I’m heading off to beautiful Grand Haven, Michigan today for Sisters’ Weekend, and while I’m away my young friend Ali Krage is stepping in with a guest post.

I met Ali 15 years ago at a “low-vision conference” in DuPage County. “I’m blind like you and I can read Braille and I go to the same school my twin sister goes to, but she can see, can you give me your email address? We can be pen pals!” Who could refuse an invitation like that? Ali was only 11 years old back then. She’s in college now and helps me out by writing guest posts on the blog I moderate for Easterseals National Headquarters.

This one was published on the Easterseals blog yesterday. It’s about the challenges and joys of preparing for a staycation with her boyfriend…when neither of them can see.

Joe and Ali.

by Alicia Krage

For Christmas this past year, my parents gave me a gift certificate for a free night at the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Addison, just a couple miles from my hometown. This wasn’t something I expected to receive, and I took it as a sign of independence. My parents have always been encouraging about my independent travels, whether that meant visiting friends at local or faraway colleges, or (in this case) staying at a hotel.

They’re also good about letting me figure things out on my own, so they left it to my boyfriend Joe and me to choose the date and figure out transportation. Joe and I spent the next few weeks trying to pick a time that would be convenient to go. The certificate didn’t expire until December 2019, but I didn’t want to wait too long. I was afraid we might forget to use it!

After discussing many options, we finally decided to take advantage of the free time I’d have during spring break and use the hotel stay as a mini getaway. We specifically chose March 14. Here’s a little bit of a fun fact: You might recall that in a past blog post, I explained that Joe and I were casually seeing one another before we became an official couple and went on a few dates. March 14 was the day he asked me out on our very first date four years ago. We’ve never acknowledged this day as anything to celebrate, since this isn’t our official anniversary, but since it landed on my spring break we decided to do something different and use it as an excuse to go to a nice hotel.

After finally choosing a date, it was time to call the hotel. I let the receptionist know that we were both blind, so if there was a way to add a note to the reservation, I would appreciate it if that was added. “Yes, of course!” she said. “I’ll also put ‘special assistance’ so they know they have to help you with things like leading you to your room.” The friendliness in her voice was reassuring, and the hint of familiarity, like this news wasn’t a shock, put a smile on my face as I thanked her and said goodbye.

Next was figuring out transportation. I knew that if my parents were free, they would take us, but I enjoy being independent and traveling on my own. I had a gift card for a local Italian restaurant nearby, so we decided we’d take an Uber to that restaurant first, have a nice lunch, and Uber from the restaurant to the hotel to check in. I used voiceover on my iPhone to navigate through the Uber app to enter in the pick-up location and destinations to get the fare for both trips, and Joe and I agreed to split the fare each time.

The day before our trip, my dad took me to the Hilton to get oriented. Upon arriving, we walked to the front desk, and my dad explained to the receptionist that I had a reservation there the following day and, because I’m blind, he wanted to take me around a bit to get the “lay of the land.” The receptionist said that was fine, sounding polite. We started out by walking to the elevators, then heading to a different floor to look at room numbers.

When I was checking out the Braille sign near the door, I noticed there wasn’t a key hole. My dad explained you simply hold your key card up to the door. “It’ll be scanned to unlock the door for you.” This was a relief! It meant I wouldn’t have to request for a corner to be cut on the room key so we’d know how to insert it. After checking out a few more rooms, we headed to the first floor to look at the pool area.

We couldn’t go into the pool area (you needed a key to get in) but my dad was able to look through the window to give me a description of the layout. After practicing these routes a few times — from the elevators to the pool, from the pool to the elevators, and the elevators back to the front — I was even more excited.

Find out how the hotel stay goes when we publish Part Two later this week.

Years ago I had an idea for a Saturday Night Live skit: “The baseball organist at home.”

I imagined the mother, on her off day from the ballpark, sitting at the organ. The kids would leave for school and she’d play, “Na na na na, na na na nah, hey-hey, good-bye.” There’d be a walkup song for each member of the family as they arrived home from school or work. And as the family convened for dinner that evening, the organ would sing out “Hey, hey, the gang’s all here.”

And so on. Such is the brain of me.

