On the Road with Barry – New York City

Day .5

October is Blindness Awareness Month and October 15 is National White Cane Safety Day. So, around this time of year, lots of organizations celebrate the occasion with marches and speakers, etc. Rooster and I represented Leader at the Houston Community White Cane Day celebration and got to meet a lot of folks and talked a lot about Leader Dog and our programs. Rooster, if I haven’t already told y’all, is a canine ambassador for Leader Dog and he stays with me and my family in Nacogdoches. Rooster is a black Labrador retriever and he’s Leader’s first regional canine ambassador. He goes with me to speaking engagements, conferences, and White Cane Day celebrations. He’s quite handsome and steals the show everywhere we go. He’s awfully good at his job.

Day 1

I’m headed to New York City. Queens, to be exact. Although my client, Kim, lives in mid-town Manhattan, I’m staying out in Long Island City and will be taking the train in like I actually know what I’m doing. I won’t have a car this time, so I’ve already scoped out the local bodegas that are within walking distance from the hotel at which I can get my sustenance.

I’m flying into town just ahead of a Nor’easter, so the ride is pretty rough. I’m glad to get on the ground. I’m taking an Uber for the first time and that goes way smoother than the flight. The wind is howling and the rain is coming down sideways. Looks like a great time to be in New York.

After settling in the hotel, I went for a stroll in the storm to locate some food. I found a barbeque joint named John Brown’s and had some burnt ends, cornbread and coleslaw. If it weren’t for the stroll back in the monsoon, I’d say it was a pretty good start to the week.

Day 2

The train is only a block away from the hotel, so that’s pretty handy. I seem to be the only one who’s excited about taking the train. I suppose if I had to do this every day of my life…

I’ve followed the trip instructions on the app when I planned my route, get off at exactly where I planned to, and step out of the ground up into the big city. I’ve made it! Everything is going great. Immediately turning the wrong way, I’m quickly lost forever. I’m concerned about staring at my phone for directions for fear of looking like a tourist, when I noticed that the entire world around me is staring at their phones. I’ll look like a tourist if I’m NOT staring at my phone.

Finally on the right track, I found Kim’s apartment and got to meet Emily, Kim’s Leader Dog, a beautiful golden retriever. Kim and I made a plan for the day and we set out for some lunch at the Original Soup Kitchen. If you ever watched Seinfeld, this is the “No soup for you” place. No one serving here is nearly as nasty as the Soup Nazi, and the soup is really good.

After lunch, we head up towards Columbus Circle, on Columbus Day no less, to visit the grocery store and one of the shopping areas that Kim uses quite a bit. The wind hasn’t stopped all day, and it seems as if we are walking into it in every direction we turn.

While crossing one street, I noticed a young man staring a little more than the usual. He asked if I was teaching Kim how to use the long white cane, and after responding that I was, he introduced himself and told us that he was heading to Lighthouse for instruction being legally blind himself. We told him all about Leader Dog and our programs and he was so excited to hear that he could get orientation and mobility instruction for free. We exchanged numbers and I hope he gets in touch with us.

We get back to Kim’s apartment, and I head “home” by a different train. It’s a longer walk to the hotel, but I think it’s nice to stretch my legs. Everyone thinks we orientation and mobility specialists (COMS) do a lot of walking and we do. We also do a lot of standing still, allowing our clients to figure things out for themselves, which is really hard on my hips and the soles of my feet. I don’t get to just stride out too much. I stride out quite a bit on the way back because the Nor’easter is blowing harder and harder and the rain is coming in sideways again. I’m more than a little wet, more than a little cold, more than a little tired, and more than a little hungry.

The HALT theory is half in play (HALT means Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired) and if you get too much of any of these things, you tend to make bad decisions. Having more than one at a time is a really bad combination. Thanks Dr. Coulson! I make a good decision about my hunger and get off my feet as soon as I can.

There’s two football games and a baseball game to watch, but I fell asleep before any of them were over.

Day 3

I’m not as excited to take the train as I was yesterday. I still think it’s fun, but the shine has definitely worn off. I get off the same train at exactly the same stop, walked up the stairs into the big city through a completely different exit. If I didn’t know about Central Park, I wouldn’t have recognized where I was. Where I wasn’t was where I was yesterday. Nowhere close. I DO know which way to go today, so there’s something.

