Dan, you wrote such a nice letter of encouragement, saying that this newly blind neighbor would really benefit from this list. I called him and let him hear the message over the phone. I didn't get much of a reaction though.
Some of you may remember that I was working with him on the computer. He said that he wanted to find CD's by Led Zeppelin. Even though I would rather steer clear of that singer, I didn't express that to him. I was able to find him on Amazon. 116 CD's. Before I found them I called my neighbor to see if we were going to get together the next evening. Actually, my motivation for calling, which I didn't express, was that I wanted to go to the beauty shop to get my hair cut. He sounded really enthusiastic about my coming over. Well, then I had a friend teach me how to search on Amazon, and I took careful notes, as I always have to do, because I would never remember all that right away. I was so excited to find what this blind guy, as he calls himself, was looking for, that I called him to tell him. He asked me if they were in chronological order and I said I didn't check that. I told him he would need to take notes as I myself had to, because I couldn't remember all the steps, and he might need something to refer to. I had left a tape recorder with him the first time I came to teach him and put some notes on it. That really seemed to turn him off I think. He knows nothing about the computer, but he wants to get on web sites. He can hardly type. He tries to get on web sites and can't remember the steps. I think web sites are created differently sometimes. He didn't want to start with the really easy ones because he wasn't interested in them. But he said to me, "I need to learn the basics." I asked him what basics he meant, and he said he didn't know. He said we couldn't understand each other and he thought it best if we stopped working together. I asked him if he had anyone else to work with and he said no, but that it was his problem. I think he's going to give his computer to his son. I don't know what he will do with his jaws 8 screen reader. I wonder if he can do something with it to make the purchase of it worthwhile. It seems to me that he really ought to learn to type. I can remember when I learned to type when I was in fourth grade. Finally I was able to write letters to my aunt in Arizona, and type my homework, and communicate in print with those who don't know braille. I imagine kids learn to type earlier than fourth grade now. I told him there were chat rooms he could get into, and at the time I told him he sounded sort of interested. But he said he just doesn't like to sit around. Anyway, I guess I am done with him unless he calls me. The good thing that came out of this for me was that I got motivated to really begin learning things I should have learned long ago, and don't intend to stop. It really does please me when I learn some new shortcut or new way of doing something. He said he would just call a record company he knows of to find out about the CD's. He seems to get interested in things, and enthusiastic, then drops them. He got a guide dog that I don't think I would ever enjoy using, because he lets it pull him into the grass to sniff any time it pleases. After all,he says, a dog is a dog and needs to do those things. He wanted me to teach him braille. He will never be able to read the regular size braille dots, so we got these round circles where you pull of the little paper on the bottom and stick them on a page. We got a little notebook with index-like cards, bound together, and I put one letter on each page with those big dots. I suggested he have someone write the print letter on each braille page, the letter a being the first page in the book, so that should be no problem. I don't think he ever studied them. Maybe he sees no need of that anymore. I have never run into this kind of thing before. I guess I haven't had much experience working with newly blind people, and I'm not a professional teacher. I think it would do him good to go to rehab for a while. He has a talking blood sugar reader but still lets his wife take it for him. He's not a sickly person yet. He wants to exercise, likes to have fun, likes to help people with their handyman questions. I just don't understand. Why am I writing this? I don't know. Linda [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
