You might remember the guest post my friend Chuck Gullet wrote (and the memorable photos he took) a few years ago when he came along on an appointment to get my fake eye polished. Chuck is one of the volunteers who has been taking Whitney on long walks while I recover from surgery, and here he is with a guest post about walking with Whit. 

Walking Miss Whitney

by Chuck Gullett

What could be better than this?

It’s not just a walk in the park when you have a highly trained guide dog at your side. As soon as Whitney and I step outside, I can immediately tell that Beth’s Seeing Eye dog has a ton of pent up energy and also wants to test out her new walker. After she sniffs around and pulls me from tree to tree, Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, is channeled through me. It is time to get down to business and start that walk.

Whitney knows that I’m not Beth. She also knows that she really isn’t “on duty,” but I still have to cross the street at the corners and have her sit to wait for traffic. I think these walks might actually make me a more responsible pedestrian and give up my jaywalking ways.

Whitney is a pretty cool character while we are out. I’m not supposed to let her mingle with other dogs, but that’s not too hard. Other dogs check her out and try to pull their owners over, but Whit just struts by without giving much notice at all. We are on a mission, after all. The mission is to get to Lake Michigan.

Beth and Mike mentioned that Whit really likes the lake. So, of course, that’s where I decide to walk her. As we start getting close, the pulling gets stronger and stronger. She doesn’t just love the lake, she is freaking crazy about it. The edge of the harbor area is about 10 feet above the water. Without the leash, she would have been in the water in a second.

Well…this!

I walk her over to a bench where we sit down and try to relax a bit. That seems to work until the ducks come flying in. What’s better than a lake? Obviously… a lake with ducks. We went over to check them out, but it had to be a very brief introduction (no pun intended). My arm was getting worn out from holding her back and it was time to head home.

Whit knows the route home pretty well, but she really slowed down the pace on the way back. Worn out or just procrastinating? I like to think she just wanted more quality time with Uncle Chuck — we both had a good walk.

It’s me, Beth again with a shameless plug — besides being a primo dog walker, Chuck’s a real estate broker. If you’re looking for a place in Chicago, give him a call: 312-593-1436

Guest blogger Mike Knezovich back. Thanks again to Chuck Gullett for his great post.

Now, back to New Jersey and Beth and The Seeing Eye: With all apologies to people named Whitney, everywhere, I think that Whitney sounds a little too preppy, a little too much like a girl who would hang with girls named Paige and Madison and the like. All perfectly nice names, they just don’t pair well with Knezovich, if you know what I mean.

And so, as far as I am concerned, her name shall be Whit, forevermore. And here she is:

There she is on a commuter train platform during training. Next stop, Chicago!

When she saw the picture, our friend Nancy described Whit as a cross between Harper and Hanni. Can’t argue there. Early reports have it that Whit loves to work so much that she doesn’t always know when to stop. Yesterday morning, anytime Whit approached a quiet intersection, or one where there was no traffic at the time, she’d slow down a bit but then blow right past the curb. She was so excited to see more sidewalk ahead to guide Beth on that she didn’t want to stop.

Part of the three-week training at the Seeing Eye is to remind Beth and the 18 other blind students in her class what they need to do when their new dogs make mistakes. Every time Whit blew a curb, Beth had to give Whit a quick leash correction, tell her “Pfui!” and take a few steps backward to the curb Whit missed. After commanding Whit to “sit,” Beth would tap the curb with her foot and say, “good girl,”  indicating that’s where she wanted Whit to stop. They’d step back a few steps then, rework the curb, and Whit always, always got it the second time around.

Later that afternoon Beth and Whit went on that same route with their trainer. Whit stopped at every curb, traffic or no traffic. Way to go, Whit!

Beth reports that Whit walks at a fast but not reckless clip, and that Whit is, umm, regular, which is a real plus for the partner of a working dog. And for the guy who takes the working dog out occasionally for its constitutional.

So, as the guest blogger here I’m happy to introduce: Another guest blogger!

He’s Chuck Gullett. He and his lovely partner Rene are friends from our little Printers Row neighborhood. Last week while I was in Urbana, Chuck was kind enough to accompany Beth to an unusual (for most people) appointment. Since he’s a great photographer and storyteller, Beth asked whether he’d be willing to blog about the experience. He did that, and got a bunch of good shots — I’ll post a couple with his blog. Oh, and besides being a terrific photographer and friend, Chuck’s also a solid, honest real estate agent. So if you’re in the market….

