Blindness doesn’t bring a whole lot of advantages. So I relish the ones I have. I walk arm in arm with people all the time. My dog goes with me everywhere. And when friends drive me somewhere? we park in handicapped parking!

Best of all, I can’t judge people by the way they look. Fat, skinny, beautiful, homely, young, old, White, Black– it’s all the same to me. I judge people “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

From what I’m told, my friends these days have many different skin colors. I don’t always realize this when I first meet them. And the longer I am blind – nearly half my life now –, the less it matters to me. It’s getting where I don’t bother figuring out what new friends look like. I think of people more as impressionistic paintings, blurs and swatches of colors. And those colors are not always skin tones. Minerva, one of my favorite students in the writing class I teach for senior citizens, was violet. Dignified. Royalty. Billy, our bartender friend, is blue-green: thoughtful and funny, both at the same time.

Here’s the irony, though. While I am unconcerned with what people around me look like, I am paranoid about how I look to others. I was 26 years old when I lost my sight, and a Vietnam Vet who was blinded in a military training accident was assigned to teach me how to cook. A friend who visited me at Braille Jail (that’s what I called the facility I was sent to in order to learn new blind skills) told me what this teacher looked like. “Beth! You wouldn’t believe it! This guy has long sideburns and long hair. Bell bottoms! He looks like a rock and roller from the 70s!”

The year was 1985. I was horrified.

Right away I started fidgeting with the buttons on my denim jumper, wiggling my toes against the flat cotton shoes on my feet. These clothes I’d bought when I could see would wear out sometime. What would I replace them with? Would I forever DRESS as if it were 1985?

We didn’t have much money back then, but Mike saw to it from the start that I shop at the most expensive and exclusive clothing store in town. My first time there, I paraded out of the dressing room in a tight pair of leggings. The store owner gasped. “Oh, honey – you’ve got some big hips!” Now here was a woman I could trust.

I’ve never put on leggings again, but most of the clothing I’ve worn since has come from that store. I especially like buying dresses. No need to memorize which shirt matches which pants, or worry whether my top goes with my skirt.

I don’t want people to feel pity when they stare at Hanni and me. The staring doesn’t bother me that much anymore, I’ve gotten used to it. But as long as they’re watching, I want to look good. Apparently, I do. That’s what people tell me, at least. And Without being able to look in a mirror and judge for myself, I have the luxury of believing them.

Some sighted people work a lifetime to overcome visual prejudices. Blindness has given me an advantage. A handicap. I’m ahead of the race.

It'd be great to get Hanni to weigh in on the subject.

The most interesting question asked at one of our school presentations came from a fifth-grader on Long Island. “If you could see for just one day, and you knew that at the end of the day you wouldn’t be able to see anymore, what would you do that day?”

”I try not to think about how life would be if I could see,” I said, explaining that one coping skill that has helped me since losing my sight is to focus on the things I can do. “Thinking too much about the things I can’t do anymore would make me feel sad all the time.”

I tell kids I’ll answer anything they ask, though, so I gave them the first three things that sprang into my head. I’d Look at photos, try to memorize what everyone looks like. I’d go to our local coffee shop, sneak looks at the other people there and make up stories about them in-between reading the newspaper and sipping on an espresso. I’d drive over to Flo’s, take her out for lunch, maybe pick up some groceries on the way home.

An article about Braille in last week’s New York Times quoted a woman named Laura Sloate, who lost her sight when she was six. Sloate never learned Braille in school, and she uses a talking computer and other audio devices to manage a Wall Street investment firm.

“When Braille was invented, in the 19th century, we had nothing else. We didn’t even have radio. At that time, blindness was a disability. Now it’s just a minor, minor impairment.”

Just a minor impairment? Really?

Technology has made it easier for those of us who are blind to read without using Braille, but technology can’t make up for other things we miss out on. My answer to that fifth-grader was not only a quick study of the things I miss most about not being able to see, but a quick study in things technology cannot yet do for those of us who are blind.

