Bye, Bye Mary

On Thursday, June 25, 2009, we bid farewell to Mary Clarke. Mary was a 25 year veteran at the Orientation Center. She taught sewing, traveling, braille and home ec.

Students, former students, staff and friends gathered in the rec room to celebrate Mary's retirement. People started to arrive at two o'clock and at times the crowd nearly exceeded capacity for the room. The well wishers hugged, reminisced, and thanked her, sometimes shedding a few tears. By the time the event ended well over one hundred friends of Mary had come to pay homage to the unforgettable teacher.

At the end of the party there were only a few peanuts, a small amount of punch and out of two large cakes only about a dozen pieces of cake left. It was an afternoon Mary will never forget.

We'll miss you, Mary Clarke.

More later.

Solo (sort of)

Today I went traveling and had two firsts. I walked alone for awhile, and I went up and down an escalator. During traveling class today the teacher and I walked in the Des Moines skywalk. We went to buy a corsage for a retiring teacher and then traveled up an escalator to a food court. To get on the escalator I had to feel around at the bottom of it, searching for the bottom step. I found it and grabbed hold of the railing to make sure it was the up escalator and positioned my foot on the bottom step. I held on to the railing all the way up, with my white cane about two steps in front of me. It didn't seem very weird; as a matter of fact it felt fairly safe holding on to the moving railing. At the top of the escalator the cane moved ahead of me until it stopped, and I knew that was the top of the escalator and I stepped off. Then we went to the food court and I got a diet coke and sat around talking to the teacher for a few minutes.

Then we had to go down the escalator. Going up kind of reminded me of a pilot taking off in an airplane, and taking the down escalator reminded me of a pilot landing the plane. It was a little scarier going down. My first step off the down escalator had to be more precise than the up escalator so I wouldn't lose my balance.

We started retracing our steps and the teacher told me that he had to get a retirement card for the same teacher we got the corsage for. He was going to go to the store by himself, so he told me to go back to the school by myself. I got a little nervous when he left and I had to navigate the skywalk solo. Everything went almost perfect. I used people's voices and footfalls to know when and where to turn. I used the sound of some stores to tell me where I was in the skywalk, and I pretty much shorelined all the corridors. "Shorelining" means you are close to one side and you kind of tap the wall. The only trouble I had was I went too far and missed the door to the street level. I was very close and went back twice but just couldn't locate the door. Lucky for me the teacher bought the first card he saw and he must have hurried back to join me and catch me in my dilemma. Maybe he was more nervous with me walking by myself than I was! After he directed me to the door, I had no problem descending the steps and then walking back on the sidewalk to the school. I'm ready to solo again. More later.

Cakewalk

When I arrived yesterday in cooking class I had a cake pan with ingredients in it, and beside the cake pan I had a tape recorder to listen to. Since I had my shades on and I don't read Braille, the only way to "read" a recipe is by listening to it. After listening to the recipe directions, I added the ingredients, mixed them up, folded them in, and put the cake in the oven at 350 degrees to bake. After about twenty minutes I tested the cake by putting my finger on the center to see if it would spring back. It did so I took it out and put it on top of the stove to cool. I didn't have time to put frosting on it, so another student put the frosting on this morning. We had it for dessert at our lunch today. One student had three pieces, and after lunch the pan was empty. It was the best thing I've made in cooking class so far!

Extracurricular

I've been telling you about school and what's it's like to be here in Des Moines. Let me tell you a little bit about last Friday night. It started off with a seven course meal made by one of the students. A seven course meal is kind of like a "final" in cooking. I'm still only cooking one course meals. The student who cooked the meal made tomato basil soup and breadsticks, along with fettucini alfredo, stir-fry vegetables, jello salad, a slushy drink, and a three layer cake. The soup was excellent, the fettucini was very tasty, and the cake was delicious. When the students eat the seven course meal, they have to eat with their shades on, even after school hours. That is the hardest thing I've done so far--eat with my shades on. I had only one mishap during the meal. Trying to pick up the cake I tipped over the pitcher of slush and it spilled on my lap and on the floor, but luckily there was only a little bit of the slush left in the pitcher.

After letting the meal set for awhile in my stomach, I had to work out. I ran on the treadmill, did a little bit of the EFX machine, and finished on the air dyne, the Antichrist of exercise machines. I was saturated with sweat, so I decided to go to the roof to cool off a bit. I took my tunes with me and was listening to them when a couple more students came up to the roof, too.