All the gals in Nancy and Joe’s back yard.

The whole idea was inspired by Nancy Faust, about whom Beth has written more than once, most recently last weekwhen she learned that a StoryCorps piece she did with Nancy would air on public radio. (You can stream it online now.) The short of it is, Beth and Nancy struck up a friendship after Beth noticed the clever selections Nancy played during the White Sox games we attended — Nancy’s music helped Beth follow what was happening on the field.

Joe Jenkins, Nancy’s husband, and I have joined their party. The four of us don’t get together often, but it’s always a blast when we do.  Just as it was this past weekend when, well, we got to live “The baseball organist at home” in real life.

Nancy and Joe spend the winter at their home outside Phoenix with their dog Jack and their two … donkeys. Yep. More later. Nancy and Joe generously hosted Beth, Whitney and me at their Arizona home Friday and Saturday nights. We attended the White Sox-Cubs spring training game on Friday. The Sox had invited Nancy to do a one-day comeback and play that day.

Well, although Nancy did provide the soundtrack for decades of White Sox baseball, I can tell you that no, she does not provide a soundtrack for their daily lives. But … Beth and I were privy to the genius at work as Nancy ran ideas by all of us for what to play for whom and when. We chipped in ideas where we could, and Nancy kept updating her notes. We learned that after decades of playing for Sox games, Bulls games, Blackhawks games, even Minnesota North Stars games, old habits die hard. She said she still hears a song, thinks—“that’d work great on game day”—and scribbles down the title. The bad news is she can never find her notes!

We also got a window on how hard she works for a game—and how hard the game-day staff work to put on a show. Nancy had a voluminous script of sorts—it was basically a list of cues about when the PA announcer would be doing his thing, when the DJ would play, and when she should play. The whole time, someone would be in Nancy’s ear helping her stay on schedule.

We arrived early with Nancy, Joe, their son Eric and his fiancé Ann. We had time to lazily explore Camelback Ranch stadium—which the White Sox share with the LA Dodgers—and take in the radiant sun, which was mitigated by a delightfully cool breeze. It’s a lovely facility and especially accessible; we could make a lap of the whole place without climbing a step.

The food and drink offerings were surprisingly good—basically representative of what you’d find at Sox Park or Dodger Stadium. I had a Dodger Dog, just because, well, I don’t always get the chance. It was fine. It’s a foot long hot dog. No Chicago-style garden. But, you know, with a beer in the sun at a baseball game, all hot dogs are delicacies.

As we walked the concourse, Beth and I both experienced bittersweet nostalgia. Nancy chooses the pre-game music just as cleverly as she does in-game riffs, and she has a distinct style. It was an all-Chicago game, so she played Chicago favorites, from “My Kind of Town”to “Lake Shore Drive.”There were also fight songs from the University of Illinois, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Wisconsin. She knows her crowd.

The overall effect is breezy, upbeat, and relaxing. We used to take Gus to the park when he still lived with us, and he loved the music as much as we did. I’ve missed it.

Because we arrived early, I was afraid it might be a long day. But it kind of flew by. Crowd-watching was great—I played at guessing who might have traveled from Chicago, and who were Chicago transplants. Some fans made the guessing easy—one Cub fan wore a t-shirt that said “I live in Las Vegas but my origins are in Chicago.” Well, no comment.

There were really no bad seats at Camelback Ranch.

There were a lot of mixed couples (Sox fan/Cub fan) and a whole bunch of family/friend reunion outings, with good-natured South Side-North Side ribbing. The vibe was so laid back that there was none of the ugliness or tension that can bubble up at regular season games between the two. Beth struck up a conversation with a Sox fan on our right. Just a delightful guy. Turned out he’s a bricklayer who’s been working a lot recently on hi-rises not far from where we live in Chicago.

After the game, we waited outside Nancy’s booth while she was interviewed by Chuck Garfein of NBC Sports Chicago for a podcast. (That podcast turned out great, give it a listen here.)

After the game, Eric and Joe had the organ packed and loaded in the van in no time.

