Safe & Sound blog

Here I am, composing this blog as I sit at my gate at Bergstrom International Airport in Austin. Hanni just made good use of the airport dog park, if you know what I mean, and is now resting happily at my feet. And me? I’ve got headphones attached to my ears as I type away at my talking computer.

It’s official. I’m a geek.

I suppose I’ve been influenced by the conference I just attended. John Slaten Access University, (Access U) is an annual conference/workshop about accessible technology – it’s put on by a non-profit in Austin called Knowbility. A few years ago I sat on a panel with Knowbility’s Executive Director and co-founder Sharron Rush. Ever since then, Sharron has been trying to get me down to Austin to speak at Access U.

This year it finally happened. Easter Seals agreed to fund my trip as part of the Technology Opportunities Project (TOP) grant I worked on with them. I gave a speech about the TOP grant on Tuesday — my mission was to show attendees the many ways accessible websites can really make a difference in a person’s life. It was an easy speech to give – all I had to do was tell the truth! Thanks to the efforts of programmers and website developers who value the importance of accessibility for the blind, I google to do my research, I’m able to fill out online forms on my own, I flip through websites to find information about events, times, locations and on and on. All that stuff the rest of you do using your eyes and a mouse? I do that by using my ears and keyboard commands.

And hey, without website accessibility, I wouldn’t be able to blog. Hmmm. Not sure that’s a plug for or against accessibility for the blind!

In addition to giving a speech, I attended a few sessions at Access U, too. It was heartening to be around so many people with an active interest in keeping the web accessible.

All in all I had a great time. Hanni, too. She wasn’t the only guide dog in the bunch this time – she shared the spotlight with two other guides who were there helping their own blind partners. I have a funny feeling the guide dogs exchanged secrets under the desktops while we blind geeks typed away at our computers.

Uh-oh. They just called our flight. Gotta go. Here’s hoping there are no storms in Chicago this time!

The guy at Logan Airport security recognized Hanni. “Didn’t you guys come through here this afternoon already?”

We did. But shortly after our 5:15 flight left the jetway, the storms started in Chicago. So we sat on the runway. It wasn’t until I heard the landing gear come out near O’Hare that I found the courage to count the total time Hanni and I had been on board. Nine hours.

The pilot gave us periodic updates on the storm while we waited. He welcomed us to listen to the air traffic controllers on our headsets. As awful as it all was, just sitting there, waiting, I must say: in a very odd way, the ordeal was uplifting, too. The passengers, and the crew, and the pilots, were all good people. No one got belligerent. No one broke into the liquor. No one squatted in the aisle to defecate in protest.

Now, Hanni might have wanted to squat in the aisle, but she held it in. Until 9:15, that is. That’s when the pilot announced that all flights in and out of O’Hare had been grounded. We went back to the jetway.

Our flight still wasn’t cancelled, the pilot told us. “Feel free to get off the plane to stretch your legs,” he announced over the loudspeaker. “But don’t go too far from the gate.”

I ignored that warning. We couldn’t stay close. Hanni had to go outside! My wonderful, loyal, brave and patient Seeing Eye dog held her own while phone calls were made to determine whether the security gate was already closed, could Hanni and I get back to our flight if we left the airport for a bit, what are FAA regulations on this, blah, blah, blah. A very kind Logan employee finally came to our rescue, accompanying Hanni and me outside the security area. Once outside, we took three quick steps to the right, and…relief! Right there on the cement sidewalk.

Hanni was much lighter on her feet when we went through security that second time. She and I were back to the gate in plenty of time to board again, the plane pulled away from the jetway, and there we sat. For two-and-a-half more hours.

By this time, the passengers were all getting to know each other. Prohibited from talking endlessly into handheld phones, or pounding away on laptop keyboards, or engaging our thumbs in text messaging, well, we entertained ourselves the old-fashioned way. Talking. To each other. Imagine. Conversations. With real people. Like I say, it was downright uplifting.

Many commented on Hanni’s stellar behavior. Eventually I had Hanni lead me to the back of the plane. I took off her harness then and encouraged anyone who wanted to pet her to come on back. I think it helped all concerned. Maybe after Hanni retires from her current job she can volunteer as an airplane therapy dog.

Move over Marlee. Flo is back.

After spending a month last winter in the hospital mending from cracked ribs and a fractured pelvis, my mom celebrated her 92nd birthday doing what she loves: dancing.

