With a last name like Knezovich, you’d think Mike would love accordion music.

But alas, he does not.

About a year ago, the F sharp key on my accordion got stuck. Every time I’d squeeze the squeeze box, it’d play F sharp. Which would be fine if any of the tunes in my accordion repertoire were in F sharp. None are.

Mike did not weep when I told him last year that my accordion was broken. I was near tears, though, when he dialed the number for the “Buttons and Keys” division at Andy’s Music Chicago yesterday and handed me the phone. “See if they can fix your accordion,” he said. “I’ll drive you there on our way to get groceries.”

Mike may not like accordion much, but our son Gus does. The one thing Gus has always enjoyed, the one thing that motivates him and, at times, soothes him, is…music. Hip hop, jazz, new age, Cajun, punk, country & western, African…even accordion. If it’s music, Gus loves it.

Gus was born with a genetic disorder that left him physically and mentally disabled. Mike and I didn’t know a whole lot about music therapy when Gus was young, but our love of music rubbed off on our son. From the time Mike met me, he has always seen to it that we have a piano in the house. When I started losing my sight, I was also losing the ability to do things on my own — I couldn’t drive anymore, had trouble reading print, I tripped over curbs. Recognizing how important it was for me to learn to do something new, Mike went to a second-hand store and bought me a fiddle. It only took one year of screechy lessons to convince me to sell my fiddle. Earnings from the sale went towards paying a graduate student to teach me to play my piano by ear. Gus would lie across my lap as I practiced.

My former fiddle teacher recommended me to a local old-time string ban that needed a piano player. I passed the audition, and I arranged for the band to practice at our house for Gus’ sake. I started experimenting with jazz, surprising my traditional string band with an occasional flat five or minor seventh. They tolerated it.

They tolerated a lot, really. When I first joined, “Oh, Susanna” was the only old-time tune I knew. I brought my handheld tape recorder to every practice, listening and registering at home to differentiate and memorize their repertoire. At gigs, my memory would fail me. I had to be reminded what key every tune was in. And instead of the traditional eye movement or foot kick to signify song endings, the lead musician yelled “last time!” loudly enough for me to hear over my playing. I didn’t know it, but practices and performances served as therapy — I’d pound out chords when I was angry, play painfully slow on melancholy days.

Sequestered at home with a newborn, I practiced a lot.

Our old-time string band was successful enough to garner gigs outside in the summer. I couldn’t carry an upright piano with me, so I taught myself to play the accordion. Poor Mike. Who would have guessed that his thoughtful notion to buy me a used fiddle would lead to a lifetime listening to polkas on the accordion?

Good ol' Gus.

Mike and I couldn’t get away this weekend to visit Gus in his group home in Wisconsin, but that’s okay. Gus doesn’t understand that today is Mother’s Day, so we’ll just go up next weekend and celebrate Mother’s Day then. As always, it will be great just to be with him. Gus doesn’t have a piano in his group home, but if “Buttons and Keys” gets that F sharp key fixed, thanks to Mike’s generous Mother’s Day gift, maybe I’ll bring my accordion.

Harper and I are making progress! Yesterday morning he guided me downtown to teach my memoir class for senior citizens at the Chicago Cultural Center. We made it back and forth safely, and he didn’t cower once. “Attaboy, Harper!” Later that afternoon I had him guide me to Michigan Avenue to the pool where I swim. No problem. “Good dog, Harper! Way to go!”

Our successes yesterday make me feel confident about heading to Union Station with Harper this afternoon. We’re taking a train down to Champaign again, this time for a very, very happy occasion: my young friend Sandra Murillo won an award!

Loyal blog readers know about Sandra Murillo – she lost her sight when she was three and has always attended regular public schools. I met Sandra when she was still in high school – I interviewed her for a Chicago Tribune story exploring how kids who are blind are educated in the public school system. Sandra is a very impressive young woman – she’s bilingual, a great writer, sweet, smart, and funny, too. The thing that impressed me most about Sandra when I first met her, though? Her math skills! From my Tribune article:

In geometry, however, learning can be far more complicated. Using raised line drawings to read graphics, push pins and rubber bands to form angles, and special paper and pens to create diagrams, Sandra is managing a 96% in geometry so far.

