That’s Marion. (Photo courtesy of Alyna Karczmar)

Marion Karczmar is a mischievous writer who sparkles when she reads her essays for our Monday afternoon memoir class, and I’m excerpting a piece she wrote to celebrate Valentine’s Day today. The essay is about her enduring love for her husband, and it opens with Marion asking herself the age-old question: what does the word “love” really mean?

During the war I worked at a canteen. The soldiers were not much older than I, looking bewildered and afraid. We danced and I let them kiss me. They made me promise to marry them when or if they returned from the war. I agreed. At that rate I would be a female polygamist after D Day. But my well meaning compassion was not the same as love.

Before she was married, Marion worked as an actress in Toronto and New York City. She delighted in applause and good reviews, and in her essay she admits to being “in love with no other than myself.” That all changed after her girlfriend Danielle insisted on a double date with a couple of foreigners who had escaped from the Holocaust. “I had great sympathy for refugees,” she wrote. “But I didn’t see how dating them would advance my career as an actress.”

Marion’s friend persevered, and the next thing you know she and Danielle were at the Copa Cabana with their dates. “Both had something in their hair, I think it’s called Vitalis. In the case of George, sprigs of hair kept escaping from their oily binding and were sticking out.” Marion liked George, especially after she discovered how good he was at tango. “Danielle didn’t complain because she preferred quiet Morton; she spent the evening correcting his English.” George accompanied Marion to her boarding house and made her promise to see him the next day. “So we met again, and then again.”

George followed Marion to Delaware when she accepted a summer stock job there that summer. “He proposed marriage on a crowded beach under a hot sun,” she wrote. “I agreed to think about it.” She eventually said yes, of course. I mean, get serious. Who could resist a stiffly-dressed European who wears Vitalis and dances the tango? From her essay :

I found being with him stimulating, exciting. He was older and more worldly and I was infatuated. As I grew to know him better I began to notice that beneath his bravado and cocky behavior he was really a very decent guy. I found myself liking him very much and then realized I loved him as he did me.

“I won’t say we lived happily ever after, we had our ups and downs like other married couples, we quarreled about this and that,” she admits in her essay. “After all, we came from very different cultures, and we were both temperamental and impatient.” On the other hand, she writes, they “had a lot of good times together with each other, and later, with their children.”

Marion is in her 80s now. Alexander George Karczmar, 95, is a neuroscientist whose academic career culminated with 30 years tenure at Loyola University of Chicago Medical Center. Marion worked in various aspects of theatre throughout her life, and she continued dancing for exercise and fitness — part of Marion’s early acting training in New York had included dance classes with Martha Graham. She eventually traded in her ballet slippers for a yoga mat and started teaching classes in both yoga and meditation.

Marion ends her essay describing the ways growing older has made their differences — and any quick judgments of each other — fade away.

We have become truly good companions. We are open and easy with one another; we don’t make love any more, but the kind of love we have now is really more satisfactory. As Tom Stoppard says, “there is one person who can bring out our humanness,” and I find out that that person is my husband. I believe I have at last discovered the definition of love. I can feel it and I know it’s the real thing. My days are brighter.

It’s guest post time again. Here’s my husband Mike Knezovich.

Dogs ain’t the problem.

It’s Westminster Dog Show time — bringing infinite Facebook posts of mugshots of canine contestants, and, for those of us who love that kind of thing, internal laughs just thinking about the movie spoof set at this annual event, “Best in Show.” (Best line from the movie: “We met at Starbucks — not at the same Starbucks. We saw each other at two different Starbucks across the street from each other.”

Apparently, though, Westminster also brings a behavior that is absolutely not funny. Before and after the show, airliners in and out of town are filled with an inordinate number of “service dogs,” at least according to this blog post at The Bark.

The author of that blog post has traveled to many Westminsters and notices that lots of folks bringing their dogs to the show falsely claim their pooches are service dogs. I get why these people want to do that—I don’t get, never will, why they don’t understand why they absolutely shouldn’t.

There are two issues going on here: one, outright lying about the status of one’s dog and one’s disability (or lack thereof). The other issue is stickier: what kinds of dogs qualify as service dogs—more to the point—what kinds of disabilities/maladies constitute a legitimate need for a service dog to travel on a plane with its companion.

Warning: I am a hawk on both fronts.

On the first, there is no wiggle room. You’re lying. You’re disrespecting people who really need the dog for basic issues like mobility, and all the work The Seeing Eye and others have done to advocate for guide dogs to be admitted to public places. And all the work the respected schools do breeding and training a dog to behave flawlessly so as not to be a nuisance in public.