Flo fell in her apartment in December. She went through rehab at the hospital, then had a physical therapist come to the house for a while. Since then, she’s been rehabbing on her own, going through the exercises prescribed by the physical therapist every day, and adding a bit more on her own. One day she would take a couple steps with her walker, the next she’d head down to get her mail by herself. She figured out how to get down the hall with a walker to do her laundry, how to take the garbage out, how to get outside on her own when my sistr Cheryl came by to help her run errands.

Last weekend, Flo joined us in Louisville to celebrate her birthday. She danced. Both Friday and Saturday nights. A highlight: on Friday night a complete stranger approached and asked her to the dance floor. She is still beaming. “He was a good dancer!”

Note: one does not have to be able to see to tell if someone else is beaming. You can feel it in the air.

My dog did not join Flo on the dance floor –Hanni has two left feet. Hanni did honor Flo when we all got back to the hotel, though. I shared a hotel bed with Flo, and when the belle of the ball climbed into bed next to me Saturday night, she couldn’t help but boast. “Hanni is sleeping on my side of the bed tonight,” Flo whispered.

I wasn’t surprised. Hanni has a nose for talent.

Kids – and adults –often ask if Hanni goes right on the plane with me when we travel. She does.

On board, she sits with her butt under the seat in front of me, her head cradled between my feet. She’ll be doing exactly that on Sunday, when we fly home from Louisville. Before that, though, she will have been on four long car rides (she sits at my feet at the front passenger seat), two train rides and one bus ride. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Buses, too. All in one week! Hanni’s a trooper.

Our big travel week started with a speech to honor volunteers at the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center in East Peoria on Monday. When I couldn’t find convenient transportation to and from that event, my niece Janet offered to drive. Baby Flo – Janet’s youngest daughter — came along, so we made sure to find a hotel with an indoor pool. Hanni and Baby Flo are just about the same height, so they had lots to talk about. We had fun!

On Tuesday Hanni and I boarded a train from Chicago to East Lansing, Michigan. This morning I gave a motivational speech to diabetes and kidney advocates before they took off to talk to state legislators. Along with blindness and leg amputation, kidney failure is another major complication of long term – or poorly controlled – diabetes. After the speech and a very lively book signing, Hanni and I got on a bus headed to Battle Creek. We caught a train there, and now, here I am, typing away from my seat on the train. Hanni is sleeping at my feet — she’s wise to get a few winks in, because tomorrow we leave again. My sister Cheryl is picking us up for this leg of our weeklong trip, and Flo and another sister – Bobbie –will come along.

They’ll be with us when Hanni and I give a talk at my great-nephew Grant’s school in Indianapolis on Friday morning. From there, we all take off to meet our other two sisters Marilee and Bev in Louisville, and Sister’s Weekend begins!

Every year my four sisters and I (and Flo, our honored guest) get together somewhere or another to celebrate our sisterhood,and we choose a book to read that has something to do with our locale. You know, Sister’s Book Club. This year’s book is a bit of a stretch. After visiting Long Island last month I found myself wanting to read The Great Gatsby again. When I went to order it, the notes said Jay Gatsby courted Daisy Buchanan in…Louisville. So that’s the book.

My brother Doug will provide appropriate Gatsby-esque music for the weekend. Doug lives in Louisville, and he’s a sought-after jazz trombonist. we’ll hear his band the West Market Street Stompers play on Friday night, and then on Saturday night Doug performs in a big band. On a riverboat!

The riverboat we’ll be cruising on is 92 years old — the exact age Flo will be this Sunday, April 20. If you know my family you know we’ll start celebrating a day early. Dancing. To a big band. On a riverboat!
So yikes! I guess you can add “boat” to the list of transportation Hanni – and I – will ride this week

Hanni and I head to the Arkansas Literary Festival this weekend – we’re doing one session for children, then sitting on a panel called Dogs and Their People.

With us on the panel? None other than Sonny Brewer.

I first met Sonny Brewer at an Arkansas Literary Festival years ago. I was in Little Rock with Mike and Hanni for the 2004 festival to promote Long Time, No See.
. The Saturday night gala that year was at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, and festival organizers were kind enough to arrange for a volunteer to drive Mike, Hanni and me to the event. An author named Sonny Brewer was supposed to come with us, too. But he was late getting to the car. It was hot in Little Rock, and Hanni, Mike and I were squished in the back seat. I was very eager to get to the Clinton Library – it was relatively new at the time. I wanted to spend as much time there as possible. But we had to wait. For some guy named Sonny Brewer. We waited. I was wearing pantyhose. It was hot. Nuff said? I was ready to blow my stack when Sonny finally showed up. The minute he opened his mouth, all was forgiven.