Sandra and I have kept in touch ever since that article came out. We talk a lot about writing – she’s known for years that she wants to be a journalist, and she is getting A’s and B’s (mostly A’s, actually!) at the University of Illinois. The award she won will help pay her tuition next year so she can continue pursuing her degree. An email from Maureen Gilbert at U of I’s Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) described the award:

The James E. Seybold Scholarship was created by his mother to provide financial support to students with disabilities who are pursuing degrees in the College of Media. As a soldier in the U.S. Army, James E. Seybold became disabled as a result of injuries sustained during the Korean War. He enrolled in the University of Illinois to pursue a degree in communications and journalism and was extremely grateful for the services provided by the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services which led to his successful career with the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

It’s hard to think of anyone more deserving of this award then Sandra Murillo. She had to draw on her own bravery and courage after surviving a terrible car crash on her way home for Thanksgiving Break during her first semester at the University of Illinois. Sandra’s father was critically injured in the accident, but thankfully he survived. Sandra’s beloved brother — and only sibling — Chris died at the scene. Sandra walked away with minor injuries. Well, minor physical injuries. The emotional injuries are, of course, more serious.

Award-winner Sandra Murillo.

Working through grief is unbelievably difficult. Sandra did not return to school until January, when she completed the finals she had missed and took on a whole new load of Spring semester classes. She made the Dean’s List.

When Sandra returned home for the summer, some people told her mother that the crash must have been easier on Sandra, her being blind and all. The reason she’d done so well in school that Spring was because she hadn’t experienced severe trauma, they said. “After all, Sandra couldn’t see what was going on.”

This attitude bothered Sandra so much that she struck up her courage and shared some of her own personal thoughts about the accident in a post here last August. I called the post Sandra the Survivor, and she definitely deserves that title.

I am so very, very proud of Sandra, and so impressed with Disability Resources and Educational Services at the University of Illinois for choosing her as the recipient of this award. I can’t wait to get to Champaign and give Sandra a big hug at the ceremony tonight.

All aboard!

Hey all–I’m sort of spent after this week–so Mike’s filling in for me on this one.

Intervention

I'm rooting for them both.

So when Beth has been in New Jersey to match up with her Seeing Eye dogs in the past, people ask me where she is. After I say, “What am I, chopped liver?”– I give them the story. And I usually say something like, “You know, really, the three weeks at The Seeing Eye is to train the people, not the dogs.” And I’m not joking.

By the time Beth parted with Hanni last November, they’d been together for ten years. And I’d been there for most of that time. And I can’t remember a single thing about what it was like when Beth and Hanni came home to Urbana. All I could remember was how well they worked  together the day before Beth headed to New Jersey. Hanni had developed an uncanny sense of Beth’s routine and our routine.

So when Harper started having problems, I literally couldn’t recall what it had been like with Hanni. I think that means Beth didn’t have any problems with her in the early months–otherwise I’d remember. Then again, Hanni had come home to Urbana–which presents its own challenges, to be sure. For one, sometimes the lack of traffic means an absence of audible cues for Beth to use to make crossing decisions. And Urbana, for all its quaintness, has–at least in our old neighborhood–horrible sidewalks. The old paving-block things are in horrible repair and pretty much impassable in spots–people routinely walk on the street instead. If you’re in a wheelchair, forget it. Drivers are erratic–students from the suburbs, just-licensed international students, farmers, parents of college students–not a good mix.

But all in all, Urbana ain’t nothin’ compared to coming home to the center of Chicago. So it’s hard to compare Harper’s performance to Hanni’s in the early months. And the important thing is, it doesn’t matter–Harper has to cut it or, eventually, cut out.

That’s not what anyone wants. Not The Seeing Eye, which spends tens of thousands of dollars breeding, raising, and training each dog. Not Beth, who’s already invested three weeks of her time in New Jersey and has worked hard to get her and Harper on the same page. And not me. I loved the guy the first time I laid eyes on him.

So The Seeing Eye sent one of their fine instructors to the rescue–we hope–last week. Nicole is a twenty-something with a presence that belies her age. She went for a walk with Beth on day one, and I sat in on the debriefing afterward. It was something of a relief to hear her thinking through what she guessed Harper was thinking when he clenched up and froze in his tracks on route. This anthropomorphizing is something Beth and I do routinely and then check ourselves. Who knows what Harper thinks? We just need him to work. But Nicole studied him–just as we had been doing–for clues.

