Blind Crossing
Lawrence resident Lynda Canaday, who is blind, tells about how her former guide dog Tonya saved her life at a Los Angeles intersection.
Meet the blind
October is “Meet the Blind Month.” The local chapter of the National Federation of the Blind will host a White Cane Safety Walk at noon Saturday at 11th and Massachusetts streets in Lawrence.
The walk will involve blind people gathering near South Park and then walking through downtown to raise awareness of the importance of white canes and guide dogs.
In addition to using a timer, Jim Canaday sniffs steaming bratwursts to help determine whether they are done. He prefers to grill his brats, but rainy weather prevented outdoor cooking this day.
It’s boiled bratwursts for lunch today.
No, that’s not the best way to cook them. Jim Canaday knows this. Grilling them outside is far preferable. But what are you gonna do? It’s raining in North Lawrence.
So Canaday — in his kitchen that is crowded by pans of resting bagel dough — sets a pot to boil. He comes back to check it. He lightly touches the plastic handle of the pot and feels the vibration of bubbling water. Now, it is ready.
But still, he’s talking about what was not meant to be. The high flames of a grill. The heat of ashen-covered charcoal.
“Oh, you use charcoal?” his visitor asks with surprise.
Canaday smiles a bit like a true barbecuer would.
“Oh yeah, you get much better flavor,” Canaday says with a bit of inflection in his own voice, surprised that the questioner didn’t know that.
Who would have thought that expressing surprise that a blind guy uses a charcoal grill was silly? Come to find out, it was.
“People overestimate how much trouble blindness really is,” Canaday says.
•••
When Jim and his wife, Lynda, leave their North Lawrence home for a walk — he walks at least 14 blocks every day — they notice which way the wind is blowing. They notice the sound of the grain elevator, which is different from the sound of the chemical plant. The rushing water over the dam. The whistles of the trains. A spot where the pavement has a rough edge to it that marks the end of the bridge.
Jim has been blind since he was 13. Prior to that he had limited sight, but an infection took that from him in a week’s time. Lynda has been blind since she was born prematurely and placed in an incubator with too bright of a light.
The North Lawrence details are more than just scenery to Jim and Lynda. Every little sound or feel helps guide them home each day.
“It is all about getting good at mental mapping,” Jim said. “Sighted people take things for granted because you can just look at a map.”
But it is about more than just having a good memory. Jim credits his father — who died when Jim was 16 — for showing him the world.
“He insisted I get out and go,” Jim said. “We built our own house and he had me climbing on the roof and doing all sorts of things.”
And Jim insists that if he hadn’t gone blind, he never would have attended college. Before he went blind in the eighth grade, he never learned Braille. Reading was extremely difficult. After he learned Braille, he became a voracious reader and learner. He has a master’s in clinical psychology from Kansas University.
Growing up in Southern California, Lynda was the only blind person on the campus of Hollywood High. But she already had learned much about the world by standing in her mother’s kitchen as a young girl.
“I would watch her cook,” Lynda said. “I would listen to her and then I would take my play dishes and make the same noises she would make. I would always ask her, ‘What are you doing, what are you doing? Can I do it, can I do it?’”
Evidently she could. She cooked her family’s Thanksgiving dinner at the age of 7.
Lynda ended up spending a good part of her adult life as a professional voice coach and singer, performing at Los Angeles night clubs six nights per week. A medical condition unrelated to her blindness ultimately caused her to give up her career, although she does work as a part-time voice instructor.
A serious heart problem has caused Jim to largely remain unemployed for the last several years, though he serves as an officer for the local chapter of the National Federation of the Blind and is a member of the city’s Public Transit Advisory Committee.
“Coping with blindness doesn’t mean that we’re unusual or gifted or particularly intelligent,” Jim said. “It means that we had good training, and we did the get up and go thing.”
•••
Jim is washing a load of clothes. He’s doing it carefully.
Not because he’s blind. Because he’s a husband.
“I have to make sure I don’t get anything of Lynda’s in here,” Jim says.
A previous mishap has made that clear.
