Hi folks–Mike (Beth’s spousal unit) here with a guest post.

Beth wrote recently about people abusing the ADA by falsely or at least loosely claiming their pet was a service dog. Well, the less I say about that phenomenon, the better.

For Whitney (and all of Beth’s dogs) travel by planes, trains (here the L) and automobiles is a big yawn.

On the extreme flip side—at least from what I can glean, is this example of bad airline behavior excluding a blind man and a legitimate guide dog. I’ll link to the Gawker post here that includes a TV news report video, but here’s the gist:

A passenger who is blind named Albert Rizzi boarded the U.S. Airways Express flight from Philadelphia to Long Island. He was asked to have his dog sit under the seat in front of him—yes, like a piece of carryon luggage.

Well, judging from comments at the Gawker blog on this subject, lots of people can’t believe the dog has to scrunch up under the seat. But as a veteran of traveling with a person with a guide dog, I can tell you it’s true. Unless we are seated at a bulkhead (which the airline often moves us to, whether or not we request it), the dog is supposed to get under the seat in front.

And you know what? They manage, just fine. It’s part of their training. The Seeing Eye taught Beth to back her dog into the space, and indeed, all of her dogs—each 60 lbs. at least—fit fine. In fact, it’s pretty routine for  passengers who board after us not to even notice Beth’s dog until we stand to exit the plane—at which point the dog stands, shakes and stretches to the extreme surprise (and occasional shrieks) of nearby passengers.

Now, on long flights or during turbulence, sometimes the dogs stir, and Beth has had to re-situate them. Well, on Mr. Rizzi’s flight, there was a delay and an extended time on the tarmac. During which—from what I can guess, anyway—the dog got up, stretched, and was probably part way in the aisle for a bit and—for a while—not under the seat. At which point Mr. Rizzi and his guide dog were asked to leave the flight.

Which I don’t get at all. Even when they’re up, the dogs are easy to navigate around—easier than getting around, ahem, some humans. Apparently none of the passengers got it either. As in none. When Rizzi and his dog were asked to get off, all the passengers got off with him in solidarity. And the (as did he) took the airline’s offer of a bus ride to their destination instead.

Which, come to think, of it, makes for a heartening if not totally happy ending.

My Seeing Eye dog Whitney thinks city life is pretty fantastic, too. (Photo courtesy WBEZ.)

I subscribe to TED Talks. I can’t see their videos, and I rarely click on them, but reading the descriptions of their featured talk each morning gives me an inkling of what “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers” are thinking and doing these days.

Yesterday’s update linked to a talk by an architect who has lost his sight. The promo material said Chris Downey’s 12-minute talk “shows how the thoughtful designs that enhance his life now might actually make everyone’s life better, sighted or not.”

Um. Well. Yes. I had to link to this one, doncha think? I wasn’t all that interested in hearing his design ideas, really. What I was dying to know was what the heck an architect who loses his sight can do for work.

Chris Downey’s talk is called City Designed with the Blind in Mind. I found some of it a little trite (he calls his ideas outsights rather than insights, and he likes to think people who don’t have disabilities “just haven’t found them yet”), but I must admit I did find myself nodding in total agreement when he declared “cities are fantastic places for the blind.”

I lost my sight in 1985. Since then, Mike and I have lived in a college town (Urbana), a Chicago suburb (Geneva), an ocean town (Nags Head, N.C.), and a big city (Chicago). We have loved each place for different reasons, and for me, our ten years in Chicago have rewarded me with fantastic opportunities and an unequaled sense of independence.