I got news for you dog lovers who think it’s cute to lie about your dog: It ain’t. And Beth and I have encountered it countless times. A young woman who sat next to Beth on a flight actually told the story, giggling throughout, about how her father regularly dons a pair of dark glasses and puts a fake harness he fashioned onto their German Shepherd so the dog can go on board with them. Haha.

Other news flash for you who think your dog is as well-behaved as a well-trained service dog. It ain’t. And every time your dog acts up, it’s an insult to everyone who really needs their dog, and to the airlines, hotels, restaurants and stores who are trying to do what’s right.

How do I know this? Well, years of experience. But I’ll bring up the most recent. While Beth and Whitney and I waited to check our bags to fly to New Orleans, a woman was making herself very conspicuous as she barked at the airline employee behind the counter. Conspicuous because she was very tall and very broad and wearing a leopard skin jacket and skirt. She had one of those luggage arrangements that looks like a wheelie luggage skyscraper. Down at the bottom was the actual wheelie suitcase; strapped above were several floors of who knows what.

She was up there for probably 10 minutes as we weaved our way through the maze. We checked in, headed to the gate and passed her just as she was about, finally, to wheel away from the counter. At that point a whir of grey and white spun around near the top of her little tower—two dogs were in a fabric cage of sorts with a screen in front, and shrieking barks—or something like barks—pierced the air.

The airline person said, “Oh, I didn’t realize–there will be a charge for those dogs.” At which point, the woman said, “Oh, those are my assistance dogs.”

I’m pretty sure the only person in that exchange who needed assistance was the poor airline rep. Beth wanted to ask the conspicuous woman what her dogs did for her, but I herded us on—not because I didn’t want conflict, but because when I travel, I’m crazy nervous until my butt is in the airplane seat.

Which brings me to the second issue. I’ve met people in wheelchairs who have dogs who provide critical assistance. And dogs that help people with hearing impairments.

But I’ve also met people who swear they need their dog for anxiety they experience when flying. My glib answer is, “Try alcohol. Or Dramamine.” I’m only half kidding; I had a short period where out of the blue, I had high anxiety on planes. Those two substances worked wonders.

But I’m also familiar enough with mental health issues to take them seriously. If a dog can help, good. But if the dog is not extremely well-trained, that dog doesn’t belong in public spaces. These people are basically bringing on their pets. I know you all love your pets, but many pets are not reliably well-behaved enough to bring them on planes.

I’m not sure where the line is. The government and the many, many legitimate organizations that train and match service dogs with human companions wrestle with it. Then again, the abuses seem obvious when encountered. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote of hard-core pornography, “I know it when I see it.”

I’ve seen too much of it.

I was a very happy six-year-old any time Flo (that’s my mom) dropped me off at the library so she could run errands, and I was an absolutely elated six-year-old the night she dropped me off at the library, headed to the grocery store, drove straight home, pulled the car into the garage, put the groceries away and sat down with her feet up for a while before noticing how quiet it was.

Flo found me outside the library’s locked doors, smiling, sitting next to my pile of books, flipping through pages, anticipating which new book I’d start first. I was in seventh heaven.

That’s me in the middle, flanked by my sisters Bev and Marilee – they must not have gone to the library with me that night!

I met my dear friend Colleen ten years later. We were both waitressing at Marshall Field’s, saving our money for college. She says she knew I was cool right away when she saw me hide my paperback copy of Great Expectations in a pile of folded cloth napkins so I could sneak in a page or two between customers. Goes without saying. Colleen was a bookworm, too.

I lost my sight ten years later, in 1985. No iPhones, no digital recorders, no mp3 players, no laptop computers. Unabridged books on tape were hard to come by back then, and Braille was difficult to learn. How would I survive without being able to read? The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) came to my rescue. NLS mailed books and magazines on audio cassettes directly to our house at no cost, and now their books are available online for download.

The Daily Post reports that ebook sales recently trumped those of hardcover books. “The ease of digital books can’t be beat,” the post says. “How else can you hold hundreds of books in your hand so easily?” The post went on to admit that the sensation of reading a book by machine is undeniably different than cracking open a brand new book in print, and I have to agree. I’m grateful for technology for allowing me to keep up with my fellow bookworms, but if you want to know the truth, I do still miss cozying up in the corner of the couch to read words. In print. On paper. In a good, old-fashioned…book.

I didn’t need to be able to see to know that 11-year-old Ali Krage was hopping from one foot to the other when she introduced herself to me back in 2004. “I’m blind like you and I can read Braille and I go to the same school my twin sister goes to, but she can see, can you give me your email address? We can be pen pals!” Who could refuse an invitation like that? Ali and I have used adaptive technology to keep in touch ever since. The email messages she sends these days come with the tagline “Sent from my iPhone,” and when she left home to go away to school last fall, I kept up with her progress by reading her tweets. Here she is now with a guest post about what it’s been like learning how to live on her own.

