[blparent] blparent Digest, Vol 95, Issue 7

[Veronica Smith]

My brother jim, also blind, has done all the scary things in my family.  He
was the first to water ski, 2 skis and then one, he was the first to wind
surf, I never got brave enough, and he was the only one to sky dive.  I
don't like falling.
Now I was the dirt devil, first to ride and fall off a motorcycle, not a
smart thing to do with little vision and I was the first to fly across
country by myself, still not a really smart thing to do then.  
He was the first to jump off the roof, I  jumped off the 6 foot wall, he
tried to drive the car and knocked down the wall, I thought I was tarzan and
took a rope and flew over the wall, sliding down and giving myself a nasty
rope burn.
No African violets here.  
I urge my daughter to do more, but she, an only child, is more timid.  No
bad role models for her. V

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Robert Shelton
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 9:11 PM
To: blparent at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [blparent] blparent Digest, Vol 95, Issue 7

I have a story for you.  When I was 3, about 60 years ago, we moved into
this house with a great big tree in the back yard.  It had this nice fork
maybe 18 inches off the ground -- yeah, it was a climbin' tree.  Over the
next year or so, I really worked at getting a start at climbing that tree.
So, now, I'm four and a half, and I figure out how to get a leg up, so to
speak, and I start exploring that tree, vertically.  To make matters a lot
worse for my parents, who had already lost my older brother to congenatle
heart problems, I was an early riser -- I mean really early.  One of my
earliest memories is looking down from that tree (I could see back then) at
my dad's pink head (close cropped, he was a redhead).  I was well above the
roof line of this little house, up in that tree like a little bird watching
the sunrise -- I'd just gotten up and gone to the back yard while my folks
were asleep.  

So, what did my folks do?  We had all kinds of cardboard from moving boxes.
My dad, bless his heart, cushioned the area under the tree with those boxes.
He was a wise man who understood, even after losing his first born son at
the age of 3, that he could not shield me from all possible harm.  He was
raising a boy, not an African Violet.  He mitigated deadly permanent
consequences, and let me explore, take my chances.  That is a great gift for
which I will always be grateful.

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of blparent-request at nfbnet.org
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 9:12 AM
To: blparent at nfbnet.org
Subject: blparent Digest, Vol 95, Issue 7

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