We lived with our grandparents in their two-bedroom

house on an acre of farm land in the Cedar Creek community, some ten miles outside

of Nichols, a small town of about 10,000 people. In addition to the house my

grandparents owned an old tobacco barn; a wash house, where laundry was done;

a pump house for the well; and a chicken coop to mark the property line at the

back of the farm. They had a garden in which they grew everything imaginable,

including peanuts and the largest watermelons I have ever seen. The front of

the house had a conventional raised porch with gray rotting planks of wood,

a large evergreen tree that offered abundant shade across the circular dirt

driveway, and a set of black and red rusting lawn chairs that kept the shade

tree company year round. Our place was about a quarter of the way down the wandering

four-mile dirt road that ran in front of our property. Only several years after

I left my grandparents' custody was the road assigned a name by local officials

in order for the Cedar Creek community to become part of the 911 emergency system.

The Cedar Creek Baptist Church and Mr. Stanley's country

store sat at the two ends of the dirt road, and both places were frequently

a destination for my little sister and me, since getting lost was virtually

impossible if you faithfully followed the side of the road until it ended. Despite

the considerably longer distance from our house, Mr. Stanley's store was our

favorite destination. We would buy two bottles of Pepsi-Cola and two Moon Pies

for a dollar. We'd temper the stifling heat and forget the clouds of gnats that

perpetually inhabited South Carolina's Low Country by drinking our Pepsis and

dipping our toes in the creek at the side of the dirt road half way home from

the store.

The aroma of simple home cooking, animals at pasture,

and the diverse scents of nature were prominent among my first impressions of

our new neighborhood. On the first Sunday morning of our permanent residence

with our grandparents, for instance, my grandmother took my sister and me out

to the chicken coop to be unwitting witnesses to the summary execution of that

day's dinner. She exhibited a calm, matter-of-fact attitude as she efficiently

wrung the necks of two birds and then undertook the smelly and distasteful process

of removing their feathers. Later, though, more pleasant odors of frying chicken

and weekly baking wafted through the house and onto the front porch, which attracted

my attention and diverted my mind from the recent violent encounter to which

the Sunday birds had been subjected.

Across the yard a large pile of rotting potatoes lay,

easily identifiable from a distance by smell, waiting to be carted across the

road by the two newest members of the household and dropped into the adjacent

woods to be returned to nature. In the garden we would seek cleansing refuge

from that task by inhaling the natural scent of freshly tilled ground and ripening

strawberries. Finally, I particularly remember the distinctive sulfuric taste

and smell of the water that came from the well and that could be mitigated only

by chilling in the refrigerator for several hours. Suffice it to say, we had

been installed in an entirely new world, quite different from the suburban childhood

we had spent in the outskirts of Austin, Texas.

After about a week our status as visiting grandchildren

changed, and our routine began to reflect our new position as part of the family.

Unfortunately for me, this development made it abundantly clear that my grandparents,

being part of the broader society, had limited expectations about the abilities

of a blind child. When the family rose at 6:00 to harvest butterbeans from the

garden, avoiding the heat of midday, I was expressly told that I could not join

in the chore. I protested mightily but was led to believe that I was slow and

would inhibit productivity. Instead, I was told to sit under the evergreen and

shell beans as they were brought to me, an enviable duty for one who disliked

physical exertion. Nevertheless, I knew it was an unfair privilege, and I felt

dispirited at the assignment.

Similarly, I was prohibited from performing most domestic

chores, with the exception of rinsing dishes and scrubbing the bathroom. My

sister, on the other hand, was asked to assume work responsibilities for both

of us. The sibling resentment that this unfair treatment created became palpable,

and my ten-year-old sister did not fully understand or believe that I did not

enjoy the privileges I was receiving. During these times I spent alone, either

in guilty proximity to our window air-conditioning unit in the house or out

under the evergreen tree, I first realized that blindness mattered.

The disparate treatment that we received from our grandparents

was not limited to the performance of household and farming tasks only; it also

had recreational implications. My grandfather established the tradition of taking

each of his grandchildren fishing for a day. The two would leave at four in

the morning, carry the boat down to the river, and fish until late afternoon.

