Return to Braille Jail

This afternoon Hanni and I cabbed over to 1151 S. Wood St. in Chicago. Mike and I had only been married a year when I first visited that address in 1985. Back then it was called the Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute (IVHI). To put a positive spin on my absence, Mike & I anticipated it as being like camp. Braille Camp.

From my memoir, Long Time, No See

That fall, Mike drove me and my things to IVHI to begin my formal rehabilitation. It reminded me of being dropped off at a college dorm for the first time. Except I wasn’t going to school to learn new things so much as how to do without old things. Except now I was married and didn’t want to live away from home.
Except now I was blind.

I was at IVHI to learn to read Braille, travel with a white cane, accomplish daily living skills without being able to see. After Mike dropped me off, I was told I wouldn’t be able to leave IVHI unless accompanied by a sighted adult.

In my head I heard the clang of a cell door slamming behind me. It wasn’t Braille Camp; it was Braille Jail.

Things have changed at Braille Jail, thank goodness. For one, they took the word “handicapped” out of their name. The Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute is now called the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation.

Most people refer to the place as ICRE-Wood, which always makes me laugh – there is nothing close to “woods” at the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education.

There is, however, a more open feel to the place now. Although ICRE was designed to be a facility for adults who have lost their sight, every summer they open their doors for two weeks to blind teenagers from all over the state. Kids with visual impairments don’t necessarily go to state schools for the blind like in the old days – they go to their neighborhood schools. And while it’s great having kids with disabilities included in schools with average kids, it sometimes means they miss out on other things they need to know. So every year “Summer in the City” brings kids to ICRE-Wood to spend the week with other teenagers who are blind.

College students serve as chaperones, and the teenagers attend classes during the day. They learn cooking skills, money management, orientation & mobility, technology, stuff like that. Every day a different adult with a vision impairment visits to talk about their careers – the job search, the obstacles, the victories. That’s where I come in – I go every year to talk about writing as a career.

It’s not all work and no play for Summer in the City, though. The teenagers go out on the town in the afternoon and the evenings to explore Chicago.
They visit Navy Pier, enjoy boat rides, take sailing lessons, shop downtown, attend a Shakespeare play, and get an “insider’s tour” of White Sox Park.

I horned in on the White Sox tour in 2005, the year the White Sox won the World Series. The radio piece I did about that tour won a couple of big-time journalism awards! That was just icing on the cake, really. The true reward of going to this real Braille Camp is, of course, meeting the teenagers. Like all other kids between 13 an 18, they are curious, dramatic, and sarcastic. And Funny! You don’t think there’s any chance they refer to their “Summer in the City” experience as Sex in the City, do you? Nah!!!!!