By Mike Klimisch

It’s hard to believe that our NFB center in Minnesota, Blindness Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND), Incorporated, has been around for 20 years and is very much alive and thriving. I was a student there from February through October 1989, so I was one of the first 10 students to meet all the program requirements and successfully complete the program. I first became aware of the center at our 1988 convention of the NFB of South Dakota in Pierre where Joyce Scanlan was one of our speakers. At first I didn’t give any thought about going there and probably wouldn’t at the time, but my job seeking was going basically nowhere since I just graduated from college with a degree in social science with a psychology emphasis, sociology minor, and a music minor in May of 1988. I don’t regret having made the decision in January of 1989 to go to BLIND, Inc. I had been teaching myself some braille before I had decided to go there and was taught some cane travel at our rehabilitation center here in Sioux Falls with barely a 3-week time learning it. It was decided at the time that I would only need to use a cane more for identification since I had quite a bit of useful vision and was thus taught the diagonal technique. I received this training in January 1984 before I started college that following August. I was given a batch of psychological tests I felt were useless. Things happen for a reason and my waiting to get very good top-notch training was meant to be. You have to remember that I graduated from college and wanted a job, not to be a student because I was tired of being a student and wanted to contribute something to society and make something of myself, in a good way.

On February 13, 1989, I came to the center and was given a tour and that afternoon I started my training with Russell Anderson on the use of my new cane. He gave me a 57-inch fiberglass NFB cane that I quickly took a liking to because it was so light and I liked the idea of having a longer cane for when I would cross streets and stuff. At first, it seemed scary knowing that I would walk the streets of Minneapolis, a city I was not familiar with at all, with the cane and using sleep shades. Nevertheless, I quickly figured that if totally blind people can do it, so could I. I would learn braille from Nadine Jacobson and home management with Claudia Hammerstrum and Betty Bishman. I would be one of Betty’s first students. Through activities and going to the Metro Chapter meetings, I would meet others like Curt and Peggy Chong, Steve Jacobson, Tim Aune, and Tom Scanlan, and still others. While there at BLIND, Inc., I decided I was going to learn everything I could from this program and learned grade-3 braille.

We all had some good times in those days, but I have to say that I’m not sure I would want to go back to those days because I wanted to get a job and be another person in the workforce and not a student or collecting some government check when I knew I was capable of working. I grew up in a family where my folks said that I would grow up, get a job, and be out on my own and that my folks would not support me. They would help from time to time, but in the end I would be self-supporting and would have to be self-supporting because I would need to be independent as I could be because there will be times where someone isn’t going to be able to help me.

The two things that really strike me even to this day is that the staff invite students into their homes and do things on nights and weekends with them. This serves as role modeling and gives the students something to look forward to and a tangible goal of what the future holds. The other thing is that at BLIND, as soon as the students are taught skills, they are encouraged to use their newly taught skills in the real world, even if they don’t have good mastery of it yet. Sometimes programs will not allow a student to use skills until they have full mastery of it.

When I was growing up, I never learned how to figure out street addresses and didn’t think that blind people needed to know how to do so. I knew it was important to know the address, but not how to find it. I figured that was the job of the sighted person driving. I was never really told, that I can remember, that I should learn braille because I could read print fairly fast when I was a student. I grew up with an idea that if you read print, you shouldn’t learn braille. That’s really too bad that idea still exists today. It is so nice to be fluent in braille and use it as I need to just as I use print when it works best for me. It’s nice having the skills of both using vision but also nonvisual techniques because when one fails, the other can take up where the one fails, or in some cases, used together and compliment each other.

I grew up on a farm and my brother and I were equally expected to do chores. Though neither my folks nor I would learn about the Federation until I was in college, they still had high expectations for me and tried not to treat me any differently than my brother when it came to getting things done and done right. There were things I couldn’t do and part of that was because none of us, including myself, had met a blind person until I was in high school, when I attended the school for the blind. I attended one of the last one-room country schools in South Dakota for the first seven years of elementary school. The teacher was strict and had high expectations for all of her students, and I was certainly no exception. When I first started school, my folks thought she was hard on me but she told my folks that she wanted me to have a good education and that I would someday be expected to enter the mainstream world of work and needed to learn early on that society would expect things of me. So, I guess it was a good thing I grew up in a good family where I would learn that at an early age and not use a vision problem for excuses. I guess I grew up just as normal as any other kid could grow up and got into trouble just as all kids do from time to time. Sometimes blind kids are very sheltered and this creates problems in later years and even into adulthood where there are low expectations.

