Roger, While I was a bit overly dramatic, still I recall that hopeless
feeling as I crept about my little house, fearing I'd fall off the
edge of the World. I honestly believed I'd never work again. After
all, the image I had of a bumbling blind beggar was not someone an
employer would consider for hire. But even as I groaned around the
house, I set about building a tool shed at the side of my house. I
had all the lumber, but had not had the time to do the job. Then I
figured out how to mow my lawn, edge my flower beds and pull the
weeds, not the flowers. I contacted the Library for the Blind and
began teaching myself Braille, All the time I had no idea what a
blind man could do. The state of Washington had only one Field
Rehabilitation Teacher for the Blind. If my neighbor and I had not
searched the phone book and located him, I might still be sitting
around that little house. What came from my exploration was the
discovery that services for blind people were next to non existent.
And that is how I came to involve myself in work with the blind for
the next fifty years.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/3/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The anniversary of my own entry into the land of the blind is coming up
next month. Somehow I didn't think of it as the end of my life. I still
had the ongoing concerns of my life and activities to worry about. The
blindness was extremely frustrating though. I got busy trying to figure
out how I was going to continue all of those activities and concerns.
Well, I got busy trying to figure it out, but I never quite got it all
figured out. There were a lot of things that I just had to give up and
there were a lot of people I never spoke to again. One of those people I
actually did speak to some twenty-five years later and when I asked her
what went wrong she told me that I was too smart for her. Ah well, I
have told that story here before.
On 3/3/2016 2:30 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
The date was Wednesday, March 3, 1965 when I entered the Land of the
Blind. On that day I believed it was the last day of my life.
Today, fifty-one years down Life's Road, I can't help but chuckle at
that bleak mind set. The thought that my life was at the mercy of my
eyeball! I honestly believed I was at the end of the road, so far as
any usefulness was concerned.
"Well," I groaned as I plopped down on the sofa, "I'm done. This is
it. Nothing more that I can do."
A wife, a two year old daughter, a house payment and no job. I'd
never been out of work in my entire 29 years. Even as a child I mowed
lawns, packed papers and did odd jobs. I worked in a drapery factory
during the day, and did free lance photography evenings and weekends.
My life had been full and there was no way I could imagine that it
would ever be positive and productive again. I was a Blind Man! In
my mind that meant I was helpless, dependent and useless.
It's amazing when you stop and think about it. Our minds can control
so much of who we are. So knowing this, it should be a simple, easy
task to change our thinking and become a positive, productive person.
It turns out that this is far more difficult than it sounds. But
change is central to the rehabilitation process. Without altering my
mental image of who I am, rehabilitation will not happen.
So on this, my fifty-first anniversary of becoming a Blind Man, you
can give me a birthday gift. Here it is. Find a blind acquaintance
and visit them or call them up. No emails or Likes. Tell them just
how much they have meant in your life. And if we're lucky, we'll all
receive calls. As my dad used to tell me, "We are all success
stories. Each of us are here as the result of an unbroken chain of
success stories." You can't beat that!
Carl Jarvis