Soon there were six of us on the roof. We'd listen to the music, tell funny stories, and sometimes we would just sit and stare at the city lights. One student saw only darkness with his eyes, but I believed he grasped the mood of the city that night more than most. It was a little surreal with the night lights of Des Moines shining below and us on top of the building looking out.

At last we left the roof. A bunch of us congregated on the front steps at street level, when I finally went in to shower off. During my shower I started hearing some booms in the distance and knew somewhere close fireworks were being shot off. By the time I got to my window and looked out, the fireworks were finished. I learned later that the group on the steps had gone into the building about five minutes before the fireworks began, and they missed them, too. I thought that was funny. More later.

Botany, Barbecue, Buses

Today I went on my first field trip. We went to the Reiman Gardens in Ames. Brother-in-law Dean, you have to get over there. It was fantastic! I was disappointed at first when they said we had to wear our shades in the first hour while there, but I was badly mistaken. Seeing nothing visually really opens your other senses to your surroundings. I never knew the different textures of different flowers and plants could be so varied. It was really a whole new experience at "seeing" my environment. Some flowers felt velvety, some felt spiney, and even some felt serrated. Some smelled like black licorice, some smelled lemony, and some didn't smell at all. We found sage, rosemary, and thyme, but struck out finding parsley. I really was amazed that my other senses could visualize so much. I was a little disappointed taking off my shades and even put them back on for a little while longer. The butterfly house was amazing there. All sorts of butterflies in different sizes and colors. Plus the vegetation there seems like out of prehistoric times.

Following the museum, we stopped at Hickory Park for some barbecue. Luckily for me we didn't have to wear our shades as I find eating with shades on is the most difficult task of all. We got back to the Center (home) and had a retirement celebration for one of our teachers. I will write more about her next week.

My final class of the day was my Travel class. We walked up to the bus stop, me with my shades off because we were crunched for time. That tells you how fast I travel with my shades on. The other guy had no choice because he is totally blind. We jumped on the bus and went out to Wal-Mart again. Stepping out of the air-conditioned bus, the hot air felt like a furnace, and I then put my shades back on. We followed our same path as we did a week ago, and it seemed a bit easier this time. We walked in to the service desk and then sat on a bench in the store while our teacher purchased some batteries. We had a conversation with another guy sitting on the bench who I did not know was there until I jabbed him in his arm with my hand, feeling for a place to sit down. The other guy with me hit him on the leg with his cane. The man on the bench repeated, "That's ok, that's ok."

We retraced our steps and cautiously stepped on the stairs to the bus, felt for the coin deposit, and found a seat. The first two seats in the Des Moines buses are always reserved for people with special needs. It's really amazing the conversations you hear on the bus when your shades are on and you can't see a thing. Instead of only using one sense, your eyesight, you use your other senses, and it just seems like you are aware of more of your surroundings than when you use just your eyesight. That seems really funny to me. We were dropped off two blocks from the Center. The last two blocks went very smoothly because I'd been on the terrain several times before and finally walked into the school 30 minutes after school was dismissed. Chris says I already had to stay after school! More later.

Walkin in the Rain and Minute Steaks

For Traveling I had to walk in the rain around the block on Tuesday. Carrying an umbrella with a white cane and trying to stay dry is not the easiest thing to do. Half of me was soaking wet, the other half was dry, and my arm holding the umbrella was very tired. The reason the teacher said it was necessary to go out in the rain was because every day sounds are different in the rain than when it's dry. I think I only walked off the sidewalk once or twice, and since it was raining, the guy on the bottom step was not there and I didn't run into him.

During Cooking Class I made minute steaks with cream of mushroom soup. I dropped one steak on the floor but quickly retrieved it and doused it with water. While frying them up my very patient cooking teacher told me to touch each steak, and if they were soggy to keep cooking them until they firmed up. I then placed them in a casserole pan without incident and drenched them with cream of mushroom soup. Today, Wednesday, the students came to the cooking class for lunch, and my minute steak recipe was one of their entree choices. No one got sick, and I heard no complaints.

On Wednesday I continued on the computer learning a few more keystrokes using the JAWS program. This evening I was up on the computer but must have forgotten a few key strokes because I couldn't find the document I was working on this morning.

For Braille, I worked on the letters k, l, and m. They are very similar to a, b, and c--just another dot added to each letter. Not only did I work Braille in Braille class, I worked Braille in cooking class too. Maybe my teacher's patience did wear a bit thin.

