On the Road with Barry – Knoxville

Day one

The other airline. I’m never confident with them. I find a nice spot by myself at the window to enjoy a book my brother gave me about Ernie Pyle, the WWII reporter famous for coining the phrase “G.I. Joe”. I know, right?

Anyway, everyone and I mean everyone, in the terminal is minding their own business. Probably everyone on the planet… except the lady sitting next to me, who’s going through her contact list to find people to whom she can speak on speakerphone. Here’s a tip: NO ONE wants to hear your conversations. Hold the phone to your ear like everyone else or get a pair of earbuds. She finishes one conversation, scrolls through her phone to find another victim, and calls them on speakerphone. I guess there are enough people in this lady’s contact list who have nothing else to do on a Sunday morning, or who don’t have caller ID.

When they finally call for the Knoxville, Tennessee flight, she hangs up and goes to check in. Great. She’s on my flight. I’m probably sitting right next to her back in steerage, where there are never enough lifeboats. Luckily, instead of sitting next to the speakerphone lady, I sit next to a guy who gives me lots of suggestions for local places to eat. He’s a veteran who works in construction in the Knoxville area, and he’s returning from a week of golf in Santa Fe. Look into the trades, kids. It’s the place to be. I get my rental vehicle and head to the hotel. Along the way, I stop at Publix, my favorite grocery store in the Southeast. Probably anywhere. I don’t know of one that I like better. This one is right next to the University of Tennessee, and apparently Sunday afternoon is when every college student is allowed out to shop for groceries. They’re thick like flies, and they’re all staring at their phones while they attempt to steer a cart, just like they do with their cars.  I somehow avoided getting run over while getting my groceries and headed to the hotel. Yikes.

Photo description: Ron uses his white cane to trail a tall, cement wall on his right. He wears a black baseball cap, white t-shirt, and black shorts.

Day two

The breakfast sausage was labeled as chicken sausage, but it was so un-naturally white, so I passed on those. The “eggs” even scrambled, barely resembled what they were purported to be. I found some boiled eggs in the fridge and settled for those and the breakfast items I had purchased at Publix the previous night for this very reason.

I headed over to Ron’s house, not too far from the hotel. Sometimes it works out like that; sometimes it doesn’t. We spent a little time getting to know each other, and I quickly surmised that there’s one big dragon he’d like to slay this week. There’s an intersection on his way to Kroger that really gives him trouble. This is the great benefit of our In-Home Orientation and Mobility (O&M) program. If there’s something specific, like a specific intersection or a route that you’re really having trouble with, we can work on that. The on-campus program is designed to give clients tons of repetition, exposure to as many different environments as possible, and confidence to go home and transfer what they learned to their home area. But everyone has that one thing back home, right? We can help with that. We drove over so I could get the big picture and ended up parking in the Kroger parking lot and walking over to the intersection that I quickly named “the crucible.” Ron likes this, and we use that name all week. It’s not gonna be easy, getting across this seven-lane intersection that’s offset on one street and curved on the other, with dedicated right-hand turn lanes on two streets and dedicated left-hand turn lanes on two more.

Day three

There are two elevators in my hotel. Side by side, they are products of the Thyssen-Krupp company. “Thyssen” is pronounced “Tiss-un.” I only know this because I had a client at Leader years ago who worked for Thyssen-Krupp. The other main elevator company in America is Otis. I had a friend in Waco, Texas, about a hundred years ago, whose father worked for Otis. He wore all of his dad’s work shirts so much that everyone called him Otis. I’m not sure, to this day, what Otis’s real name is.

These elevators have all the standard buttons, but the orientation is different in each car. One is a vertical alignment four through ground top to bottom. The other one is two-by-two with evens on one side and odds on the other. I want you all to pay attention to the elevator buttons with which you interact. They’re not the same. At least most of them aren’t. You would think the two side-by-side elevators in this hotel would at least be the same.

At the crucible today, we’re working on auditory alignment. This is a high-level skill that takes a lot of practice. Try it next time you’re standing at an intersection, waiting to cross. Close your eyes and listen to the traffic, and try to line up for your crossing based solely on what you hear. It ain’t easy. Then there’s the crossing of the major street that has a slight curve in it. You’ve got to make multiple micro-adjustments to your path as you go across, which is almost always the case on any big crossing, but when the intersection isn’t completely square, you need to do it even more. More to come on that subject.