The reason we waited outside the booth is that Joe had to pack up Nancy’s organ—the park doesn’t have one, so he had delivered hers the day before. I chipped in somewhat feebly to help Joe and Eric collect Nancy’s organ and electronic keyboard, amplifier, speaker and various cables. It was a sort of ballet—Joe has done this a million times over Nancy’s career, and he ran a business that rented organs to clubs like the Jazz Showcase—the iconic venue down the street from Beth’s and my place. I think Eric has done it, oh, maybe a half a million times. It was amazing how quickly they had 400+ lbs of equipment packed safely in a rented van.

After celebratory pizza, we headed back to Joe and Nancy’s place, which is as much a small ranch as it is a house. The landscape is manicured, smoothly rolled stone peppered by a variety of cacti. No lawn mowing but hardly maintenance free.

Out back, a nifty barn that includes a nicely furnished tack room—where Nancy practices the organ. On the other side? A stall that opens to a penned in outdoor space for Nancy’s two donkeys. The miniature one is Gigi, the older full-size gal is Mandy. Every day, Nancy tends to them and shovels, well, you know what, twice a day.

She also trains them, and I got to see some tricks. One—which I didn’t capture on video—had Nancy asking Mandy whether she thought I was smarter than her. She shook her head no. Hmm.

There’s lots more, from a hot dog at Costco to Thursday night at the biker bar—I mean it was a jam-packed couple days, but I’ll just say if someone told me back in the day that  I’d be hanging out with Nancy Faust, her family, and her donkeys at spring training in Arizona, well, I don’t think I’d have believed it. Or certainly not all of it. But, there I was, sitting outside on a cool night beside a fire pit, doing just that.

And pinching myself.

Remember when I wrote that post last September about recording a StoryCorps interview with renowned baseball organist Nancy Faust? It’s going to air this Friday morning, March 15, 2019 on WBEZ in Chicago!

That’s me celebrating with Nancy at Half Sour (our local tavern) after recording the interview last year. (Photo: Joe Jenkins.)

The timing is perfect: Mike, Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I are flying to Arizona tomorrow to stay with Nancy and Joe for a few days. Their son Eric and his girlfriend Ann will be there, too, and we’ll all head to Camelback Ranch on Friday to be at Nancy’s one-day return to the baseball organ bench: She’s performing at Friday’s Cubs-Sox Spring Training game!

The baseball field at Camelback Ranch does not have a baseball organ, but Nancy says that’s no problem: with the help of her sweet husband Joe Jenkins, she will bring her own. “They changed the spot for the organ and asked if we could deliver it Thursday instead of today,” she wrote me in an email message this morning. “So we arranged for a 10 a.m. delivery and can easily get to the airport when you arrive.” Now, tell me: How many people do you know who have baseball organist friends who pick them up at the airport, and, when necessary, bring their own instrument from home to play at the ballpark?

My relationship with Nancy Faust started on a bittersweet day –- the day my eye surgeon told Mike and me that none of the surgeries they tried had worked, From my memoir, Long Time, No See:

The White Sox were in town that day. Going to a ballgame after learning I’d be blind for the rest of my life was probably a strange thing to do, but it beat heading home and sitting on our pitiful second-hand couch and wondering where to turn next.

The White Sox were having a rotten year. There were maybe 8,000 people in the stands. Floyd Bannister pitched, the Sox lost. But it was strangely pleasant, sitting next to Mike with my head up, not giving a thought to eyes or surgery. We each had a bratwurst and a beer. Between bites and gulps and giving me play by play, Mike bantered with other fans, cursing the underachievers on the team. I laughed at the tunes selected by Nancy Faust, the Sox organist–she’s famous for picking songs that play on player’s names. Mike marveled at the endurance of Carlton Fisk, and we both wondered out loud why every time we went to a game, that bum Bannister was pitching.

When Nancy Faust was at the organ and a player walked, you might hear Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.” If there was a pickoff throw, she’d likely play “Somebody’s Watching me.” And when the pickoff was successful? The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” Nancy was also at the organ when Harry Caray first sang “Take me out to the ballgame” for the seventh-inning stretch at Comiskey Park. And she was the first to play “Na, na, na, nah, na, na, na, nah, hey, hey, hey, goooodbye!” when the opposing pitcher got sent to the showers.

