Whitney and I had a ball at the Hamilton Branch of the Madison Public Librarylast Friday, and as always, the kids in the audience had some marvelous questions. My favorite one was

Whitney are becoming a good team.

this: “Your book says your Seeing Eye dog goes with you everywhere. Does she go in the shower with you, too?”

We’re heading to Champaign this Thursday To speak to an animal sciences class at the University of Illinois, and it’ll be interesting to find out if the kids in that college class read their texts as carefully as the little girl at that library in Madison did!

I plan on telling the college class what it’s been like transitioning to a new Seeing Eye dog, then going over some of the qualifications necessary to become a guide dog instructor. Most guide dog schools require instructors to have a college degree and then do an apprenticeship, and apprenticeships can last as long as four years. If I do a decent job explaining how complicated it can be to train dogs, train people, and then make a perfect match between the human and canine, the college kids might appreciate why the apprenticeships last so long.

Once apprentices finish their training and become full-time Seeing Eye Instructors, they’re assigned a string (a group) of dogs and given four months to train that string. Throughout the training, instructors pay close attention to each dog’s pace and pull, and they make careful notes about how each dog deals with distractions, what their energy level is, and all sorts of other characteristics. And then? We blind students fly in from all over North America to be matched — and trained — with a new dog.

Seeing Eye instructors have to be as good at evaluating people as they are evaluating dogs. Our instructors review our applications before we arrive on campus and then ask us tons more questions when we get there. Instructors take us on “Juno” walks (they hold the front of the harness to guide us through all sorts of scenarios to get an idea of how fast we like to walk and how strong of a pull we’ll want from our dog) and then combine all of this information with what they know about their string of dogs, talk it over with fellow instructors and the team supervisor, mix in a little bit of gut instinct, and voila! A match is formed.

Each Seeing Eye instructor trains more dogs than they’ll need for a class. If a dog has a pace, pull, or energy level that doesn’t match with a blind person in the current class, that dog remains on campus with daily walks and care, and perhaps more training, until the next class arrives. My first dog was one of those Seeing Eye dogs who went through a second round of training before she was matched with me. Back in 1991, the Seeing Eye knew that the dog they matched me with would be landing in the home of a very unique five-year-old boy named Gus, and that the dog would be in the hands of a woman who had never had a dog before. They must have figured Pandora would need all the extra training she could get!

Hanni was the perfect dog for everything going on during her years with me, Harper took a blow to save me from getting hit by a car on State Street. My fourth dog had big paws to fill, and it’s taken me a while to warm up to Whitney. Lately, though, I’m finally finding myself falling in love again.

My two-year-old Golden/Labrador Retriever cross is a hard worker who loves to play as much as she loves to work. Her curiosity gets her in trouble sometimes, but when she guides me down busy Chicago streets, she is directed, determined, and driven. The only time she lollygags? When she realizes we’re heading back home. She wants to go, go, go

Whitney’s confidence is contagious, and she’s smart enough to know when to bend the rules without getting in trouble. Hmm. Whitney and I just might make a perfect match after all.

Remember the post I wrote early last year about going to Steppenwolf Theatre for a special touch tour of the set of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” I learned so much from that experience that I signed up for the touch tour of “Good People” at Steppenwolf last Sunday. My friend Nancy Beskin came along, and she generously offered to write this guest post to give you a sighted-eye view.

That’s Nancy Beskin, today’s guest blogger and good people.

Good People at Steppenwolf

by Nancy Beskin

I’ve always been interested in the production aspects of theater (sets, staging, casting, etc.), so when Beth invited me to join her for a touch tour preceding Steppenwolf Theatre’s performance of Good People last week, I immediately accepted.

A touch tour offers visually impaired theater-goers an opportunity to go onto the stage and literally “touch” the sets. Evan Hatfield, the Director of Audience Experience at Steppenwolf, started the afternoon with a discussion with one cast member and the Audio Describer. Jack, the Audio Describer, has a pretty unique job. Audio Describers are right there at the performance to narrate what is physically happening on the stage: scene changes, character entrances or exits, any other movements audience members who can’t see might not detect on their own. The listener hears the Audio Describer through headphones connected to a device they hold in their hands to control the volume. Beth thinks the narration is a distraction, but I imagine it would be very helpful for plays in which there is not as much dialogue as the one we were about to see.