Ali Krage, today’s guest blogger.

One of the best decisions I have ever made

by Ali Krage

My name is Ali Krage and I am 20 years old. I attend the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired and this is my first time being at a school with only blind and visually impaired students. This is my first year here. The school is far away from my home in the Chicago suburbs — it’s located about 30 minutes from Springfield, Illinois, and it serves elementary school, middle school, and high school students. They also have a transition program, where they teach us daily living skills, and that’s what I am a part of.

When I was in public school, they did their best to teach things like folding laundry and cooking, but in order to do these things, I’d have to be pulled out of classes. Here at ISVI, daily living is actually a class in itself. They have Life Management, where we learn how to do laundry and we learn different life skills. They teach us about self confidence and advocating for ourselves.

Like it goes with any new experience, I was nervous. I was nervous to be away from home for so long. I was nervous I wouldn’t make many friends. I was excited, though, too. I was looking forward to learning new things, and I knew that in the end this would turn out to be a worthwhile experience.

I have been here since August 19, and this is my home away from home, my second family. I have met a variety of different people — we come from different parts of the state, we have different visual impairments, and we have a wide range of interests. Such diversity is pleasant. It’s amazing how people with so many different personalities can get along so well. I actually heard from a teacher once that this is one of the most mature and nicest group of kids they’ve had so far.

In the beginning of January, I requested some job experience. I figured it’d help; I’ll be here for only one more year after this, and the more experience I get, the better. After filling some forms out, I got a job as a volunteer at the Jacksonville Area Center for Independent Living (JACIL). I am an office assistant. I work the front desk and manage the phones, and sometimes I put stamps on postcards or make Braille labels. It really depends on what they need.

I have gotten so much out of this experience so far. I love my job, I love my friends, and I love this place all together. Coming here was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Did you catch John Stewart interviewing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the Daily Show? Hear her interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition? Latino USA? Her memoir was published a few weeks ago, and I think the only day she’s had away from the book tour since then was Monday, January 21: that’s the morning she swore Vice President Biden in for his second term.

The reviews I’ve read of My Beloved World mention young Sonia growing up in a tiny Bronx apartment with her Puerto Rico-born parents, her father’s early death, her mother’s hard work, her beloved grandmother, and her appreciation for affirmative action. One reason she gave for writing the memoir was that so many people identify with different pieces of her story. She thought perhaps writing about her path to the Supreme Court might give them hope.

But, alas, very little of her story that I identify with most was mentioned during her book tour. You may not know this, but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was eight. I was diagnosed with Type 1 at age seven. With all the press coverage she’s had the past couple of weeks, the only thing I found that dealt with ways Sotomayor’s early diabetes diagnosis may have influenced some of her life decisions was in an article in the Charlotte Observer. The paper revealed that the chronic disease nearly killed her, and that one of the reasons Sotomayor never had children was that she was afraid she wouldn’t be around to raise them. I know what she means. Here’s an excerpt about my high school years From my own memoir, Long Time, No See:

In 1972, at the beginning of freshman year, I was admitted to the hospital twice, both times via the emergency room, both times close to coma. In the first episode, I could still talk when we arrived there, but the second time, Flo found me in a heap on the basement floor and dragged me, a hundred pounds of dead weight, up the stairs and out the back door and into the car. During that second hospitalization, my doctor, exercising his version of bedside manner, declared that I wouldn’t live past age thirty.

I was 14 years old when that happened, and my doctor then couldn’t have known about the diabetic advances around the corner. Fast-acting insulin, diabetic educators and home blood monitoring methods came along too late to save my eyesight, but those advances, along with my husband Mike’s willingness to learn about the disease and motivate me to stay well, have kept me happy and healthy far longer than my Nostradamus pediatrician and I could have expected.

The Charlotte Observer article reported that monitoring her health has become second nature to Sotomayor now, and that she gives herself insulin injections five or six times a day. Me, too! Justice Sotomayor told the reporter that she no longer worries she will die young. “When I reached 50, I was able to let go of that demon,” she said. “But not without recognizing its benefits. It drove me in a way that perhaps nothing else might have to accomplish as much as I could as early as possible.” I know what she means. Justice Sotomayor’s memoir ends when she is named to the Supreme Court; mine ends when we move to Chicago. And hey, with more advances in diabetes around the corner, watch out, world. Sonia and I are just getting started.