Hi folks, here’s the first of my substitute blog appearances. Hope you’ll bear with me while Beth’s in her residency at the Vermont Studio Center.–Mike

Beth and Whitney outside our hotel–Lhotel–in Montreal. The place is packed with the owner’s art collection.

On Sunday we woke up in Lhotel, went downstairs for one more sublime breakfast of sublime croissant and sublime coffee–not to mention meats and cheeses. Then it was off to…Hertz. Somehow, nothing kills a croissant buzz like a rental car. But hey, we got a nice Jetta, and we headed to Johnson, Vermont.

Beth and I had already talked about dropoff day — it was a source of quiet dread for both of us. Now, Beth getting an NEA fellowship to work on her writing was a terrific thing. The Vermont Studio Center — by multiple accounts of friends who’d spent time there — is a terrific place. Still, the dread — well beyond the natural trepidation about a month-long separation.

We figured out that it traces back almost 28 years. That’s when I dropped off Beth at what was then called the Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute — destined to be renamed Braille Jail by Beth after an up-and-down stay of nearly three months. The application process to get into IVHI had been a classic paper chase — with doctor’s reports, waivers, and endless mortgage-financing-style requests for more and more documentation.

We’d been married a year and already had spent a good portion of it apart from one another. Beth’s surgeries and hospitalizations and followup visits were in Chicago — but we lived in Urbana. So I’d see her on weekends and head back to Urbana and back to work, always hoping for the best. After the doctor said Beth would not see again, she came home. It was difficult and awkward, but at least we were together. And I wasn’t trusting her care to strangers.

So, by the fall of 1985, even though we both knew Beth needed to spend time at IVHI, the last thing we wanted was for her to go away for several months.

Still, we thought, it was worth it: Beth would learn Braille. And orientation and mobility skills (using a white cane to navigate). And the romantically labeled Activities of Daily living (cooking, cleaning, daily grind stuff). And, importantly, she’d learn to measure out and give insulin injections for herself using some adaptive tools and techniques. I’d been preparing her shots since she came home.

We moved Beth into her dorm room, we took a guided tour, we met the director. I felt like I was dropping her off at college. Except it wasn’t anything like college. It was something she had to do because she was blind. It didn’t help that though that neighborhood has changed radically for the better since 1985, back then, it was treacherous. And the place felt a little prison-like.

It was not a happy time. We said teary goodbyes, and I drove south to our apartment in Champaign. Telling myself that it was silly to worry and that this was important, all the way down the straight, flat and lonely I-57.

Well.

Not long after I got home, the phone rang. It was Beth. She had a shaky voice. I asked her what was wrong. “I’m at Cook County hospital,” she said. “WHAT!?” I boomed over the phone. I collected myself. Until Beth learned how to do her own injections, a nurse would have to do it. Except IVHI had forgotten that. And no nurse was on duty. She asked staff who were there to simply measure an injection, but they said the rules said they couldn’t do that.

So, of course, the reasonable next step was going to the Cook County Hospital emergency room, where Beth waited in a hallway for hours to receive her insulin injection. It was an awful start to an awful stay that was rife with bureaucratic snafus and delays. For example, we’d obtained a doctor’s statement that Beth was fit enough for the occupation and mobility training — which could be strenuous. But that paperwork got lost. We got replacements, but it set off a dominoes-from-hell chain reaction that prevented Beth from getting mobility training for more than a month. She really was something of a prisoner.

All of this came from an entity that was supposed to be helping. It was the last thing Beth needed at that point. I didn’t much care for it, either.

And so, whether it’s been going away to get her dogs or — going to Vermont — we are both haunted by those dark times whenever she’s headed off for an extended period of time.

Whitney likes the view outside Beth’s studio.

At the Vermont Studio Center, I helped her get situated in her room — and her cute little studio space, which happens to be right beside a lovely little stream, which runs down from lovely mountains. Nothing fancy, but, well, lovely. Still, Vermont is not know for right angles or a grid road system — which present challenges to Beth and Whitney. And we both knew it would take her days before she was confident getting from her dorm to her studio to the dining hall and back.

But, we both know she would. In a very short time on Sunday afternoon, we met terrific people — staff and fellow students–who had already been extremely helpful. And so, though it was sad to part, I felt good by the time I got home Sunday night.

And then, Monday, I got a call. “I’ve had an eventful day,” Beth said. And she had. She slept fitfully her first night. Her elbow hurt. She had a fever. One of the Vermont staff looked at her arm and said it looked bad, and wisely took her to the nearest emergency room. There, they suspected a staph infection. They did an incision — and an MRI — to determine that the infection had not gone deep into her joint and muscle tissue. Still, because of the threat of superbugs, they started her on a cocktail of antibiotics, including some pretty strong stuff.