Downey had been a working architect in San Francisco for years before 2008, when surgery to treat a brain tumor left him blind at the age of 45. He said he was so familiar with the city that within six months he was back at work and using a white cane to commute to the office on his own. He never does explain how he works as an architect without being able to see anymore, but I did find an interview at The Architect’s Newspaper where he explains how he uses wax tools called wikki stix to sketch embossed plans. Maybe they show that in the TED Talk? Well, anyway, in that same Architect’s Newspaper interview, Downey described one of the first projects he worked on after losing his sight: a Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Palo Alto. “The client and the team were becoming aware that they really didn’t understand how space and architecture would be experienced and managed by users who would not see the building,” he said. “When I showed up as a newly blinded architect with 20 years of experience, there seemed an opportunity to bridge that gap.” The fact that he was a rookie at being blind was a bonus, he said. “I was not that far removed from the experience of the veterans who were dealing with their new vision loss.”

Four short years later, Downey has his own business consulting on design for people who are blind and visually impaired. In addition to the VA project in Pal Alto, he has worked on renovations of housing for people who are blind in New York City and consulted on the new Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco. He teaches accessibility and universal design at UC Berkeley and serves on the Board of Directors for the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! If you plan on listening to Chris Downey’s TED Talk, stop reading this blog post now. I’m about to give the punchline. At the end, he says urban planners who think of people who are blind as prototypical city dwellers will come up with design elements that make life better for everyone, whether sighted or not:

• a rich walkable array of predictable sidewalks
• no cars
• many options and choices at the street level
• a robust, accessible, well-connected transit system

I don’t know about you, but that all sure sounds, ahem, good to me!

Bennett and his companion dog Journey.

Remember my post about Vision Forward, the conference about educating kids who are blind? I signed more Braille copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound at that conference than print ones, and this thank-you note from the mom of a five-year-old boy I met there was so moving that I wrote her back to ask if I could share it with my blog readers:

Dear Beth,

I met you at the Vision Forward Conference in Milwaukee this past weekend. I purchased your book, Safe and Sound, for my blind 5 1/2 year old son, Bennett.

My husband read it with him tonight, while I worked on homework with my 9 year old. Bennett was so excited about the book. He told me, “I loved that book you got me. It’s a true story mom. And no one ever writes true stories for kids about people who are blind like me.”

His reaction caused me to think. He is right. If I look on Amazon, there isn’t much out there. Thank you for writing this story and reaching out to children who can not see. Bennett has a Children’s Companion Dog and he said when the story started, he thought for sure it was about his dog Journey.

Thanks again. And it was a pleasure meeting you. Keep writing and we will keep reading 🙂

I swear, any time I’m feeling blue, all I gotta do is read this note. It always makes me smile. A lot of thoughtful people teamed together to make sure Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound came out in Braille the exact same day it was published in print. That hardly ever, ever happens: Braille is so expensive to publish that “braile presses” usually wait until a book becomes a best-seller before putting it out in Braille.

Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound is available in a Print-and-Braille format. The Braille and print match line for line, with the print just above the Braille (no pictures). I can tell you first hand, so to speak, that it’s “good Braille” = the dots are stiff, they stand up straight, They’re easy to read. The only problem for me? The Braille version of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound was produced in contracted Braille, a form of Braille I’ve never been able to master.

Contracted Braille has a bunch of shorthand symbols (contractions) for commonly used words and parts of words: there’s a cell for the word “and,” another for the word “the,” and so on. Most of the letters of the alphabet are also used as shorthand for common words, such as “c” for “can” and “l” for “like.” Kind of like texting, only you can’t make as many mistakes!

When I wrote Bennett’s mom back to thank her for her note,  I apologized that my book was only available in contracted Braille, and poor five-year-old Bennett would have a hard time reading it. No problem, she said. Bennett started learning Braille this past summer. “He knows the whole alphabet, all of the “secret” words for the letters when they are alone, and he just started the words that have 2 Braille letters together, like bc for because,” she said. “Not to brag, but this little guy is a genius!”