In the end, she decided that he wants to do well so badly and wants not to screw up so badly that when it comes to decisions and ambiguity, he’d rather just fade away. Faced with ambiguity, all he sees is the opportunity to screw up. So he freezes. I wish I didn’t understand exactly what Nicole was talking about, but I did–and it made a lot of sense.

And, we learned, it doesn’t make a lick of difference unless Beth changes her behavior. The long and short of it is, Beth hadn’t been doing anything that explains Harper’s behavior. She didn’t cause these bad-dog days. But she had forgotten a lot–mostly, how to correct mistakes and to provide Harper clear cues about what was expected. After all, Beth hadn’t needed to for years.

So she and Harper are back to the basics. They’re doing really dreary things like this: At an intersection where they both know they always turn left, they still have to go to the curb as if they’re going straight. Harper needs to wait there until Beth commands “left.” She has to be the one in charge, the one deciding when and if they turn. Not Harper. So back to boot camp. It’s a total grind. But so far, it seems to be helping. And I hope that continues. Because Harper’s a really good guy, and I don’t want Beth to be gone another three weeks. Once every 10 years or so is OK, but that’s quite enough.

Yesterday the editors at Bark Magazine invited me to be a guest on Off Leash, their weekly open-thread real-time chat. I pretended I knew what an open thread real-time chat is and said yes.

They’ve been doing this weekly open thread thing for a while, I guess, but are making one tweak. They want to start inviting special guests to each open thread, and they decided to use me as their “test run” yesterday:

We’ll feature a regular Bark contributor, so readers can drill down on specific topics, such as training, behavior, rescue, activism, animal law and more. Other times, we’ll invite folks we admire to join the conversation.

I’ve never done instant messaging, but I’m guessing my experience yesterday afternoon was kind of what IM is like. Bark fans would comment or ask questions to the thread, and I’d answer in real time. An example from yesterday’s Off Leash thread:

Submitted by Jennifer B on April 27, 2011.
Beth, I’m not blind but I know several people that will be due to degenerative diseases of the eye. How hard was it to learn to trust your dog? I’ve worked as a care aide and done sensitivity training as if I were blind and it is hard to trust a human, that’s why I’m asking. How long did it take you to really put yourself in her paws?
• reply
Submitted by Beth Finke on April 27, 2011.
With my very first Seeing Eye dog I think it took me about a year to trust her. The second dog it only took me three months. I have been with Harper, my third dog, for four months now and find I don’t trust him *completely* yet, but I think that’s b/c I am living in a very busy city now — Chicago — and traffic is more difficult here. So actually, I guess I *do* trust Harper, just don’t trust the traffic!
• reply
Submitted by Lizzi on April 27, 2011.
I’d be interested to hear some more about your challenges in living in Chicago with a guide dog, as I live in Chicago and have a BIL with a guide dog.
And I agree, you should definitely NOT trust the traffic in Chicago. Especially cab drivers. Maybe they should teach guide dogs to recognize cabs and refuse to cross in front of them (only half joking here!).

Sometimes he thinks he's a lap dog.

The timing for this little threading experiment was perfect for me – the Seeing Eye sent out an instructor Monday to give me some techniques to try with Harper. We’ve been at it all week, and after making some progress yesterday afternoon we decided to take a break. While Harper snored at my feet, I “mingled” online.

In exchange for all this, Bark will place an ad for my children’s book Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound in an upcoming issue. Bark had me write a guest post for their blog Wednesday, too. It’s about what it takes to be a guide dog instructor, a timely topic since Harper and I have spent so much time this past week with the visiting instructor. More on all that in a future post. Now that my open thread real-time mingling is over, I think I’ll join Harper in snoreland. Zzzzzzzzz…

We may not have made it onto the Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday, but now you can link to my infamous 2002 After the Show appearance on oprah.com. The clip is called “A Nude Model Speaks After the Show and they describe it like this:

After the cameras stopped rolling in 2002, an audience member stood up to share her story about how she lost her sight, her career and became a nude model. Watch this moment unfold.

You may be relieved to know that I am indeed wearing clothes in the clip. The show that day was about “aging gracefully” and now I wonder…do I look ten years older? You be the judge!