On the Road with Barry – Marshall, MN

Day one

I got to go to early church this morning, something I don’t usually get to do on travel Sundays. A later departure from Houston is always nice, but that puts me in Minneapolis late and late to the hotel. Yen and Yang, right?

I do get an “upgrade” on my seat with a little more space between myself and the others around me. I thought I was going to have an open seat beside me, the ultimate luxury, but a young man boarded at the last minute. He also raw-dogged the whole flight. The Seinfeld watchers who read this blog will understand, but for those of you unenlightened folk, in airline terms, raw-dogging is sitting in your seat without a magazine, book or earbuds. No movie, no computer, nothing. And this was a young man, college-aged, who used no phone or earbuds, when all of his contemporaries were born with earbuds in, maybe anatomically attached. He just slept. The entire time. David Puddy would be proud.

I’m reading Murderland by Caroline Fraser. It’s a book about the serial killers in the Northwest (Ted Bundy and many others), and their connection to the smelting business that started in the Tacoma area around the turn of the last century that piped tons of lead, arsenic and other harmful chemicals into the very near atmosphere. I know it’s a gruesome topic, but the library was very short on non-fiction, carry-on, bag-sized books for this trip.

I like the way Caroline Fraser writes. It’s kind of quirky. So, if you’re interested, she also wrote an in-depth biography on Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame. Vastly different subjects. Aunt Shirley tells me that she’s read that Laura turned out to be a pretty grumpy old woman, so you’ll have to just roll the dice, I guess. Life sure isn’t Hollywood. Maria von Trapp from The Sound of Music, as it turns out, was no Julie Andrews, either.

Into Minneapolis, where you’d swear you were in an upscale mall if you didn’t just get off a plane, I grab my rental and set out for a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Marshall, home of Southwest Minnesota State University.

It’s dusk when I land, and dark before I’m out of the twin cities. If you’ve never been, Minnesota, west of the twin cities, is farmland. If you’re good with geography, east of the twin cities is Wisconsin, and west is farmland. It might as well be a moonscape, as I can only see as far as the Toyota’s headlights will reach. I’m looking forward to the return trip, so I can see all this beautiful corn and soybeans. All my immediate ancestors, and probably those before, were sharecroppers or farmers, and would really love to see all those straight rows of corn.

My Aunt Shirley, among MANY other pursuits, is pursuing our family history and could tell you exactly what my ancestors did for a living. Shirley, who was married to Terry, the Renaissance man about whom I’ve written before, is quite the Renaissance woman. She reads voraciously, encourages me to read voraciously, and is always keeping me abreast of the latest documentaries I should be watching. Coming this fall, Ken Burns’ documentary on the Revolutionary War. If you know of Ken Burns, you know this is going to be good.

Photo description: Sofia walks down a ramp on campus while using her cane. She is holding her long white cane in one hand and a drink in the other. She’s wearing a hoodie and sweatpants.

Photo description: Sofia walks down a ramp on campus while using her cane. She is holding her long white cane in one hand and a drink in the other. She’s wearing a hoodie and sweatpants.

Day two

There’s some sobering news this morning. The “eggs” on the hotel’s breakfast buffet look exactly the same as other, higher-priced hotels’ eggs offerings. It makes me even more disappointed in the higher-priced hotels. If this so-called “lesser” brand of hotel has these eggs, you should really do better. Luckily, they have boiled eggs, which, as far as I know, you can’t make from powder, so I start the day with that and a granola bar. I got into town too late to grocery shop, so I’m stuck with this until this afternoon.

I’m in town this week to visit Sofia, a sophomore on campus. She’s been to Leader Dog’s Teen Summer Camp program, so she’s not a total stranger. I destroyed her in a very cantankerous game of Uno two years ago, and she hasn’t forgotten it. I don’t feel bad about it at all. Especially during camp, you have to establish dominance early. Let ‘em know you mean business. If I let you win at Uno, maybe I’ll let you slide on your cane skills, too. Don’t give ‘em an inch!

Sofia requested training to help her become more independent on her college campus. College campuses are historically a very difficult environment to travel for someone with not-so-great vision. Nothing is straight, at least not for long. Lots of curves, and quads, and courtyards, etc. She’s doing well in getting to her classes, but she knows there are better/different routes to get there. Her main focus is actually an area called “the quad,” an outdoor courtyard with instructional buildings on three sides and the student center on the fourth. It’s not necessarily a shorter route across the quad, but it’s a nice, open-air route when the weather is nice. She’d also like to know the student center better, and if time permits, we’re gonna get off campus some, too.