I say she should go ahead and brag. Not only about Bennett, but about herself and her husband, too, and the family they are raising, all of them supporting Bennett’s love for reading. A little known fact about Braille: less than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in Braille. The American Foundation for the Blind reports a severe shortage of certified teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs), especially in rural areas or in small school districts, and without qualified teachers, it can be a lot easier for parents of children who are blind to just let their kids listen to books on audio or hear words on a talking computer. Technology is cool, but if children who are blind never learn Braille, how will they ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks and so on?

My children’s book publisher, Blue Marlin Publications, teamed up with Seedlings Braille Books for Children (a non-profit organization in Michigan that creates Braille books for kids who can’t see) to produce my children’s book at a reasonable price — the Braille/print version is actually less expensive than the print version. .Blue Marlin didn’t charge Seedlings a penny for the rights to publish the book in Braille, and wait, there’s more: Blue Marlin Publications also decided to donate a portion of the sales of the print version of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound to Seedlings so they can continue creating books in Braille at a reasonable cost for kids who need them.

I do know enough contracted Braille to read the first couple of pages of my children’s book out loud, and with Safe & Sound available in Braille, I’ve been able to read it aloud at school presentations and show kids what Braille looks like and how it works.

I brought a Braille copy along to a visit with the fourth graders at Crow Island School in Winnetka yesterday, but those kids didn’t need any explanation of what Braille is: Jalena, a smart and cheerful 9-year-old in their class, is blind. I invited Jalena to sit with me and help me during the Q & A part of yesterday’s presentation, and she was happy to do so. We answered questions about whether we feel sad not being able to see colors, if we sleep with our eyes open, and how we put our pierced earrings in our ears without looking in a mirror. Not one kid at Crow Island asked about Braille, though: they’re all experts! Lots of Jalena’s sighted friends are in the school’s Braille Club and have learned uncontracted Braille, the version I know.

When the afternoon was over, I thanked Jalena by giving her the Braille copy of Safe & Sound that I’d brought along, and she was delighted. Gail Wilson, her TVI, told me later that after school sometimes Jalena reads with a book buddy who can see. “We have a hard time finding print/Braille books like yours,” she said. “I know for sure what they’ll be reading later today!”

To find out how to order a copy of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound in print/Braille, or to donate to Seedlings to help them create more books in Braille for kids, link to www.seedlings.org.

Renowned Chicago chef Charlie Trotter died this morning. He was 54 years old. The foodie world will miss him, and those of us who are blind will, too. A post I wrote in 2011 explains. R.I.P., Charlie.

Her specialty is risotto

by Beth Finke

Published October 25, 2011

That's Laura Martinez of Charlie Trotter's.

And, oh yeah. Laura Martinez just happens to be blind.

In her spare time (!) Laura teaches a cooking class at Friedman Place, a non-profit Supportive Living Community for Chicago adults who are blind and visually impaired. Laura doesn’t live at Friedman Place, but she was there last Thursday when I visited to give a presentation about my writing life. The Friedman Place web site promotes the full range of services and activities they provide “so that residents’ days are healthy, dignified, and stimulating.” While I am confident Laura’s cooking class keeps Friedman Place residents dignified and stimulated, I can’t vouch for the “healthy” bit: she served her signature brownies to residents during my presentation, and the luscious chocolaty treats were downright sinful!

I had a chance to talk with Laura before she skedaddled to her day job, and she told me co-workers on the line at Charlie Trotter’s have become comfortable having her there prepping, cleaning and chopping the food. I asked if she had a specialty. “Well, a lot of vegetarians come to Charlie Trotter’s,” she said,her voice betraying a proud smile. “They like my vegetable risotto.”

Renowned Chicago chef Charlie Trotter first met Laura a few years ago during a visit to the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. Laura had been working in the Lighthouse cafeteria kitchen at the time, and it was love at first taste. Charlie is quoted in an article in the Chicago Tribune about Laura:

“I was watching her work and saw how she handled things with her hands, touching for temperature and doneness, and I ate her food and it was quite delicious. We got to talking and she told me about her dreams and I said, ‘What would you think about working at Charlie Trotter’s?'”