On Thursday we're going to Ames to visit the butterfly museum and then to Hickory Park to eat. With the hot weather, I can wear shorts. More later.

Radial Saw and Cinnamon Rolls

The cinnamon rolls I told you about earlier made it into the oven today. We got the dough out and flattened it out with a rolling pin, only I didn't use the rolling pin until after I had kneaded it with my hands and finally figured out what the rolling pin was for. So after I finally used the rolling pin, I rolled out a half inch thick rectangle. Then I rolled it up like carpet and sliced it two fingers width. You always have to have something to gauge the distance because you're not using your vision. As soon as they started to smell, people started popping their heads into the Home Ec room. It didn't take long to have the platter gone. They turned out delicious, and everyone who had one agreed with me that they were delicious.

In shop class I used a radial arm saw for the first time. I had to measure a piece of wood to a certain length, and then line it up with the saw. After careful scrutiny with my fingers and hands, I got to finally turn the saw on. I cut a length of wood three different times, two times it was too short, and the last time it was too long. BUT I left there with all ten fingers! The instructor stressed the 3 M's: Machine, Material, and Me. The machine is checked for the guards to be on and the blade in back position. Then you check the table for chips of wood or some of your tools by sweeping your fingers across the table, to make sure nothing gets chucked by the saw. In the ME, make sure that you are holding on to the piece of wood at least a hand's length away from the saw blade. And you crank that puppy on and you let 'er rip!

The last class of the day was Traveling, and I walked around the block. I had to get the rhythm right with the cane and my feet, and the height of how high high I lift the cane with each step. For a time there it looked like a silly walk from Monty Python. I ran off the curb a couple of times, ran into one parking meter, and struck a person who was sitting on the bottom step in front of his apartment.

I want to thank everybody for reading the blog, and I really enjoy hearing comments from people, whether on the blog or by email. More later.

My Classes

I have five classes that I attend daily at the center. I go to my CBS classes in the morning and my HT classes in the afternoon. My CBS classes are computer, Braille, and shop and my HT classes are home ec and travel.

We begin our day at 7:45 with everyone meeting in the rec room with our director and take roll and discuss the day's agenda. Then it's off to my first class, computer. Remember that the computers do not have monitors and we use a program called JAWS, (a screen reader program). In my initial class I wrote a little about myself and learned how to use JAWS just a little bit. I learned a few commands like, line by line reading and some editing commands. It's all keyboard commands. No mouse. The instructor is an out going individual who is also very competent computer user. She knows her JAWS.

My second class of the day is Braille. The class is located just around the corner from my computer class. The teacher is a pro at Braille. At least, I think she is. Braille is a touch language which you feel with your fingertip and I am starting to read and WRITE it.

My last class of the morning is shop. I will be using power tools to make my projects. YIKES! Anyone who knows me will probably think that I'll come home minus a few body parts. Remember, I'm wearing sleep shades in everyone of my classes. The instructor tested me on my fractions while I used a real groovy measuring device. It's like a six inch screw with notches in it every half inch. I'll try to get a picture of it on my blog later.

My first afternoon class is home ec. I have the same teacher for home ec as I did for Braille. She knows what she's getting into with me as a student. I went right to work making dough for cinnamon rolls. Everything went fine except when she told me to check the mixing bowl for flour and gunk at the bottom. She had already taken the dough out and placed it in the refrigerator. I went over to what I thought was the mixing bowl and found that the bowl still had a relatively large quantity of flour in it. She wanted me to throw out the excess flour in the garbage before I washed it out. I did what I was told to do and pitched out the flour into the garbage can. Only when I did throw it out, I didn't have the mixing bowl in my hands, I had the flour container! Ooops.

The last class of the day is travel. I went with my instructor and another student to a Wal Mart and was dropped off at a bus bench. Now, the bench was not real close to the store itself. We had to tap tap across a frontage road, down a parking lot lane and across the front drive of Wal Mart. We then went inside to find the service desk. After achieving our goal of find the service desk we had to head back to the car which included walking across the front drive, the parking lane and the frontage road. I finally got a picture in my mind of the layout of area we had just navigated aroud at the time I jumped into the car and head back to the center. This was my first traviel experience and the travel teacher went with us.

