The Mind of Brian Charlson

One of the things my blind friends and I attending the 200th Birthday celebrations for Louis Braille here in Paris, France wanted to do is go to the “Dining In The Dark” restaurant. This is one of the restaurants where guests are guided into a completely dark dining room where they order their food, eat their meal, interact with the wait staff and other diners without being able to see anything.
Why would a blind person want to go to such a place? We wanted to see how sighted people reacted to what we do every day. We wanted to experience what it would be like to have the tables turned.
Can you imagine our surprise when we were told that we would not be allowed to bring our Seeing Eye dogs in with us? “People may trip over them”, “it will be dangerous for our blind wait staff”. “Let us ask the blind staff what they think.” “They don’t want you to bring in your dogs.” “They want you to leave your dogs where some of them leave their dogs while working.”
Now I understand that not all guide dog users show much respect for the needs of others; letting their dogs sprawl in the aisles, acting oblivious to their dogs while in public spaces and the like, but we had yet to set foot in their dining room. How, may I ask you, can the owners of this restaurant allow their blind staff to set policy on who may or may not bring in their guide dogs? Isn’t that a matter of law or at least management policy?
We decided not to stay but rather to go to a nearby restaurant. This included two of our six who did not use guide dogs. We indicated to the “Dining In The Dark” reception staff that we would be reporting their action to the conference planners for possible legal action.
During dinner, we asked ourselves if we had been hasty and came to the conclusion that had we known that our dogs would not be allowed in the dining room, we may have left them in our hotel rooms and gone with our canes. I for one would not have gone. It is to me more than just a matter of preference, it is a matter of my right to move through public spaces without regard to whether or not I have a guide dog. This was not a matter of public safety, only reasonable accommodation.
Two of my guide dog using friends are going to try to return to the restaurant later this week without their dogs. I will not be joining them but do not hold it against them that they wish to go. I wonder if I would be willing to go if I hadn’t had a number of very bad experiences with taxies going to and from dinner that night.
For now, Dining in the Dark is not for me and I encourage others to take a pass as well. Even if what they did was legal, what they did was wrong. We need to let them know that there is a price to their actions.

When you think of Paris, do you think of chocolate? After I read the book “Chocolate: A Bitter Sweet Saga of Dark and Light”, and knowing that I would soon be visiting Paris, I knew chocolate would be part of my French experience.
I spent some time online looking at reviews of the different Paris chocolateers including Jean Paul Hevin, La Maison du Chocolat and Pierre Herme. We are staying at a hotel in the 7th Arandizment so I needed to keep my choices to those shops within a reasonable distance. I also needed to keep in mind how difficult it would be to interact with non-English speaking shop keepers so I would need to pick a large shop that catered to an international clientele.
After many negative experiences with Paris taxies, my friend Doug and I had to leave our Seeing Eye dogs at the hotel and use our white canes so we might be guaranteed a trouble free taxi ride. We also needed to choose a location that we could visit during the same taxi ride as going to a cheese shop. We chose Pierre Herme and we were happy we did.
While we did purchase some fine cheeses, we didn’t find our cheese shop experience nearly as fun as we found our time at the chocolate shop. We thought we had ordered four different kinds of cheese each, but when we checked-out what was included in our vacuum-packed packages, we were short part of what we thought we had ordered. Was it a matter of language barriers or just plain stupidity, who knows.
Getting back to chocolate; the shop was rather small but still bigger than the cheese shop. There were displays of many kinds of chocolate in many kinds of packages. None of it was cheap and none of it was plain. The shop also included some bakery products such as cakes and pastries.
By the time we left the shop, we had boxes of chocolates for gifts, bars of chocolate for a planned chocolate tasting back home, chocolate dipped orange peel and something they called macaroons filled with any number of flavored creams but including no coconut at all. We also had a rather large bill. I don’t want to think about that part for now.
Will the chocolate be any better to my taste than the bars we have been buying at the local market? Will our friends and family who receive samples appreciate fine chocolate? Will I ever do this again? Who knows and who cares. I am in Paris and eating chocolate.

I have taken taxi rides with my Seeing Eye dog in most of the states in the U.S. as well as in at least four other countries. I have never been as abused as I have been during my brief stay in Paris, France.
When trying to get from the airport to our hotel with the assistance of an airline worker, she indicated that she was turned down at least four times. My wife and I were guarding the luggage at the time or I would have started my vacation filling-out complaint forms from the get go.
Later, when we tried to take a taxi from our hotel to a restaurant, two different taxi companies sent cars who’s drivers refused us. We almost missed our reservation to the Dining In The Dark restaurant. We didn’t end up staying, but that is another story.
When returning to the hotel after dinner, the first taxi would only take two of our party and their dogs. My wife Kim and I were pulled out of the taxi and pushed into another. The second taxi already held two others without guide dogs who were headed to a different hotel. Kim and I ended up going back into the restaurant to call yet another taxi. The final taxi did take us to our hotel but the whole thing left a bad taste in the mouth after what was a wonderful meal.
It should be understood that this kind of behavior is against the law in France. How have those who live here kept their cool? Were we missing something as the result of not knowing the language? Whatever the reason, what I will go home remembering about Paris will not be the fine restaurants, not the organ concert in Notre Dame, but being treated badly by taxi drivers and taxi companies. Shame on them and shame on Paris for allowing this kind of behavior.