“Sorry, y’all,” he said with a whimsical southern drawl. “I lost track of the time.  My name is Sonny, glad to meet you.” He shook our hands. Hanni even gave him her paw.
We got stuck in traffic – of course – but I didn’t mind. It gave Sonny time to tell us his story.
Sonny had opened an independent bookstore in his hometown of Fairhope, Alabama, in 1997. “I was nearing 50 back then,” he said. “Owning a bookstore had been a lifelong dream of mine.”
After seven years in business, Over the Transom Books was still in the red.

Enter Jill Connor Brown with some queenly advice. The author of The Sweet Potato Queens Book of Love met her husband Kyle Jennings in Sonny Brewer’s bookstore, and she and Sonny have been friends ever since.

“Jill told me I oughta try selling my book,” Sonny told us, explaining he had already started writing a novel back then, pounding the keyboard late at night when his wife and two young boys were asleep. “She said I had nothing to lose by sending it out, and who knows, if I got a book deal, the money might help prop up the bookstore.”

After mailing 20 pages of his manuscript to a New York agent, Sonny set up an appointment with a bankruptcy lawyer for the next Thursday. “The agent called on Wednesday,” he said with that lovely southern drawl of his. Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, wanted his book. They were offering an advance. “I cancelled the appointment with the bankruptcy lawyer.”

Poet of Tolstoy Park came out in 2006. And Over the Transom Books? It’s still up and running. In order to have more time to devote to writing, though, Sunny turned over most of the day-to-day bookstore operations to an employee.

“It has just been a magical, kind of crazy, enchanted trajectory,” Sonny told me a year later, when he picked Hanni and me up at the airport for a trip to Alabama. His second novel, also based in Fairhope, had been published by Ballantine already. He’d just returned from LA. Talking with Billy Bob Thornton. About the screenplay for Poet of Tolstoy Park. “I’m black and blue all over from pinching myself so much!” he laughed.
The book he’ll be touting on our dogs and Their People panel is his latest: Cormac, the Tale of a Dog Gone Missing. Like his first two novels, this book is also set in Fairhope, Alabama. But this one is inspired by Sonny’s dog – the book is based on a true story of how Cormac went missing for almost a month, and was found more than a thousand miles away.

I’m looking forward to sitting on a panel with Sonny this Saturday–I just hope he shows up on time!

Hanni is hip. You all know that. But did you know she is so hip that she has a tattoo on her right ear? That’s how she rolls, dude.

Hanni the hip dog and I just spent three nights in New Orleans. Any of you who have spent three wild nights in New Orleans might assume that she got her tattoo while we were there.

Wrong.

And if you think her tattoo is a heart with the letters b-e-t-h inscribed inside, you’re wrong again. Hanni already had the tattoo — a series of letters and numbers – when I met her. The Seeing Eye uses tattoos to keep track of their dogs. The tattoos prove useful, too, in identifying Seeing Eye dogs who get separated from their blind companions.

Separated from Hanni? Yikes. That’s too awful to even consider. Let’s think about happier things. Like…New Orleans!

Our trip was colorful right from the start. After a two-hour delay at O’Hare – ugh! — we finally got seated. In the bulkhead. Between two guys flying home to Louisiana. From Africa! “Were you there with a church group or something?” I asked.

They both laughed. “We’re not missionaries,” the guy on my right –his name was Chris – said. “We’re mercenaries!”

They were mechanics. Caterpillar had sent them to Nairobi for a month to build boat engines. “We built ten engines in four weeks,” Timmy, the guy on my left, said. “That’s a lot — they’re BIG engines.”

After the usual array of questions about Hanni, they told me about their time in Africa, how hard it was to be away from their families, how cramped the living conditions had been. But it sure beat working on oil rigs at home, they said. That’s what they’d been doing before they got the job with Caterpillar. Chris had escaped the oil rig life relatively unscathed. Timmy hadn’t been as lucky. Two back surgeries, three knee surgeries and one operation on his elbow. Pain management classes had helped him survive, he said. Martial arts helped, too. Part of the reason he had accepted the Africa job? He was able to do more supervisory work there, it wasn’t as physical. “Plus it pays $500 a day,” he said. His voice sounded sheepish, admitting such a large sum. “I have two sons; I need to make as much money as I can. You know, while I am still able to work.”

Timmy took care of Hanni when I left to go to the bathroom – she can’t fit into that small space with me. Chris jumped up to take my backpack from the overhead bin any time I needed something from it. They both told me stories of duck hunting in Louisiana, their families back home, surviving the hurricanes.