Kim and I headed to her bank so she could make an appointment and check on some banking issues. Mobility is so different here because you don’t always cross the street with traffic. A lot of the time, there’s so many people at the corner, you’re better off just crossing with the crowd. So many people don’t pay attention to the long white cane and Kim is constantly contacting them with it. They don’t seem to care as everyone on the sidewalk here makes contact with everyone else on the sidewalk and just keep rushing to wherever they’re rushing to. Kim’s used to it but it really twists me the wrong way.

After lunch at Kim’s favorite deli (I had corned beef and pastrami on sourdough, if you’re curious), we headed to Penn Station, an area that has given Kim problems for some time. During the worldwide shutdown, Penn Station was vigorously remodeled and Kim wanted to figure it out. Her previous knowledge helps me get the lay of the land, and my eyes help her determine where everything is now. Some of it’s the same, but a lot of it is not. We did some seemingly simple things, but they made a big difference to her. Like finding the areas in which persons with disabilities can get assistance to specific trains, and getting a phone number to call to help make sure that happens. After what seems like an eternity underground, we take the escalator up the surface right next to Madison Square Garden and across the street from Macy’s, with the Empire State Building in the background. We spin around Macy’s, Kim’s favorite store, and then head back underground to make sure she can find her way like she wants to. She figures it out pretty well, taking voice notes on her phone the whole time.

It’s rush hour, and I don’t think one more person can fit on our train, but about a thousand more people get on anyway. I honestly don’t know how. I don’t know how we’re gonna get off either, but we do. And back to Kim’s apartment. I take the same train back as I did on the way in and get off at the same place I got on this morning. Maybe I’m getting the hang of it. The H and the T of HALT are taking effect again, and I take care of both as quickly as I can. Eat, sleep, repeat.

Day 4

I feel like a real New Yorker. I trudge to the train and wait with my head down, dreading the trudgery of the day. My train is always full, but that doesn’t stop me or anyone else from pushing on in. Nobody talks. Everyone is either staring at their phone or staring into the abyss. Maybe both. One silver lining to the whole trip: I got off at the same station and ended up on the sidewalk at the exact same spot I did yesterday morning, and that’s groovy because I get to walk along Central Park south. I take a picture of the Duck Pond and send it to Melissa, our President and CEO. She told me her first home was on Columbus Circle, right across from the park.

This morning, Kim and I head over to her work at the Apple Store in uptown Manhattan. Kim knows the trains and the exits but has done it with her dog for so long she’s looking for ways to locate those exits without the dog just taking her there.

The Apple store, which looks kinda like the Starship Enterprise, is located in the meat-packing district of New York. After a tour through the store, we walk through the Chelsea Market, a collection of shops and restaurants in an old warehouse. There’s a fish market inside with all the fresh seafood you can imagine. We also explore a park Kim’s been wanting to look at for a spot to take the dog during breaks.

After that, pizza. A typical NYC slice is as big as my head, which is really saying something. The weather is nice enough to sit outside at a table on the sidewalk and people watch. There’s plenty of that everywhere you look in New York.

We head back to the apartment to relieve Kim’s dog, then we head up to Lincoln Center and a Jewish bakery along the way. Fueled with fresh-baked carbohydrates from pastries I can’t pronounce, we explore the fountain and the plaza in front of Lincoln Center and discuss ways to get back to Kim’s apartment from here. I’ve been backing up and shutting up more as we go along AND I’ve convinced Kim that she doesn’t need to be a tour guide for me. Although I appreciate all the tidbits of history she knows about NYC, stopping and starting multiple times can really throw off your eventual alignment at the curb. Kim has just enough remaining vision to right herself if she gets misaligned, but one day she won’t and she’ll have to align based on her line of travel along the sidewalk. We’ve been practicing that most of the day, and she’s doing really well.

