[Home-on-the-range] Networking

[Cindy Ray]

Can you remember in the past, maybe especially those of you who are newly blinded, how lonely you felt? You didn't know any blind people. You had no role models. That in Bob Deaton's article Life-Changing Events, was an important issue for him. He had no blind people to relate to after learning he would be losing his sight. He said one of the most important things that ever occurred in his life was when he joined the Federation in Minnesota and then went to the training center in Nebraska. Do we network with one another? Do you have day-to-day problems/issues that you take to a friend who is blind or a colleague and learn how they deal, thus giving you ideas? Have you ever had a computer problem with which you needed help? Emily was talking about networking at the chapter meeting Saturday to help people or learn about iPhone use. Yesterday, Susie and I got together to learn how to use iBooks. Now one of us is able to use that application, or at least is on the road to knowing it. If we didn't have the opportunity to network with one another, sometimes our stuff would go unused because there was not readily available help. And that help is just an E-mail and then a phone call, or maybe more E-mails away. Isn't this a beautiful thing?

Cindy Lou