The actor talked with Evan about the play and the characters and described some key elements, including a discussion about the South Boston accents most of the actors use during the play. Then Jack explained the layout of the stage and described each of the numerous stage sets in detail. At first it was disorienting for me to walk into the theater and see all the sets up on stage at one time, but it was fascinating, too. When we all moved onto the stage to walk amidst the different sets, I really understood the value of the touch tour. I helped Beth narrowly maneuver around the church basement/bingo hall, the main character’s kitchen, the doctor’s office and the alley outside the Dollar Store, all the while keeping tight reign on her so that she and her dog Whitney wouldn’t fall off the stage!

Steppenwolf staff members were on hand to describe the mechanics of all the sets. Some sets came in from either side of the stage and one even came down from the ceiling. As we walked through, I did my best to explain to Beth what I thought would be interesting to her, including that all the books in the doctor’s bookcase were in actuality books related to his specialty.

When we returned to our theater seats, the rest of the actors came out to introduce themselves. Each one described and defined their characters, including what they looked like, and what kind of clothes they would wear. The actors who’d be using accents gave us a taste of what they would sound like during the play. One actor, playing the doctor’s wife, explained that since her character was from Washington, D.C., she would be speaking in her regular voice, rather than the “Southie” accent of South Boston.

It was a very eye-opening (ahem, as Beth would say) experience for me. Many theaters offer Touch Tours as well as other services for the visually impaired. Steppenwolf, for one, provides playbills in Braille, large print and audio format to listen to before the performance.

The Steppenwolf staff that we met (including Stage Manager Libet, who told us she follows this Safe & Sound blog) couldn’t have been more helpful. Thank you, Steppenwolf, for all you do to make the theater-going experience more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. You are Good People.

I lost the right to vote privately and anonymously in 1985. That’s the year I lost my sight. After that, I needed Mike to help me with a ballot. One time Mike was out of town during elections, so a polling judge from the Republican party and a polling judge from the Democratic party squeezed into the booth with my Seeing Eye dog and me — they both had to be there to confirm the ballot was being marked the way I’d asked.

After we moved to Chicago I got word that the city was sponsoring a free class at the Chicago Public Library to learn how to use new assistive technology that would allow voters who couldn’t see to vote independently. I signed up, put headphones on, and was introduced to a special handheld contraption I could use to maneuver the screen and hear my choices. I sat at the library for hours, getting a feel for the machine and practicing pushing the big button on the middle of the device to mark my ballot.

I was very excited to use this new technology to vote for president in 2008, and if you read my previous blog post, you know what happened then. Same thing last Tuesday. My polling place had the special equipment on hand, but no one there knew how to make the sound work.

A special poll worker was called to the scene last Tuesday, and she said I was the first blind person she’d worked with at a polling place. After flipping through the troubleshooting handbook, she plunked it down on the table next to me, announced there was “nothing in this book about talking machines,” and that was that.

Mike was done voting by then, so just like back in 2008, he signed an affidavit, guided me to a voting booth, read the choices out loud and I told him (and anyone else near enough to eavesdrop) who I wanted to vote for.

I called the National Federation of the Blind hotline when we got home, and the kind woman on the phone sounded surprised. The sort of assistive technology they had at my precinct usually works, she said. She took down my information, and then suggested I call my State Board of Elections. I did.

After a fair amount of time on hold, someone from the Illinois Board of Elections finally answered and listened to my story. “Were you able to vote in the end, then?” Yes, I said, making sure they understood that I wasn’t able to do it independently, and that the Help America Vote Act of 2002 mandates that voting systems provide some way for people to vote independently and privately, including those of us with disabilities. “You got assistance, then?” they asked. I told them yes, that my husband had signed an affidavit, that Mike had helped me in the voting booth. “So you were able to vote, then?” I said yes. “Okay, then, you’re all set,” they said, and hung up.

I called other hotlines after that. The woman at the voting section of the U.S. Department of Justice (Civil Rights Division) asked me for details, took down notes and said someone will contact me. The volunteer at the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights under Law Election Protection Hotline asked a number of multiple choice questions, and together we came to the conclusion that the real problem here was not that the people at my polling places were uncaring or nefarious. They just weren’t trained appropriately. So here’s the thing: if the powers that be are not going to see to it that poll workers are trained to turn the assistive technology on, why bother having the special technology available at all?