She always helped me know who was batting by teasing the player’s name with a tune. Some of Nancy’s choices were obvious — Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” for players with that number, the theme from “Magnificent Seven” for players sporting number seven on their backs. Nancy invented walkup music, and to my mind, she was better at choosing songs than today’s players are.

I stopped by Nancy Faust’s booth at White Sox Park after Long Time, No See was published in 2003 to sign a copy for her. I was tickled to have an opportunity to thank her personally for helping me track what’s happening on the field, and we’ve been friends ever since.

Mike’s all-time favorite Nancy Faust walk-up tune is the one she’d play for Gary Disarcina. No, it wasn’t “Gary, Indiana” from the Music Man. That is wayyyy too obvious. It was “Have you Seen Her?” by the Chi-Lites.

As for me, I used to think Nancy was at her best whenever Travis Hafner was in town. At a game against the Cleveland Indians, she played “Bunny Hop” for his first at bat, and then J. Geils “Centerfold” his next time up. During our StoryCorps interview she told me that when a streaker once jumped from the stands and ran across the outfield, she played, “Is That All There Is?” That’s my new fave.

The interview she and I did last September was 45 minutes long. The one that airs Friday will be five minutes, tops, but I’m hoping/expecting they’ll leave some of the parts in where she explains where she comes up with all these ideas. Chicago Tribune Sports writer Phil Rosenthal said it perfectly in the opening to his Monday column, where he alerts fans to cue the fanfare for the comeback at the March 15 Spring Training game: “It’s a big week for one of the greatest, most consistent, versatile and innovative players in Chicago sports history,” he says. “That, of course, would be Nancy Faust.”

Get thee to a movie theater with a great big screen for “Apollo 11.”

Late at night, after Beth retires, I usually channel surf. Most of the time I come up disappointed. Sometimes I run into an old favorite and rewatch it, and then kick myself the next day for staying up too late to see a movie I’d already seen.

Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy.

And every once in awhile, I’ll bump into a movie that had caught my interest when it was in the theaters, but not enough to get me out to see it. Last week, I bumped into “Jackie,” the biopic about the time just before and after JFK’s assassination, and how the enigmatic Jackie Kennedy dealt with it. Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Jackie Kennedy is mesmerizing. For those of a certain age, the film provides a lot of nostalgia. A warning: The assassination was portrayed for what it is more accurately described as: a savage and gruesome murder.

All in all, it was well worth losing a little sleep.

Then, by some lucky accident, a trailer for “Apollo 11” appeared in my Facebook feed. Yes, something useful! Well, there’s been a lot of Apollo 11 stuff lately,”First Man” among others. So at first I thought the movie on my feed was one I’d heard of.

It wasn’t. For one, it’s a documentary. It’s not remotely like anything else on the moon shot I’ve ever seen.  I’d go so far as to say it’s not remotely like any other documentary I’ve seen. It’s stunning, nostalgic, inspiring, and kind of heartbreaking in the way it made it feel like something’s been lost since that time.

Here’s the deal: Somehow, a trove of large format film taken before, during and after the moonwalk was discovered in a forgotten warehouse in Maryland. It was last year in May that Dan Rooney, from the National Archives, wrote an email to “Apollo 11” filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller about the newfound collection. From a Vanity Fair article on the discovery:

“The collection consists of approximately 165 source reels of materials, covering Apollo 8 through Apollo 13,” Rooney wrote. “Thus far, we have definitively identified 61 of those 165 that relate directly to the Apollo 11 mission, including astronaut mission preparations, launch, recovery, and astronaut engagement and tours after the mission.”

These were all shot in 65 mm and printed in 70 mm, the gold standard that was used in films like “The Sound of Music” back in the day. It’s all remarkably vivid.

After lots of restoration, digitization, and research into what the newly found film was showing us, the filmmakers spliced the new footage with all the imagery we’re familiar with, and it’s like the movie goer is there in real time: when astronauts Anderson, Aldrin, and Collins are suiting up, when the engines roar wildly to impossibly lift the enormous Saturn V into space, and until the astronauts return. Somehow, though the audience knows the outcome, all the things are tautly suspenseful.