We’re doing a night lesson tonight and I have a couple of hours to kill before the sun goes down on Manhattan so I head to Central Park, sit on a bench and do nothing but people watch. I don’t talk. I don’t listen. I just watch. My noise meter was overflowing after another day in the city. Maybe you get used to it, but I needed a break from all the noise. It’s amazing how just a few hundred feet into the park and you can’t hear the traffic. Nothing completely blocks out the ever-present sirens, but I found it very calming. I was gonna take my shoes off but I was afraid I’d get too comfortable, take a nap and wake up without my valuables. So I left them on and watched the world go by. So nice.

I’ve talked about night travel before, but I’ll say it again: there are no new skills to teach someone during a night lesson. Night lessons are all about confidence. Most people stop going out at night because they lose confidence in their travel skills, and a lot of folks with visual impairments their vision is worse at night. That combination keeps most folks inside when it gets dark.

So, we head out after the sun goes down and go right towards Times Square. Intermittent light and dark, loads of pedestrians, mostly tourists looking at the bright lights and unfamiliar ground.

Kim is a little hesitant but does so well. She’s confident enough with her cane skills that she can do this. She claims to feel better about getting out there. My work here is done. I’m taking the train “home” and going to bed. Hopefully in silence. I’m way over my limit today.

Day 5

I trudge to the train with all the other saps that have to go to work. Nobody talks to each other. There are small groups of tourists interspersed with us locals. You can tell tourists because they all dress in bright colors and their shoes are all new. And they look hopeful. The rest of us locals dress in muted colors, wear very worn shoes, and stare into the void.

Kim and I work on the fire escape route in her apartment, with her long white cane first, then with her Leader Dog, Emily. We then took a quick route through the neighborhood before she had an appointment with the bank. After lunch, she harnessed Leader Dog Emily and we took off for Penn Station to continue to work on routes inside. She feels good about it enough to take LD Emily and teach her the routes.

There are plenty of ways to learn new routes with your guide dog. You can learn them with your white cane and without the dog, then come back with the guide dog having learned the route. You can also take the guide dog with you, in heel, while you use your long white cane to learn the route. That way the dog can get a look at things without having guide responsibilities.

Another way to do it is to have your dog in harness and work the route with a mobility specialist giving you information as you need it. There’s no one way. Different strokes for different folks. Kim chose to heel LD Emily while she learned the route with the white cane then work back over everything with her Leader Dog.

This part is tricky for the COMS, me. I’ve become familiar with LD Emily over the course of the week, so when we head out together, LD Emily is looking out for me way too much and not paying enough attention to Kim. I hide from her, which looks really suspicious to everyone else around us.

After Penn Station, Kim and LD Emily headed off on their own to a physical therapy appointment and I’m left alone in the Moynihan Train Station side of Penn Station. There’s a stringed trio playing downstairs that wasn’t there when Kim and I passed through earlier. I stay and listen as long as I can. It’s so dadgummed peaceful to hear Bach in the otherwise cacophonous station.

I stop at the Jewish bakery on the way “home” and walked through the park on the way to the train station. At the Lexington stop, so many people got on, I thought they’d never stop. I’m sure it looked like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack. It was an unbelievable amount of people pushing on. I didn’t mind, as I’m a local too, except I’ve got pastries in a bag that I don’t want smashed. It’ll ruin all that beautiful lamination on the rugelach.

I’ve got an earlier-than-normal morning tomorrow, so finishing on time today is welcomed. I ate my tomato-basil-mozzarella-pesto sandwich from the bakery for dinner (I figured, secretly, you’d want to know), along with a fantastic cinnamon roll with amazing lamination, and got ready for bed.

Day 6

Not only did I trudge to the train today, I trudged extra far in order to catch a train that would take me all the way to Kim’s work at the Apple store on 14th. I had about a twenty-minute trudge to catch the E train at Queensborough Plaza instead of the N, W or R I’ve been taking that stops a block from my hotel. If I take the E, there will be no transfers. If I take the W, N, or R, I’ll be in a better mood. No transfers, better mood. Better mood, no transfers. I go for no transfers, which will eventually put me in a better mood. The folks on the E train are no more excited to be there than the folks on the N, W or R. There’s no tourists on this train, either. Just us locals, trudging off to work. I get out from underground and actually recognize where I am. 45 minutes early, at that.

