If you read my husband Mike Knezovich’s guest post earlier this month you know how excited we were that our friends Keith (aka Pick) and Hank would be joining us in New Orleans. Now here’s a guest post by Hank about our time together. I agree with him – it’s always too short!

Right back in the groove

by Hank Londner

From left to right: Hank, Mike, Pick and moi

Beth and Mike, who live in Chicago, and Keith and I, who live in Virginia, communicate regularly by mailing cassette tapes back and forth. The tapes are always a treat, especially when Beth and Mike bring the recorder along on a trip to New Orleans, a city they visit with some regularity and apparently know quite well.

I was determined to get invited the next time they planned a trip there and, fortunately, they agreed to let us join them for a few days this past week. Our timing couldn’t have been better. We hit a great streak of weather that made it easy to walk everywhere. Still, keeping up with Beth and her guide dog, Whitney, can be challenging. I think their normal pace is about a fifteen-minute mile, which is a lot faster than I am used to walking, that’s for sure. Beth insists that Whitney sets the pace and has only one speed setting, but I’m not totally convinced.

This was the first time I met Whitney and I was smitten the second I laid eyes on her. She really is a beauty — and I’m not even a dog person. I never did get to pet her because whenever we saw her she had her harness on and was working, which I knew meant “hands off!” Next time we’re together I’ll have to set up a play date, I guess.

It seems that Beth and Mike know all the cool places to go to in New Orleans. We ate at wonderful restaurants, enjoyed a few adult beverages at various watering holes around town and heard quite a bit of local jazz too, including a wonderful concert by the Ellis Marsalis Quartet at Snug Harbor and Jeremy Davenport with his jazz combo at the Ritz Carlton bar, where there was no cover charge and we were treated like royalty. We managed to avoid most of the tourist traps, although Keith and I (OK, I) couldn’t resist a visit to the Café Du Monde for some beignets and café-au-lait.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a little outing Beth, Whitney, and I went on to do some shopping for Christmas gifts for Mike. I think it may have been the first time Beth and I were out together alone. I’ve been volunteering as a reader/helper to blind people here in Virginia for at least five years and it just seems very natural to me to be in this role. Still I realized that slight adjustments are needed to accommodate each individual I work with. Some examples:

• When credit cards are involved, one person I work with in Virginia likes to sign the charge slips himself. His wife, who is also blind, hands me her credit card and lets me do all the work. Care to guess which Beth prefers?
• Talk about signing — One person likes me to provide a straight edge below where he needs to sign, another likes me to put the guide above.
• When we go grocery shopping, one person likes to hold onto the shopping cart like a sighted person would, with me pulling it from the front. Another likes to stand next to me so we both push the cart together.

Minor adjustments, but I understand that respecting their preferences allows each person to have some measure of control of their environment. I guess the moral of this story is that I have to stay on my toes so that I don’t step on anyone else’s.

Beth and Mike and Keith and I go back together about thirty years now and it seems that no matter how much time passes between our visits, we are right back in the groove by the time we are done saying hello. Sadly, we have to say goodbye again all too soon. Still, now we have great memories of our time together in New Orleans, and we have our next visit to look forward to.

Whitney and I are giving a presentation at the Waldorf School of New Orleans this Wednesday, and I’ve asked a few guest bloggers to fill in for me while we’re away. This first guest post is by my husband Mike Knezovich, who’ll be coming along with us to NOLA with some other dear friends, too.

I lived in Arlington, Va., in the early 1980s, and after coming home to Illinois for 
the holidays one year I headed back with three friends who were up for a
 road trip and a visit to D.C. We took turns driving and made it straight 
through.

On the left that’s Pick (a.k.a. Keith Pickerel) and on the right Hank (a.k.a. Henry Londner while touring Turkey on a recent trip. (They get around.) We’re lucky to count them as friends.