They would share a lunch of Vienna sausages, crackers, and water. Most of all,

though, they shared time together. Debbie had her turn; so did everybody else.

I frequently inquired when it would be my turn and was always promised that

we would manage the trip sometime.

Ultimately, when Debbie and my grandfather were making

their second trip, my grandmother confided that he didn't want to be responsible

for a blind person on the water. In retrospect I am not persuaded that I ever

really yearned to spend a day on a smelly boat with a limited diet and the prospect

of getting my hands dirty, but at the time it seemed a special opportunity denied.

At that moment blindness mattered.

In September, my grandmother took me aside and explained

that I would be going to the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind in

Spartanburg, some 300 miles north of home. Oh, how I cried. I argued that I

didn't want to leave Debbie alone so soon after coming to a new home. I explained

that my parents had enrolled me in public schools since the third grade and

that I had been coping well. I swore that I'd be a good boy if they'd just let

me stay at home. Despite these petitions the decision was made, and we drove

to the red hills of the upper state, where I resumed my education. Again, with

the objective counsel of time and distance, I can see that this arrangement

had advantages for me, but they were not the advantages that my grandparents

perceived, and ultimately it was clear that blindness mattered.

Finally I remember telling my grandmother that I wanted

to be a lawyer since my father had told me that being a policeman wasn't practical

if you couldn't drive a car. I told her that Dad, a policeman himself, had told

me that I'd have to work really hard and save lots of money in order to go to

college. She lovingly but firmly doused these dreams with cold water, suggesting

that I'd better plan to make brooms or, if I were lucky, hope to be a preacher

in the Baptist church, where you could find jobs without formal theological

training. My grandfather's pessimism about my academic aspirations was more

brusquely conveyed when he observed with exasperation that all I did was read

"those damn Braille books"--an ironic complaint since I wasn't allowed

to use my hands for harvesting, fishing, or other meaningful contributions towards

the well-being of the family. By summer's end, I was certain that blindness

mattered.

One of the unanticipated advantages of going to the

school for the blind was my immediate exposure to the work of the National Federation

of the Blind. South Carolina affiliate leaders established the nation's first

junior chapter of the NFB on the campus at Cedar Springs, and I quickly took

an interest in the chapter and also in the activities and philosophy of our

national movement. I cannot fully convey the self-confidence and emotional security

I absorbed from reading the empowering banquet speeches of Dr. Kenneth Jernigan

given to me by organization leaders. I benefited immeasurably from the indulgent

mentoring of older blind men and women who cared enough to devote time to affirming

my dreams. I began to seek permission to stay away from home on the weekends

and ultimately managed to emancipate myself from my grandparents' custody. The

NFB had given me the gift of belief in myself and the promise that hard work

could yield unlimited personal accomplishment.

Upon reflection, I feel a measure of pride that I was

gradually able to persuade my grandmother of my capacity to help the family.

When my sister and grandfather went on yet another fishing trip, incidentally

an activity that Debbie never really enjoyed, my grandmother asked me to help

her pick butterbeans in the garden. She was pleasantly surprised that I could

effectively empty the bushes, even finding beans among the leaves that she had

missed because of relying on her vision. I never minded aching muscles or being

drenched in perspiration. I wished only that my grandmother had possessed the

courage to allow me to help in these basic ways with my grandfather present,

but that was probably a more complicated request than simply sorting out the

truth about blindness.

Emboldened by the philosophy and programs of the NFB,

I learned that my early conclusion that blindness matters was correct. More

important, however, is the fact that our collective efforts are helping to make

certain that blindness matters less and less in the larger scheme of things.

Today I am employed

as the National Advocate for the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand

(ABC NZ), where I am professionally charged with making sure that blindness

doesn't matter quite so much. Occasionally I recollect that first remembered

flight and believe that the freedom I felt seeing that amazing sunrise and limitless

sky has largely come to fruition in my life. I have no doubt, though, that blindness

will always, to some extent, influence my experiences and color my perceptions.

I have learned that, for those of us who cannot see, blindness is an integral

part of our character as human beings. I have come to understand that blindness

will always matter but that what matters most is the way we come to understand

blindness.

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