[stylist] Stop signs never change to Go

[Judith Bron]

Great article!  Thanks, Judith
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <LoriStay at aol.com>
To: <stylist at nfbnet.org>; <pdonahue1 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 5:32 PM
Subject: [stylist] Stop signs never change to Go


> This article has been published in my local paper, in Slate & Style, and
> possibly in the Monitor, though I'm no longer sure about the latter. 
> (It's
> been awhile)
>
> Stop Signs Never Change to Go
>
> Loraine Stayer
>
> This is a truth I learned long ago.   Stop signs never change to go signs.
> For as long as you sit and wait, that sign will always say, "Stop!"
>
> Live holds lots of stop signs.   If you think about it, you'll realize
> you've clashed swords with them yourself.   There was the teacher, tired 
> after a
> day of coping with children, who looked straight at you and said, "You'll
> never learn to read!"   But you did.
>
> And your father.   He went out with you to teach you to drive, and after
> two harrowing lessons, exclaimed, "You'll never learn to drive!"   But you
> did.
>
> Or your mother, cleaning up after you burned supper one day:   "You'll
> never learn to cook!"   And you did that too.
>
> I know lots of people who didn't believe the stop signs in their lives.
> They did finish their education.   They did marry, and they did have
> children, and they are successful.   But these same people were once 
> stopped cold by
> stop signs in the form of the expectations of other people.   They were
> thoughtful enough to know that though the stop signs had accomplished 
> their
> purpose, they were not meant to hold the people back forever, simply to 
> cause
> them to pause and examine their direction, or correct their mistakes.
>
> But I also know people who have been stopped cold by such stop signs, only
> to stay in place, marking time forever, waiting for the sign to change to
> "go." And it doesn't.
>
> I know a young woman of thirty-five who has never been given permission by
> her parents to grow up because she is blind.   She will not marry because 
> as
> she told her boyfriend, "You have no future with me."   That means, "I 
> have
> no future."   Her parents are a stop sign she cannot get past.   She wants
> permission from them to learn the skills they have denied her, and that
> permission will never come from them.   She will have to go around the 
> stop
> sign.   To do that she will have to believe it is possible.   and she 
> doesn't.
>
> I know a man, thirty, withough a profession, who has minimal vision.   He
> tells me that because he went to public school and couldn't see the
> blackboard, he never understood what was going on.   Ironically, had he 
> been totally
> blind, he would have been taught Braille early on, and been given
> accommodation in the classroom.   He was told by an authority figure in an 
> agency for
> the blind, "You are incapable of learning."   Until then, the agency was a
> stop sign for this man.   but the absurdity of the statement brought him 
> up
> short.   He knew he was capable of learning.   Hadn't he taught himself
> Braille as an adult?   This man will walk around the stop sign.
>
> In order to proceed around the stop sign, one needs to realize that one's
> life is one's own, and that one is capable of making decisions without
> permission from authority figures.   That stop sign will never change to 
> go!   But
> being a sign, it will never do more than just sit there.   Once you walk
> past it, what can it do to you?
>
> Slate & Style--Volume 17, #3, August 1999
> Merrick Life--October 1, 1987
>
>
>
>
> **************
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