Beautiful Topeka

The kids at the Easter Seals Capper Foundation Kidlink preschool were a great audience. (Photo courtesy of the Topeka Capital-Journal)

A story in the Capital Journal does a beautiful job describing our visit to Topeka last week.

Jim Leiker, president and chief executive officer of Easter Seals Capper Foundation, explained the purpose of Finke’s visit to Kidlink, which is an inclusive
preschool and child care program for children with or without disabilities.

“She has a disability and has lots of challenges,” Leiker said, “and she has lots of goals and dreams, and she’s been able to achieve those. I think that’s a really positive message for the kids.”

The Capital Journal also took a lot of terrific pictures of me, Hanni, and the kids — here’s the gallery.

In addition to visiting the preschool, we were given a tour of the other facilities and did a talk at Capper’s all-staff meeting that day. We had lunch with folks who’d helped sponsor our trip, then gave a keynote at their advisory board dinner that night. It was a lot to pack into one day, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Hanni and I were treated like gold. This was our first trip ever to Kansas, and trust me, it won’t be our last!

One of our many stops during our Topeka visit was speaking to the Easter Seals Capper Foundation Advisory Board. I signed books after the event.

The next morning, Hanni and I climbed way in the back of a shuttle van for a two-hour ride to the Kansas City International airport. Hanni snuggled in so close to my feet that anyone who got on after us had no idea she was there. In Lawrence, we picked up a passenger who seemed, hmm, how to say it. Sketchy? Down on his luck? He’d come to Lawrence in a Greyhound bus from Colorado, needed the ride to KCI to catch another Greyhound bus to some other town.

The shuttle van was pretty full. Reluctant to let this guy sit alongside any of us in back, the driver ushered him to the passenger seat right in front.

Ours was the first stop at the airport. We let the passengers seated in front of us get out first, and then finally I asked Hanni to get up and lead us off the shuttle van. As we exited, the Greyhound rider looked back and said, “Hey! I saw you on TV last night!”

I’d almost forgotten. A couple of TV cameramen had been there the day before, taking video images of our visit with the preschoolers.
I laughed and told him I’d missed the news. “How’d I look?”

“You looked beautiful!”

That made my day. What a snob I’d been, thinking this guy was sketchy. Obviously, He was quite sharp! And hey, he had a good eye, too.

Reading with Scissors

Hey, have I ever mentioned that my husband Mike has a blog, too? Probably not. Because, to be honest with you, Mike’s Reading with Scissors blog is a bit difficult to explain. At least for me it is. It’s kind of visual, and I’m told even if you can see it’s a little difficult to explain.

But not for Micah Maidenberg, the talented editor of the Chicago Journal. Maidenberg’s article about Reading with Scissors this week is spot on.

Equal parts found object, humor and social commentary, Reading with Scissors features scans of advertisements (there are a few obituaries, too) that have caught Knezovich or site collaborator Greg Schafer’s eye. Both say they share a mordant sensibility, antennae that seek out absurdity, goofiness or the plain strange in the ads laced across daily life. There is a laugh-until-you-cry thing happening here.

Maidenberg goes on to explain that Mike and Greg are longtime friends.

Schafer, a flight attendant who lives in Barrington, regularly finds magazines, crossword books and other ephemera during his travels. He flips through what’s left on the planes, saving certain pages. “The job lends itself to time well spent reading,” Schafer said. The best gets sent in big manila envelopes to Knezovich. Knezovich scans the ads, posting one every other day or so.

He sometimes writes a bit of a jab to contextualize the entry, often just a line or two.

While Schafer has been sending Knezovich ads for years, the blog went live in September 2007. Knezovich wanted to experiment with online publishing. About 50 people now hit the blog daily, he said, up from five or six at the launch.

The blog has already gotten attention — and traffic — from Steve Rhodes and his Beachwood Reporter, a terrific Chicago-focused Web site that’s a must-read for Chicagoans. Now it’s caught the eye of the Chicago Journal, and no doubt traffic will double after folks read the entire article. And after they see the stunning photo of Mike Knezovich with his piles of magazine and newspaper clippings? The hits will triple. Quadruple! Do your part and link to Reading with Scissors. WHO knows? Like Mike, you may find Reading with Scissors therapeutic :

“I can pay attention and get utterly depressed, or confused,” Knezovich said. “Or I can find a way to get a laugh out of it.”

The End of “The Story”

The good news: My interview with Dick Gordon on NPR’s The Story aired all over the country last week. The bad news: It didn’t air here in Chicago.

Chicago Public Radio held its pledge drive last week; my interview was bumped so that WBEZ personalities like Ira Glass could cut in and ask listeners to call in and pledge to the station. The nerve! Seriously, Mike and I are members of WBEZ, and I understand why they have to do these pledge drives. But still, I gotta admit…I was disappointed friends and family members in Chicagoland didn’t get a chance to catch me on the radio.

I did hear from people in other parts of the country who heard it, though. A woman in Memphis wrote me to say she’d heard the interview on satellite radio and recognized some of my anecdotes. “I read them in your book!” she said. A man from Las Vegas wrote to tell me he, too, had modeled nude. No mention if he did this for art students, or on the strip.