Our flight to New Orleans, well, it flew by. When we landed, Chris jumped up to get my backpack. “You go ahead,” he said. “It’s been a long flight for Hanni.”

I urged them to go first. They’d left Nairobi 36 hours ago. They weren’t home yet – they still had a three hour drive – but they were done with airplanes now, they should get off.

They wouldn’t have it. So Hanni and I said our goodbyes, headed for the exit. As we passed through first class, a passenger took me aside and asked if I was okay.

Yeah,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. I asked him what he meant.

“Well, those men they sat you with,” he said. “They looked very rough.”

I’d look rough, too, if I’d just flown from Nairobi to London, London to Chicago, and Chicago to New Orleans. I hadn’t really thought much about what Timmy and Chris looked like, though. I was too busy listening. “Did they have tattoos?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” the first class man said. “All over. Are you sure you’re okay.”

The benefits of blindness are few, but they’re powerful. “I’m sure,” I assured him, a smile spreading across my face. I gave Hanni’s right ear a scratch before picking up her harness and heading to the jetway. “Hanni, forward!”

Hanni and I are off to Long Island tomorrow – we’re visiting schools and doing book events in towns with exotic names like Patchogue, Wantagh and…Bohemia!

More details on our Long Island stops are available at the “upcoming events” link on my website. I’ll be bringing my talking laptop on the trip. In order to blog, though, I’ll have to figure out how to hook up to the wireless connection in our room at the Holiday Inn.
Confession: I’ve never used a wireless connection on my own before, someone else has always helped me connect that way.

In other words, if I were you I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a blog from Bohemia.

Earlier this week I revamped that blog I wrote about taxi drivers and sent it to Chicago Public Radio. I recorded it for them Thursday, and it’s scheduled to air in Chicago on March 12 sometime between 9 and 10am. When we were done in the studio Thursday, the first cab to pull up took Hanni and me without a protest.

I was relieved. It would have been way too weird to be denied a ride in a cab after recording an essay about, well, about having been denied a ride in a cab.

“Dearborn and Polk,” I told the driver. He hit the accelerator. Most riders sit quietly in the back of a cab, fidget with papers, glance out the car window. I can’t. And the way I figure, maybe chatter will help drivers feel more comfortable with Hanni and me. Maybe it’ll encourage them to pick up the next human-and-guide-dog team they come across. So I talk.

“How’s business?” I asked. “Fine,” he said. That was it.

Not in the mood for chatter, I guess. Or maybe he was miffed about having a dog in the car? He sure drove fast. I told him so when he stopped the car and said how much I owed him. His speeding worked in my favor — The fare was three dollars cheaper than I paid on the way out.

I gave him a big tip. I mean, the guy wasn’t Mr. Personality, but at least he picked us up. Besides, I like cab drivers to know that people with disabilities can be big tippers.

After uncoiling from the cab, I picked up Hanni’s harness and commanded “Forward!” She brought me to the curb and stopped like always. We crossed the street to her favorite vacant lot, you know, where she “empties.” As I took her harness off, I reached out to the fence there for balance. The fence wasn’t there. “Wow!” I exclaimed to Hanni. “They finally took that stupid fence down!” Hanni did her business, I buckled her harness back on, and we headed north to our apartment.

The sun was out, and the snow was melting. It had been so long since I’d felt the sidewalk at my feet that it felt odd — Not the same cracks and angles I was used to. Hanni’s pace was quick — she seemed to be enjoying guiding me on sidewalks that were clear of snow and ice for a change.

I started listening for Jazz music – it streams from outdoor speakers at the sandwich joint in our building, that’s my cue to tell hanni to turn left and go to our doorway.
All I heard were birds. Hanni kept up her pace, then finally stopped at a curb at the end of the block. It couldn’t be our block, though. I never heard any jazz.

We must have gone the wrong direction when we got out of the cab. It was a nice day – cold, but sunny – and Hanni was enjoying the walk. I decided we’d continue walking. I was sure to hear, or feel, or smell something that would tell me which way to have Hanni take us.

We walked north, and north, and north. It seemed so quiet. No sound of kids from the local college talking on their cell phones, no smells from coffee shops. “Hanni,” I said.”I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

I called out an “excuse me” to the next pair of footsteps I heard. Turns out they belonged to a man named Carl. “I’m a little turned around,” I said. “Can you tell me where we are?” When Carl said we were on Dearborn and Division, I actually laughed out loud.