Finally, don’t blame Chuck for the “eyewitness account” headline — I just couldn’t resist.

That's a whole lotta eyeballs right there. (By Chuck Gullett.)

With that, I present Chuck Gullett!

A trip to the ocularist

Between Harper’s retirement and Whitney’s training, I had the great opportunity to accompany Beth as her “Seeing Eye Chuck” for a visit to the ocularist.  The ocularist, as I learned, is the place to go when you need a new glass eye or just a little glass eye maintenance. The ocularist’s office, on the 16th floor of the Garland Building in Chicago, has a spectacular view of Lake Michigan, Millennium Park and Navy Pier. Ironically, the hundreds of eyes in the office are all neatly arranged in drawers and never able to enjoy the view.

On this visit, Beth was going in for a routine cleaning. As an observer, the process is fairly straightforward…

1) Remove glass eye with a device that looks like a miniature Nerf suction cup dart.

2) Try not to make an immature sucking sound as the eye is being removed.

3) Sit back and chat until the eye returns from the onsite laboratory, which I pictured to be somewhat like Grandpa’s lab from the “Munsters.”

When the ocularist returned with the beautifully polished eye, I asked a few questions and Beth talked him into showing me the lab and explaining the cleaning process. What I got was an enthusiastic lesson in the history, making and care of the good ol’ ocular prosthesis, or what we commonly refer to as a glass eye. First off, the eye is not even made of glass. Modern glass eyes are actually made of acrylic, which is extremely durable and more cost effective to manufacture.

The guys in the lab area told me about the heroic GI’s returning from WWII having a large demand for glass eyes. The glass eyes would tend to break by accident or “accidentally” around the time a GI wanted to visit the big city. A shortage in high quality imported glass and the cost of replacement eyes prompted the government to find a better material to make artificial eyes. Now, we have the modern version in durable acrylic.

So, what's your guess? (By Chuck Gullett)

To give you an idea of how durable the eyes are, Beth has had the same peeper for 25 years and the last time she had it polished was 4 years ago. Each eye is hand crafted for its owner and is a true piece of art. I looked through the drawers of sample eyes and the level of detail is really stunning. The blood vessels are recreated with silk threads while the pupil and iris take laborious hours to hand paint so they look realistic. The ocularist had notes from Beth’s last two visits where they recommended that she get fitted for a new eye, but Beth just smiled and said, “Yeah, I kinda like this one.”  I like that one, too.  I had no idea that Beth even had a glass eye.  One eye is real and one is not.  You can try to guess which is which, but good luck.

Anyway, I also learned that the cleaning/ polishing process is much like polishing jewelry. There is a buffing wheel and several different compounds to remove build-up and leave a nice smooth surface. The ocularist works the eye until it is just right, then rinses it off and you are ready to go.  I associate the feeling of a freshly polished glass eye like the smoothness your teeth have after a visit to the dentist.

All in all, it was a great afternoon. I got to spend some quality time with a friend, feed my odd curiosity with something out of the ordinary and learn something new. Anytime Whitney needs a day off, I’ll be happy to help out.

Harper needs a break. So do we.

Friends have offered Harper a week of peace and quiet at their house in the suburbs, and while he’s Safe & Sound for a week or so in Wheaton, we’re heading…where else? The south of France!

Here’s the story. A hundred years ago (well, really, more like 30 years ago) I was the Assistant Director of the Study Abroad Office at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. When I lost my sight, I lost my job. That was way back in 1985, before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.

During my tenure I met a lot of foreign students, and two of them are dear friends to this day. Jim Neill lives in London and owns Top Sun, a company renting holiday properties in great locations Normandy, Brittany, the Mediterranean, and the south of France.

Sheelagh Livingston lives in Portaferry, Northern Ireland with her partner Beni (they were recently married in Northern Ireland). Sheelagh was an exchange student from Belfast in 1986, the year Gus was born. She’d

That's Sheelagh and Beni on the right, pictured during a break from the bike path along Lake Michigan during their visit. Also riding that day were Chuck Miller, Chuck Gullett, moi, and Mike Rogers.

signed up for volunteer work at the University of Illinois to “meet people from the community” and I can still hear the stammer in her voice the first time she phoned. “So are ya still needing a reader, then?” The answer was a definitive yes. Sheelagh started coming once a week to read to me, and in exchange we fed her dinner.

