You might remember my friend Lauren Bishop-Weidner from a post I wrote two years ago. That post linked to a thoughtful and honest essay Lauren wrote for Two Hawks Quarterly about what it’s like to be able to see and love and live with someone who can’t. That piece was called On His Blindness; the “his” refers to Lauren’s husband Tom, who is Professor of Athletic Training and chair of the School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Science at Ball State University. Whitney and I had the privilege of sharing the stage virtually with Dr. Weidner and Carlos Taylor, Adaptive Computer Technology Specialist at Ball State, along with their guide dogs Cate and Dutch, for a very special program in Muncie last Monday. Lauren agreed to write a guest post about that visit.

Motivate our Minds

by Lauren Bishop-weidner

Muncie, Ind., known primarily for canning jars and David Letterman, is also home to Motivate Our Minds (MOM), an after-school educational enrichment program that serves up a regular smorgasbord of learning opportunities for about 300 smart, curious, active kids in grades 1-8.

Tom and Carlos with Mary Dollison, the petite dynamo who started it all.

Thanks to the innovative spirits and creative minds of teachers and volunteers who love learning and kids, MOM is fun. Really fun. The kids get a healthy snack and individual help with homework. They go places, do things. They till, plant, tend, and harvest a garden, then sell the produce at a local farmer’s market. They grow to embrace learning, even if it means enduring school.

I got involved with MOM when I gave my freshman composition class an assignment to spend at least 8 hours volunteering locally in some capacity, then write about the experience. It was sort of a rough introduction to the idea of primary research, field work, that sort of thing. I asked MOM founder Mary Dollison to guest lecture in my class as a pathway to my students’ assignment, and the rest is history: I volunteer to tutor at MOM from time to time, and I look forward to reading to the 2nd and 3rd graders every Wednesday.

Motivate Our Minds has a long and proud history in Muncie. The brainchild of Mary Dollison and Raushanah Shabazz, the program began in 1987 as a summer reading program in the Dollison living room. The two women, both with full time jobs and families, were concerned about the children in Muncie’s low-income neighborhoods. The kids didn’t read, and too many didn’t finish high school. Armed with enthusiasm and determination to share their love of learning, they rounded up 16 neighborhood kids, including their own, and their home-based summer program outgrew its space within weeks.

Through tireless grant-writing, fundraising, and grassroots activism, MOM found a permanent home by 1993. Now serving nearly 300 students, MOM is a model of community advocacy, well known throughout east central Indiana for its effectiveness.

Tom's Braille watch -- with a pop-up top -- was a big hit.

The kids in the program learn to value learning, and they learn to value themselves. The results are life-changing. And hey, who knows how many of their lives might be changed after the special day they had last Monday?! Beth graciously agreed to participate with my husband Tom Weidner and our friend Carlos Taylor in a special program for the kids of Motivate Our Minds. We had Beth and Whitney via Skype; Tom and Carlos with their dogs (Cate and Dutch); 32 kids; and several gawking adults.

Carlos read a Braille version of Safe & Sound to the kids, and they marveled when Tom showed them how he pops open the lid on his watch to find

Carlos had the kids' full attention.

out what time it is: he feels the hour and minute hands. “Cool!”

Beth could only be there via Skype, but I was impressed with how well she managed to connect through the impersonal computer not even video —  just her happy voice through speakers. While the other kids took turns petting Kate and Dutch (their harnesses had been taken off, of course) one inquisitive boy walked up to the blank computer screen to ask Beth a question. “Where you at?” he wondered. For all we hear about how kids have to be entertained by saturating all their senses and keeping them in constant motion, these three professionals and their dogs connected with a lively roomful of active young minds in a low-tech (sort of) way.

The three of them gave a face to “disability” that these particular children, most of them from low-income homes and many from deep poverty, don’t get to see very often. A disability to them usually means perpetuating the poverty. Tom and Cate, Carlos and Dutch, and Beth and Whitney shined a ray of hope, infused with humor and fun. Watching the six of them interact with 32 excited children is an experience that I cherish.

My great-nephew Raymond does not attend St. Raymond Preschool, but when Whitney and I visited there, and I let the teachers know what a saint this loveable three-year-old is, they gave me a t-shirt to present to Raymond as a gift. Thank you, St. Raymond!Note to my blog followers who are blind: the photo shows my saintly blue-eyed towheaded great nephew Raymond in a red t-shirt with “St. Raymond City of Little Saints Preschool” emblazoned on the front.

