The Mind of Brian Charlson

If I were to spend any length of time reading what someone had to say about any topic of interest to me, I would like to know a little bit about what makes them tick and how they tend to come up with their opinions. Please read the following as having come to you with that intent and not as a by product of a narcissistic venting.
I was born into a blue-collar, multi-generational family during the late 1950s. The second of five children, 3 boys and 2 girls, my father, Jerry and mother, Mary, worked multiple jobs to keep us fed, clothed and housed.
While we lived in six different homes, all in the state of Oregon in the United States, they were all within a days drive of the homes of my father’s and mother’s parents and most of their siblings and their spouses and children. One of the homes we lived in was next door to my mother’s childhood home and the home of my grandmother and great grand- mother.
As you might expect, we all attended public school and four of the five of us graduated. I went off to college and both of my brothers served in the United States military. All of us got married, two were later divorced and the two girls had children of their own.
When I was eleven years old, I played around with household chemicals that exploded and left me blind. My parents had me continue to attend public school, but now with a special teacher spending part of each day with me teaching me Braille, typing and other blindness skills. I also had lessons in the use of the long white cane from an orientation and mobility instructor.
After graduating from Oregon City High School, I attended Clackamas Community College, also in Oregon City, and then Willamette University in Salem, majoring in political science. While never in contention as valedictorian, I got high marks and participated in sports, student government and did my fair share of dating.
While most of my friends in grade school, high school and college were sighted, I also had friends who were blind or had low vision. These friends first came from attending summer school at the Oregon School for the Blind and later from my participation in the American Council of the Blind.
Following graduation, I worked for the Oregon State Legislature as a member of the Senate staff, for the city of Salem as the Human Rights Coordinator, ran a small food service stand in the State Agriculture Building and a number of minimum wage jobs. After I moved to Massachusetts in the early 1980s, I got a job at the Carroll Center for the Blind where I now work as the Vice President, Computer Training Services.
It was during my college years that I started dating a fellow student, Kim, who I later married. Also blind, Kim also majored in political science, later received her Masters in Library Science and is now the Director of the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library on the campus of the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown Massachusetts.
At 50 years old, I have been married for 27 years, worked for the Carroll Center for the Blind for 20 years, served on the American Council of the Blind Board of Directors for 23 years, used a Seeing Eye dog for 15 years and traveled to 48 states and 14 countries. While numbers seldom tell the entire story, I guess this is as good a place to stop with mine as I am likely to find.