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The Mickey Mouse Society
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The Mickey Mouse Society |
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Jaime Fradera Senior Member
since 2000-11-25
Posts 843Where no tyranny is tolerable |
This was Done at the state convention of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado The doubletree Hotel Sunday, October 7 There were two others on this panel but I could not hear them ... ... I don't know how this will go over with a general audiance, because it is not in pop culture or on telivision, but just for fun ... ... ... I speak to you from the heart. In 1981 I was in utter despair. I was going deaf, and that was even worse than going to the school for the blind had been. I was surprised to learn that the crazy doctor, the one who ran a hokey pokey therapy group for blind people, was still operating; and the Mickey mouse club for the blind was still meeting at the same bar downtown where the same blind performer was still playing for handouts. Nothing seemed to have changed. I thought I had graduated into a sighted world. I thought I had a choice not to play dominos and beep baseball, not to get mixed up with the blind Mickey mouse club and the crazy doctor, to insist that there was nothing wrong with me. But there were others who did not agree. Actually, I knew a little bit about the radical, militant NFB. Four years earlier, at the training center in Texas, another student would sometimes tell us about it. It was 1977, and he said he was going to a convention in New Orleans. I said something like: after I go to college and get a degree, after I've made it in the sighted world, then maybe I would see about this NFB thing. Until then, I wasn't ready. But back in San Antonio, in 1981, the pressure was awful. Did I know about Mickey mouse for the blind? Wouldn't it be better going to the bar for blind people? Did I know about the doctor who ran the hocus pocus therapy group free for the blind? Didn't I think beep baseball would be fun? Why didn't I join the Mickey mouse society and listen to talking books? Sometimes the sightless Mickey mouse club played ball games against the sighted San Antonio Brewers. NOT the blind man in the bleachers, I never went to those ball games; but I'm pretty sure who won them, and I am pretty sure you know who won them too. I was angry and miserable and didn't know why. Bob, my rehab counselor, set me up for bugs bunny analysis with, who else, the crazy doctor, and what do you suppose the crazy doctor found? I heard not a word about Jernigan or tenBroek, though a few muttered something about Helen Keller and Stevie Wonder. A relative said I should take reading. Reading was a class for blind people at the community college, and where all blind students got an A while sitting around listening to talking books. But why listen to talking books there when I could listen to them some place else? For example, the Mickey mouse society? And why take reading again after already having taken reading twice before? Curiously, in 1982, I telephoned the National Center to ask about literature, but I could not hear them and they hung up. I did resist the pressure to live in the apartments for blind people, since I had already lived in them before. It was rock bottom. From here, there was nowhere else to go but up. At a party in 1982, I was given a cassette program narrated by a motivational speaker. The speaker extolled the virtues of courage, patience, and persistence against impossible odds in the pursuit of cherished ambitions and dreams. He said that deeply held convictions and an abiding faith had the raw power to blast tunnels and move mountains, except he put it more eloquently than that. He said that anything worth achieving always involves risk. He said our limitations are mostly self-imposed but there were no limitations on our power to dream. He said if you let your existing knowledge and resources determine your goals you are aiming too low. I pondered this. I had always had a fascination with weather prediction, so why not go to school in Austin and study atmospheric science? It was true that I was broke, ill and couldn't hear, but anything was better than languishing at home. So one day I took a Greyhound bus to Austin and then taxis around town looking for a place to live. Hoping no one would call my bluff, I rented a room in a cooperative house without having any idea how I was going to pay for it. But leaving home, instead of resolving my problems, only made them worse. Where was the money, they wanted to know, and soon I was up for eviction. I felt stressed to the breaking point. I was haunted by the specter of having to live on the street, blind, deaf and broke. The bouts of deafness were getting worse and lasting longer. My father, whom I wished I'd had more time to know, passed away. And finally, there was this problem with the Texas Commission for the Blind. My new counselor in Austin disapproved of my academic planning. Didn't I know I could not hear. Didn't I realize my GPA was too low. She didn't want me to be disappointed. I wasn't ready for school and she had the psychiatric records to prove it. And ignoring the Texas Commission's own regs she did nothing whatever. Well not exactly nothing. You see, she drew a salary. Now, remember what happened to Diane and her dog, Dusty? Quietly, after years of cooperating, agreeing and acquiescing, I could no longer endure the inept and insufferable mis-handling of my life. Someone else was trying to run my personal affairs by telling me what I could and couldn't do, coddling me against the normal and necessary disappointments of life; and I just wasn't going to take that anymore. And I did something I had never done before. I ignored my counselor. I refused to see her audiologist and chose another from the school of nursing. She responded by