“I used to let him do it, but I ended up with a lot of clothes that weren’t the color I thought they were,” Lynda says.
So, Jim sorts carefully. Feeling fabric to determine whether it is a towel or one of his wife’s blouses. Then he touches the large washer knob that has about a dozen different settings. He remembers where the various settings are around the dial, and he lightly runs his index finger around its edge.
His finger stops above the blue indicator line. It is just a thin coat of blue paint on the dial — the same as on any normal washing machine. But Jim’s finger feels the slight variation in texture on the dial, and with that he can set the washer on the right setting.
Well, Lynda maybe wouldn’t go that far.
He fills the detergent cup to the right level by sticking his finger in the cup and pouring until the liquid reaches his knuckle. It is just one of many tricks of the trade.
He grabs one bottle of Dr Pepper and a same-sized bottle of Diet Coke. He shows how the ridges along the side the cap of the Dr Pepper bottle are closer together than those on the Diet Coke bottle. Lynda salts her tomato by taking off the lid of the shaker and grabbing a pinch or two with her fingers.
Jim grabs items off the shelf with confidence because he knows where each item is supposed to be. That’s not Lynda’s favorite practice. It can get risky, and she’s implemented a system for putting Braille labels on most of the kitchen’s cans. (Groceries are delivered by Checkers grocery store each week.) It is worth the hour it takes with the couple’s Braille machine, which looks a bit like a typewriter.
“I once knew a guy who didn’t, and he called each dinner, ‘dinner roulette,’” Lynda said. “It was like ‘oh, what’s this? String beans. What’s this? Applesauce.’ I told myself I was never going to do that.”
There’s a bit of Braille elsewhere. A small brass plaque that hangs from the wall and asks God to bless this home is a noticeable piece of Braille. The other photos and wall hangings, however, have no Braille elements.
Yes, their walls are heavily decorated. Photos of family members. Artwork made by an aunt or an uncle. Sentimental pieces that adorn many walls in many other homes.
The couple’s conversation is peppered with phrases that may surprise. They often talk about not being able to “see” something. Jim described his previous white cane as being so dingy that it “looked like” it had been through a nuclear blast.
Sometimes, a person can almost forget. Like when Lynda was talking about how Jim previously did not use Braille tags to identify the color of his clothes in his closet.
So he didn’t used to be such a good dresser?
Lynda laughs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I couldn’t see him.”
•••
In reality, there’s much the sighted can’t see about the blind.
When people who are blind close their eyes, do they dream in pictures? Can any words ever describe the color red? Does curiosity ever become too heavy of a burden?
“I used to think more about what things used to look like than I do now,” Lynda said.
But she believes she has a good idea of the outside world. Growing up at camps for the blind, there was a heavy emphasis on touching their surroundings. Trees, leaves, even a garter snake one summer.
And yes, she dreams. She dreams in colors, although, she doesn’t know if her blue is the rest of the world’s blue. But her dreams are detailed. She knows an apple is one color of red and cinnamon is another.
For Jim, it is different.
“I remember colors, but to be perfectly honest, it has been 37 years now,” said Jim, who is 50. “I have to really work to remember colors.”
But as the colors of a sunset fade away from memory, Jim insists that it does not create a sinking feeling. His life is not one filled with frustration.
“Everybody faces a certain amount of frustration in their lives,” Jim said. “We happen to be made so we don’t see. That means we have certain issues.
“But to me, blindness is a characteristic, much like height, skin color and hair color. If you are 5-foot-6 and you really want to be the starting forward on your basketball team, you probably are going to have some frustration. You can either fret about that, or move on and invent a vaccine or something.”
No, in the North Lawrence home that he’s never seen, there is much about life that is too good to fret over. As his visitor gets ready to leave, the topic of the grill comes back up.
He missed that today. The temperature — according to his computer that has a speaker and an electronic voice that communicates what’s on the screen — was 49 degrees outside. But in reality, it is more than just the weather that keeps him away from the grill.
Since he’s moved to North Lawrence, it has become difficult to grill because of all the noise. The trains and everything else. The only safe way for Jim to grill is with his ears. But it’s also the enjoyable way.
