Send a text My friend Susan who was born with retinopathy of prematurity and had 20/400 and 20/800 she is effectively mobility visually impaired – perhaps that cutoff is 20/500, so by 100 ? that’s a lot of stress. Susan and I met because she was the interim director of a program that I was hired to take over, she was the boss, and then I became her boss- e. Susan’s life experiences are as a “high partial” someone considered having a lot of vision at the school for the blind, and not so ...

Send a text For New Years Eve 2024 I’m bringing you one of my all-time favorite interviews- conducted November 1999, just shy of Y2K- blind travel was not for the faint of heart. Born in 1963 –he didn’t get a full-time mobility tool until his first guide dog in his second year of college. Sit back and relax – this is a good one Mike’s honesty about the importance of mobility tools in his life is also filled with the push and pull of the lifetime of growing up with the philosophy t...

Send a text From 1999 – 2001, as a young professor I conducted over 100 interviews with employed adults with blindness. I was seeking insight into my profession from the everyday consumer – and I continue to learn and improve my practice by listening absent bias and judgement. This week we have Barbara Hadnott Her interview was conducted November 21, 1999 – She was born blind in 1953 – Her life is a vivid picture of someone who is at home with the reality of growing up blind, being acti...

Send a text Born in 1953, she got the full crazy treatment growing up blind. Yet, somehow she came through it all very well adjusted-a working wife and mother she has the same desires as anyone.. Her life is one lived just before the technology boom hit – before ride-share apps and other helpful smart phone tricks. Take a trip back with a very smart tour guide – growing up blind and living your best life in the latter half of the 20th century. She was pushed to be a free-range child unt...

Send a text This was one of the very early interviews I had done. Twenty-five years ago, late one evening I sat down across the table in my Hunter College office with good friend, Mike Levy. He had come prepared with written statements of memories and family lore surrounding his travel. I would recommend this interview to every graduate student studying O&M. Mike was taught O&M in the eighth grade – using a very rote method of instruction. His answers and memories are incredibly insig...

Send a text This was one of the very early interviews I had done. Twenty-five years ago, late one evening I sat down across a table in my Hunter College office with good friend, Mike Levy. He had come prepared with written statements of memories and family lore surrounding his travel. I would recommend this interview to every graduate student studying O&M. Mike was taught O&M in the eighth grade – using a very rote method of instruction. His answers and memories are incredibly insight...

Send a text Judy is a poster child of success absent safe mobility. As a child, she had light and color vision – and that means she was mobility visually impaired. In the 1950s, she learned to use the long cane, but she wasn’t allowed to take it home until she was older. She didn’t really start using a long cane until grad school. She and her husband go on grand adventures around the world. He is a dog guide user and she a long cane user. Her fall into an open manhole is tough to hear – Judy ...

Send a text In every accomplishment – the O&M instructor in me wishes more value had been placed on his safety. His life is filled with accomplishments and yet- all I can hear is just how freakin’ hard it has been for him to get around safely and he blames himself – not the inferior tools he’s been provided… He taught orientation and mobility (O&M) too – learn more about that in Part II. Don McBride Recorded 8/28/99 Visit our website: Email: [email protected] TikTok Facebook...

Send a text This week is a real treat- I found Don McBride’s interview, he was born in 1936. He is a great storyteller and gives amazing insight into what it was like to be blind child in the 1940s and 50s- he became blind at age 11, he attend residential school and so had certain advantages – but, there wasn’t white cane safety at the time and his older brothers were determined to toughen him up which included knocking his head into trees and poles with a warning he better play outside and w...

Send a text We are entering the 1950s with Frances who was born 1952 seven years after the first white cane was taught to a blinded veteran of WWII. She remembered knowing that she had to wait to learn to use a long cane once she became 15. This is a terrific discussion of her dog guide use and paratransit. If you’re curious about the reality of getting around while blind – Frances is fabulous- After Interview Thoughts In every way I asked, it was clear that Frances got around on the arm of s...