The movie is ingenious in that it moves at pace through each day of the mission, explaining what needs to be explained along the way, all without a narrator. The film narrates itself with tempo, text titles, and relying on the audio of Walter Cronkite and NASA people to fill in the dots when needed. The film also employs simple graphics to illustrate orbits, docking maneuvers, and other technical aspects.

When I walked out of the theater, it dawned on me that the biopic and the documentary had two things in common: Walter Cronkite and JFK. I think it’s fair to say Cronkite and Kennedy’s levels of literacy, intelligence, and disposition are not matched by their modern day counterparts. Both movies make good use of footage from Cronkite’s reports. And in Apollo 11, there is footage from Kennedy’s famous 1962 speech at Rice University in 1962 when he drew the line in the sand and committed the U.S. to getting a man to the moon before the decade’s end:

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year’s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year–a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority–even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun–almost as hot as it is here today–and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out–then we must be bold.

Apollo 11 makes clear the incredible complexity, the near impossibility of any one of several parts of the mission. In so doing, it makes landing people on the moon and getting them back safely seem even more impressive in retrospect. It also captures that inspirational teamwork that the movie Apollo 13 portrayed—but man, it’s real this time. All that footage is real. I cannot recommend it highly enough, and please, see it on the big screen.

One of the teenage girls who waited in line for me to sign her book yesterday afternoon had a voice like a young Viola Davis. “You are a POWerful person,” she told me, stressing the “pow”in powerful. Just in case I didn’t hear her, she said it again. “You must be a POWerful person,“ she reasoned. ”Going through all that and getting up there talking about it all…”.

As I autographed their books, I got the privilege of talking with each participating high school girl. (Photo: Dana Ellenby-Bergeron).

I’m not sure anyone has ever used that word to describe me before. I didn’t know what to say in response, so I just thanked her. “You make me feel good!” I said, feeling my face start to blush. Time to refocus the conversation. ”Are you a writer?” I asked.

”I keep a journal,” she said. “But no one else reads it.” It sounded like she thought that didn’t count. Au contraire!

“That’s what journals are for!” I said. And with that simple statement, we were off, sharing stories of using journal-writing to help make decisions, express anger, share secrets. We could have gone on and on, but with other girls waiting behind her, we knew she had to take off.

I didn’t have to be able to see to know that everyone at Friday’s International Women’s Day celebration at Chicago’s Cliff Dwellers Club was happy to be there — you could feel the energy. Friends from college, writers in my memoir classes, and neighbors from our Printers Row neighborhood were there for moral support, including Ellen Sandmeyer, who lugged a cartful of books from Sandmeyer’s Bookstore for those interested in purchasing one. Eve Moran, the member of Cliff Dwellers who was in charge of the event, had already purchased a book for each of the 30 Chicago high school girls there to take home as a gift. “If you’re over 18?” I said at the end of my talk. “I’m afraid you have to pay for yours!”

The event was sold out. (Photo: Al Hippensteel.)

Sharing the stage with other women artists — a soprano from the Lyric Opera, a sculptor, a photographer and a children’s book author — to celebrate International Women’s Day together was an honor. Having an opportunity to talk about reading and writing with each of the students there as I signed their books? That was a privilege.

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I was gathering my things to leave once the event was over. It was the teenager with the velvety Viola-like voice again. She had one more thing to tell me before she got on the bus back to school.

I’m told one of the great things about the Cliff Dwellers Club is the views it offers. (Photo: Al Hippensteel.)

“Keep me in your prayers,” she said. “I’m having eye surgery next week.” Whitney’s harness fell from my palm. The news was stunning. She is so young. Once again, I didn’t know what to say, so I asked a question instead. “Can I give you a hug?”

She stayed with me long enough to talk about her diagnosis — she doesn’t have the same eye condition I do, but I knew enough about hers to talk with her about the upcoming surgery, let her know I understand how scary this is, reassure her that science and technology has come a long long way in the 30+ years since I lost my sight. I promised her I’d keep her in my prayers.

I’m guessing, though, she’ll come through with flying colors, and in the process, she’ll realize she’s powerful, too.