Division is 20 blocks north of Polk. There had been so many clues to tell me we were far from home – quick ride, cheap fare, missing fence, birds singing, Hanni’s enthusiasm (she always walks faster when we’re in new territory) – but I wanted so badly to be near home that I wouldn’t allow myself to be convinced otherwise. “The cab driver must have thought I said Dearborn and Oak,” I told Carl. (Oak is near Division.)

Carl hailed me another cab and waited while I tucked Hanni’s tail inside. Before he closed the door, he said one last thing: “Thank you for trusting me.”

South Carolina was swell. Our presentation at my sister Bobbies’ Book Club was well-received, and it was downright refreshing to go outside without a parka and boots on.

It would’ve been hard to return to cold and windy Chicago if we didn’t know Mike was there waiting for us. And to add icing, pardon the weather pun, to the cake, there was also a VERY cool new blog comment waiting at home on my talking computer. It was a response to Hanni’s Happy Birthday blog:
“I am a 26 year old totally blind musician from New York. I’m thinking about getting
a guide dog as soon as I get a place of my own…”

This blogging thing is cool. The musician went on to ask where she could get copies of my book. It made me think, gee, now might be a good time to blog about how folks can get copies of both “Long Time, No See’ and “Safe & Sound” in special formats for the blind. The following is “borrowed” directly from my web site:
“Long Time, No See” is available free of charge on cassette or in Braille from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically handicapped (NLS).
Through a national network of cooperating libraries, NLS circulates Braille and audio materials postage-free to those prevented from reading due to blindness or physical handicap.

Eligible borrowers can contact NLS and ask for call numbers RC56482 (cassette) or BR14821 (Braille).

Please note that NLS cassettes are recorded on a slower speed and are unusable on standard tape players. If you do not have a special NLS tape player and feel you qualify for the NLS program, special tape players can be obtained by phoning the national Library Service for the Blind and Physically handicapped at:
1-888-NLS-READ (1-888-657-7323). More information is also available at
www.loc.gov/nls

As for the children’s book, Blue Marlin Publications has teamed up with Seedlings Braille Books for Children to produce a number of copies of “Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound” in a special print-Braille (no pictures) format. Braille words appear directly under the printed words, providing visually-impaired children and their sighted parents a wonderful way to enjoy learning Braille. Print-Braille books are also very popular with blind adults (or older children) who enjoy reading to sighted preschoolers.

To order a copy of “Hanni And Beth: Safe & Sound” in print-Braille, link to
www.seedlings.org.
Back to me. I was extremely pleased when my friends at Blue Marlin Publications decided to donate a portion of the proceeds from sales of the standard print-only version of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound to Seedlings Braille Books for Children. Blue Marlin’s generosity will help this non-profit, tax-exempt organization continue providing high quality, low cost Braille books for children.

Winters were hard in the college town where we used to live. Urbana’s sidewalks were brick, and difficult to shovel. When it snowed, people walked in the street. Not a good option for a Seeing Eye dog. On days it snowed, Hanni and I were trapped inside.
Winter is easier on us here in the city. Our Chicago apartment is surrounded by other big buildings. Most ground floor units are retail, and shop owners don’t like their customers falling on ice. So they shovel their sidewalks.
Trouble is, they put salt on their sidewalks, too. LOTS of salt.
The American Dog Trainers Network website warns that Ice-melting chemicals and salt on sidewalks and roads can cause severe burning to a dog’s footpads. “Whenever possible, avoid walking your dog through these substances…”
Trust me, I’d avoid walking Hanni through those “substances” if I could. But for one, I can’t see the dang stuff. And for two, if we avoided the salt, we’d never get anywhere. We’d be trapped, just like we were when it snowed in Urbana.
Musher’s Secret to the rescue! Musher’s Secret is this waxy stuff you can get online from pet suppliers. I rub this goop on Hanni’s paws every time we leave home.
It smells a bit like Vicks Vaporub, and it hardens on her paw after I rub it in – the salt can’t get through to her pads.
Hanni loves having her paws rubbed, but she could do without the waxy stuff. And really, we could both do without the ice and snow for a while.
And so, we’re treating ourselves to a Valentine’s Day gift. We leave this Thursday to visit my sister Bobbie and her husband…in South Carolina! I’m doing a presentation for Bobbie’s Book Club on Friday and hoping to get a few good long walks in, too.
Hanni and I are both looking forward to a few days away from snow, away from ice, away from road salt, and away from Musher’s Secret. I promise I’ll still rub her paws, but maybe while we’re sitting outside. In the warm sun.