We were a little tired but swinging open the apartment door woke us right up again.  Dance music was blaring from the stereo, the living room was full of people, and my roommate Pick — all lanky 6’3″ of him — was right there in the center in the midst of a move. He looked like a figure skater, posted on one straight leg, the other leg raised parallel to the floor, and starting to whirl like a helicopter. He yelled “SQUAT!” to his dance partner, a diminutive woman friend who did as instructed, thankfully, and Pick’s propeller leg cleared her head comfortably and made a full rotation. She sprung upright, they completed their disco number, and I said to my Illinois friends, “This is Pick.” We weren’t tired anymore.

Today, with everyone videotaping and photographing everything, I imagine there’d be a YouTube of the whole thing. But back then, we focused on living life in real time and I can tell you, there isn’t a video on the net that’s as good as my memories of that night. Back then I was a green college graduate from the Midwest, wide-eyed, an eager worker at my first real job, but a little lost and a little lonely. Luckily, I’d met Pick through a colleague at work and we stayed in touch. He generously invited me to parties he’d throw with his old William and Mary college pals. They weren’t like other parties I’d been to. Playing and singing show tunes (and sometimes hymns) on the piano, doing helicopter dance moves, Pick occasionally donning the tap shoes for a number, and usually, there was the deliberate and artful telling of an off-color joke. (Pick came by it honestly, from his father Cecil, who could keep you spellbound and then deliver a punchline like nobody else.)

At some point both our leases came up and by then we were confident we wouldn’t drive one another crazy and we stood to save some money, so we got a two-bedroom place in a euphemistically named building called Country Club Towers. It was no country club, but we had a blast for a couple of years. I got to meet Pick’s family—including his beloved grandmother, who made the best damn fried chicken I’ve ever had during a visit to her Danville, Va., home. We motorcycled the Skyline Drive with some friends. Thick as thieves, as the saying goes.

Eventually, I decided what I’d never imagined I would: I wanted to move back to the Midwest. So I packed my stuff and headed back, thinking I’d settle in Chicago, but then I was re-acquainted with Beth, and I came to roost in Urbana, Ill.

After Beth and I decided we were going to get married, we made a trip out East to meet my Pittsburgh area relatives and to meet Pick. I think Beth was as anxious about meeting Pick as she was about meeting my extended family. And why not? Pick’s as close to a brother as I’ll ever have.

Pick and Beth hit it off immediately. To this day they sometimes entertain themselves by ganging up on me. We had a marvelous time and we got a bonus: We met Henry (Hank) Londner. Pick and Hank had met about the same time Beth and I got together. Hank sports a Long Island accent, a total contrast to Pick’s Virginia drawl. Hank’s Jewish—born in Belgium to parents who narrowly survived the Holocaust. After Hank’s mother died, Hank moved with his father to the United States to be near family who had emigrated. Pick grew up in rural Virginia a Southern Baptist. Hank’s a burly bear, Pick’s a lanky type.

Opposites attract. They’ve been together ever since. They live in Alexandria, Va., in a dee-luxe apartment in the sky. Pick works as a massage therapist, Hank has managed to retire, but stays busy volunteering for—among other things—a couple of blind people who need a little assistance with shopping, reading, etc.

I always savor trips to New Orleans—but none more than next week’s, when Pick and Hank will join Beth and me. Lately—perhaps it’s a stage-of-life-thing—I’ve been prone to reminiscing. And so it is with this upcoming visit. I grew up in the thick of what was called the New Math. You know: sets, subsets, bundles of pencils, and the best thing ever—Venn diagrams. In my mind’s eye, I see a Venn diagram. Each of us—Pick, Hank, me and Beth—a circle. And like in all Venn diagrams, the most interesting parts are where they overlap—the overlaps are a slightly different color, denser, and richer for the blending.

And I marvel that in the crescent city next week, we can share time and these four very different circles will overlap.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

My brother’s in town, and he brought his trombone!

That’s Doug: Has trombone, will travel.

Doug graduated from high school the year I was born, and I grew up listening to the jazz records he left behind when he embarked on his music career. Louis Armstrong, Hot Five and Hot Seven. King Oliver. Lil Hardin.

