RE: remembering my first experiences with the Optacon
- From: "Pam Drake" <pamdrake@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 10:25:28 -0700
Peggy,
That's an absolute scream! I really am sitting here laughing out loud. I
haven't gotten a good laugh on a list in a long time! What awkward
experiences we had now and then.
When I went for Optacon teacher training two of us were lucky enough to get
a chance to go to the VA to see the talking Optacon, then being
field-tested. The person who showed it to us said there had been some very
funny, if embarrassing incidents with the talking Optacon in library
situations.
Taking a chance here: someone read a book in which a phrase something like,
"I'd give my right nut for a chocolate bar right now," could be clearly
heard, That's the cleanest one. The other was a simple case of mis-reading
or mis-pronunciation. If anyone wants to know what it was, write me off
list. <lol>
Pam
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Peggy Kern
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 9:08 AM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: remembering my first experiences with the Optacon
I had Optacon training in January, 1979 at TSI. I was exhausted by the end
of the first day, after six hours of training my fingers to recognize print
letters and numbers, etc., but every evening in the Flamingo Hotel, or
whatever it was called, I would sit down with the Optacon and read all
evening long. I was absolutely hooked. There were three other students in
my class, one of whom might be on this list. (Milton Ota, are you out
there?) We also had a guy from Egypt learning to read in his native
language, and another lady, Mary Wimberly or something like that. Milton
and I spent the weekend playing with TSI's Game Center, that is, when I
wasn't barricaded in my room reading. One funny memory I have is of going
to a bookstore with one of the instructors, I believe it was Bonnie Skanse
(I probably slaughtered her last name). Anyway, she was showing me how the
slipcovers on books give information about the books. We were looking at a
book by Ann Landers, and I was reading the cover aloud: "What is your
opinion of abortion? What is your opinion of drugs? What do you think of "
and there was a big long word. I, being a good little Optacon user, started
to sound it out out loud: "ma-st-ur-ba", and then I realized what the word
was and got totally embarrassed. Fortunately, no one else was around to
hear. But I still smile to myself at an adult word like that being sounded
out in a first-grade sort of way by me. <grin> Ah, those were the days!
Peggy
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