Turned out Sheelagh liked to go for long walks, too. She’d escape her dormitory room and come to our house three, sometimes four, times a week and walk Gus and me to the grocery store, accompany me to Gus’ medical appointments, or just sit at a coffee shop with us over a cup of hot tea.

When Sheelagh reported news of her volunteer work to her mother in Belfast, Mrs. Livingston was horrified. “Sheelagh!” she warned, “You don’t know a thing about wee babies!” Sheelagh had done volunteer work in Cornwall at a camp for adults with physical and mental disabilities. She had pushed heavy wheelchairs over hills, through woods and even to the oceanfront, and now she squeezed Gus’ pram through tight spaces I never thought possible. If Sheelagh’s mother had seen her stopping in the middle of busy streets to swear at the bloody cars who wouldn’t stop for us, Mrs. Livingston would have hopped on the next plane to physically stop her daughter from doing more “harm.”

Sheelagh was a terror on our bicycle built for two as well. With Gus on back in a bike seat, it was actually a bicycle for three. Sheelagh often forgot that we were longer than the usual bike, and Gus got more joy rides than he bargained for.

Mike got more than he bargained for with Sheelagh as well. He fretted when he found out I’d made plans to have Sheelagh go out with me one night to hear some live music. She’d be the first new friend to take me out without Mike coming along. Sure, I had gone places on my own with old friends, and my sisters had taken me out now and then. But these were people Mike knew well, and they’d learned “Sighted guide techniques” slowly and carefully as I gradually lost my sight. But Sheelagh! Could she be trusted?

Mike stood at the doorway and strained to watch Sheelagh and me depart down the driveway into darkness. “Bye, bye Mike!” Sheelagh kept repeating.” Don’t worry!” she’d say, waving his way and laughing with joy. “I promise I’ll have her back home.” Mike watched us from the front porch until he couldn’t see — or hear — Sheelagh and me anymore. Then he hoped for the best.

Nature’s Table was packed when Sheelagh and I arrived. Who would have thought so many people were interested in Irish music? My new friend barreled through the crowd with me on her arm — much as she did with Gus in the pram. She pressed my palm onto an empty barstool, stood on her tiptoes to get near my ear and shouted, “What will you take to drink?”

“A Guinness!” I yelled back. Sheelagh ordered a pint for herself as well and held it up for a “Cheers!”

That was the extent of our conversation that night. Sheelagh jiggled my thigh every once in a while to let me know she was still there ,having a good time. I sat back, sipped, and enjoyed the music. When the night was over, Sheelagh, of course, got me home safely. Mike, of course, was waiting up for us. A good thing, because I was eager to tell him all about the big night.

That night, rather than struggling to recreate something I used to enjoy when I could see, I was doing something completely different, and with a new friend, who seemed to like me even
though I couldn’t see her.

Me, Beni, Sheelagh, beer & vodka at 2007 Warsaw wedding reception

Sheelagh and I have kept up ever since by sending cassette tapes back and forth, and I met up with her twice while she was living in Berlin, twice in Italy twice in Northern Ireland and once in Poland. She’s come back to the US to visit Mike and me in Urbana, in the Chicago suburbs, in North Carolina and here in Chicago, too. Last year around this time she sent a cassette with news I didn’t want to hear. Sheelagh has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I wanted to drop everything and come see her right away, but she urged me to wait. She already had lot of people coming to see her, and she wanst sure how the chemo treatments would go. “Besides, my dear,” she assured me. “I’m going to be around a long, long time.”

When Jim heard the news about Sheelagh, he generously offered a couple of the “luxury mobile homes” he rents in Argelès-sur-Mer to us for free. And so, tomorrow Mike and I take off for France to meet up with Jim, Sheelagh and Beni in the south of France. I won’t be typing out any blog posts until we return to Chicago at the end of September — my hands will be occupied buttering croissants, slicing French cheeses, lifting glasses of red wine and, especially, hugging Sheelagh. As she would say, it will be “luvly.”