Luckily, cultures came back that indicated it wasn’t as serious as it might have been. And the antibiotics did their job. And today, she called to say that after two nights in the hospital, she was back in her studio. Writing. With Whitney at her feet. Next to that beautiful little stream. In that beautiful little town. She’ll get visits from a nurse for 10 days, but she’s in great spirits. She says the food is terrific — the Studio has a staff chef!

Whew. She’s back. She’s fine.

And just maybe, the ghost of Braille Jail is gone. For good.

A lot of the conversation during The Q&A after my talk with Skokie Public Library’s Talking Books Book Club last week centered around independence.

Jim and Kathy Zartman.

After we shared tips for keeping track of our prescriptions, identifying colors of clothing, using talking computers to read and write, one senior citizen with macular degeneration piped up and said she loves to cook, but when her daughter offered to buy her a bag of frozen, chopped onions at the grocery store, she agreed to finally quit insisting on dicing them herself. “I’m learning to stop being so goddamned independent and accept help,” she said. “But it hasn’t been easy.” Her words were refreshing, and she didn’t have to be able to see to know we were all nodding in support.

Our hour at the library went by quickly, and once I’d thanked the Talking Books Book Club for having us, the dapper Jim Zartman guided Whitney and me to his car to take us home. I’ve known Jim for nearly a year now – his wife Kathy is in the memoir-writing class I teach at Lincoln Park Village. He drives Whitney and me to that class every Thursday, and when he found out I’d be speaking at Skokie Public Library last Wednesday, he volunteered to take me there, too.

Jim has the wisdom of age and the spirit of youth. During our rides the past year I’ve had the privilege of hearing his stories about growing up in a small town in Illinois, the mother who gave him his first violin, and getting free room and board in exchange for working as a houseboy for John Kenneth Galbraith’s family at Harvard. “They said they named their son Jamie after me,” he blushes. “But I’m not sure that’s true.”

Jim is not exactly forthcoming, but when I ask questions, he answers. In our 20-minute rides to class he’s shared the agony and ecstasy of raising children with Katherine, his appreciation for his talented grandchildren, his work writing the Illinois Power of Attorney Act and then getting it through the state legislature during his career as partner in the Chicago firm of Chapman and Cutler, and his current role as president of the board of the Chicago School of Violin Making.

The Chicago School of Violin making is one of only a handful of such schools in the world, and it happens to be located very close to the Skokie Public Library. “Would you like to stop at the school along the way for a tour? I would. We did. It was amazing.

Jessie Gilbert, a graduate of the school who specializes in bow-making now, led my one-on-one tour. Her sweet, strong hands guided me along blocks of maple and spruce that were to become instruments, and I met teachers and students who had come from all over the world to participate in the schools three-year program. Students aspire to the quality craftsmanship of the 17th and 18th century classical masters and are ready to enter the violin making and repair field as professionals once they graduate.

We couldn’t stay long — it wasn’t fair to distract the students from their work. While we were there, though, I was taken by how quiet the workspace was –no music to work by, just the intense sound of careful carving and fine sanding.

And so, after my rides and field trips with Jim, and hearing Kathy read her memoirs in class, I’m getting to know the Zartmans. Time to meet the grandchildren, now too! Skyler, Sonia and Aaron had all read my children’s book Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound so they were eager to follow Whitney as she led me around their grandparent’s block. “You’re like the pied piper!” one of them exclaimed.

We sat in Zartman’s lovely back yard after our walk. I showed the kids how Braille works, then took Whitney’s harness off so she could play fetch with them. We all sat down together for a supper of Kathy’s home-cooked beef brisket afterwards. It was sublime.

On my Thursday rides to memoir-writing class with Jim, I often remind him that he doesn’t have to come each and every week. Whitney and I are capable of taking a bus to Lincoln park. He pretends he doesn’t hear, and you know what? That’s okay with me. Just like my new friend in the Talking Books Book Club, I’m learning to stop being so goddamned independent.

I asked Mike to give you an account of our most recent trip to New Orleans. Here’s Mike Knezovich:

It’s Fat Tuesday, and only a week ago, we were flying home from New Orleans. It feels like it’s been a long time already.

But I do remember…

We snagged our fair share of beads.

…catching three or four pre-Mardi Gras parades without even trying. And catching a whole lot of beads.

