[Nfbmo] Fw: this is great.
Bryan Schulz
b.schulz at sbcglobal.net
Thu Sep 2 03:05:01 UTC 2010
this went round and around last week on blind talk
Bryan Schulz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Sievert" <msievert at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFB of Missouri Mailing List" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] Fw: this is great.
> Rock on Jane!
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 1, 2010, at 8:01 PM, "Gene Coulter" <escoulter at centurytel.net>
> wrote:
>
>> My sister sent this to me. I have mixed feelings on this; but, here it is
>> anyway.
>>
>> Gene Coulter
>>
>> Toughest fan you'll ever meet
>> a.. Email
>> b.. Print
>> By Rick Reilly
>> ESPN.com
>> Archive
>>
>> George Lenker/ESPN Jane Lang, who is blind, is one of the New York
>> Yankees' biggest fans. During Hope Week, manager Joe Girardi (left) and
>> pitchers David Robertson, Chad Gaudin and Joba Chamberlain escorted her
>> on her two-hour trip to the park.
>>
>> Ask yourself whether you'd do this: Leave home. Walk 20 minutes to the
>> train station. Take a 70-minute train ride to Penn Station in New York
>> City. Weave for 10 minutes over to the subway station. Take a half-hour D
>> train ride to Yankee Stadium. Navigate the vendors and chaos to get to
>> your seat.
>>
>> Now ask yourself: Would you do all that blind?
>>
>> Jane Lang does it, accompanied at most games by only her Seeing Eye
>> golden retriever, Clipper. Thirty times a year. At 67 years old.
>>
>> Which is why she was so gobsmacked Tuesday when she set out from her
>> home in Morris Plains, N.J., only to find Yankees manager Joe Girardi and
>> four current and former Yankees waiting on her doorstep.
>>
>> They didn't have a limo. They didn't have a fleet of Suburbans. They had
>> only sneakers. They were going to make the journey with her.
>>
>> "Oh my God!" Jane said.
>>
>> "We think you're amazing," Girardi said.
>>
>> "Follow me," Clipper seemed to say.
>>
>> You have to understand what a two-hour, one-way journey to a baseball
>> game takes for somebody like Jane. She's been blind since birth, and
>> these trips have not always turned out well. Once, some kids decided it
>> would be fun to spin her around a few dozen times. Another time, she fell
>> onto the subway tracks and was nearly killed. But ever since she got a
>> guide dog, she's been intrepid.
>>
>> The whole bizarre troupe: Jane, Clipper, the Yankees, their security
>> guys, the PR men and the media -- paraded past the florist, Tony's pizza
>> parlor and the little barbershop where one of the customers came out to
>> wave and holler at Jane with the apron still around his neck.
>>
>> It's mind-melting to watch Jane and Clipper make their way down the
>> clogged streets of Manhattan -- Clipper, taking cues from Jane, weaving
>> her through a maze of street vendors, suits, iPhone zombies, boxes, bums,
>> secretaries and scaffolding.
>> Jane and Clipper walk at we-just-robbed-a-bank speed, which caused
>> current Yankees pitching star Joba Chamberlain to holler, "Hey! Slow
>> down!"
>>
>> Soon Yankees fans figured out what was going on and joined in, along
>> with nearly everybody in town. By the time they reached the train
>> station, it looked as though Clipper was leading a marching band.
>>
>> They crammed aboard the train, whereupon ex-Yankees star Tino Martinez
>> slumped into his seat. "I can't imagine doing this," he'd say. Girardi,
>> who was sitting next to Jane, said, "She's amazing. We should've done
>> this blindfolded to give us an even better idea of what it's like."
>>
>> Pah! You think this is hard? Wait 'til they'd see the next leg -- Penn
>> Station and the streets of Manhattan.
>>
>> [+] Enlarge
>>
>> George Lenker/ESPN In Monument Park with Paul O'Neill, Lang touches the
>> Mickey Mantle plaque.
>>
>> It's mind-melting to watch Jane and Clipper make their way down the
>> clogged streets of Manhattan -- Clipper, taking cues from Jane, weaving
>> her through a maze of street vendors, suits, iPhone zombies, boxes, bums,
>> secretaries and scaffolding.
>>
>> "And we complain about a little traffic on the Deegan [Expressway],"
>> Girardi mused, shaking his head.
>>
>> Usually, when Jane finally gets to the D train and takes her seat, she
>> feels for eight pieces of candy in her right pocket. Every time the train
>> stops, she transfers one piece into the opposite pocket. When there's one
>> piece of candy left, she knows the next stop is Yankee Stadium. No need
>> this time. The very people she was traveling to see were telling her it
>> was time to get off.
>>
>> Once Jane and Clipper reached Gate 6 -- two-and-a-half hours from start
>> to finish -- Girardi and the players took over. They introduced her to
>> former Yankees star Paul O'Neill, who let her feel his face. She touched
>> it the way a sculptor would. They let her hold Babe Ruth's bat, Joe
>> DiMaggio's hat, the 2000 World Series trophy. She felt the monuments.
>> When she got to Mickey Mantle's face, she said, "He looks tired."
>>
>> You don't know the half of it, lady.
>>
>> They introduced her to Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter, who let her feel
>> his famous mug. And once, when there was finally nobody talking to her,
>> she crouched down and felt the infield grass as though it were finely
>> spun silk.
>>
>> Imagine. She had learned the game as a girl, when her father had set up
>> a checkerboard like a baseball field and guided her hands over it. She's
>> been in love with baseball ever since. Now she was getting a guided,
>> one-woman tour of the very heart of it.
>>
>> [+] Enlarge
>>
>> George Lenker/ESPN In a rare moment alone, Lang bends down to touch the
>> field at Yankee Stadium.
>>
>> "I'm the luckiest person in the world," she purred. "I always have known
>> there were three different things I always wanted: a house with a roof
>> that didn't leak, someone to love me and kids. And now I got this. It's
>> the utmost frosting, you know what I mean? I'll never get sick of this
>> frosting!"
>>
>> Tuesday was just one day of the Yankees' Hope Week, a genius idea
>> dreamed up by their public relations extraordinaire, Jason Zillo, who
>> seems to have an addiction to helping people in ways nobody has thought
>> of before. The Yankees gave $10,000 in Jane's honor to The Seeing Eye
>> Inc., a place in Morristown, N.J., that trains guide dogs.
>>
>> Still, the day was Jane's, and strong, young millionaires kept coming up
>> to her, praising her guts, skills and moxie. To which Jane would only
>> shrug and say, "This is just my way of being free and living in the world
>> the way it is."
>>
>> And as she stood there relishing the moment, it made a person think that
>> the world the way it is can be awfully sweet.
>>
>> Special reporting by George Lenker.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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