I am not angry at the poll workers at my precinct – they wanted the technology to work for me, they just didn’t know how to make that happen. I am just disappointed to think that in my experience, once again, just like back in 2008, the whole idea of people with disabilities voting independently in this election was a ruse.

I’ve researched the issues. I’ve studied the candidates. I’m ready to vote. Now I’m just hoping the talking voting machine works when Whitney leads me to my voting booth.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires voting systems to provide independent and private voting for all voters — including those of us with disabilities. I use a touch screen machine with audio output to vote — with sound added to the ballot, I put on headphones, listen to the choices, and punch a button on a special contraption connected to the keyboard. That is, as long as someone at the polling place knows how to get the machine and the contraption to work. It isn’t exactly intuitive.

My experience in the last couple of elections has gone something like this: I sign in, and poll workers scramble. All of them seem to want to do right by me, but few of them know what “right” is. Where are the headphones? How do you start the talking machine? Why isn’t the audio working?

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) sets up a toll-free hotline (877-632-1940) on election days to help voters who are blind if we experience problems at polling places. Voting specialists are on the line to help blind voters and/or poll workers resolve the issue, but back during the 2008 election my issue with the voting machine couldn’t be resolved. My husband Mike can see, so he signed an affidavit to be able to help me with a written ballot. Voting specialists on the National Federation of the Blind hotline recorded details and referred my issue “to the proper authorities for follow-up action.”

I’m really hoping things go smoothly at the polling place today — not only for me, but for all of us who are blind and want to vote independently. It’d be swell if none of us have to make use of that hotline number this year, but I’m glad the NFB is ready to help if necessary. Now, off to the polling place. “Whitney, forward!”

Reports I’m receiving from fellow Seeing Eye graduates tell me the Seeing Eye school, located in Morristown, New Jersey, was spared some of the more devastating damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. Training at the Seeing Eye usually includes a trip to the Morristown train station to learn to get safely on and off trains with your dog, and with so many trains not running, that may be eliminated for a while. Same goes for trips to New York City for urban work.

Every day last month the Seeing Eye posted a picture on Facebook of a graduate with a short anecdote about how Seeing Eye dogs change our lives, and my friend Jerry Smith and I were two of the 31 grads featured there.

That’s Jerry with his current partner Aztec.

You might recognize Jerry’s name – he lives in Ontario, and I talked about him in a post I wrote last October after his Seeing Eye dog Seymour died. Seymour and my retired dog Hanni were classmates at the Seeing Eye in 2001, and Jerry and Seymour were a particularly colorful pair. Jerry returned to the Seeing Eye earlier this year and is working with his sixth guide, a Golden Retriever named Aztec, now. He was paired with his first Seeing Eye dog, a male German shepherd named Val, in 1971, and wrote about that dog for his Facebook story:

This story happened soon after I was partnered with Val. We were hurrying to a meeting in a hotel in Toronto and I was pushing my partner to go faster and faster as I was very late. We went down some stairs and down a long hall when suddenly Val stopped. I urged him on but he stopped in front of me, blocking me from going forward. I was in such a rush I made a big rookie mistake: I ignored him, stepped around him, and went forward myself. I took a couple steps before falling down an open elevator shaft. I only fell a short distance and fortunately (for me) I landed on top of two workers at the bottom. No one was injured, and I had let go of Val’s leash when I fell so he was still up there. The workers told me he was standing at the edge, looking down at me as if to say, “You have learned the first lesson – always trust your guide.

My decision 20+ years ago to train at the Seeing Eye ended up introducing me not only to four fun, fabulous furry four-legged friends, but also to dozens of spirited blind people like Jerry who come from all over North America to train with Seeing Eye dogs. We all return home to travel safely and independently with our dogs, thanks to the hard work of hundreds of generous staff members and volunteers. Most of these people live in New Jersey, and my thoughts are with them, and the dogs in the Seeing Eye kennels, and the puppies living with volunteer puppy raisers throughout New Jersey, as they all weather the storm.