Mike and I were able to hear the interview online, and I must say, those folks at North Carolina Public Radio did a fabulous job of editing. They took an hour’s worth of tape, condensed it, and came out with a nice little package that makes chronological sense. If you missed hearing the interview on the radio, you can hear it online. Listen to my voice, and to my laughter, and you’ll know what a great job Dick Gordon did setting me at ease in a studio that was halfway across the country from him.

Sticking to “The Story”

Mike and I took a slight detour on our way to the Wisconsin Book Festival on Friday. An NPR show called The Story had contacted me earlier in the week and we had to stop at a studio Friday morning to record an interview. If you’ve never heard The Story, here’s a description of the show from the Serious Radio web site:

The Story is a daily interview program designed to bring great stories to public radio midday’s in a way that will help listeners understand what is going on in their world and why it matters to them. A veteran radio journalist, Dick Gordon interviews people whose real-life experiences help us understand the news of the day or ongoing issues of importance.

The Story originates on North Carolina Public Radio, so Dick Gordon, the show’s host, was in Chapel Hill during Friday’s interview. Me? I sat alone with Hanni in a recording booth in Evanston, IL. The sound man, seated in another room behind a plate of glass, says if you listen carefully you’ll hear Hanni’s harness jiggle as she settles in at the beginning of the taping. She slept for the rest of the hour. She’d heard this all before.

The interview questions centered on my working life. Before losing my sight, I had a job advising college students who wanted to study overseas. The job entailed talking with students, checking out what programs might work for them, phoning different college departments or other universities to arrange for the transfer of college credits. I was sure I’d be able to perform these tasks without being able to see. My boss, however, was equally sure I could not. My contract was terminated. My confidence was shattered. How could I have been so naive? Did I really think I was worth hiring? Why would anyone employ someone who couldn’t see?

That all happened in 1986. The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law four years later. It took a while for me to get the gumption to apply for work again, but once I did I met up with some pretty wonderful, flexible employers. A series of part-time jobs helped rebuild my confidence back up. So much so, that in 1999 I took a job many others would never dare try: I modeled nude for University art students. An essay I wrote about the experience was published in alternative newspapers all over the country, and my new career was launched. No, silly. I did not become a professional nude model. I became a professional writer.

The Story is doing a special series called “What’s Working Who’s Working,” and my guess is that when my interview airs, it will be featured in that series. The Story is distributed nationally by American Public Media. It can be heard in North Carolina on WUNC-FM and WRQM-FM (90.9) in Rocky Mount. The show can also be heard on other stations across the U.S. including WBEZ in Chicago and KPCC in Los Angeles. Not sure yet when my particular segment will air, so stay tuned — I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.

On Wisconsin

Showing the girls how the harness works.

I spoke at the Milwaukee Montessori School last Wednesday, so I missed out on all the Olympic frenzy going on back here in Chicago last week. The Montessori mom who volunteered to drive Hanni and me back to our hotel after the presentation was the only person to even mention Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. The mom worked for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and the organization was hopeful Chicago would get the Olympics in 2016. “You took the train here, right?” she asked. I nodded. “So you know. Milwaukee is only an hour-and-a-half away from Chicago.” Her association was hoping tourists might opt to stay in Milwaukee, take the train to Chicago for the games by day, head back to a peaceful retreat by night. Milwaukee would benefit without footing the outrageous Olympic bill.

I was in the hotel lobby working on my laptop when the announcement was made about Chicago losing the Olympic bid. I heard no collective sighs. People there had never assumed Chicago would get the bid, so they weren’t shocked to hear the news. They might have been disappointed, but they didn’t act like the Chicagoans I was hearing about in the news. I didn’t sense anyone in the Milwaukee hotel lobby feeling angry. Or cheated

That’s one – of many things – I love about Wisconsin. People there are sensible. Kind, too. I stayed up there a few days after my Montessori School visit to work on my writing. The seclusion worked. I made good progress on two new books, and rewarded myself with occasional breaks to listen to the incomparable Bob Uecker call Brewers’ games on my transistor radio. Hanni and I felt downright carefree during our three-night stay, everyone there was so willing to guide us when we’d come to the lobby for a change of venue, or when Hanni needed to go outside for breaks. The hotel staff also recognized when Hanni and I were doing fine on our own, so they’d leave us alone.

Another reason I love Wisconsin? Our son lives there, in Watertown. After driving there to visit Gus Friday morning, Mike headed over to Milwaukee to spend the night with Hanni and me at the hotel. We had such a great time in Wisconsin that we’re going there again this Friday. This time, though, we’ll be heading to Madison. Hanni and I are doing a presentation at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison on Saturday morning, October 10 at 10:00. The theme for this year’s festival is Courage.

Presenter(s):
Beth Finke,
Katie McKy
Two writers who’ll appeal to kids from ages 4-8. Themes of courage in the face of disability/difference, and the courage to be oneself. Wolf Camp, by Katie McKy, is a comedy of parents’ unconditional love as their kids try on different skins. And Beth Finke returns with Hanni, her beloved Seeing Eye dog, to talk about the courage they both exhibit every day.

Gus’ house in Watertown is about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee, so it’ll be easy to stop in and see him again this weekend. On, Wisconsin!

Gus, Hanni and I--in front of the Hank Aaron statue outside Miller Park on a previous visit to Milwaukee.