Blindness is one of the most feared and misunderstood disabilities, so I can understand why the woman quoted in that New York Times felt compelled to downplay it, tell the reporter that her blindness is just a minor impairment. We blind people are always walking a fine line. We don’t want others to make assumptions about what we can and cannot do. And it can feel like we always have to prove ourselves.

But I, for one, would never characterize blindness a minor impairment.

Hanni rested patiently while I took my poll.

I took an extremely unscientific poll at Hackney’s, our favorite local, Friday afternoon.

Question: What do you think of when I say the name “Stevie Wonder?”

Answers:

• My Cherie Amour
• Music
• Gangsta’s Paradise
• Signed, Sealed, Delivered

“I think he wrote a symphony, too!” our friend Larry said. It’s true. Stevie Wonder debuted “Sketches of a Life” in Washington, DC this year (Accompanied by a 21-piece chamber ensemble) when he received the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

That’s a remarkable array of music. And Stevie Wonder has had a remarkable career. What is truly remarkable, though, is that not one single person I polled mentioned that Stevie Wonder is blind.

Only 2% of Americans are totally blind. No Wonder, ahem, people sometimes stare at us. Our blindness makes us unique. So unique, that sometimes blindness is the first – or the only – characteristic people remember about us.

Unless you’re Stevie Wonder, that is. The fact that he can’t see is an afterthought. Stevie Wonder is in an enviable position. He could dismiss his disability if he wanted to. But Stevie Wonder is cooler than that. He uses his fame, and his blindness, to encourage technology companies to get together and do some good. Thanks to Stevie Wonder’s leadership (and his House Full of Toys benefit concert last month), 12 manufacturers — normally fierce competitors — have banded together to donate a bunch of expensive adaptive equipment — cool stuff like color identifiers, accessible GPS products, or speech software that transforms average laptops into talking computers. The equipment will be distributed to students around the country who couldn’t otherwise afford it. From an NPR story called Some Technology Leaves the Blind Behind

Unfortunately, the price of many of the devices or software applications created specifically for the blind is anything but accessible and would give most general consumers sticker shock. A case in point is the KNFB Mobile Reader, software that enables a cell phone to read printed text aloud to a blind person through synthesized speech. It sells for close to $1,000 not including the cell phone.

Stevie Wonder was interviewed for the NPR story:

“Hundreds of thousands of people on this planet are blind or with low vision,” says recording superstar Stevie Wonder, who has been blind since infancy. He spoke with NPR at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month.

“So to me, that’s enough to say, ‘Let’s do something about it.’ And when you think about how by making things more accessible for those who are blind, how it would then make them more independent, then for the taxpayer that means less money.”

The equipment will be distributed at the end of January, so if you want to nominate a student to receive the free goods, or if you want to submit an application for yourself, fill out the online form asap. I know how much adaptive technology has helped me stay independent since losing my sight. Thinking of how this effort could change the lives of others who are blind makes me feel, well…”Overjoyed.”

I wish y’all could have seen the big smile on my face when a message from the New Orleans Public Library turned up in my inbox a few weeks ago. The Milton H. Latter Memorial Branch on St. Charles wanted to know if I’d come visit as a guest storyteller on Dec. 29, you know, while the kids are out of school for their holiday break. I couldn’t get my fingers on the y-e-s keys fast enough!

Mike, Hanni and I have been to New Orleans many times, we all just love this city. The place is a blind person’s paradise, really. The smell of green peppers and onions cooking in butter, the sound of live jazz in the streets, the feel of warm air, the tastes of decadent meals and drinks…New Orleans is the only city I know of where sight takes a back seat to the other senses.

