Almost forgot to tell you about our trip to Burbank last Thursday! Would love to tell you that Hanni and I flew to sunny Burbank California for the gig, but, alas, the library we visited was in snowy Illinois. Burbank is a blue-collar suburb of Chicago, not easy to get to via public transportation.

Billy Balducci to the rescue.You remember who Billy Balducci is, right? The bartender at Hackney’s,
our local tavern? The guy sitting next to me in that photo from an October, 2007 blog post
called Cheers!?

The minute Billy heard that Mike was working the night Hanni and I were scheduled at
Prairie Trails Public Library, he offered to drive us. He doesn’t tend bar on Thursday nights, he said. “Plus Kath is taking a class that night.”

Sidenote: Hate to break it to those of you who have admired Billy via the Internet, but he is a happily married man now. He and Kathleen tied the knot last Fall and are enjoying wedded bliss.

Back to the story. Billy grew up near Burbank, his family still lives near there, if Kathleen wasn’t going to be home that Thursday night anyway, why not visit his parents while I talked to the kiddies at the library, then come pick me up and drive me home?

Deal.

“There were no spots left in the parking lot!” Billy joked when he came to fetch me after our gig. “It’s standing room only in here!” It’s true there were far more people in the library auditorium than I’d expected — the kids were curious, and as always, full of terrific questions.

“Do you ever go *anywhere* by yourself?” one girl asked. “That was something I really worried about when I first lost my sight,” I told her. “I was afraid I might never, ever be alone again. And I like being alone sometimes.”

I told her how much I value my time alone at home now. Hanni is always in the house with me, but she’s usually sleeping. I know our apartment so well I can walk around on my own. “But you know, you’re right. when I leave the apartment, or anytime I want to go out and do anything, I either have Hanni with me or I hold onto another person’s elbow.”

“And so, you are always accompanied?” the girl asked. Loved her using that word, accompanied. I told her yes.

I had the best of both worlds as I was accompanied out of the Burbank Library: Hanni’s leash in my left hand, Billy’s elbow in my right. “Wanna stop at Keegan’s?” Billy asked. Keegan’s is a South Side Irish bar he and his buddies used to go to when they were teenagers. “We’d use fake i.d.s, drink a Guinness and then head over to Comiskey for a Sox game.”

I was feeling celebratory. We’d made it to Burbank. The presentation went well. “I’d love to go,” I said, but knowing about Billy’s chivalry, I made one demand. “You have to let me buy.” He reluctantly agreed.

Inside Keegan’s, Billy placed my hand on a bar stool, I climbed up and started eavesdropping. I was the only woman in the bar. Billy was by far the youngest man there, and Hanni the only dog. She napped at our feet while we sipped pints of Guinness. The jukebox played Journey and Country & Western hits, the volume so low that Billy and I could keep up a conversation. We talked about his new neighborhood, the house he and Kathleen had bought, life as a bartender, what the future might bring.

Billy bought the second round. “Beer always tastes better on the South Side,” he insisted. I had to agree.

A few free fun adventures you can have this month:

• Free hotel room.March 31 is the last day to take advantage of that free hotel room deal I blogged about, you know, the one where you volunteer 8 hours and get the room free. Sounds like a come-on, but it’s really true. Here’s proof:
  

  That's Hanni and me luxuriating free-of-charge in our lovely Blackstone room last December.

  All you’ve gotta do is call one of the participating hotels and when you check in, bring a letter from your non-profit organization confirming you’ve volunteered 8 hours. Reward yourself! You deserve it!

• Free admission to Children’s Museum. It usually costs to get into the Chicago Children’s Museum, but on Thursday night, March 18 from 5 to 8, everybody gets in free. It’s their bring books to life Book Fair, and Hanni and I will be doing a couple of presentations and signing books for anyone interested. Come on by, it oughta be fun and hey, the price is right.
• Free Subscription. Now you can subscribe to my Safe & Sound blog and receive an email message any time I’ve published a new post. Thanks to my web master, a button (or is it a link?!) has been added somewhere below this post. So easy to subscribe, and trust me, I won’t give your email address out to anyone. I don’t know how!

This last adventure isn’t free, but it’s happening in March so I’m plugging it in this post anyway. This Sunday, march 7, I’ll be giving two sessions at University of Wisconsin’s Spring Writers Festival in Milwaukee. From their web site:

Whether your goal is to publish a novel, flourish as a freelancer, start a blog or complete a set of short stories, you can find the inspiration and confidence to beat the block and succeed as a writer at the UWM Spring Writers Festival – March 5-7.