“If you have charcoal, lump them all together and light them, give them 8 to 10 minutes to settle down, and then close your eyes and tip your ear to them,” he says to his visitor. “You’ll hear crackle and pop, but you won’t hear a hiss. Come back when your total time is 15, 20 minutes, 22 at the tops, and you’re going to hear a little hiss. That’s going to tell you ‘oh, I can take a stick and separate the charcoals because it is all caught now.’ Yeah.”
Oh, how much you miss by being able to see.
Comments
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redmoonrising (anonymous) says…
Great story. What an inspirational couple in that they are just going about living their lives.
greenquarter (A Smith) says…
You know, now that I think of it, it HAS been awhile since the last time LJW ran the requisite annual patronizing blind-person story, though I am surprised it's from a veteran writer who SHOULD know better, rather than a bored intern or first-year reporter. Next, write about a little person or a deaf person or a person in a wheelchar (and be sure you say "confined to a wheelchair") or a mentally ill person!!! Though I do admit I'm curious whether the reporter got the facts right about the incubator. Typically newborns lose their sight because of excessive oxygen in the incubator.
Do the Canadays have a choice beyond "going about living their lives"? We all find ways to cope with our differences, whether it's blindness or being really short or really tall or stuttering or being dyslexic. It's stories like these that perpetuate disabled people's lower social status, and here I was encouraged by the story a few months ago about the hot-dog vendor downtown, where the story wasn't about his being in a wheelchair but rather about something of substance (his business). I really wish newspapers would use these types of opportunities to reiterate what the blind are up against professionally (for example, the very high unemployment rate and illiteracy rate, as in a previous LJW article) or go visit the Kansas state school for the blind in KCK to report on how the blind are educated (and how their education quality compares to public schools) or the Iowa Department for the Blind to see how they learn skills for daily life (cooking, mobility, reading Braille). And another *retch* to the quote marks around "looking at" in the headline. Eeeek, don't say "look" or "watch" or "see"! Yeah, we get it. *eye roll*
rbs (anonymous) says…
After having met both the Canadays on several occasions, I guess one doesn't necessarily "see" them as "disabled" or having a "lower social status", as greenquarter so voraciously says. . . They are both amazing individuals, regardless of being sighted or not, and it just so happens that their life stories are pretty damn amazing. So quit criticizing the paper, for crying out loud. . . that is the purpose of writing "stories" for the newspaper--to communicate interesting stories about the community and the people living in it. Greenquarter--get a hobby. Maybe you could learn to read braille, hmmm?
Cartemus (anonymous) says…
good article
what've you got stuck up your butt, greenquarter?
Aisling (anonymous) says…
wonderful story, thank you.
puddleglum (anonymous) says…
thanx chad. keep up the good work.
Ceallach (anonymous) says…
It's obvious greenquarter doesn't know the Canadays *eye roll*
Great article about great people!
Irish (Leslie Swearingen) says…
It is a great story. I know another blind couple that live the some way, always busy, always involved. Greenquarter, sorry, but your objection is not rational.
denak (anonymous) says…
My mother, father and son are all blind. There are very few articles written about visually impaired people that are uplifting and positive. Even as someone who has grown up around individuals with visually impairements, I learned something new.
However, I would like to comment on greenquarter's post. Even though it is, in my opinion, unneccessarily harsh, there is a lot of truth in it.