saying didn't I remember what I was being told and by sending me to a psychologist for testing. She threatened to close my case if I didn't work with her, (meaning I should do what I was told) and by saying I could not do anything without help from the Texas Commission. [meaning her, of course). But I continued to ignore her. I ran over to the college, gave them $200 I could ill afford, and got them to register me anyway as a probation student so she couldn't say I didn't qualify. As the deafness and dizziness worsened, I requested a supervisory review, but without having any idea what I was going to do or say when I got there. And I would have to do it alone. I was walking over thin ice that with every step was growing thinner. I shook with fear and an indescribably animal anger. For the first time in my life I was talking back to "god" but couldn't articulate my raw, elemental rage. I wanted to believe the twaddle on those crazy cassettes, but what if it was all wrong? I had taken too many reckless gambles, and now I was losing. Mere hours away from eviction, I called Rachel at the library; and then, if a single person could change the course of history, she suggested I telephone this organization; and when a delegation of Federationists came to reason with me, this time, I was ready. But I was still upset. The last thing I wanted was to get mixed up with more blind people. This was embarrassing. They wanted me to join the NFB. Ahah!, I thought; this must be some pressure tactic they have--you have to join the NFB before they will help you. Well, I joined, but I wasn't very happy about it. And once this case was over then I wouldn't have to pay attention to NFB any more. In the meantime, what I was impressed with was that the things they invited me to attend were not drinking parties or therapy sessions, not bowling matches or baseball games. Instead, to my surprise, Mark Noble was there, and Tommy Craig from high school, and a bunch of others who didn't even know me. Yet they were to be instrumental in transforming my life forever, and it is largely a testament to their love and to their faith in me, that I am standing here today. The Federation philosophy I was beginning to absorb would at last free me from the peculiar institutions of my past, and my expectations of what was possible began to rise. I did not come alone to the supervisory review, where the area supervisor, with insufferable arrogance, seemed to think I should do what I was told and that he was my supervisor too. The agency ruled against me, and a fair hearing was scheduled. But the good doctor always taught us, we may lose battles, but never campaigns; except he put it more eloquently than that. With the guidance of my new friends I was learning to gather testimony. My former physics and geology teachers wrote letters. A blind meteorologist working for the government wrote from Maryland that automation was the wave of the future in atmospheric modeling, and there would certainly be opportunities for all who could bring a passion to the study of this fascinating field. I requested from the Commission all my case records, so that we could demonstrate the agency's ineptitude. They said no, but once again, I just ignored them, and guess what happened? They sent us the records anyway. I held them in my hands, and, you know, I felt rather like setting fire to the damed things. In the summer of 1984 I went to the convention in Phoenix. There, I would learn of blind scientists in related fields. Nobody made fun of me, and I swept the tables for all the literature I could carry to take home.. Then, in August, something extraordinary happened. The Fair Hearing conference would never be held. Stead, the Commission reversed itself and dropped its opposition to my going to school. By mail and phone, the counselor who didn't think I knew I was deaf, the same counselor who thought I needed mental testing and thought I had to be protected from disappointment, was all of a sudden leaving rather frantic messages that the fall term would soon start and what was I going to take and what would I need to make it a successful semester? How could this have happened? Was it a mystery? Not really, and there was only one thing that could account for it, our own National Federation of the Blind. We got all the things I needed, and in the spring of 1985 I took a full class load and ended the term on the honor roll. But enough about me. We're on the clock so I'm just going to wrap it up like this. If you know someone who needs to hear our messages of hope and freedom, tell them about the National Federation of the Blind Like me, they may not listen; but one day, like me, they'll understand. Southern Cross |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Jaime... Your inner focus of the world, the things that need to be, the way they need to be done, simply sweeps me away in wonder. It is still my extreme pleasure to this day and on into all of the tomorrows, that it has been a blessing to me to have you fall into my life. You remind me of what I haven't done, and all that I can, and should, and will, do. Bless you, young man. Sunshine |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
Nodding at Sunshine's reply, and thankful that I am one of the lucky ones to call you friend. You are always an inspiration to me, amigo. |
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Larry C
since 2001-09-10
Posts 10286United States |
Yes Jaime, this story is worth retelling. The truth remains that I marvel at your abilities and especially your determination. I'm legally blind in one eye and given all the health factors could some day have the same issue with my good eye. So mine wanders to what ifs. Then you come along and I worry less. Thanks.  If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
Interesting story of determination...James |
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