My sisters and I went with Flo to hear Doug perform live a lot, too – he played and toured with the Original Salty Dogs Jazz Band, the Smokey Stover Firehouse Band and Bob Scobey’s Frisco Jazz Band before he had to leave home to join the Marines. We all breathed a sigh of relief when he got into the 3rd Marine Air Wing Band in El Toro, CA – playing for national parades and ceremonies in the United States kept him out of Vietnam.

Before he left home, Doug bought the family a piano, and though it may have been seen as a frivolous expense on Flo’s budget, she made sure we three youngest took lessons. I wouldn’t be playing (or appreciating) the piano the way I do if it weren’t for those two. Thank you, Doug and Flo.

Once his Marine Corps days were over, Doug left his music career behind to focus on raising a family and pursuing a corporate career. Any time Doug’s name was mentioned after that, you could count on Flo to shake her head and lament, “I sure wish Doug would pick up that trombone again.” He finally did in 1996, working long and hard to get his chops back in time to put a band together to surprise Flo on her 80th birthday. Thank you, Doug and Flo.

Doug has been playing his trombone ever since, and while he and his lovely wife Shelley are in town from Louisville this week, he’ll be sitting in with a couple Chicago bands.

• Thursday, August 23: 8 pm at Untitled, 111 W. Kinzie (312.880.1511) with the Jake Sanders Quintet. Jake used to play in New York’s Cangelosi Cards, and now he’s here to bring “the jazz age into the new age” every Thursday at this new River North dance club.
• Sunday, August 26 8 pm at Honky Tonk BBQ on 1800 S. Racine with The Fat Babies, a Chicago-based traditional jazz group that’s heavily influenced by musicians like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton.

The Jake Sanders Quintet and the Fat Babies both feature Andy Schum on cornet, and Doug and Shelley can’t say enough about this guy. “All the musicians are young and really enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the old, old stuff,” Shelley says, adding that some of them are 78 collectors. “That’s really unusual…and wonderful!” I was thrilled to read that both of these Chicago venues boast huge dance floors. Mike and I have been enjoying SummerDance lessons in Grant Park the past couple years, and at Doug’s gigs in the early 60s we little girls all shared stints as Flo’s dancing partner. So bring your dancing shoes and look for me this weekend: I’ll be the one swinging like a hep cat on the dance floor. Thank you, Doug and Flo.

That's the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans

February is Love Your Library month, and I’m celebrating in style: I’m in New Orleans with Mike and Whitney, and tomorrow morning I’m the guest storyteller at the Milton H. Latter Memorial Branch of the New Orleans Public Library.

I am, and have always been, a huge fan of books and libraries. I am among millions of American kids who remember looking forward to trips to the library for a new stack of books to bring home every week. Flo flushes with embarrassment when she recalls dropping me off at the library one evening before heading to the grocery store, coming home and putting those groceries away, then realizing she’d forgotten to pick me up. “There you were, waiting all that time at the library door with your pile of books!” She says. “I felt terrible!” No reason for Flo to feel bad — I was in seventh heaven! I was so busy flipping through the pages and anticipating which new book I’d start first, I didn’t even realize she was late.

When surgeons told me in 1986 that the eye surgeries hadn’t worked and I’d never see again, one of my first concerns was how I would survive without being able to read. The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) came to my rescue.

The Library of Congress administers NLS, a talking-book and Braille program available for free to those of us whose low vision, blindness, or physical handicap makes reading regular print difficult. A few years ago Woman’s Day Magazine published an essay I wrote about the talking Book Program, and that essay is still available on the American library Association’s “I Love Libraries” web site.

NLS mails books and magazines in audio and in Braille directly to enrollees at no cost. These days some materials are also available online for download, which means I can keep up with my book club — I’m the only one in the group who can’t see, and thanks to the new digital NLS program I don’t have to wait long to read new releases anymore.

