I remember that movie; it was inspired by Harold Krents, a Harvard Law
School graduate who was blind, and got rejection letters from law firms that
he hadn't even applied with. A movie that was a more biographical
portrayal was "To Race the Wind," which came out in 1980; and Harold Krents'
own book of that title.
Interestingly, I have a bit of a tie to Krents. I didn't find out about
this until three years after I was hired, but when Kaiser decided to assign
me to the Mead Works smelter, they hired Harold Krents, who was with
"Mainstream," the organization he headed to increase employment of the
disabled, to come out and talk with plant management about working with a
blind person.
There were two consequences of his visit that I know of: The first was that
I think my hiring was partially delayed until they could get him out to talk
with the people at the plant; the second was that I think he convinced them
that I needed my own secretary to handle dictation, serve as my reader, and
escort me around the plant.
(I did have a couple people serve in that role for about a year. But, the
person was cut in the first round of layoffs that hit the industry in the
1982 recession, when the number of salaried employees at our plant went from
314 to 82 in five phases.
One of the other unfortunate aspects that I found out later was that a lot
of the people in the administration felt that I shouldn't cross the entrance
to go from the Admin Building to the building I worked in because they were
afraid I might get hit by one of the large trucks that went in and out of
that drive to the street. I routinely navigated that area, as well as a
couple areas on plant property that were nearby.
I did not have the courage though to travel independently in the area of the
plant where it was noisy, or where cranes traveled over your head with a few
tons of molten aluminum. I had a couple readers that I could feel visibly
shrinking when those cranes came by when I went out to just mingle in the
plant.
As I recall, I think Harold Krents was a bit more dependent on, and quite
often had, sighted help with him -- whether that be his mother when he was
younger, or girlfriends as he began to live on his own.
Steve
Class of '72
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Olver" <fredolver@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "MSB" <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2020 9:36 AM
Subject: [msb-alumni] Good movie today.
For those who might be interested, the original movie, butterflies are free will be shown on Turner classic movies at 4 PM Eastern time this afternoon. Always enjoy this movie. If you haven’t seen it you will too if you have seen it why not watch it again Fred Olver
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