Day 1
I’m flying Delta this time, and I’m very comfortable with them. I even got upgraded on both my flights today. I changed planes in Detroit; it always feels funny to be in Detroit and not go to Leader. I’m off to O’Hare Airport in Chicago and then an hour-ish drive to Crown Point, Indiana.
I find it funny how they make a big deal that’s there’s not enough time to serve drinks on the flight between Chicago and Detroit, but there’s always time to serve First Class drinks. All of us back in steerage, where there’s never enough lifeboats, will just have to swallow our spit.
My Uncle Buck (Yes. I have a real Uncle Buck) once told my brother and I, who were literally thirsting to death in the back of a station wagon and begging to stop for a drink, to swallow our spit. I didn’t have any spit to swallow. We’d been driving around every square inch of farmland around Wichita, Kansas looking at irrigation systems or something like that. Dad and Uncle Buck never seemed to tire of looking at farmland. They both grew up farming and had to carry water all the way from the ocean to northeast Arkansas to water their crops, so irrigation systems were probably pretty groovy to them, now that I think about it.
The best Orange Crush I ever had came at the end of that interminable drive in the country. It’s never tasted the same as it did that day. Uncle Buck’s real name was Andrew Earl Stafford. He was the oldest son of Andrew Earl and Maude Sarah Adeline, but somehow got labeled Buck. At his funeral, I remember being very upset because the bulletin said the service was for someone named Andrew Earl and, up until that time, I’d never heard that name. I wanted to know where Uncle Buck was. I also have an Uncle Winkie, but I’ll have to tell you that story another time. It’s a good one, though.
Day 2
I’m here to see Kathy who’s never had orientation and mobility (O&M) instruction before. She’s been taking classes from the Lighthouse of Chicago for a while, and she’s learned a lot from them. She keeps the house and cooks like a chef, so she’s doing well. In fact, she was baking a cake when I got there this morning. According to her husband, Kathy’s Kitchen Aid mixer has a V-8 engine! I had a good conversation with her husband and son while she put the finishing touches on the cake and got it in the oven.
Mind you, Kathy has just a little bit of vision in her left eye, and that’s not clear at all. We got to know each other while the cake was baking, and it was really hard to focus with that cake in the oven. I did find out that Kathy was the daughter of a restaurant owner and a college professor, and taught reading in Indiana public schools for 18 plus years. Her husband was also a teacher, a math teacher, in Indian for a long time. By the time I got my interview finished, the cake came out of the oven and Kathy put some sort of heavenly glaze on it that just soaked in. Just lovely.
I introduce Kathy to the long cane, and we discuss the benefits of using it all the time. Kathy asked if it was okay to use her support cane at the same time. Just like I told Sheryl on my last trip, if you’re not upright, the rest of what I could teach you would be pointless. So, we start out using both and within ten minutes, Kathy is cruising along the sidewalk in her neighborhood.
On our way back to her house after a break, her husband came back from his appointment, rolled down the window and hollered “Hey Roadrunner!” That tickled Kathy and me and gave us the energy we needed to get home.
When we got back, Kathy served me a piece of that cake she baked. She talked about all the cakes she bakes for friends, and I assumed this one was going out the door, too, but I got a beautiful slice of sour cream pound cake with that heavenly glaze.
Day 3
We start the day off on a trip to Gary, Indiana, the home of Kathy’s church. We’ve called to make sure we could get in and her cousin-in-law met us at the door. Kathy hasn’t been to church in a long time. One funeral since Covid, if she remembers correctly. We spend a while just letting her roam around and remember where her seat is and how to get there. Lots of texture and lighting changes inside and it gives me a chance to talk to Kathy about those things.
Those of you who are reading this and have vision trouble, chances are that when you go from a brightly lit situation into a not-so-brightly-lit situation, it takes time for your eyes to adjust. Am I right? Or vice versa, of course. What do you do? Just keep walking and hope everything’s okay? Stop where you are and let everyone move around you? Well, if you have a cane, you can keep moving safely because even though your vision isn’t working great at the time, your cane will find anything in front of you. If you are able, stepping to the side is a great tactic to allow accommodation, but if you can’t and you have a cane, you can just keep going.
Through with the church, we head to J.C. Penny to shop for bath linens. If you’ve read this before, you’ve heard me say that O&M is everything and everything is O&M. Even shopping at the mall. We got to practice parking lot travel, crowd work, entering and exiting doorways and elevators We were going to try escalators, but Kathy decided that she’d learned enough for one day. I agreed.
I ate at a place called Portillo’s, which is a Chicago thing. I know because a former client, Luis, suggested it to me when we worked together in Chicago last summer. I had a beautiful sausage and peppers sandwich. Thanks, Luis!