…a breakfast dish at Lüke restaurant called “eggs in a jar.” Two perfectly poached eggs, floating inside a jar on bernaise, with a fried softshell crab for a lid. Whoa.

…chandeliers and chandeliers and chandeliers and tapestries and extravagant crown molding and…chandeliers at our grand old hotel, Le Pavillon. And the hotel bartender, a German-born woman who landed in New Orleans decades ago and has been there since. And the hotel piano player, resplendent in a purple suit, who sang a lot like Nat King Cole.

Eggs in a jar. Can still taste that soft shell crab.

…multiply-pierced and tattooed young people playing old-time traditional jazz on the street. Superbly.

Panorama jazz band at The Spotted Cat.

…a great band at the Spotted Cat that we enjoyed for the price of a one-drink minimum.

…leaving the Spotted Cat, crossing Frenchmen Street to see John Boutte (Down in the Treme´,  just me and my baby…) at DBA.

…Riding the streetcar to the Latter Library, where Beth and Whit held court in front of a terrifyingly energetic group of pre-schoolers.

…dinner at Upperline. Go there.

…gumbo at Herbsaint. Go there.

I found a nice, safe, and quiet spot in the library with wireless while Beth and Whitney regaled the kids.

…a brass band, on our last night, playing just off Canal. They weren’t quite Rebirth Brass band, but they might be soon.

…walking. And walking. And walking. Just enough, the scale tells me, to have balanced off the caloric intake.

…dinner with our friends Seth and Bess, who moved to New Orleans from our Chicago neighborhood almost two years ago now. They are a wonderful young couple, who — it’s somewhat bittersweet to say — are plainly as happy as clams in New Orleans, so much so that it’s hard to imagine them back in Chicago.

So, how was New Orleans?

Sublime.

And I can say, having been there countless times, that while we always leave New Orleans, New Orleans never leaves us.

When I answered a craigslist ad to write blurbs for Not For Tourists – Chicago, I didn’t have my heart set on writing for a guidebook. I was just curious to find out if
1. Not For Tourists would hire me if they knew I was blind, and
2. readers would notice my travel writing doesn’t describe the way things LOOK.
The answer to the first question is yes. Not For Tourists rocks. As for question #2, the jury is still out.
I already blogged about my travel essay in Dog Fancy this month.
As far as I know, Dog Fancy editors haven’t received any letters from disappointed readers. The 2008 version of Not For Tourists – Chicago is out now, too. No word on any letters complaining about my “visually clueless” blurbs. Not yet, at least.
If you’re curious how a person might write about sightseeing without having…well…sight, here’s the excerpt I wrote for NFT about US Cellular Field:
Both of Chicago’s major league ballparks are named for corporations (one famous for gum, the other famous for cell phones) but the similarities end there. Any White Sox fan will tell you: tourists pay big bucks to watch ivy grow in the little place on the North Side, real baseball fans head to see the White Sox play at U.S. Cellular Field.
Straddled by the Bridgeport and Bronzeville neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side, US Cellular Field opened in 1991 to replace the old Comiskey Park. The new park was built for $167 million–a relative bargain even in 1991. Cost-cutting meant altering the original design, though, and not for the better. What the park lacks in beauty, it makes up for with its friendly staff and fabulous food—perennially rated among the best in Major League Baseball. Meat-eaters: Follow your nose to the grilled onions and say “Polish with.” Better yet, say “Polish witt.” You’ll get a sublimely good Polish sausage smothered in caramelized onions. Come hungry on Thursdays: Ball Park Franks are $1 and Best’s kosher hot dogs are $2.50 each at select concession stands during all Thursday home games.

And if you’re hoping to hear about fashion, or business deals, or coffee shops, this ain’t the place. Fans here talk about baseball. They love the game, and they love the team that FINALLY brought a World Series trophy to Chicago in 2005.

Nancy Faust, the hardest-working (and most creative) organist in baseball, has been the official White Sox organist since 1970 and still plays day games. And Roger Bossard—an obsessive-compulsive turf guru who consults to sports franchises around the world—maintains one of the most beautiful, truest playing real-grass surfaces in all of sports. Bill Veeck’s scoreboard explodes with fireworks at each home run, and street musicians serenade fans as they head to the red line or the parking lot after games.

Back to me: If you’re wondering how I know the real-grass playing field is beautiful, it’s because I am one of the few civilians ever allowed to step on it. Back in 2004, I toured US Cellular with a bunch of blind high school students. But that’s fodder for another blog. For now, I’m heading to the kitchen. Writing about those carmelized onions made me hungry.