I grab a chai and a breakfast sandwich with some Italian meat on it I can’t pronounce. It was fantastic. Nice cup of tea, nice sandwich, comfortable seat and time to eat it. Who’s got it better than me, right? Just then, a guy sits one chair away from me and starts listening to his emails on his speaker phone. The coffee shop is already blaring theoretically soothing music way too loud and speaker phone guy must basically stick his phone in his ear to hear all of his messages. But I can hear them, too. As can everyone else in the store. If I was independently wealthy, one of the many things I’d do is buy a gross of headphones and pass them out to everyone doing anything on speakerphone. Especially if there’s no good reason on God’s green earth to use the speakerphone. Speakerphone is for when you’re under the car hood and someone is talking you through changing your thermostat. Or for driving. Or while baking and folding in beautiful laminations, and you don’t want to get the makings all over your phone. Not for calm, easy, coffee house sitting. Goodness gracious…

I meet Kim at her store next door, and we explore fire escape routes looking for trouble spots. Another thing I’d do if I was independently wealthy is spend a little dough at the Apple store. They’ve got some noise-cancelling headphones that are pretty righteous. I would need to be independently wealthy and still have a steady income to afford them, but I’d be happy to have them. After the time at Apple, we headed back to Kim’s apartment to take LD Emily out, then go to the Social Security office and lunch at a place near Times Square.

The Social Security office is a place Kim needed to go to and didn’t know it was as close as it was. Lunch was from a place she orders from a lot but had never been. She feels like she could get to both on her own now. That’s just another reason my job is so great. I get to be a small part of people figuring out how to do their life again. I like that a lot.

After lunch, Kim harnessed up LD Emily for a walk over to the Hudson River and the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Intrepid. If you’ve seen the movie I Am Legend, this is the aircraft carrier from which Will Smith is driving golf balls into an abandoned Manhattan. All along the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan, there’s a walking trail that goes all the way down to Battery Park, at the southern tip of the island. It eventually is gonna go quite a ways north, as well, but that part is still under construction.

Kim wants to figure out how to get across the West Side Highway to get to the trail. There’s also a dog park at Pier 86 and she’d like to know where that is. The trip over there was fun because, as I said before, LD Emily is looking for me everywhere and I’m hiding from her the whole time. She eventually stops looking and goes on about her business, but I try to stay out of her line of vision, so she’ll focus on Kim. I mean, it IS flattering to be adopted into her pack, but it’s not great for Kim.

I trail along behind, mostly on the other side of the street and just observe Kim, LD Emily and life on the west side. I even grabbed a walking slice from a local pizza kitchen on the way. Lots of apartment buildings with a fire escape. Audrey Hepburn should be listening to her neighbors play to “Moon River” out on one of these fire escapes. (Also, Tommy, there were no signs of Sharks or Jets observed during my time on the West Side.) That’s two movie references in two sentences. I’m getting good…

I meet Kim and LD Emily at West Side Highway and 46th, where there’s a pedestrian bridge. We figured that out and went to the dog park on the next pier. When LD Emily had sufficiently run herself silly, Kim harnessed her again for the long walk home. I did more ducking and hiding and all went according to plan. I told Kim that I can’t measure confidence, but I can tell for sure and for certain that she has increased her pace while walking with her white cane over the course of the week. Today, she was walking as fast with her cane as she was with LD Emily. That’s why this program works, y’all. We get to do this a week at a time and get lots of reps, which builds confidence. Usually, increased confidence creates a quicker pace. A quicker pace produces straighter alignment at the corner, producing straighter street crossings. I could go on, but I won’t. O&M is really groovy.

After saying goodbye to Kim and LD Emily, I stop at Ray’s Pizza on 7th. The original Ray’s. If you don’t know, it’s the one to which Santa Claus directed Buddy the Elf on his visit to NYC to find his dad. I took my Ray’s to Central Park and ate it at the Duck Pond. Surprisingly, I had a bench all to myself, and NO ONE sat beside me on their speaker phone. I almost couldn’t enjoy the pizza or the park because I was worried someone was gonna break the peace with a dadgummed speaker phone. But they didn’t.

I caught my train “home”, and I guess I’m the only local working on a Friday afternoon. The train, at least compared to literally ALL of my other trips, was practically empty. Us hardy souls who work a full week, God bless us. Keeping this thing running.

 

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