The illiteracy rate and unemployement rate of visually impaired people is staggering A recent statistic put out by the National Federation for the Blind, put the illiteracy rate for visually impaired people at 90%. The overwhelming majority of blind individuals are unemployed or underemployed. The reason for this is simple. There are not enough teachers/schools for the visually impaired. More and more students are being mainstreamed in a misguided attempt to make them "normal" and for the school district to save money. I was told once that it cost USD497, 40,000 dollars a year to send my son to KSSB. Financially, it is in the school district's best interest to mainstream a child. However, no matter how good most V.I. teachers are, and we have excellant ones here in Lawrence, they can not match what my son gets at KSSB. There he has teachers that are able to teach him music, technology, all the core subjects, and life skills, in an environment where he truly is normal. My son is literate and self-sufficient. He is that way because he went to KSSB. And Like Mr. Canaday, he will probably be able to go onto college. They are the exception. What is happening to a friend of my son's is more the norm. My son has a friend named "Windell" who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Windell can not go to KSSB as a second year senior because the school district refuses to pay even though it is his right. The school district told Windell's mother that if she wanted him to go to KSSB for second year senior she would have to come up with half of the cost. In othe words, roughly 20-30 thousand. Needless to say, Windell isn't a second year senior this year. Windell was told that voc. rehab would pay to train him for a job. (not a career, a job).Then Windell was told that the voc. rehab people would not pay for the job training he wanted because that job is not one that "blind people usually go into." What the voc. rehab people really want to do is shunt Windell down to the Envision factory and forget about him. Windell is a great boy. He has talent and intelligence. But Windell's future is being determined by other people who see not his potential but dollar signs and his disability. They see what they think a blind person can do, not what a blind person really can do. So, Windell is going to end up in that overwhelming majority of unemployed or underemployed. The Canadays are great examples. But they are the exception and even though greenquarter's post is harsh, it is more realistic of the challenges that visually impaired people face.
Dena
kmat (anonymous) says…
I see Jim on the levee quite frequently walking his dog. Very nice man.
greenqtr - you need a life. I was very happy to see this article and learn a little more about Jim.
frankfussman (anonymous) says…
Chad, you wrote another wonderful story.
I've seen the Canadys around town and now I know a lot about them. Thanks for the inspiration.
frankfussman (anonymous) says…
I just remembered one of the "jokes" or sayings that my father used to say: "'I see,' said the blind man."
liggyon (David Lignell) says…
Good story about an impressive couple who happen to be blind.
justbegintowrite (Ronda Miller) says…
Well stated, David. I agree. Well written and interesting article. I enjoy reading about an inspirational person or couple regardless of what life's hand has dealt we can all take a lesson from these two.
Jim says: "“Coping with blindness doesn’t mean that we’re unusual or gifted or particularly intelligent," No, not always, but in this case being gifted and intelligent is certainly true...not because, not in spite of...just true!
George_Braziller (anonymous) says…
Greenquarter - You made good comments and observations that the other posters didn't quite grasp.
jonas_opines (anonymous) says…
I dunno, I think I have to side with Denak and George on this one. It didn't appear to me (take a breath and read it again) that he said anything about the quality of the Canaday's at all. But you might notice about four or five comments in the lines of the article of the type "He/She is doing this carefully, But Not Because They're Blind!" (caps mine, of course)
Human interest stories of this type walk a very fine line between congratulatory and patronizing. Greater care should have been taken to delineate between the two.
As for the subjects, well I disagree with Jim on pretty much everything, but I've enjoyed driving them about town on a number of occasions.
begin60 (anonymous) says…
Greenquarter is largely right. The LJWorld needs to treat members of the local community with more reverence and respect as people first and foremost, not freakish object lessons in difference and diversity. This attitude is indicative of the 18th century prejudices that still pervade the lower midwest, especially around here where everyone seems to be gamely counting up the points they think they can earn toward entering heaven's gates by insultingly showing pity toward those they blindly see as "needing help.". The infinite, precious value and worth of individual lives should not be sacificed just so the backward yokels of Lawrence can have a chance to get up to speed on their civil rights knowledge. The problem is mainstream prejudice and bigotry, not people of whatever individual stripe who are doing their best to live full and actuated lives. Check out this recent Democracy Now story on Helen Keller for some perspective. In contrast to her the majority of U.S. citizens who have not learned how to fully use their minds are handicapped. I have actually endured wrongful legal persecution for protesting the rights of complete strangers to aggressively and insensitively interfere with others they do not know whom they perceive as having physical limitations. All of this is completely against civil rights laws. This is what the local offensive ideology of "helpfulness" devolves to, I guess. I've lived many years in other parts of the country, and people were always more evolved and progressive in those locales,treating each other more equally and more like human beings, according to their spiritual and intellectual and emotional merit. No one deserves to illegally have their equal education and employment rights ignorantly bulldozed in this way.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/8...
greenquarter (A Smith) says…
Actually, I have known the Canadays for a good twenty-five years, including while he was married to his first wife. I also know what name he posts under on the LJW site, though I would never reveal it because he doesn't want people to know he is blind, and his posts even go so far as to imply that he is in fact sighted, which he obviously is not. Does that tell you anything about how society really treats him and his wife?