When I was at the Seeing Eye training with Whitney I met a woman who loves — and uses — the talking book program even more than I do. If you watched that short one-minute Seeing Eye promotional video I linked to in a previous post, you saw Karen Keninger — she’s the graduate who gets a little teary-eyed in the video. On our last night of training, Karen and I sat down together over a glass of wine to talk about books and writing. She was heading home to Iowa the next morning (Karen is director of the Iowa Department for the Blind) but then getting on a plane again with her new Seeing Eye dog Jimi the very next day. “I have a job interview in Washington, DC.,” she said to me in a hushed tone, explaining that she was being considered for the position of Director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

The folks at the Library of Congress obviously liked what they saw. Karen got the job. People who can read print may not think much of this position, but to those of us who rely on NLS, this appointment is absolutely huge. I was sworn to secrecy about this new appointment until Karen passed security clearance, and she emailed over the weekend to tell me it’s official.

Karen Keninger was born and raised in Vinton, Iowa, the third of seven children in a happy and lively farming family. She was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a child and was completely blind by the age of 20. She graduated from Drake University in 1973 with a B.A. in Journalism and went back to school and graduated in 1991 with a masters degree in English. She served as Rehabilitation Consultant with the Iowa Department for the Blind, Program Administrator for the Iowa Library for the Blind and Director of the Iowa Department for the Blind before accepting her new position. In addition to all of that, she raised six, count them, six children!

I could go on and on about Karen Keninger, but hey, this is my last night in New Orleans, and Mike, Whitney and I are heading out to meet friends for one last decadent meal, and we’ll toast to Karen then. What a comfort it is to know that my beloved National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped will be in such good hands.

That's me and my first Seeing Eye dog, Pandora. If you look closely you'll see the leash looped around my wrist.

I fell. Outside. With Harper. Last night. My feet slipped out from under me.

Hello, sidewalk. Meet the back of my head. Thud.

First thought: Am I conscious?

Second thought:Where’s Harper?

*****

In addition to holding a harness, Seeing Eye dog users also attach a leash to our dogs, then loop the other end around our wrists. The leash is necessary for giving our dogs corrections — this snippet from the “Control and Discipline” lecture I heard while training with Harper a few weeks back:

Some dogs, like some humans, will allow themselves to be temporarily distracted by things which seem interesting to them but are not desirable when it comes to walking or getting through traffic. During training we attempt to educate your dog to control these instincts, but it is virtually impossible to eliminate them.

Some instincts are helpful in relation to guide work. Examples:

• the homing instinct. Harper is very good at retracing his steps and finding known destinations, like the door to our apartment building.
• the pack instinct. This instills Harper’s desire to please the master, in this case …me!

Unfortunately, most dog instincts are detrimental to good guide work. Trainers at the Seeing Eye drummed it into us that we have to work very, very hard to control our dogs desire to chase, scavenge, sniff, protect, and socialize. Back to the lecture notes:

If the distraction is unusually interesting, it may be necessary to accompany the verbal reprimand with a more effective means of regaining the dog’s attention. In such instances, following the reprimand with a jerk on the leash will draw the dog’s attention away from the distracting influence and bring it back to the work at hand. The strength of the leash correction depends upon the type of distraction, as well as your own strength, and the nature of your individual dog.

I’ve appreciated having that leash at hand in order to correct Harper some since we got home (Harper is very interested in some of the other dogs in our neighborhood!) but the leash did another, far more important, job for the two of us last night.

I’d fallen on a sidewalk that edges Harrison, a very, very busy street. After getting my head together, I felt for the leash. There it was, looped around my wrist. Just the way Seeing Eye trainers taught us. And there was Harper, wagging his tail at the other end.

“Harper, come!” He came right to my side. I lay there a long while, petting Harper, devising a way to get horizontal again.

When I finally stood up, a man called out in a beautiful Jamaican accent from across the street. “Ma’am. You oh kay?”I was near tears, but managed to hold them back long enough to answer. My head hurt, but I was all right. And so was Harper. “We’re only a half-block from home,” I told him. Somehow, having a complete stranger worry about me on Christmas Eve like that gave me faith. I knew we’d make it home.

*****

Thursday, the day before my fall, was my birthday. Friends and family mailed cards, bought me drinks, emailed notes, donated to causes in my name, shipped packages, left phone messages, wrote, sent and sang songs to remember my less-than-convenient birthday. Thank you, thank you, thank you. After all these many, many years, you continue making   me feel it’s worthwhile  picking myself up after a fall.