We arrived on Christmas Day and have already enjoyed long walks, terrific food and sensational street music. The New Orleans Saints had a home game on Sunday. The team lost, but we still felt like winners. We are lucky dogs, enjoying the sunshine, fun and food. Some of my faves so far:

Best Jambalaya: Coop’s. The version I had featured rabbit (sorry, Lydialyle!) and andouille.
Best music: Palmetto Bug Stompers. I was raised on traditional jazz music and this group could really swing. Plus the trombone player was wearing a White Sox cap.
Best Music Venue: Spotted Cat. The women’s bathroom has a piano near the sinks — after washing my hands I played along with the band for a few measures -–the tune was in B flat.
Best Waiter: The guy at Adolfo’s. He found me waiting in line for the bathroom after dinner and asked if I wanted dessert.
Best Beer Joint: Fahy’s. We have a new friend in Chicago named John, and his sister Katie owns the place. Besides friendly bartenders and a great beer selection, it has two pool tables.

That's Paul Robinson, trombone player for Palmetto Bug Stompers and White Sox fan.

Tomorrow Hanni and I are giving a presentation at what is sure to be the best library branch in New Orleans. For now we’re off to Ignatius for lunch.

If you’ve never seen (and heard!) a blind person using a talking computer, it must be hard to imagine how we manage a Web site without seeing the screen. Or without using a mouse. How do we find the buttons we need? What does a voice synthesizer say when it comes across a link? A picture?

Thanks to the wonderful geeks at the Trace Research and Development Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison, now you have an easy way to find out! They’ve put together a short video demonstrating how screen readers help those of us who are blind.

The narrator of the video has been blind since birth and works at Trace, a center known as a pioneer in technology and disability. I’ve seen (okay, heard) other screen-reader demonstration videos before, but this is my favorite. It’s so well-organized that you learn a lot in a very short time, and narrator Neal Ewers has such a pleasant voice that he makes the demonstration downright entertaining!

A CNN story last week called Web accessibility no longer an afterthought estimated 60 million people in the U.S. can’t use a computer to get on the Internet in the normal fashion. As of now there are no explicit laws to force companies to design Web sites that are accessible to people with disabilities — the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was written in 1999, several years before the Web became an everyday phenomenon. The CNN story pointed out that whether web accessibility is covered by the ADA or not, one thing will continue motivating businesses to comply: money.

Yahoo’s Brightman estimated that there’s about $220 billion in discretionary spending available to disabled people.
Making a Web site accessible to as many people as possible isn’t just the right thing to do, it also makes business sense, he said.

Also, with a rapidly aging population in many parts of the world — notably the U.S. — accessibility requirements will become useful for today’s crop of baby boomers as they grow older.

People over 65 are increasing their use of the Internet, according to Nielsen, and features designed for accessibility could aid those who aren’t technically disabled but wouldn’t mind a little extra help.

The story reported that two of the biggest Internet companies in the world are starting to view accessibility as an important part of what they do. Yahoo requires every new hire to receive accessibility training from Alan Brightman, senior policy director of special communities, and accessibility manager Victor Tsaran, who lost his sight at age five. Yahoo also books engineering teams for tours of their Accessibility Lab. Google just rolled out a service that will let YouTube users add captions to their videos, giving people who are deaf a chance to take advantage of distance-learning opportunities, among other things.

As the Web moves more from an era of presentation to an era of two-way “data-driven” communication, accessibility becomes even more important, said Jonas Klink, accessibility program manager.

Web accessibility has come a long way in the decade since many of these proposals were first floated.

I have people like Neal Ewers and his colleagues at Trace Center to thank for advocating long and hard for Web accessibility. Trace Center opened in 1971. That’s 38 years ago, folks. If Trace and all the other thousands of organizations and advocates hadn’t had the forethought to work on technology and disability issues early on, we might not have even had the technological capability we have today to make Web sites accessible, much less the ability to convince companies that taking the time and energy to make their sites accessible is worth it. THANK YOU, Trace and all you other wonderful advocates. Without you, I might not be a writer. Or a teacher. Or a public radio commentator. Or a blogger!