Give them a wide berth, please.

I would bet that if someone kept track, my Printers Row neighborhood has more dogs per capita than any place in Chicago—and probably beyond.

Which is fine. I like dogs.

I like people, too. Mostly. But here’s the thing. Because of Beth’s circumstances and by extension my circumstances, I have a different viewpoint than some.

Some context: A survey by The Seeing Eye was published last year in the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. Seeing Eye dog users were asked about interference–which is any distraction (intentional or not) by people or other dogs. From the article in the Seeing Eye Guide, a magazine for constituents:

“The interference can range from deliberate, sustained eye contact with the dog that can cause a distraction to an attack on the guide dog or handler.”

The survey found 89 percent of the people had at least occasional interference from other people and 78 percent reported interference from other dogs.

Beth’s freedom of movement, her independence, her very life all depend on a dog. Luna is not a pet. She is a partner who relies on Beth as much as Beth relies on Luna. Walking around Chicago is a difficult and intense job. Beth is listening for traffic and sensing input from the handle on Luna’s harness. Luna is listening for Beth’s commands and weighing them against what Luna sees—and Luna selectively disobeys Beth’s commands when what she sees (construction barriers, potholes, cars, trucks, dumbshits on electric scooters, etc.) runs counter to what Beth has asked.

I love Beth and I worry about her. So, sometimes it’s hard for me not to make orphans of some of the dogs in our neighborhood and our very own condo building. Their people do really stupid shit.

Let’s leave Beth and her blindness and her service dog out of it to start. There’s stuff that a sighted person like me can’t understand. People in our building let their dogs pee immediately outside our building entrance. Usually against the planters. Often near outside seating at restaurants on the first floor. Which, apart from being, at its face, completely ignorant and insensitive to others, requires our maintenance people to wash down the area, every day, with detergent. This is not cool. It is disrespectful.

As an able-bodied, sighted person, I also am perturbed by people who assume I like THEIR dogs. Who have long retractable leashes that I have to sidestep to avoid tripping. Who like to stop in the MIDDLE of the sidewalk to let their little whatevers sniff someone else’s little whatevers while the people blurt out baby talk to the little whatevers.

For these people, the dogs are not pets. They’re attention-getting devices. They are accessories. And if you haven’t picked it up as yet, I don’t like it.

For me it’s an annoyance. For Beth it’s a freaking hazard. There is a person in our building with an adorable puppy. And this person milks it. She stations herself on the sidewalk looking for people to ooh and aah and it always creates a little bottleneck. These circumstances aggravate me but they are absolutely hazardous for Beth. Luna’s job is really hard and she’s trained to negotiate circumstances but there are limits. And people like this make it impossible.

It’s not that hard. Here are some human being lessons for you Printers Row/Transportation Building dog owners:

• Some people don’t like dogs.
• Some people are fine with dogs but yours is not that special.
• If you love dogs, that’s great, but ask their companion if it’s OK to pet or otherwise pay attention to their dog.
• Because all people need to travel down the sidewalk, keep your dog close at hand.
• Because all people need to travel down the sidewalk, it’s OK if your dog wants to visit with other dogs, but please, move to the side.
• Beth’s dog—and other service animals—are not pets. Don’t make baby sounds, or make eye contact, or assume that Luna needs to meet your dog—or you.

Follow these simple precepts and you will avoid my wrath. Which you really should want to do.

That’s my dad Mike on the left. Uncle George Knezovich center and Uncle Dave Knezovich on the right. Uncle Steve Knezovich, not pictured, served in the Navy.

My earliest recollections of Memorial Day have my father at the barbecue grill, listening to a radio broadcast of the Indianapolis 500. It was a day off work for my mom and dad, a day off school for me an my sister, and an excuse for a cookout. All the neighbors were doing the same in their backyards. Charcoal smoke permeated the block.

As I often do now, I look back and wonder what my parents thought at the time. For them it had been the Depression, the war, and now we’re in the backyard grilling ribs. I can only wonder. Oh, for a Time Machine.

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was and is dedicated to those who lost their lives while serving. Veteran’s Day is a tribute to all who served. They’ve sort of melded in our culture. I’m not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing.

We can argue about the morality of the wars our elected leaders have chosen to fight. I don’t think that means there is any ambiguity about those who carried out those missions.

As I’ve written here before, my father and his three brothers all served during WWII. Thankfully, all of them survived the war itself. But they all suffered tolls. And so, here’s to the memories my father, Mike Knezovich, and his brothers George, David, and Steve (not pictured above but fully appreciated).

A quick update: After weeks of visiting a wound clinic, the  wound is healing (one word: Medihoney). My wound and I are on much better terms with one another now and a  cortisone shot allows my arthritic big toe on my right foot to, you know, move and stuff. I still use a walking stick, but mostly just to signal to fellow pedestrians and to drivers that hey, this is as fast as I can go right now. And my back spasms—due mostly to walking crooked for months—are improving thanks to physical therapy.

Speaking of which, PT has been a godsend for me several times now. It’s so practical, and I learn so much about how my body works, that I always think of Beth’s comment about PT: How come we don’t learn a bunch of this starting in elementary school? Sort of a practical anatomy course? Probably somebody in Florida would find it improper.

I’m lucky, because the Athletico I go to is all of a block away, so I don’t have to miss much work at all. I don’t mind the hour—I’m pretty good about doing exercises at home but it’s good to have a professional monitor my form and keep tabs on things. I do wonder if there’s a physical therapy laboratory somewhere that churns out PTs, controlling for genetics and only turning out extremely perky, energetic, and upbeat professionals.