Ask yourself if this story would have been written about a sighted couple who cook their own food, take walks, and do laundry. Funny how people who are familiar with the blind community are the ones who understand the problem with this article. Unfortunately, the blind people I know who've been the subjects of stories like these over the years go into it thinking it will be educational to the general public and help sighted people understand that they're just people who happen to not be able to see, but the stories almost all wind up like this. I can see mentioning briefly the life skills a blind person acquires, because to someone unfamiliar with the blind, they are interesting, but making that the subject of the entire article crosses the line between patronizing and educational.
canyon_wren (anonymous) says…
Great story about some amazing people! Greenquarter sounds like a total malcontent.
greenquarter (A Smith) says…
Oh, and Dena's got a GREAT story idea. A story like that would be a wonderful outlet for discussing blindness, especially since October is Meet the Blind month. Though the LJW would have to put a local spin on it to meet the paper's mission of being hyperlocal.
p.s. I wouldn't have been nearly so harsh in my original post if it was written by a cub reporter rather than a seasoned one.
greenquarter (A Smith) says…
Canyon Wren--yes, I do have a bone to pick because of my own family's personal experiences with articles like these. Unfortunately, the people telling me to get a life are missing the main point of my posts, and those are probably the people most in need of a more educational article. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I do in fact have a life, and I'm going back to it right ... now.
password (anonymous) says…
ok, so the picture shows their faces "looking" upwards. what is that to represent? i guess there's something on the ceiling and they can't see it and neither can we.
notajayhawk (anonymous) says…
greenquarter (Anonymous) says…
"Funny how people who are familiar with the blind community are the ones who understand the problem with this article."
No funnier than it is that those with less personal knowledge of the blind can understand the value of articles such as these.
I have, from time to time, seen posts to the LJW's message boards criticizing people for treating the blind, or those confined to wheelchairs, as if they are handicapped. Those posts generally chastise others for behavior they claim is patronizing at best, even insulting. Perhaps the benefit of articles like this one is to dispel that stigma, to demonstrate that people like Jim and Lynda are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and of each other (and of Darby!). That they're perfectly able to perform those pesky little ADL's that everyone takes for granted, without needing, wanting, or asking for anyone's help.
I, too, know Jim, although not as well as many others here (and not half as much as I'd like). I doubt we'll hear his opinion here, since as you said he doesn't want anyone to associate his screen persona. How about it, Mr. Kealing? How about a one-time dispensation allowing Jim a second screen name? (Or, Jim, feel free to PM me with anything you'd like me to re-post for you.)
canyon_wren (anonymous) says…
I appreciate your viewpoint, notajayhawk. I think you said it well. I certainly didn't feel that the article was the least bit patronizing or condescending, but treated them as a regular couple meeting their daily needs--and they probably do so a lot more successfully than some of the other regular posters. It could easily have been the wrong kind of article.
begin60 (anonymous) says…
If October is to be offensively entitled "Meet the Blind" month, when do we celebrate "Meet the Prejudiced and Ignorant"? "Meet the Bigoted"? "Meet the Hicks"? Unfortunately in this part of the country one must prepare to meet and face down such self-flattering and presumptuous folks every time she/he steps off her front door stoop.
George_Braziller (anonymous) says…
What irony.
________________________
"Marion (Marion Lynn) says…
Oh, my freaking God in Heaven!
You people!
“Their eyes are looking up!”
Fools!
Their eyes can't *SEE* as yours do!
Thier eyes are not looking anywhere!
God; how mean some of you are!
Some of you make me want to *PUKE* !"