Day three

I’m glad I went grocery shopping last night because the breakfast options this morning didn’t look any better than they did yesterday. Hy-Vee is a Midwest brand of grocery store, and I like them a lot. They’re not Publix, but who is, right? Another Midwest thing, more specifically a Marshall thing, is the Schwann Corporation. Anyone out there grow up with the Schwann man driving that yellow, refrigerated truck around selling frozen food options? You could look through their catalog while they waited, and he would pull all of your ordered items out of one drawer or another on the truck. Write him a check and he was on his way. The Schwann man always had good ice cream, and my mother used to swear by their biscuits. I told her that any self-respecting Southern woman shouldn’t be bragging on frozen biscuits, and she told me, “I know what I know.”  Enough said. Our Schwann man told us one time that he wouldn’t be on the route for a couple of days because his brother-in-law was starting in centerfield on Opening Day for the Texas Rangers and the whole family was headed to Arlington to see him play. David Hulse was his name (I don’t know if I ever knew our Schwann man’s name…), and he played for the Rangers for a while. Turns out he was all leather and speed, no stick. So, he didn’t stick around too long. Anyway, Marshall is home to the Schwann Corporation, and the family name is on a lot of buildings in town.

Sofia and I spent a lot of time on her campus routes and in “the caf” (student slang for cafeteria). The caf is a mess as far as a clean route goes because there are several different food stations that are spread around the area, and although the layout stays the same, it’s not easy to navigate. Luckily, Sofia usually heads to the same area when she eats there, which allows repetition to come into play. We can practice this route a few times and she’ll have it. She is also not afraid to ask for assistance, nor is she a stranger on campus. More people speak to her than the Pope, and she knows them all. She’ll greet them, then lean over to me and tell me who they are and her connection to them. I say this a lot, but being a regular, like Norm on Cheers, can be quite handy when you’re low vision. And when you’re not. We didn’t meet one person on campus who would hesitate to assist Sofia if she asked them to. There is no shame in this. Everyone needs help sometimes, right? Low vision or not. In my humble opinion, the highest form of independence is knowing when you need help and being able to ask good questions to get it.

Photo description: Sofia uses her long white cane as she walks across the quad. She’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and the Fine Arts building can be seen in the background.

Photo description: Sofia uses her long white cane as she walks across the quad. She’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and the Fine Arts building can be seen in the background.

Day four

Sofia and I start tackling the quad today. As I said, it’s not necessarily a shorter or even more efficient way to travel, but it’s the idea of having options. Who doesn’t want options? A great part of it for me as an instructor is that she knows most of the route already. Just a few different turns and she’s back on familiar ground. I probably say this quite a bit in this blog, but it is SO beneficial to perform orientation and mobility (O&M) instruction multiple days in a row because we get repetition. Plus, Sofia and I can communicate with each other as to whether we feel she needs more repetition. On one of our repetitions, we find a very busy wasp nest on a wall close to where she enters one of the buildings. I reported it to a guy who works on campus and he said he’d take care of it. Boom. Done. We move on.

Sofia uses my favorite tip: the ceramic tip. I love it for several reasons; it gives great auditory feedback, it’s fairly light, and it’s darned near indestructible. Unless you hit it with a hammer, and why would you do that? She also uses a technique called “constant contact,” in which she slides the cane tip from side to side in an arc in front of her body to find obstacles in her path. In doing so, she collects the absolute biggest dust bunnies I’ve ever seen. I spend a lot of time stepping on the trails of the dust bunnies to get them off her tip. It doesn’t affect the functionality of the tip; it just bugs me personally.

Day five

Every morning, I determine it is best not go downstairs to be disappointed by the breakfast options, but I get up and go anyway. To be disappointed. I get the boiled eggs every day and a cup of orange juice. I could have bought both at Hy-Vee and I don’t know why I didn’t. It would save me some disappointment.

The absolute best part about this hotel is that I can easily walk to campus from the parking lot. It’s good to get my legs stretched out before going to work, and it’s a nice commute.