I interviewed Betsy Folwell for a story in Bark Magazine five years ago, and we’ve kept up with each other via email ever since. We have a lot to talk about, I guess: Both of us lost our sight as adults, and both of us are published authors. I was delighted when Betsy agreed to write a guest post for my Safe & Sound blog today, and once you read this entry, I think you’ll see, ahem, why.

Into the Eye’s Mind

by Elizabeth Folwell

Morning announces itself to me not with roosters crowing but squiggles of yellow, blue, white and red on a black background. Like a drawing by Keith Haring. Or an aboriginal sand painting.

Betsy Folwell on Chimney Mountain, near Indian Lake, NY, with her dogs Kesey
(left), Tinkerbelle (right) and guide dog Oakley (foreground). Photograph by
Nancie Battaglia.

Ever since I lost my sight 10 years ago these moving pictures have been part of my routine. In fact, if I wake up without the show I feel cheated.

There’s a scientific name for this phenomenon, of course, and a scholarly explanation. Swiss naturalist and philosopher Charles Bonnet commented on the intense hallucinations his 87-year-old grandfather witnessed. The old man, blind from cataracts, told Charles about the faces, buildings and activities that appeared before him, as real as anything he had seen with young eyes. Bonnet was formulating complex theories about how the nervous system works as a series of vibrations, and the happy village scenes of his grandfather were evidence of energetic pathways between the optic nerve and brain.

We can thank Bonnet, who trained as an attorney but never practiced law, for several modern scientific observations: how butterflies breathe, how primitive animals regenerate limbs, how plants communicate. The last item continues to dazzle researchers today. Bonnet passionately pursued botany and biology until his own failing sight turned his mind inward, to philosophical explanations of nature’s progression toward perfection. To Bonnet, everything was evolving, climbing higher and higher, until insects attained angelhood.

Only some of Bonnet’s work has been translated into English, and he’s remembered more as a religious thinker than scientific innovator. In our times his name is attached to Bonnet syndrome, a handy phrase that family practice doctors and ophthalmologists can tell their patients who ask querulously, “Am I going crazy?” when they describe seeing little green men bouncing purple basketballs down Main Street. I am not making this up; when I described my own psychedelic worm farm to my family doc, he shared that story — without violating any HIPPA rules since he did not say who had aliens on the brain.

When Beth’s blog Imagine described how different parts of the brain respond to words(how, for example, the word “lavender” can make the scent-sensitive territory light up as if a bundle of flowers were right there) I thought of my own suggestible head. The visual cortex, even without accurate input, wants to stay in touch.

Elizabeth Folwell is the author of Short Carries: Essays from Adirondack Life as well as articles and blogs at Adirondack Life.

The kids at St. John's enjoyed our presentation, thanks in large part to Jen and Nicole for getting us there!

Whitney and I were supposed to take a train to visit St. John’s School in Western Springs yesterday morning. Good thing we didn’t!

April 4, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Emergency crews responded to a track fire near Chicago’s Union Station Wednesday morning.
According to ABC7’s Roz Varon, traffic was jammed near Canal and Jackson because of the emergency activity in the 300-block of South Riverside.

No one was injured, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to put Whitney through all that mess. Not to mention…me.

Jennifer Cristina and Nicole Dotto (two lovely young women I met volunteering in a program for kids in the Chicago Public Schools) offered to pick Whitney and me up right in front of our apartment building. The suburban school we were visiting yesterday had nothing to do with the program we volunteer for, but Jennifer and Nicole took time out of their schedules to help us anyway. They drove us all the way to the suburban school, sat patiently through the presentation, took care of Whitney while I signed books, then drove us back home again.

Traffic was bad on the way back to Chicago. I took Whitney’s harness off so she could relax, then started asking Jennifer and Nicole how they’d found out about Sit Stay Read!, the literacy program we all volunteer for. Turns out neither of them are originally from Chicago. Jennifer left her home in Baton Rouge to live in a bigger city. Nicole is from Southern California and knew she could run her online business selling vintage clothing from anywhere. “I love seeing new places,” she said, doting on Whitney from the back seat. “I visited Chicago and liked it, so I decided to move here.” Volunteering was a great way to meet new people, and Sit Stay Read was a good fit: her hours are flexible enough to allow her to visit schools in the daytime.

