It’s a great time to be blind. Seventy years after I hit this
earth I am discovering each day things that make life easier and more
fun for those of us without the benefit of working eyes. For the
most part my life has been very similar to other Americans of my
generation. As a teenager, I was afraid of the big bad world, but
floundering around for a while I found a job I loved, I married,
raised a couple of children, had my 15 minutes of fame, got a mid-life
divorce, married a wonderful woman, and helped guide and support
grandchildren. Blindness has not necessarily been a handicap but it
has been an inconvenience.
Now I am living in the best years of my life. I have a loving wife and
attentive dogs, and a talking computer. I think my first inkling that
the times, they were a changing came when I heard from a friend about
a talking wristwatch. I may have given my wife time to get a cup of
coffee down before we headed for the mall, but I honestly don’t
remember. I had to have that watch. A gadget guy meets talking
technology.
Computers are ubiquitous in our life. I remember when I thought
personal computers would push blind folks like me further down the
food chain. In eighties, I was working as a radio disc jockey and my
wife compiled the music into a searchable database, I took requests
only on Friday night, so she could be there look up the information
for me. I remember thinking, I wish I could do this myself.
Screen reading applications which read the screen of your computer
and translate it into spoken words were already in the development
stages then.
When we became aware of the screen readers that would
allow a blind person to utilize a personal computer, I took the plunge
(actually I think my wife pushed me) into joining the ranks of the
computer literate. For the first time in my life I had access to the
same information as my sighted friends. I could send and receive
email, go to favorite websites, play games on the computer. Before
talking computers searching an encyclopedia, dictionary, or other
reference material would have nearly impossible, now my laptop I can
look up anything while riding down the highway.
I bought a cell phone in 1992 and until about 2004 even as phones got
progressively more advanced with address books, recorders, cameras,
all I could do was just make and receive calls. Even then, I had to
have the number memorized or I was just out of luck, my phone might
have the coolest address book ever built but I could not access the
information. Now with my little cell phone with talking software I can
do almost anything you sighted folks can. I can look up a number in my
phone book, check my calendar, record reminders and cruise the internet.
I love books. Many successful blind folks are good braille readers.
Most of us the rest of us have limited braille or in my case, almost
non existent braille skills. I know that there are very talented
braille readers but for me reading meant talking books, audio books
recorded for the blind. Until the 1980’s I received books, magazines
and other printed material on vinyl records that were played on a
large cumbersome machine. I received my reading material through the
mail from the state library. That technology gave way to cassette
tapes and machines that were still fairly large, for instance it was a
chore to take your reading machine out to the backyard to enjoy a cool
spring day. Today I have a small device that is about the size of a
deck of cards on which I store hundreds of books. I visit the national
library service home page or other services and choose from tens of
thousands of books which I can download immediately. I also read books
on my Kindle, which reads the text to me.
The National Federation of the Blind provides a service that allows
qualifying individuals access to almost two hundred newspapers and
magazines by telephone. I can read any of those papers daily. Most of
you having never been without sight probably can’t understand how
empowering this is to a totally blind individual. As a child, it’s a
freedom I would have never believed I could have.
Talking watches, talking computers, talking cell phones are not the
only talking technology in my life. While cooking I check the
internal temperature of my food with a talking thermometer. The next
morning I weigh myself on my talking scales. I measure a shelf in my
workshop with a talking tape measure then nail the shelf to the wall after
using my talking level. Blind people are piloting themselves around
cities using talking gps locators. Recently engineers programmed a
computer that piloted a car from coast to coast with very little human
intervention. Hey, want to go for a cross country ride with a blind
driver? What about the bionic eye that I hear is just over the
horizon? Ain’t it a great time to be blind.