The Festival is a three-day conference including panel discussions, manuscript reviews, pitch sessions and workshops. I’ll be presenting one workshop on getting personal essays on the radio and another on getting a children’s book published. Registration is still open for the entire festival, for more info just check out their web site.

Our trip to Milwaukee this weekend means, guess what? Hanni and I will be staying in a hotel again. Can’t wait to check out the free hotel robe…!

We make our exit from a Fairview classroom--I'm told at least one in the audience couldn't resist at least trying to pet Hanni.

My plan for this week was to write a blog post about the trip Hanni and I made to Fairview Elementary School last Monday, but wouldn’t you know it. I got scooped! A story in the local Trib describes our trip to Mt. Prospect, Il far better than I ever could. Aside from two teeny-tiny numerical errors (Hanni and I have been together eight-and-a-half years now, and our walk to the train station in Chicago is only 12 blocks) the story is perfect!

On Monday, February 22 local author Beth Finke visited with grades 1,2, and 3 at Fairview Elementary School in Mt. Prospect. Because Beth is blind, she was accompanied by a furry, four-legged friend. Hanni, a ten year-old golden retriever/yellow lab mix, has been Beth’s guide dog for the past seven years.
After navigating a 16 block walk from their apartment in Printer’s Row to the Ogilvie Train Station, Hanni and Beth were picked up at the Mt. Prospect
station and headed to Fairview where Hanni made herself comfortable on the Library Resource Center rug. The students were enthralled with the adorable
dog, but Beth made sure they understood that when a guide dog is wearing a harness, it is working, which means no petting or feeding from anyone other than the owner. Guide dogs are performing important work and cannot be distracted while in the midst of their duties. To demonstrate Hanni’s remarkable skills, Beth had Hanni lead her through the crowded LRC to the door and into the hallway by uttering just a few commands. Once the harness came off, however, Hanni became a playful pet, rolling on her back for a belly rub.

Told through Hanni’s eyes, Beth’s award-winning children’s book “Hanni and Beth: Safe and Sound” illustrates the special relationship she shares with her trusted canine friend. LRC Director Laurie Oh read the book to all classes to prepare the students for this visit. Beth brought a special braille version of the book to Fairview and showed the kids how she reads with her fingers, a skill she is still learning. Beth lost her sight at age 26 from diabetic retinopathy. Beth had to learn a new way of living and her positive attitude has no doubt helped. She developed lots of little tricks like putting safety pins on all her black shirts or using rubber bands to distinguish between lotion and shampoo. When asked about not being able to see people and what they look like, she said she can tell a person’s beauty by the kindness he or she displays.

The story gives credit to Betsy Griebenow, the kind and beautiful volunteer who arranged our visit and picked Hanni and me up at the Mt. Prospect train station. It ends with a quote from April Jordan, Fairview’s principal, saying how much the kids benefit from cultural arts programs and meeting authors.

The Trib writer didn’t have column space to list all the fun questions the Fairview kids asked after my presentation, so here’s my favorite: “How do you know if you picked a four-leaf clover?”

I must have picked one that morning without knowing it. Hanni and I sure were lucky to spend our snowy Monday safe and warm with that beautiful bunch at Fairview.

Anita with her little sister AnneMarie, Anita's #1 fan.

After hearing that my great-niece Anita had been invited to compete in a high school girl’s three-point tournament, I dug up an ESPN.com story about Matt Steven, a blind teenager who shoots free throws for his high school team.

Matt’s older brother Joe coaches the team, and he stands under the hoop to rap a cane on the rim whenever his little brother shoots. Matt never played a regular game until last year, when other teams (and the refs) agreed to allow him to shoot all the free throws during a particular tournament. He was 4-for-8 in his first game, and even the fans from the opposite team cheered when he hit his shots.

No one cheered during the second game, though. Matt missed all six attempts. His team was losing by one point with 10 seconds left when their best shooter — 6’4″ senior Ryan Haley — was fouled.

So while it was cute and all, having that blind boy shoot free throws, well, with the game on the line of course the team’s stud would take his place now to make these two last all-important shots. Or would he?

Haley really was going to shoot them, until he looked over at Matt on the bench. “And I thought, He comes to every game, he never misses a practice, he cheers us on. He deserves a shot. I mean, it’s everyone’s dream to make those shots.”