Jennifer works as a nanny, and her charge is growing up. “I’m free during the day while she’s in school, and I love kids, and I love dogs,” she shrugged. “And you know, if you ever want to feel needed, all you have to do is volunteer. It’s good for you.”

Jennifer was absolutely right. In a story in the Nonprofit News about a study on the health benefits of volunteering, the executive director of the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard University referred to volunteering as the “new hybrid health club for the 21st century that’s free to join.”

The study finds a significant connection between volunteering and good health. The report shows that volunteers have greater longevity, higher functional ability, lower rates of depression and less incidence of heart disease.

And of course the recipients of the good deeds benefit, too. Whitney and I can vouch for that. Avoiding Union Station yesterday morning added dog years to our lives. Spending time with these two thoughtful and caring young women helped us function better during our presentation at St. John’s, and we avoided challenges at Union Station that might have brought us down. Thank you, Jennifer and Nicole. Your ad lib volunteer efforts yesterday warmed our hearts.

I didn’t buy a lottery ticket last week. I wasn’t afraid of the odds, I just knew money couldn’t make me happier than I am right now.

I know, I know. Too many pink Sweet ‘n’ Low packets. But hey, it’s not all saccharine. There really is evidence-based research on this lottery happiness thing.

Back in 1978, psychologists from Northwestern University right here in Chicago published a study called Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Our Illinois State Lottery had just begun back then, and the researchers asked 22 winners to rate their happiness months after the initial elation of winning the big bucks. In addition, they asked the winners how much pleasure they were taking in mundane activities like reading a magazine or meeting friends for coffee. Then they interviewed 58 people who had not won the lottery but lived in the same neighborhoods as the winners. The results showed that months after the winners were announced, the non-winners were just about as happy as the lottery winners, And by then the so-called losers were finding much more pleasure in everyday activities than the winners were.

As long as they were at it, the researchers decided to interview 29 people who were injured in accidents that same lottery year, too. In each case, the accident left the victim paralyzed. After initial sadness and depression, the newly-disabled people rated their pleasure in everyday activities slightly higher than that of the lottery winners, and their life satisfaction was nearly the same.

Interesting.

It’s Monday. After I finish the cup of coffee Mike made and poured for me after we woke up together this morning, I’ll flip on the radio and listen to some pop music while getting dressed. Ben Folds? Jackson Five? Warren Zevon? Stevie Wonder? From there I’ll head outside with Whitney. It’s a cool, sunny, spring morning in Chicago. Maybe we’ll take the long way home, listen for birds, smell the lilacs.

Back in the apartment, I’ll spend a few hours on my part-time job for Easter Seals and then give Flo a call. She’ll tell me about everyone who phoned her over the weekend. She’ll say how much she is looking forward to sitting outside today and let me know what she has planned for the rest of the week. Her credo is to do only one thing each day that takes her out of her apartment. No more, no less.

Flo is one happy woman.

Our call will end the way it always does. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too.” Flo turns 96 later this month.

Out with Whitney again. Maybe this time I’ll brush her, too. Mike is working from home today, so I might listen to a book while waiting for him to finish. I’m re-reading my favorite book from childhood, one my older brothers and sisters read aloud to me when they were teaching me to read: The Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.

After my trip to the 100 Acre Wood? Off to Costco! I’ll hang on to the back of the cart, eavesdrop on people from all walks of life, try to decipher the dozens of foreign languages I hear, all while Mike pulls us through the aisles. He’ll stop periodically, say “Feel this!” and drop an enormous oversized jar of some unknown substance into my hands. “Miracle Whip!” he’ll exclaim with glee. I always roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh, too. And I can’t help but relish, ahem, the $1.50 hot dog and pop we enjoy before we leave. Free refills, too!

After unloading the Land of the Giants groceries at home, we might slink over to Hackney’s to share some wine with friends: Mondays are half-price bottle nights.

Back in our apartment building, if our favorite maintenance man James is working, we’ll stop and talk baseball before stepping into the elevator. Opening day is coming up, Chicago! A dear old college friend emailed today to say he can’t make it to the White Sox home opener on April 13. He’s mailing us his tickets. For free. Who wouldn’t think they’d won the lottery after a day like today? And the thing that makes me the happiest: I didn’t even buy a ticket!