I agree. We should be cranking out a series of blind romance stories.
I actually drafted a couple of short stories based on the "Adult
Activity" in our Orientation and Training Center Dormitory. The
Rainier Lions financed the Dorm, located about 3 blocks from the
agency. It accommodated 17 adult students and was on the second floor
of an ancient building in Columbia City, in the Southeast end of
Seattle.
It was called the Rainier Lion's Insight Center. But over the 22
years it existed, it was fondly called "The Incest Center. Ah, the
stories I could tell...
But that's not what I started to tell you. Among my many friends
there are a large number of blind people. Some are married to blind
people, some are married to partially sighted or fully sighted people,
some are single, some have partners of the same sex...both sighted and
blind. In other words, a slice of America. But in that collection
are a number of blind men married to sighted women. A very few of
them are Controllers. And they do stand out in a group gathering.
And usually they have few friends. But more often I have met blind
men who have normal relations with their sighted wives. My former
boss, Ken Hopkins and his wife Mary are an example of what I call a
"normal partnership". And of course there is Cathy and Me.
But I have known blind men who married blind women, believing no one
else would have them, and then treating their wives like dirt. I've
probably seen more blind women in bad marriages to sighted men,
probably for some of the same reasons as above. But at the same time,
I have a dear friend, Sue Ammeter, who married a sighted man, much
against the warnings of her college friends, and after some serious
adjustment, they have as great a partnership as one could ever hope
for. They've been married since 1971.
I do believe that our prevailing attitudes about blindness plays a
profound role in our journey through life, but still, if we remove
blindness from the table and just look at the relationships, I think
we would not be able to see much difference across the board.
My neighbor's wife came over one day with her twin sister. After 13
years of marriage to our neighbor, she decided she could stand it no
longer. He was a Boeing Engineer, about to retire, and he was on
assignment in Atlantic City. "He never talks", she moaned. Cathy and
I had seen the signs, and were not surprised, other than the fact that
she was sneaking out of town without telling him.
"I didn't think there was anything wrong," he told us after he
returned home. That said volumes. Both of these folks were fully
sighted. But if one had been blind, we could have read all sorts of
"blindness related" reasons into the breakup.
Of course my bottom line is that we are not "educating" our children
in how to relate to one another. Our "Education" prepares our
children to fit into the needs of a Capitalistic World, to be
consumers and producers. Blindness simply complicates life...but so
does Color, Religion, Sexual Preference, and Left Handedness.
Carl Jarvis, the Left Handed Blind Man.
On 3/25/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's interesting that between us, we know of three totally blind men who
married wives with sight and who completely dominated them. There's a
pattern here, I think, which has something to do with male chauvinism or
some such thing. We had a silent member of this list. He was on the list
because he knew me. I've recently heard that he died sometime within 2017, I
think. The story of my relationship with him is complicated, and his story
is very very complicated. But here's a brief outline as it relates to this
discussion. This was an incredibly intelligent man who had RP so he had
excellent partial vision when he was young, and practically no vision at all
by the time he reached his fifties. Along with the vision problem, I suspect
that he had Asperger's Syndrome or something similar. But whatever it was,
no one knew about it when he was young. He was born in 1935. Anyway, he
married a sighted woman, was a rehab counselor for a while, earned a PhD in
Psychology, and was the head psychologist at the New York Lighthouse until
he was fired. I know, but only because he lived with me on and off for four
years, that he terrorized his wife. But she stayed married to him for about
30 years and they had a child. His rages were so impossible to deal with,
and he was so completely unable to discuss differences of opinion or
compromise, that his wife was afraid to separate from him in the usual way.
Because she was sighted and was therefore handling their bank accounts, she
secretly slowly took money from their joint account until she had enough to
leave. She left in secret, when he was away from the house. When he returned
home, she called him and told him that she had left him. People who knew him
at the time, and his sister, whom I got to know many years later, were
horrified that this woman could sneak out of the house and leave a totally
blind man alone in the house with no help and no transportation. (This was
the Long Island suburbs where there's hardly any public transport, and
certainly not where he lived). Under other circumstances, I, too, would be
horrified. But I lived with the man and was the object of his rage, and I
understood exactly what his wife went through and why she left in the way
that she did. His rage was so palpable that his new guide dog developed
colitis after having been with him for about 5 months. And I, too, developed
the same disease from which I still suffer. After his wife left, he went to
Helen Keller Services for rehabilitation so he could live alone
independently. There, he met a partially sighted woman who worked in a
clerical position. They had a romance. He was convincing her to separate
permanently from her husband so he could marry her, but things didn't work
out. She returned to her husband who was also partially sighted. About 11
years ago, he was run over on a busy wide thoroughfare. Eventually, my
friend was back in touch with this former girlfriend. She married him,
perhaps in 2016. I can't imagine what possessed her to do that except that
he had more money than she had and she was a good deal younger than he.