I met Sofia in the student center after her classes, and we worked the quad again. I’m doing my best to back up and shut up today to make sure she’s got it without me, and she does. I do hang close to her when she nears the not-taken-care-of wasp nest, just to make sure she doesn’t stir them up. We worked on the quad and the student center a lot today and it was fun to see her just go. I said very little, just watched her travel independently. It’s a nice feeling. I honestly feel she’s got this down really well, but I ask her to make sure. She’s feeling good too, except for the wasps.

Photo description: Sofia climbs the stairs while holding her drink in one hand and her long white cane in the other. She’s wearing a blue hoodie and gray sweat pants.

Photo description: Sofia climbs the stairs while holding her drink in one hand and her long white cane in the other. She’s wearing a blue hoodie and gray sweat pants.

Day six

We started working on a route from Sofia’s dorm up to College Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in town. It’s got lots of destinations on both sides, mostly fast food, but Sofia would like to figure out how to get across it and explore some more. We decided to learn how to get to the closest Caribou Coffee. Very much like a Starbucks, but they’re not everywhere. Nothing against Starbucks, but I prefer Caribou. They make a great hot chai tea, which is what I always get at Starbucks, too. Caribou’s chai is better. Anyways, we head from her dorm and have to cross a couple of side streets before getting to College. College is a lighted intersection, and, even though Sofia says she’s not great at lighted street crossings, she crosses at her first opportunity and does it with little to no veer. Not too shabby. The intersection is fitted with accessible pedestrian signals (APS) that speak and vibrate when it’s time to cross. They don’t tell you to cross, but they tell you that the signal is in your favor. There are lots of different statements that these controls can make, but they all convey the same information. Sofia uses this information and crosses like she’s been doing it all her life. It’s a fairly short walk to Caribou once across College, and we find that the hardest part is getting across the parking lot. Now, parking lots are evil places because there are no traffic controls there. People just do what they feel is best, and not everyone thinks the same. Parking lots are like the Wild West. We figured out the least evil route across the lot and headed inside for chai. Or I did. Sofia got some berry cooler or something like that. It had dragon fruit in it.  I remember that part. Sufficiently caffeinated, she headed back to the dorm with no issues whatsoever.

Day seven

Last day in Marshall. Sofia and I are going to Caribou one more time. While she makes good decisions about when to cross all the necessary streets, she veers on most of them. Now, everybody veers. She just didn’t yesterday. The best travelers on the planet veer sometimes, so it’s better to learn what to do WHEN it happens, not IF. Because everybody veers. Veering is great when the O&M is there so you can develop recovery strategies, if you don’t already have them in place. Sofia listens well and acts on what she hears, so she does just fine. She got to Caribou with no issues and when she made her caffeine choice, it reminded me of Calvin and Hobbes. Remember when they would eat cereal and watch cartoons? They always had Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and that’s what I called her drink. She got an extra-large Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bomb that contained about a million calories. I got pre-diabetes just sitting next to her. Goodness gracious. She planned on walking off the calories on her trip back, but even if she lives to be a hundred, I don’t think she’ll walk off those calories. Did I already say “goodness gracious”? She makes it back, again with no issues, and I give her homework assignments of going to Caribou at least once a week after I’m gone. She doesn’t have to get a Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bomb every time, or ever again, but I do want her to practice that route. The other assignments were to continue to use the quad route and to avoid the wasp nest.

I’m headed back to the twin cities this afternoon in order to stay a little closer to the airport. I finally got to see all those corn and soybean fields. I’m staying in a hotel right across the street from the Mall of America, which also happens to be close to the airport. I have no desire to go to the Mall of America, or any mall for that matter. Unless there’s an Orange Julius inside, and I don’t expect there is one here. I didn’t even look at a map, but what I did do was quite the risk. I ate Mexican food in Minnesota. And at a restaurant connected to the hotel. This is usually a recipe (see what I did there?  It’s a food reference.  It’s funny because it’s ironical…) for disaster. Maybe I was really hungry. Or tired. And Charles Stanley says that’s two out of four really bad things. “Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired”, Charles told me on a television in a hotel room on Times Square about 20 years ago. Getting too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired (HALT) can lead to some really bad decisions, like eating Midwest Mexican food attached to a hotel. Tune in next time for the results.

Written by Barry Staford, certified orientation and mobility specialist (COMS)