Meet The Sighted Month

This is a humorous take on the fact that it is Disability Awareness Month. Please take your offendedness elsewhere, thanks.

☆Kati 

Meet the Sighted

October is meet the sighted month. Throughout the month, sighted people will hold events where we can mix and mingle and learn about the special equipment and techniques they use to cope with the presence of eyesight. Also, many sighted people will post invitations on Facebook encouraging us to ask them questions, any questions we want, about their sightedness. To kick off meet the sighted month, I have put together this list of things to keep in mind when interacting with the sighted.

1. Sighted people are often incapable of traveling, cooking, or doing much of anything without the aid of light. While we use our other senses to enable us to function perfectly well in the dark, sighted people have great difficulty developing these skills. When you welcome the sighted into your home, don't forget to turn on the lights.

2. Sighted people often cannot understand synthesized speech, and the text on a Braille display is almost always unreadable to them. They must depend on special equipment such as computer monitors and phone and tablet screens to use their electronic devices. If you let a sighted person use your phone or computer and forget to turn the screen on, they will be very confused.

3. Sighted people have difficulty learning from textual and verbal explanations or tactile models. They often must be presented with pictures. A good rule of thumb, when writing instructions for the sighted, is to include a picture with each step.

4. Sighted people have great difficulty distinguishing auditory cues in their environment. While we can tell when to cross a street by the sound of traffic or where an entrance is by the sounds of people entering and exiting, sighted people often must rely on visual information alone.

5. Sighted people rely heavily on an inaudible code called color. They use color to safely navigate by car and perform countless other tasks we can perform using auditory and tactile cues. Also, they are often quick to judge us based on what colors we present to the world. It is important to gain at least a working knowledge of color, so they don’t think we’re weird.

6. Sighted people often communicate displeasure using a secret signal called a dirty look. I’ll admit, I’m not exactly sure what this entails, except that it sometimes causes sighted people to behave in ways which seem inappropriate to the situation i.e. telling someone off for no apparent reason. As blind people immune to the effects of the dirty look, we can only try to teach the sighted to use their words when communicating displeasure with us.

 

So, there you have it. Keep these points in mind, and your next encounter with a sighted person should be as smooth as a brand new cane tip.

Elizabeth Oleksa-Clemente

Thanks Ann!

What A Story

*taken from Tghe Seeing Eye Facebook page*

Today is the birthday of Buddy, the first Seeing Eye® dog! A German shepherd, Buddy – originally named Kiss – was born October 15, 1926, in Vevey, Switzerland. The photo shows Buddy with Morris Frank. 

Dorothy Harrison Eustis, who was born in Philadelphia, had moved to Switzerland where she founded a dog kennel and training facility called Fortunate Fields. There, Dorothy was breeding and training German shepherds to be used by the police and military. And if not for a letter from a young man from Tennessee, it’s likely Kiss would have been sent to a Swiss police station or military base… instead of changing the world! 

Just as we do with our Seeing Eye puppies today, Kiss wasn’t raised in the kennel, but by a family living nearby. This gave Kiss an opportunity to explore her world, meeting different people and going different places… experiences that would serve her well in her coming years as a Seeing Eye dog. 

 

Around the time Kiss was returned from her puppy raiser family to Fortunate Fields to begin her training, Dorothy published an article in The Saturday Evening Post about a school in Germany she had visited a couple years before, where German shepherds were being trained to guide soldiers who had been blinded in the first World War. The article was titled “The Seeing Eye.” 

Morris Frank, a 19-year-old college student and insurance salesman living in Tennessee, had lost an eye in a childhood accident and was blinded in the other as a teenager. He wrote to Dorothy and asked: “Is what you say really true? If so, I want one of those dogs!” Dorothy had never trained a dog to guide a person who is blind – she had only visited the school – but asked her head trainer, Jack Humphrey, if he could do it. Jack said yes, but he’d also have to train the handler in how to work with the dog. He picked out two dogs to train in guiding, and one of them was Kiss. 

Dorothy asked Morris if he would come to Switzerland to be instructed in how to work with and care for the dog. 

“Mrs. Eustis,” Morris replied, “to get my independence back, I'd go to hell.” 

Morris arrived in Vevey on April 25, 1928, and spent the next five weeks learning how to work with Kiss – whom he promptly renamed Buddy. On June 11, 1928, Morris and Buddy were met in New York City by reporters who didn’t believe a dog could really guide a blind person. Morris and Buddy astonished onlookers by boldly crossed the perilous West Street, proving that it could be done. He then sent Dorothy a one-word telegram: “SUCCESS.” 

Happy birthday, Buddy!

Pretty she was the first ever. I love this story and Dorthy's willingness to try because without her there wouldn't be dog guide school and I would have never had Ori and wouldn't have Happe.

☆Kati 

It's been awhile

It's been awhile but we don't do much. There is the occasional walk/ adventure, I sorta remember seeing moms friend Macknzie and Fluff but haven't donemuch else since the wedding.  Mom is too lazy to find a job so there has been a lot of Unice and Podo and .om doing random stuff..

We went to the apple orchard on Sunday, got SOME apple (aka a lot of rotten ground apples) and NO cider or doughnuts , even though I asked nicely.

♤Happe

PD: Happe sitting in front of a cart full of pumpkins. There is a giant wheel on either side of him

This Weekend

After a really long car ride and a lot of ear pops we finally made it to mom's friends wedding. Mom and dad wanted to go on a hike but the trail was a  mess and I'm not sure what I rubbed past but mom took a picture of me on the beach. The wedding was boring but I did befriend the bartender (aka was cute and got some ice). 

♤Happe

We were in northern New Hampshire  and it was cold and kinda gloomy the whole time, and did rain during the reception. 

☆ Katie 

PD: Happe sitting on a beach looking off to the side with a lake and distant mountains behind him.