So out comes Matt. And for the first time, the St. Phil {opposite team} fans aren’t rooting for him. In fact, they look like they’d prefer that he shoot straight into the hot dog table. “That might have been the best moment of all for Matt,” recalls Joe. “For once, he was just normal.”

I know exactly how Matt felt. It’s nice to be complimented for the things I manage to do without being able to see – getting to the airport by myself, crossing traffic-ridden streets in Chicago with Hanni, using a talking computer to read and write email messages, those sorts of things. But what really feels good is when we’re held up to the exact same standards as our average peers

The only reason the refs allowed Matt Steven to be a “designated free throw shooter” was because he was blind. In the end, though, Matt had to produce. Just like his teammates.

Matt lets go. Off the backboard and through. Tie game. Crowd goes berserk.
Says Joe: “I think it helped that he’s blind. He couldn’t see the crowd, the scoreboard, his teammates’ faces.”

The crowd stills again. Dribble. Tap. Shoot. Bank. Swish! Up by one. The gym windows nearly break.

Chaos. Joy. Wonder.

The ESPN.com story goes on to describe how Matt’s life has changed after that big game. His teammates call him “Shooter” now. Girls greet him in the school hallways, and he’s thinking of asking one of them to prom. If she’s smart, she’ll say yes. It’ll be the best blind date of her life.

That's me and Hanni at Reavis School in Chicago.

Hanni and I have visited 4 schools in the past couple of weeks. Five, if you count a side trip to my alma mater, York High School in Elmhurst IL. But I’ll get to that later. First, the elementary schools. Reavis Elementary in Chicago, Jefferson Elementary in Milwaukee, Kipling and Wilmot Elementary Schools in Deerfield, IL all had us come as part of “disability awareness week.” Our presentations were geared to first graders, who were learning the five senses, and third graders, who were studying Helen Keller. “Have you ever heard of her?” a third grader asked. I told her I had. “Helen Keller was a writer, just like me! “I said. “Except she wrote a lot about politics.” The crowd grew silent. These 6 and 8-year-olds had no idea what I was talking about. Note to self: save discussion of Helen Keller’s socialist and feminist leanings for some other time. We moved on.

A student who had already read Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound said he noticed that the woman in the book used a white cane before she got a dog. “Did you use a white cane, too, before you got your dog?” I had to explain that, hey, I am the woman in the book! “Do Hanni and I look like the pictures?” They chorused a “Yes!” Hanni turned 10 last week. People tell me she’s turning white around the muzzle. It was a relief to hear the kids say she still resembles the young energetic pup Anthony LeTourneau painted for the illustrations in Safe & Sound.

A first grader wanted to know what Hanni dressed like for Halloween. She didn’t dress up this year, but I was tempted to dress as a baseball umpire and go trick-or-treating with Hanni at my side — you might recall the umps were in a little hot water during the playoffs last season?

And at Wilmot School, in Deerfield, IL.

And now for our high school visit. Hanni and I didn’t go to York to perform; we went to see a performance. Remember my great niece Anita, the one I mentioned in my blog post about Obama’s election night party? She is a star on Willowbrook High School’s freshman basketball team, and Willowbrook and York are rivals. My sister Bev came in from Michigan to see Anita play, and Flo was going, too. Anita’s family and her grandma and grandpa (my sister Cheryl and brother-in-law Rich) always go to Anita’s games, and Hanni and I decided to take the train to Elmhurst and join the fun.

So there we were on the second row of the bleachers: Anita’s 93-year-old great-grandmother who uses a walking cane, seated next to Anita’s great aunt Beth, who uses a Seeing Eye dog.

We were right at the center line. Basketball shoes thumped back and forth. When I heard action at our right, I knew to cheer: Willowbrook might score. When the action was at our left, I could yell, “Defense!” Flo was a natural at play-by-play. She’d groan every time the ball went in-and-out of Willowbrook’s basket, so I knew when they missed. And she ever-so quietly repeated “Miss it, miss it, miss it” at every York free throw. A groan after that told me Flo’s voodoo didn’t work, York made the shot.

That's me and Flo and my sister Bev cheering Anita on--between gabbing.

Anita played well, and The game was very exciting. I know it’s old news by now but I just gotta say: it is oh so cool that girls are encouraged to play sports now. Helen Keller would be pleased.

Anita, the budding star.

After the game, 14-year-old Anita was promoted to the varsity team – she’ll be playing in the regionals this week. Not sure Flo and I will make it to any of those games, though. After we successfully climbed down from the bleachers, Flo pulled me close. “I don’t know about you, Beth,” she whispered. “But my butt is sore!”