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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;background:white'><strong><u><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Braille Monitor April 2019</span></u></strong><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align=center style='text-align:center;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>(<a href="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm19/bm1904/bm190403.htm">back</a>) (<a href="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm19/bm1904/bm1904tc.htm">contents</a>) (<a href="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm19/bm1904/bm190405.htm">next</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><h2 style='background:white'><strong><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Trying to Make a Difference</span></strong><o:p></o:p></h2><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><strong><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>by Barbara Pierce</span></strong><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f">
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</v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Barbara Pierce" style='position:absolute;left:0;text-align:left;margin-left:173.8pt;margin-top:0;width:225pt;height:339pt;z-index:251658240;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:0;mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:0;mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0;mso-position-horizontal:right;mso-position-horizontal-relative:text;mso-position-vertical:absolute;mso-position-vertical-relative:line;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-width-relative:page;mso-height-relative:page' o:allowoverlap="f">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><![if !vml]><img width=300 height=452 style='width:3.125in;height:4.7083in' src="cid:image003.jpg@01D4FDEA.D1116620" align=right alt="Barbara Pierce" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_3"><![endif]><strong><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From the Editor: I am always uplifted when I get an article from Barbara Pierce. I know from long experience that I will be inspired and educated. I also know from experience that what she sends will be a piece I can drop in without worrying much about editing. No article I write ever frees me from wondering, “What will Barbara think of this? What mistake would I not have made were I still reviewing every article with her?” Maybe this is always the way it is between teacher and student, but here are Barbara’s thoughts on becoming a member:</span></strong><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>I was twenty-nine before I was exposed to the philosophy of blindness developed by the National Federation of the Blind. Until then I had had virtually no contact with other blind people, and I am ashamed to say that that suited me quite well. I was then called and handed a stack of recordings of banquet speeches delivered by a man named Kenneth Jernigan. It was a formidable stack of recorded disks, and I simply dumped them in a corner and forgot about them. I forgot them until a January weekend when my husband was out of town, and I was stranded at home with three small children, including an infant with a cold, and no Talking Books to help me keep my sanity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>In desperation I remembered the speeches and decided that reading them while I walked the baby in a steamy kitchen would be more interesting than listening to the radio. I don’t recall which speech I read first. It doesn’t matter. It was like eating potato chips. As soon as I finished one, I was reaching for the next record. The ideas I discovered that weekend have now become so familiar to me that I can hardly separate them to remember my first reactions. I can remember the staggering shock it was to have Dr. Jernigan point out the magnitude of the discrimination that blind people, even me, were still facing. This was 1974. Cities were burning, and Jim Crow was not yet dead. Suddenly I was discovering that blind people were being denied second-floor rentals because of the danger that they would be trapped in a fire. They were having to bring a sighted person along to travel with them when they wanted to buy a bus or train ticket. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Needless to say, these ideas turned my world upside down. I organized a chapter in my county and became its president. I found and became friends with blind people who lived near me. I naturally became active in the Ohio affiliate. I went to my first national convention in 1975, and I met amazing blind people from across the country. I observed truly effective cane travel for the first time, and—more important—I observed what personal confidence in managing the business of living looked like. My cane began to grow as I abandoned the folding cane and found out how responsive and light a straight fiberglass cane could be. I noticed that people with sighted spouses continued to use their canes when they were walking together. My husband and I tried it and discovered that we could safely walk side-by-side because I was taking responsibility for finding curbs, rough places in the sidewalk, and staircases. I realize now that word about me was spreading through the convention, and people would stop by my chair to meet me during hospitality in the evening—yes, back then convention evenings were open enough that we had hospitality with a cash bar each evening. I began meeting Federation leaders and talking about philosophy and NFB activities. I returned home after that convention feeling that I had made blind friends all across the country, people that I could turn to and get advice from at any time, and I discovered that I had absorbed an entirely new set of attitudes about blindness and what constituted independence. These friends were not apologetic about blindness. They went where they wanted to and did what they needed to, asking for information when they needed it but completely comfortable with the accommodations they used to get things done.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>I read the<em><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Braille Monitor </span></em>as soon as it came out each month. I was soon elected to the governing body of the affiliate and was elected first vice president a couple of years after that. I learned to write press releases and do interviews for newspapers and radio and TV. And all the time I was growing. I noticed that blind people whom I knew traveled independently and retrieved their own suitcases from the luggage carousel. I asked people how they did it, and I then tried it myself. To my delight it was as easy as they told me it would be. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>By 1981 I was ready to go back to work. My youngest child was eight, and I thought that I might be ready to put all this Federation philosophy to work for myself. I returned home from the 1981 National Convention to be met in the jetway of my plane by my two girls shouting that I had been offered a job at the college. That is when the panic set in. I had been fearlessly saying that the average blind person could do the average job in the average place of work and do it as well as his sighted neighbor. I even believed it—until I had to think about juggling three children, a thirteen-room house, entertaining students for my husband, and holding down a fulltime job in the college Alumni Office. Could I really do it all? I turned to my Federation friends. They were mostly working, and they seemed to be convinced that I could do it. I took a deep breath and, trusting the members of the NFB, accepted the job. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Within three years I was president of the affiliate, and then I really was busy. But I had discovered that my blind friends had been right. There were enough hours in a day for me to get everything done. As president I did not travel around the state as much as I should have done, but I found lots of hours for NFB work. By 1988 Dr. Jernigan was urging me to leave Oberlin College and come to work for him, learning to edit the<em><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Braille Monitor</span></em>. By this time my son was in college and the girls were in high school. Those next twenty years flew by because I was so busy. I pretty much dedicated all of my free time to Federation work, what with acting as national rep at other state conventions and trying to take a stand for good rehabilitation here in Ohio. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Before I quite knew where I was, I was facing retirement from the<em><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Monitor</span></em>, and I had put in twenty-four years as president of the Ohio affiliate. That also seemed long enough, so I began seeking successors for these two jobs and looking around for other work to do in the organization. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>I served for a couple of terms as president of the Ohio Association to Promote the Use of Braille, but it became clear that the Ohio Senior Division needed leadership. So I have stepped in to see what I can do to meet this need. I now live in a retirement community, so I see firsthand the growing population of seniors losing vision. This is a hard group to serve because these people don’t want to learn new techniques for doing the things they always did using vision. Rehabilitation funding is scarce for teaching them to travel using the long white cane, and they are terrified to go out into the community trusting that insubstantial wand to tell them where they are going. But the need for information and friendship is acute. I talk on the phone to seniors and their family members about ways of coping with vision loss. The division now conducts monthly calls for anyone losing vision regardless of age. I am trying to work with Departments on Aging to teach their staffs to work constructively with blind seniors. It is slow going, but it is very necessary work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>I urge all chapters to reach out to seniors losing vision. These people can benefit from getting to know their blind neighbors and other blind seniors. We have much work to do with seniors losing vision. I am not worried that I will run out of things to do to keep myself busy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align=center style='text-align:center;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Suzanne Hartfield-Turner, President<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>NFBOH-Cleveland Chapter<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>C: (216) 990-6199<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>P: (641) 715-3900<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Ex: 582705<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A: PO Box 141077<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Cleveland, Ohio 44114<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>E: <a href="mailto:President.NFB.ClevelandOhio@Gmail.com">President.NFB.ClevelandOhio@Gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Please visit and take a moment to like our Facebook Page!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://m.facebook.com/NationalFederationOfTheBlindOfOhioClevelandChapter/">https://m.facebook.com/NationalFederationOfTheBlindOfOhioClevelandChapter/</a> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>