Laura was still attending the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary program at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago at the time. Charlie Trotter offered to help with her tuition, and Laura has been working for him ever since.

The staff and residents at Friedman Place absolutely gushed over the presentation I gave with Harper last Thursday, so many of them shaking my hand and encouraging me to return with my new dog next year. I am flattered, of course, but I’m not fooling myself: I’m pretty sure they think they’ll get Laura’s brownies again if I come back.

A portrait of me from Charlie’s Fade to White project.

Remember Charlie Simokaitis? Charlie is a commercial photographer, and a while back I published a blog post about a project he took on honoring his teenage daughter. Faye has a deteriorating eye condition that will soon leave her completely blind, and she was the inspiration for Fade to White, a compilation of portraits Charlie took of people who have visual impairments or are blind.

I learned about a new project Charlie is working on when he left a comment to the post I wrote last month about my friend Jamie Ceaser’s new public television show. His guest post explains:

Finding One’s Voice on Local, USA

by Charlie Simokaitis

Last year I teamed up with fellow photographer Jason Creps to start a filmmaking company called Groundfire Pictures. Up until then, we both were primarily shooting still photography for our own advertising, design and music industry clients. We got the idea for Groundfire Pictures after I spent time photographing a food pantry/community kitchen at Ravenswood Community Services for a piece my friend Anne Ford was writing. During the photo shoot she told me about The Chicagoans, a column she writes for an alternative newspaper in Chicago called The Reader. The column tells stories of everyday people who live in and around the Windy City, and she wanted to sta

Mae Ya

rt incorporating video with the interviews. My filmmaking career was born: Groundfire Pictures has produced 12 episodes for TheChicagoans.tv already, with more to come.

Word about our work got around, and we were approached by producer Jamie Ceaser to participate in a new public TV series called Local, USA. I follow Beth’s blog, and when I read a post here last month saying that Jamie was in Beth’s book club, I was like, “small world!”

Jamie produces Local, USA for public TV, and our short film airs this week as part of the Finding Ones Voice episode. Our film tells the story of singer/protégé Mae Ya Carter Ryan, a young woman Wise beyond her eleven years. Mae Ya is a fascinating subject, and her mother and manager, Ina, is pure warmth. The day we shot in their Bronzeville home, Ina invited the entire crew for an enormous breakfast. And whoa, her little girl sure can sing. An excerpt from The Chicagoans column my friend Anne Ford wrote about Mae Ya mentions her musical mentor, Bruce Thompson. Thompson is a Baptist minister who played with Isaac Hayes, and his review gives you an idea of what makes young Mae Ya so special:

Thompson, who met the famous gospel singer many times, says it’s no coincidence that some people who’ve heard Mae Ya sing have called her “little Mahalia. I am not supposed to believe in reincarnation,” he says. “But I believe that that’s Mahalia Jackson in that little body. It’s the richness of her voice. She has such good control over it.”

Then there’s the familiar transformation Thompson says he’s witnessed in Mae Ya: “If you say, ‘Sing,’ right before she does it, she stops being a little girl and becomes that song. You can see it happening. That’s another thing she does like Mahalia.”

Chicago-based Ebony Magazine invited Mae Ya to sing at New York’s Lincoln Center for tomorrow night’s salute to Berry Gordy, Jr. Her mom says the invite came, in part, due to people at the magazine seeing the Groundfire Pictures video. What an honor. For all of us.

Beth here. If you don’t have tickets to Lincoln Center, don’t fret: You can see – and,more importantly, hear — Mae Ya on public TV tomorrow night from the comfort of your own home. Charlie’s  Finding Ones Voice episode on Local, USA airs tomorrow night, November 4, on World Channel, and Chicagoans can tune in for a re-broadcast on WTTW, Channel 11, this Thursday, November 7 at 11 p.m., too. Charlie and Jamie are two very talented artists who sincerely care about people — I know this TV show will not disappoint.