My latest perky PT left me with an unforgettable line during my first visit. After a rapid fire explanation of an exercise (which, for the record, I was able to follow even in my dotage). “I’m a millennial,” she said, “so I’m sorry if I’m talking too fast.”

I’m doing my best to keep up.

Also, I’ve had mental health therapy now for decades off and on. It first started when Gus moved away and I found myself completely at sea. Once again the wise Beth Finke persisted until I said, OK, I guess so.

It was a good decision, and although the names and faces have changed, it’s kept me less nuts and difficult than I would’ve been without it. I’m downright pleasant at times. I think.

A couple months ago I got a call from a representative of our insurer. She asked how I was doing (probably while looking at the roster of appointments I’d been to) and whether I’d be interested in a counseling program they offer for pain management. She had me at “it’s free.”

So for eight weeks I saw a therapist one morning and a coach another. They had sort of a canned cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program. It was a little rote but was largely helpful, even though at some sessions, I heard more about a therapist’s recovery from surgery than my own plight. But I was glad to help.

So on alternating weeks I actually saw three people. It was hard to keep them all fed.

(On the subject of CBT, our dear friend and sometime blog contributor Regan Burke tipped me off to a terrific little tool when it comes to pain management. It’s called The Pain Management Workbook, and it, too relies on CBD and mindfulness to help one manage pain. If you or someone you know deals with pain—chronic or otherwise—I highly recommend it.)

I’m thankful to all the people out there who’ve made it their lives to help the likes of me and others. And for your patience—I’ve sort of broken a pact by disappearing for these past months, but, like it or not, I’m back.

Last Friday Luna and I presented a special program for third-graders from a school where more than half the students are children of immigrants. Goudy Elementary is located so close to The Admiral at the Lake (a retirement community where I lead weekly memoir-writing classes) that they can walk there. They do exactly that every Friday to attend a reading buddies” program at theAdmiral. Each third-grader reads out loud to an assigned Admiral resident, their “reading buddy” and the Admiral Reading Buddy reads aloud to their third grade buddy, too.

Last Friday, though, things were a little different. The Admiral invited Luna and me to come give a special presentation to the Goudy third-graders about what it’s like to be blind and work with a Seeing Eye dog. The afternoon was delightful, and so were the children. Many of them had read my book Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound and arrived with a question on a card to ask me when it was their turn. Every single child told me their name, then introduced their question a la, “Hello, my name is Sunil, and here’s my question …”. Their older reading buddies were sitting further away, so I made a point to repeat each question so they could hear it, too. Some examples:

• What’s your dog’s favorite toy to play with?
• What are your biggest challenges if you’re blind?
• How does your dog know where he’s going?
• Does your dog understand English?
• Can your dog bark?
• How old is your dog?
• How old are you?
• Do you like cats?
• What’s your dog’s favorite game to play with you when you’re at home?
• What if your dog forgets to stop when it gets to the curb?
• How do you know what you’re wearing?
• Does your dog help you in the kitchen when you are cooking, too?
• If you had to walk lots and lots and lots of blocks to get somewhere, would you just ask someone to drive you there?

That last question gave me the opportunity to introduce all the kids to the friend who had driven Luna and me to the Admiral that day to give the presentation: my friend Ruth was there in the back, taking it all in. Weeks earlier Ruth happily agreed to go 50-50 with me so that each of the 50 children in Admiral’s Reading Buddy group would go home with a copy of my new Service Dogs book. The Admiral resident who emceed last Friday’s presentation last week sent me a email message thanking us for last week’s program and apologizing for not taking time to talk about the books that Ruth and I donated. “But I want you to know that when I held up the books to show the kids, they were so excited and happy!”

No apologies necessary there. Just thinking that some of those third-graders might have brought their new Service Dogs book to read to their Reading Buddies when they walked over to the Admiral today makes Ruth and me happy and excited, too!

Luna and I had a great time at Oak Terrace.

This past Tuesday Seeing Eye dog Luna and I had the honor of visiting third-graders at Oak Terrace Elementary school in Highwood, Illinois to talk about what it’s like to be blind and how service dogs help us get around.

Oak Terrace is a Spanish dual language school: students there are provided daily instruction in both English and Spanish. I am no expert in the benefits of bilingual education, but based on some of the words the kids used when asking questions, I’d say it really helps with vocabulary! Some examples:

• • Did you just wake up one day and all you could see was black?
  • Did you have previous experience with any other dogs before you got your first Seeing Eye dog?
  • How do you eat, I mean, how do you use utensils?
  • Were you terrified when you woke up and all you could see was the color black?
  • How do you play video games?
  • How do you eat when your husband isn’t around to cook?
  • What if there’s a natural disaster?
  • How do you swim without running into the wall at the end of each lap?
  • How do you use the bathroom?
  • Do you choose what to wear, or do you just pick your clothes at random?
  • How do you drive?
  • What happens when your dog retires?

”At random?” “Terrified?” “Natural disaster?” “Previous experience?” “Utensils?” What sort of eight-year-olds use sophisticated language like that?

Eight-year-olds who go to dual-language schools, I guess. Hearing both languages spoken there was music to my ears. When it was time to leave, I leaned down to pick up Luna’s harness, stood back up and used one of the very few sentences I know in the Spanish language: “Mi perro es muy intelligente!” The cheers from the third-graders tell me I must have gotten it right.