Day 4
It’s raining today, but that’s not gonna stop us. We’ve planned to go to the mall and work on crowd work and escalators, but the mall doesn’t open here until 11 a.m. Who do they think they are? We’ve got work to do.
We re-route to Khol’s, who opened at 9 a.m., like the rest of the world, and we got to work. Kathy is in the market for a good sling bag, or a bag that’s designed to go over her head and shoulder. Her regular purses keep falling off her shoulder while using a cane in each hand. And it’s a nice excuse to buy a new bag.
Shopping done, the rain falling more heavily, we head back to the mall to find those escalators. I’ve said this before, but escalators are only scary until you work with them for a minute or two. We usually fear what we don’t understand, and what most people don’t understand about entering the escalators with limited vision is how to find the moving part of the stairs. Once you’ve located that integral part, the rest of it comes easy. Well, maybe not easy, as you do need to be brave for just the few seconds it takes to step out onto the moving section. Once you’re on, the work is over. You follow your clues that you’re getting to the end and lift your toes. Let the floor slide under your feet and start swinging that cane and walk forward. You’ve slayed another dragon. In fact, when we walked into Kathy’s house this afternoon, the first thing she said, with quite a lilt in her voice was “I’ve been on an escalator!”
I had Lou Malnati’s tonight. Another Chicago thing, Lou’s is deep dish and absolutely fantastic pizza, and I sat down to write today’s blog entry on a very full stomach. I need to go walk a few laps around the hotel to get some balance before bed.
Day 5
The further you get into Indiana, I’ve noticed that you couldn’t throw a rock in any direction without hitting a White Castle. I’ve never been to a White Castle and, thanks to my Aunt Shirley, I probably never will. Her husband, my Uncle Terry LOVED White Castle and she found them (and still finds them) detestable.
Uncle Terry was an air traffic controller in the Air Force, and in civilian life he was a fantastic bowler, a dog lover (miss you, Kaiser!), and otherwise a Renaissance Man. He and a carload of his friends were almost to Woodstock and got turned around by the police because there were already too many people there. According to Aunt Shirley, he spent the three of the longest nights of his life in a bunker in Da Nang in his helmet and his skivvies. That’s another story for another time. Anyway, I love my Uncle Terry and dearly miss him, but I’m not trying White Castle.
Kathy and I went to the grocery store and her local pharmacy today. If you’ve read this blog before, you’ve heard my sermon on orienting someone in a large indoor space. I didn’t have to do too much orienting today because Kathy really knows this place. I did talk to her about getting a shopping assistant, an idea of which she was previously unaware, but there wasn’t much else for me to do. Kathy took her independence and ran with it!
She did the same thing at the pharmacy. Just took control and did her thing. I’ve noticed over the course of the week that her stride is a little longer, her step more sure, her pace has quickened, and I haven’t told her in two days to hold her head up. This happens naturally as clients get more repetitions and their confidence increases.
Day 7
Kathy had an appointment this morning, which works well as I’m checking out of the hotel today. You tend to spread your stuff out over the course of a week, and I did this time too. It took a minute for me to get it all together. I pack pretty light, but I get pretty comfortable in the hotel when I’m there for a week.
I head over to Kathy’s to wrap things up and I get to meet Sabrina, a young lady who helps Kathy out quite a bit. They’re also fellow Lions Club members. There’s a lovely aroma in the house that’s obvious as soon as I step in the door. I’ve already told you that Kathy is quite a cook, but this aroma is coming from her husband’s smoker on the back porch. He’s been brining ribs for over a week and they look and smell amazing. Henry, Sabrina’s son is going to be the recipient of some of these ribs, and boy, is he in for a treat. I bragged on them too much (or just enough, as it turns out) because I got to leave with some ribs, too! Kathy even sent me out with two more slices of that sour cream pound cake. I’m eating good tonight, if my will holds that long.
I’m flying out in the morning and, true to form, I have to go through Atlanta. I think it was President Lincoln that said “Even if you’re going to hell, you have to change planes in Atlanta first.”
For my next trip, I’m heading to Leader’s campus in Michigan for Teen Camp. I haven’t been on campus since the week before Christmas, and I’m looking forward to being there. We’ll have over 20 16 and 17-year-olds on campus for all kinds of fun and chicanery. I may write about it so you can join in the fun. And I don’t want all my faithful readers to have to wait a whole month before they get treated to my eloquent prose again. My Uncle Bobby and Aunt Peggy are new to the blogosphere, and I sure don’t want to disappoint them, either.