On October 28, 2008, BLIND, Inc. celebrated 20 years of service. I think I was the only one from out of state there. I think I was also the first out-of-state student at BLIND as well. On the evening of my arrival, I first explored the downtown area where BLIND used to be and realized how different things are now. It sure brought back many memories walking downtown on my first travel routes and other things we did there. There were about 90 of us there for the daytime activities and about 80 for the nice banquet we had. I met new students and old friends. It is hard to believe that I’ve known some of the Minnesotans for 20 years now. While at the reunion, I was so glad to meet new students, congratulate them and thank them for choosing to come to BLIND. While there, I got to see the new building that I heard so much about. While I was there, it never gave me the impression that this is an institution of learning, but a very warm friendly atmosphere. Such a nice place. There was one guy at the reunion that was farther back in the program than I was, and that was Jim Purtle. He graduated after I had been at BLIND for about a month. I still told everyone that I was “old school.” I spoke before the assembly about the times I had at BLIND and my experiences. How things have changed so much from those days in the Skyway News building on Fifth and Hennepin. This is much nicer and it is ours.

What have I done with myself since I left BLIND? I now own a house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which I have had for over 11 years now. I continue to work for Avera McKennan Hospital where I have done medical transcription for the past 13-1/2 years, after a 5-year job at the former Sears Payment Systems where I worked as a credit analyst on the phone in the new-accounts department. I still use my cane when I travel and out on the streets, even though my vision has improved through some new contacts in recent years. I still read braille to keep it up and still like reading braille. Often times, whenever there is an opportunity to have a braille or print agenda, I take the braille agenda.

I value what I have learned at BLIND, and I would really hate to let these tools dissolve and go away. Sometimes they still come in handy. I have to thank the instructors I had and my state for allowing me to be at BLIND to learn things and have excellent training. It sure would be all in vain if I let these gifts go away after the many hours I spent learning them and the hours my instructors spent teaching them to me.

There are many wonderful memories of my days at BLIND. I’m glad I now know how to figure out addresses and do that on a frequent basis. I used to be a nervous traveler alone but now those fears are gone. I still may have the “universal fears” like about the plane being okay, and other things we all worry about, but I sure don’t have many of the fears of travel that many people think blind people do, and there are some blind people who still do. I still have my first cane from BLIND, but I don’t use it anymore. Instead, I went to a 59-inch carbon fiber one that comes up to my eyebrows. I still have, and use on occasion, my original slate and stylus I received too, as well as my braille instruction book. I think about those olden days at BLIND. I have to thank Karen Mayry, our state president at the time, for suggesting that I go. She was right. For those of you who don’t know, she was a former Minnesotan. I guess there must be something about folks from Minnesota.

What a wonderful 20 years it has been, being at BLIND, and all the friends I have made along the way. I have learned a lot from them, not just in blindness tools, but just friendship and other things in general. I hope that they have learned something from me a time or two as well. It is always nice to meet up with former students wherever possible or meet other new people who have been students at BLIND and know that we share something so great. It’s interesting to listen to the times other students had when they were students and may share another commonality. I think there is a special friendship or bonding of the students at BLIND, knowing that we had some of the best training in the country. I still recommend the program to people, even if they think they have enough sight that they don’t think they need it, and use myself as an example. I tell them that there is no shame in using a cane or braille and there should not be. I also tell them that it is okay to be blind. I also tell them it’s okay to make mistakes, but the most important thing is to know how to fix a mistake if it can be fixed. Sighted people make mistakes too, so I think it should be okay for a blind person to make a mistake or two. I think we will do well the next 20 years and hope to be at the 40th reunion and beyond.