Hank calls himself a volunteer, but I say he’s a pro

If you read my husband Mike Knezovich’s guest post earlier this month you know how excited we were that our friends Keith (aka Pick) and Hank would be joining us in New Orleans. Now here’s a guest post by Hank about our time together. I agree with him – it’s always too short!

Right back in the groove

by Hank Londner

From left to right: Hank, Mike, Pick and moi

Beth and Mike, who live in Chicago, and Keith and I, who live in Virginia, communicate regularly by mailing cassette tapes back and forth. The tapes are always a treat, especially when Beth and Mike bring the recorder along on a trip to New Orleans, a city they visit with some regularity and apparently know quite well.

I was determined to get invited the next time they planned a trip there and, fortunately, they agreed to let us join them for a few days this past week. Our timing couldn’t have been better. We hit a great streak of weather that made it easy to walk everywhere. Still, keeping up with Beth and her guide dog, Whitney, can be challenging. I think their normal pace is about a fifteen-minute mile, which is a lot faster than I am used to walking, that’s for sure. Beth insists that Whitney sets the pace and has only one speed setting, but I’m not totally convinced.

This was the first time I met Whitney and I was smitten the second I laid eyes on her. She really is a beauty — and I’m not even a dog person. I never did get to pet her because whenever we saw her she had her harness on and was working, which I knew meant “hands off!” Next time we’re together I’ll have to set up a play date, I guess.

It seems that Beth and Mike know all the cool places to go to in New Orleans. We ate at wonderful restaurants, enjoyed a few adult beverages at various watering holes around town and heard quite a bit of local jazz too, including a wonderful concert by the Ellis Marsalis Quartet at Snug Harbor and Jeremy Davenport with his jazz combo at the Ritz Carlton bar, where there was no cover charge and we were treated like royalty. We managed to avoid most of the tourist traps, although Keith and I (OK, I) couldn’t resist a visit to the Café Du Monde for some beignets and café-au-lait.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a little outing Beth, Whitney, and I went on to do some shopping for Christmas gifts for Mike. I think it may have been the first time Beth and I were out together alone. I’ve been volunteering as a reader/helper to blind people here in Virginia for at least five years and it just seems very natural to me to be in this role. Still I realized that slight adjustments are needed to accommodate each individual I work with. Some examples:

• When credit cards are involved, one person I work with in Virginia likes to sign the charge slips himself. His wife, who is also blind, hands me her credit card and lets me do all the work. Care to guess which Beth prefers?
• Talk about signing — One person likes me to provide a straight edge below where he needs to sign, another likes me to put the guide above.
• When we go grocery shopping, one person likes to hold onto the shopping cart like a sighted person would, with me pulling it from the front. Another likes to stand next to me so we both push the cart together.

Minor adjustments, but I understand that respecting their preferences allows each person to have some measure of control of their environment. I guess the moral of this story is that I have to stay on my toes so that I don’t step on anyone else’s.

Beth and Mike and Keith and I go back together about thirty years now and it seems that no matter how much time passes between our visits, we are right back in the groove by the time we are done saying hello. Sadly, we have to say goodbye again all too soon. Still, now we have great memories of our time together in New Orleans, and we have our next visit to look forward to.