Leading the Blind

This post is inspired by a post I left on another blog.

Years ago, I worked at a camp for blind people. It was the perfect job because blind people aren't so hung up on appearances. It was a wonderful experience for me. I could refine my "human" skills while learning more of the ins-and-outs of human relationships and vulnerabilities.

There were some powerful experiences I will probably always remember. There was the man whose mother put him in an oven when he was a baby and his face melted. He couldn't tell you his own name or dress himself. But, if you asked him what time it was, he'd think about it - and give you the correct time. There was the woman whose father had so abused her as a child that she was no longer capable of caring for herself - but, she could play any song on the piano - even if she'd never heard it but you could hum it to her.

There was the man named Richard Nixon who was several years older than the ex-president who one of the counselors insisted must have been named for the president. He loved how "dumb" she was rather than the "handicapped" guy being the "dumb" one.

There was the blind guy who had a kidney stone while at camp - and got such good drugs at the hospital, he decided he could see and told me everything he saw on the dark, middle of the night drive home.

There was the little girl who was going to have a brain tumor operated on after camp and she had been told that she'd either lose her hearing or what was left of her sight from the operation, if not both - and she was learning sign as fast as she could in hopes that she would "just" lose her hearing.

There was the deaf child whose less than swift social worker sent him to blind camp (think about it people, it shouldn't take a monkey to tell you that people who are totally visual will not communicate well with people who are totally auditory) -- He was learning to read lips and talk. His name was Bobby. But, we would say "booby" -- at first, he thought he was pronouncing his name wrong - then, he got that it was a joke -- and he'd laugh. Apparently, humans without "handicaps" don't often let humans with "handicaps" in on jokes.

There was the camper who was pretty much the same age/stage as most of the counselors and thus became our friend. Our favorite joke to play on her was to switch her OJ and her milk. It's really quite startling to get a mouth full of OJ if you're expecting milk. She had the uncanny ability to knock glasses of ice water into our laps in revenge.

There was the lady who'd lost her sight and legs to diabetes. She went out in a canoe with me and another counselor. She loved dragging her hands in the water. Another canoe of campers/counselors came up and we ended up in a splashing/rocking the canoe tussle. I was afraid that she would be frightened. She told me later that she loved it because it felt normal.

My favorite story was that of LE and his wife. LE was in his 70s and this was many many years ago. It isn't likely he's still alive or reads blogs. LE loved the water and his wife couldn't stand it. My job was more or less to take him to the lake and make sure he had all the water fun he could handle. At one point, he said that he had difficulty sleeping more than a few hours at night. At home, he'd get up and putter about the house, but because he and his wife were staying in something like a hotel room at camp, he couldn't do that because it would disturb her sleep. I mentioned that we had a library of books. He said he wasn't into religious stuff. (The big perk to being blind is that you can read in the dark.) I told him that we had found, tucked behind other things on a high shelf, several braille copies of "Playboy" magazine. He said he'd always been curious about that mag and would like to read it. We smuggled it out to him. The next morning, he and his wife were all smiles. I guess he found the staple in the middle.

I think the big lessons I learned from the experience was how really lucky I was, even though I wasn't like all the humans around me. And, that people with "handicaps" really just want to be treated as normally as possible - which means being allowed in on the joke, allowed to rough and tumble, and chase each other about in the never ending game of romance.