There are many stories to tell about blind folks. I think people are writing
the wrong kind of books about us. Instead of inspirational tales, they
should be writing romances and suspense novels.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2018 2:33 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Nolan Crabb, former editor of Braille Forum
What a sad story, Miriam. It does make me pause and smile over my good
fortune to have such a partner for my wife.
Years back while I was directing the OTC, I convinced the agency director to
create a position for a recreation coordinator. The idea was to help newly
blind students to become involved in community activities as one means of
making contacts with potential employers.
My first coordinator did such a great job that she caught the eye of the VR
Director, and he stole her away from me. The new agency director told me
who I should hire to replace her. This was a young partially sighted woman
who had been a physical education student.
Despite my objections, she became the new activities coordinator. I
remember joining in with a group meeting she was conducting. Someone asked
her if she would marry a blind man. "No," she said without hesitating, "I
love to ride in fast cars, and I plan on finding a husband with a fast, late
model car". And she did. And it was a fast but short marriage.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/24/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That was also true of Paul Sauerland. He had been a member of an
organization of blind men in NJ who believed that blind men should
marry sighted women so they would be properly cared for. Paul was a
"good Catholic", by which I mean, an extremely rigid Catholic. He
married a partially sighted woman who had been deen teaching, I think,
and may also have attended the NY Institute for the Blind, which is a
whole story unto itself. She was attending social work school. But
she, too, was a "good Catholic" which meant that being a wife and
mother came first. She left graduate school and became Paul's helpmate
and the object of his scorn when she didn't perform properly. They had
6 children, one of whom, unfortunately, was born deaf. Paul was unable to
relate to him at all.
Anyway, someone who lived in their neighborhood, but who didn't know
them, and whom I met in another context years later, told me that Paul
was known by the children in the neighborhood as "that mean blind
man". But Paul was good at his job, politically liberal, and an active
and helpful member of the Long Island chapter of ACB. Mary was, and
still is, at almost 90 years of age, very self effacing. She has
always sacrificed her comfort and her interests for her husband and
her children. She moved into the basement apartment of her house and
let her deaf son and his family live in her entire split level house
when they had no place to live because they were unable to pay rent to
another one of her sons for the apartment in his house. The deaf son has
a deaf wife and 3 children, one of whom his deaf.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2018 10:09 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Nolan Crabb, former editor of Braille
Forum
Ah yes! Don Nolde. It was Don Nolde whom I met and found rather
aloof...or sullen. Now I shall say a dozen Hail Nolan Crabb's and an
act of condition, and ask for forgiveness.
Speaking of blind guys bossing their wives around, a fellow I had
great respect for as an innovative genius, Manuel Urena, who also
bossed his sighted wife, Pat, like she were a naughty child. A bright
woman in her own right. Still, Pat took it from him. Over the
passing years I found that I was struggling with the two sides of
Manuel, and his ugly side was beginning to overshadow his intellectual
side...maybe even impact it. I've often wondered what sort of self
image Pat must have had, in order to accept the constant put down and
disregard by a husband who would never be an equal partner.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/24/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Don Nolde was editor of Dialogue. I met him on some Evergreen trips.
He had a partially sighted wife whom he bossed around. They had a
summer home in Spearfish South Dakota and he eventually convinced the
branch of the U of South Dakota which was located there, to have a
summer session each year for blind people that was like Elderhostel
where you lived in the college dorms and attended classes given by
university professors. There were huge numbers of sighted volunteers
from the town, who helped out each day. It was quite a project. I
attended one year and learned all about western history and Indians
with trips to all sorts of places like the old fashioned western
town, can't remember its name, all set up for tourists. I didn't tour
the town, but spent that afternoon in the tavern. And then another
year, they did a trip to the national park near there. There was a
history professor who considered Harry Truman to be one of our
greatest presidents.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2018 1:24 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Nolan Crabb, former editor of Braille
Forum
Well, I did remember correctly the fact that Nolan Crabb was editor
of the Braille Forum in the past, before Penny R. But I think I
still confused him with some other blind person...they do all look
alike, don't you know?
Jan 6, 2013 - The Braille Forum Volume LI January 2013 No. 5.
Published by the American Council of the Blind. The American Council
of the Blind strives to ...... Former "Braille Forum" editor Nolan
Crabb received the American Council of the Blind of Ohio's Ambassador
Award at the ACBO convention on Oct.
27.
Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic ...
https://books.google.com/books?id=v2rgAAAAMAAJ
1994 - BITNET (Computer network)
Back issues: contact Nolan Crabb, The Braille Forum Contact: Nolan
Crabb, Editor The Braille Forum 1155 15th St., NW, Suite 720
Washington, DC 20005
Phone:
202-467-5081 Fax: 202-467-5085 Sharon Lovering, Editorial Assistant
The Braille Forum 1155 15th St., NW, Suite 720 Washington, DC 20005
Phone: ...