By Patrick A. Barrett

(Editor’s Note:  Pat is the newly elected president of our Metro Chapter and a member of the NFB of Minnesota board of directors.  He is employed as a Systems Change Administrator at Express Scripts, Inc., and is another example of the strong connection between Braille literacy and employment.)

Science fiction was my favorite reading genre during my junior high and high school years.  I consumed little else.  Though I am blind, I would strain my eyes to read library books that were just large enough standard print.  I was whisked in the blink of an eye through Robert A. Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky to explore new planets.  I traversed centuries across time with Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity.  These were just a couple of fantastic voyages through reading.

Going back to the year 1957, I was born in a rural town in Kansas with cataracts on both eyes.  I could only see light.  Through the generous support of area Lions Clubs and a lot of cost put out by my mom and dad, some of my vision was restored.  Until about age 35, my vision was stable at 20/200, or on the line of legal blindness.  As I got older, I lost some vision, and now am at 20/400—the big ‘E’ on the eye chart.

I attended public school through the year I graduated from high school in 1975.  My dad was a teacher, and had easy access for me to get large print books.  I also ordered taped books from Recordings for the Blind (now Recordings for the Blind & Dyslexic).  Math and history were my hardest subjects as the charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps were difficult to follow even in large print.

Braille was first introduced to me in sixth grade.  My parents, my itinerant teacher, and I saw no harm in trying it as an alternative to reading large print.  Yet, they did not know then about the encouraging energy and vast experience of the National Federation of the Blind.  The itinerant teacher came by twice a week for an hour to teach me Braille.  She stressed using the sleepshades, or blindfold.  I would wear the sleepshades, but after a few minutes, I would peek under them to read the Braille dots with my eyes, frustrated that they were not making sense through reading by touch.  The teacher would rap my knuckles with a pencil, and secure the sleepshades more tightly.  I tried again, but soon found a way to cheat myself and look beneath them.

Regrettably, we threw in the sleepshades, and I did not pursue Braille literacy for my benefit until 1993 (26 years later).  This was when I was enrolled as a full-time student at Blindness:  Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND) Inc.  Hindsight is 20/20.  I wish I had stuck with Braille for greater reading speed today.  Parents of blind children, I cannot stress enough the need to stick with Braille, no matter what your child’s reading acuity is.  Braille is a viable, successful option for work and leisure reading.  Insist on the Braille option!

Now, I am reading more Braille than ever before.  I use it on the job as notes for conducting meetings, on note cards when delivering speeches to my Toastmasters Noontime Expressions club, teaching Sunday school lessons in my church, and for leisure reading.  I really enjoy reading and writing Braille now.

How did things change for the better for me?  Why emphasize Braille over print if I have some remaining vision?  What has fed, and continues to fuel, that reading fire?

Quality training in alternative techniques of blindness, daily application of Braille skills, and caring mentors has stoked that desire.  As a student at BLIND, I read Braille daily and for homework at night and on the weekends for nine months.  Once, my home management instructor, Betty Bishman, observed me at the bus stop in 20-degree weather reading a favorite Braille library book because I couldn’t put it down; not because my fingers were frozen, but I was engrossed.  I used the sleepshades to read by touch.  I was committed to using this valuable tool, and did not cheat by peeking this time. 

My wife Trudy, who is also blind, has set a great example for me by reading Braille regularly for her volunteer work in our church, and just for fun.  There have been some great articles in the Braille Monitor, the publication of the National Federation of the Blind, which have inspired me to keep with Braille as well.  One that comes to mind is an instructive one from Jerry Whittle, who has taught Braille for many years at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. 

Melody Whartonbee, the Braille instructor at BLIND, volunteers her time twice a week after her regular classes to host a Braille club for current students and adults in the Federation that want to improve their reading speed.  She times our speed, and we have a friendly competition going on to reach higher goals of others reading more words per minute (wpm).  We share with each other a little of what books we are reading.  At one time, Melody was reading the kernel book The Journey, Trudy was reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Ben Moser was reading Walking Alone and Marching Together (a comprehensive history of the National Federation of the Blind), and I was reading The Best of O. Henry.  I am now averaging ten pages of Braille reading a day, and that has increased my wpm to 62 at last timing. 

It is hard for me to attend as much as I would like, as I have a long bus commute from work in the southwest part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area to almost downtown.  But I enjoy it when I am there, and it is something Trudy and I enjoy doing together, too.  Sometimes, the Braille Club will go out to dinner to celebrate a member’s birthday.  We select restaurants with Braille menus, of course.

I still read books on tape.  But, those have been sitting on the shelf longer, as I alternate with the Braille ones.  My reading interests are more varied now.  I have read biographies, short stories, detective novels, and a few of our kernel books in Braille.  Our Library for the Blind in Faribault, MN, and our dutiful mail carrier keep me supplied.  These kernel books, too, with their personal, first-person accounts from other blind persons have mentored me as well.

Earlier this year, I read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  It is a classic, but I had only seen the movie.  As I usually find with movies, the book is always better.  You get more character development and depth to the story.

This science fiction book has particular relevance to reading Braille versus tape, or even electronic texts on a device that outputs Braille.  The setting for Fahrenheit 451 is the future.  Books have been banned.  The State controls the information and entertainment that comes into its citizens’ homes.  Guy Montag, the main character, is a fireman.  These firemen of the future burn books if other citizens call in an alarm on their neighbor that is caught reading them.

Montag, in his career, begins smuggling books out of houses before they are burned, and begins reading them.  He meets and befriends an old man in the park who he learns is a college professor that has been forced off his job for too much independent thinking.  They gain each other’s confidence, and discuss the joy of reading. 

“It is like a fever,” the professor observes.  “And books have a texture, and an aroma.”

Montag and I agree with his observations and value of reading the printed (or Brailled) word.  Public libraries have that atmosphere and those nuances.  Braille libraries like that at the training center at BLIND do as well. 

My wife bought me a recliner for Christmas, the first one I have owned, and I derive great pleasure from relaxing with an involving Braille book in a quiet house, dimming the lights, and waiting for my teenage daughter, Raeann, to come home or check in from a date (not as fun as the reading, but it comes with the parental territory).  Braille helps me cope.

When members of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota visited with a staff person of Senator Norm Coleman’s office to encourage the senator to sponsor our Louis Braille Commemorative Coin Bill, I brought along the Braille book I was reading, and told him it was a Louis L’Amour western, Mojave Crossing.  I also showed him some notes I had used in facilitating a work meeting the day before, gave him a kernel book, and two Braille alphabet cards.  Later on in our conversation, he remarked that he had never seen Braille before.  He was glad to be introduced to it. 

My personal goal is to keep burning through Braille pages daily to get up to at least a smoking 100 wpm.  This would be rewarding for me.  After that, I want to keep the reading fire burning.  On my Braille book list is Tunnel in the Sky.  Though I have read it before, I am looking forward to reading it in Braille—more enjoyment, less eyestrain.  I am very grateful for quality blindness skills training, and the many mentors in my Federation family who have shown me the value of Braille literacy!