As a teacher myself and having worked with an outstanding teacher I can honestly say that evey single one of my teachers are of very high quallity. They have patience, confidence, great knowledge of the curriculum, good strategies, and above all are caring individuals. More later.

Week #1

The first week at the center went very well. I started using the shades and white cane, met my fellow students and staff, moved into my room and started eating. The shades were a bit scary at first but I am getting used to wearing them. You can't see jack while you are wearing them. While in total darkness, the white cane is a must, a real life saver. I plan on using the cane at home especially when I'm somewhere that I've never been before or when I'm in a big crowd. The cane makes you more independent. I don't worry much about going up or down stairs with it. I feel real comfortable with my cane.

The students have a wide variety of eye conditions and visual acuity. I'm the only one with glaucoma. I've learned that there are more eye conditions than I knew existed. I knew about glaucoma (of course) and macular degeneration along with eye problems associated with diabetes. I never heard of Stargardt's Disease before. This is an eye disease which affects young people. I'll let you know about other conditions later. That was usually the first question I was asked, "What's your eye condition?" was asked several times the first day at the center. The student's vision acuity ranges from 20-200 to total blindness. There are two students who cannot see a thing. But, they get around very well and are quite independent.

My room is very nice and believe it or not not I keep it spotless. It is on the sixth floor and looks out east not far from the Des Moines River. I get into my room using a key card which I've locked in my room only once. We use a shared bathroom with laundry facilities and a couple of showers. Men only, the females are one floor beneath us. We are strictly forbidden from visiting them on their floor.

We get an allowance for meals and we use it everyday to visit the nearby andd not so nearby eating establishments. They do not have a cafeteria, so we must eat out most days. The public sees that blindness does not stop us from being independent. We get out as much as we can. More later.

Touring "Reform School" in May

After setting up an appointment and Googling the directions the night before, we took off to tour the Adult Orientation and Adjustment Center in Des Moines. Having no difficulty in finding the place we parked the car and went inside. We met the receptionist who called Dave, our tour guide and shortly Dave arrived. I did not know it at the time but the receptionist was blind. We met Dave in a spacious room he called the rec room. Dave talked a few minutes to us about the place and popped in a 30 minute DVD that described to us what a great experience the training center was. Stuff was said like, “Changed the way I lived” and “Helped me to do things that I never had the confidence to do before.” I did notice when viewing the DVD the chairs were situated very close to the TV. I thought, they knew enough to do that.

The structure is a converted YMCA building with six floors. The procedure was to take an elevator up to the top floor and work our way down. Only that wasn’t the case. We went even higher. We went up to the roof! Pretty cool view of downtown Des Moines and one of the prime spots to watch Fourth of July fireworks. The roof was adorned with boxes of flowers, which were planted by the residents. I didn’t mention this but all the residents wear sleep shades and must use a white cane. I tried on a pair of sleep shades and it is impossible to see anything through them.

The sixth floor contained the men’s’ dorm rooms. They were all singles. There is a shared bathroom. The rooms had a dresser for all my summer clothes, (shorts, t-shirts, and underwear). I’ll throw in a few Hawaiian shirts to wear on special occasions. The fifth floor had the women rooms.

Quite a bit of the building is taken up by the library (sixty per cent). The library contains all the cassette, digital and Braille books used by the blind and handicapped for the entire state of Iowa. They have over 100,000 different titles. Braille books take up an enormous amount of shelf space. It takes 88 Braille volumes of large like three ring binders to make one copy of a dictionary. One shelf, which encompasses all four walls of a fairly large room, will get you only one volume of an encyclopedia written in Braille. That’s quite a contrast to digital media. Just think how much information you can store on an iPod or other hand-held devices.

The classrooms we visited were computer, shop, home ec. There were no monitors on the computers. In shop class I will make a picture frame using power tools. Remember, I will be wearing sleep shades, which are not possible to see through. The home ec class expects me to make a seven-course meal for my family. That may be messy.

We finished the tour in the basement of the facility. An exercise room with plenty of equipment inhabited the basement. I would have available to me, treadmills, fx machines, stair steppers, and numerous free weights. Dave opened a door to an adjoining room that almost made my eyes water. In front of me lay a 60-foot pool. Cool. I plan on doing a few laps once I’m there.

After the tour we went to the director’s room and had a conference call with Joe, my contact in Waterloo, Sandy, the director and Dave. We all agreed I would benefit by staying at the center for a few months. On June 8 I will be heading to Des Moines.