This afternoon, we took a break from the crucible and went to a park where Ron used to go when his kids were smaller. He has spoken about his lack of ability to “just get out and go” with his cane. Most of his routes are along Broadway here in Knoxville, which is a pretty busy thoroughfare. Traveling at the park, where the sidewalk meanders around the grassy interior in almost oval shape, would allow Ron to do what he wants to do. It’s a nice park with lots of shade, which I enjoyed the most.

Photo description: A man uses his white cane while walking down the sidewalk. He wears a straw hat, a blue, short-sleeved shirt, and long pants.

Day four

Along with working on this intersection, Ron and I are also working on the approaches to and from the intersection and the route across the parking lot to Kroger. You’ve all heard my sermon about parking lots being evil places. We found a way around the edges that admittedly takes more time but is a lot safer than going through the middle. The approaches are complex and the farthest thing from straight, so this part of the lesson is tedious. Alignment practice can be tedious, as well. Folks ask me all the time how much walking I do in a day, and sometimes it’s quite a bit. The last time I was in Knoxville for a client, we were walking multiple miles a day. Not so much this time, as we’re spending a lot of time standing at the corner listening to the traffic. As Ron is getting better at the alignment part, we’re starting to work on determining the safest time to go. Gotta get aligned first, then decide when to go. With multiple lanes of traffic, this ain’t easy either.

On the way back to the hotel this evening, I stopped for dinner at Chipotle. I usually try to eat local, but sometimes, especially after a long day, it’s easier to eat somewhere familiar. And Chipotle has high-quality plastic flatware. To someone who spends as much time in hotels as I do, quality plastic flatware is vital. The hotel spoons bend in the middle just trying to eat yogurt and attempting to spread cream cheese on a bagel with hotel knife is a nightmare. Chipotle and McAllester’s have the best plastic, just in case you’re wondering.

Day five

We’ve worked on alignment and on determining the safest time to cross. Now it’s time to work on what happens when you veer during your crossing. Everyone veers sometimes. The crossing could be completely square (rarely) and the opening narrow, but people still veer. The best and worst travelers out there veer. You could be lined up perfectly, and choose the right time to cross, and a car could honk, you could step in a pothole, or you could just get distracted for a moment. It doesn’t take much to get you off course.

Ron and I practiced veer recovery. You need to have a recovery plan before you ever leave the curb. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but recovery from a veer is a systematic if/then process by which you get out of the street when you don’t cross it straight. Again, this ain’t easy because some of it has to be done in the street in the presence of traffic. I can talk about veer recovery with Ron, but if I never let him actually veer, it’s almost pointless. So, today Ron veered and made contact with a car waiting at the light. The lady driving the car with which he made contact rolled down her window and said “Oh no!” out loud. She wasn’t upset; she was honestly looking out for Ron. He adjusted his route around the car (always towards the front of the car) readjusted his route again and completed his crossing. The exercise means a whole lot more when you actually get to practice it in real time.

Ron’s a regular at his Kroger. Much like Norm on “Cheers,” everybody knows his name, and he’s worked hard to get to know their names, as well. It’s a good thing to be known like that, so on days when you may need a little more help than usual, you’ve got a relationship with folks who are happy to step in. We’ve been using Kroger as a needed break in some air conditioning, and to use the facilities, and it’s hard to get in and out without Ron striking up a conversation with more than one employee. I’m not complaining because this means more time in the cool air.

Photo description: Holding his white cane upright, Ron stands on bright yellow truncated domes on the street corner listening to traffic. He wears a straw hat, white t-shirt, and black shorts.

Day six

Ron put it all together today. He walked from his house to Kroger, across the crucible, and back, utilizing all the things we’ve been working on all week: the approaches to the intersection, auditory alignment, sound discrimination and timing determination, the actual crossing and veer recovery. Ron veered both times he crossed the crucible today and used his recovery skills to get out of the street. The first time, he made contact with the first car in line that was perpendicular to his line of travel. I was watching the driver, who was on his phone, all the way in, and his eyes got wider and wider the closer Ron got to his car. I would have loved to hear his phone conversation as we neared. Now, Ron didn’t follow the plan on the recovery, going behind the car instead of in front. You don’t want to do this because you never want to put yourself between two operating vehicles, and going behind the car keeps the driver from looking at you the whole time. But life happens and things don’t always go as planned. At this point, every other car in line was paying very close attention to Ron and we got on across the street.

It was that kind of day. Ron got into some interesting recovery situations on the sidewalk as well. Broadway was really loud and busy. It was the last day of a really challenging week. So the route took us a little longer than it should have, but the end result was what we wanted. Ron made it to Kroger from his house and back. He slayed the dragon of the crucible. He gained confidence that he didn’t have before. I’m happy with that. He should be too.