Yes, like many people, I make New Years resolutions. In past years these have included losing weight, finishing educational endeavors and fixing up the house. This year my resolutions will be few but, I hope, life changing.
I resolve to take better care of myself. That means lose weight, do more exercising, monitor my blood sugar more regularly and keep medical appointments rather than coming up with reasons to postpone them.
I resolve to read 120 books again this year but, this time, I will take time selecting them so that I learn from them rather than just being distracted by them. This means that I will read at least 1 non fiction book for every 4 fiction titles. I will read at least 12 books from the list of the books everyone should read.
I resolve to finish at least one major project started but not finished in years past. These include learning to play the ukulele as well as my mother, learning to play the guitar rather than playing at it as I have done for many years, learning to weave with either a table top loom or with a card loom with the assistance of a friend in North Carolina. There are others too numerous to list here.
I resolve to keep in regular touch with friends and family. That means sending birthday, anniversary and Christmas cards as well as calling them on the phone from time to time. Even if they find it difficult to contact me, I want to keep in touch with them.
I resolve to make a difference in the lives of blind and visually impaired people, both as individuals and as a group. This may be through my work at the Carroll Center for the Blind or through my association with the American Council of the Blind. Too many of us are unemployed; too many of us are socially isolated; too many of us are without access to technology and what that can do for one’s quality of life. As someone who has all of these things while others do not, I need to do what I can to bring these essentials of life to others.
Finally, I resolve to take time to thank those around me who make what I have and do possible. My family, my friends and colleagues. I will also take time to thank my creator in whom I believe but seldom find time to acknowledge.
There you have it. Now to put it all in practice. There is the rub.

A new braillewriter from Perkins is more than overdo, it is essential. The classic Perkins Braillewriter I have been dragging around with me for the past 41 years weighed too much, was too loud, was too big and looked like it was built for industrial purposes. Not so the new Perkins/American Printing House for the Blind Braillewriter.
The new machine is lighter, built with a mix of metal interior parts and a high-impact plastic case. Smaller in all three dimensions; it is made for 8.5 by 11 rather than 11.5 by 11 inch paper. The modern sound dampening material inside the unit gives it a lower tone and the margin bell is quieter as well. And the color; while it is only available in APH Blue at first, it will be available in raspberry and other colors in the very near future. Nothing industrial looking about this device.
I like many of the new features of the Perkins/APH Braillewriter. It has a neat way to erase unwanted characters for example. You press down a key to the right of the embossing head after you place the embossing head over the unwanted character. It has a tip-up reading tray on the back so you can read what you have written without having to hold one hand under the paper sticking out of the back of the machine while reading with the other. The margin setting levers have been moved to the front of the device, just below the carriage return, no more reaching around the back and counting the clicks as you move the margin sets inward or outward. Even the handle has been changed. Instead of being on the top and having to hold the device out a bit from your body as you carry it, you now pick it up with the frontward facing handle just under the keys. The device now hangs closer to your body making it easier to avoid hitting people and walls with your braillewriter as you walk along.
Most of the time, when a device is redesigned, the price goes up. Not in the case of the Perkins/APH Braillewriter. The new braillewriter costs $40.00 less than the old one. I had hoped for an even lower price, but I guess the cost of research and development ran more than expected.
I can’t say that I like everything about the Perkins/APH Braillewriter. The knobs are more like paddles than knobs which I find very cumbersome. The left margin set is a half inch in from the left with no way to “release” it. Why bother indicating that at all? The paper has a tendency to curl if it is left in the machine for as little as half-a-day. Perkins and APH will have to look into a different paper formula if this continues to be a problem. It doesn’t come with a cover. We all know that these devices will sit on a table and be left unused from time-to-time; so why no cover to protect them from dust?
As a baseball fanatic, I would call the new Perkins/APH Braillewriter a triple. $100.00 less and no curling paper and different roller handles and they would have had an out-of-the-park home run. Good job Perkins and thank you APH for your contributions as well.

I don’t know if I have mentioned in one or more of the posts here that my wife, Kim Charlson, is the Director of the Braille and Talking Book Library at the Perkins School for the Blind. Well, she is and because of that, I get a heads-up on any event that her library is holding. Recently, the BTBL at Perkins held an authors event featuring authors who have written books about the Red Sox. In addition to hearing two authors talk about their books, I got to meat Carl Beane, the voice of Fenway Park and Johnny Pesky, a former member of the Red Sox whose number 6 was just retired during the last game of the 2008 season.
Carl volunteers at the Library reading books on sports for inclusion in the BTBL’s collection and Johnny was there because he was co-author of one of the books.
In addition to all of the talk about books, my friend Rick and I got to talk about the Seeing Eye Single Tour and Rick pulled together a wonderful sound track of baseball songs that were played over the sound system before and during the event. The crowd sang along with Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Sweet Caroline.
Before the event got started, I got to have my picture taken with Johnny. It turns out that both of us are originally from Oregon and we both are big fans of Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Elsberry, another Oregon boy. As you can see in the picture, my mouth is a little open. That is because Johnny was asking my advice on women. After losing his wife a couple of years ago, he is courting a woman, again from Oregon, who he dated before he was called up to the majors.
All of those who attended the event were able to get their picture taken with the 2004 and 2007 World Series trophies. I had to take a moment to look them over by touch before I allowed the photographer to snap the shot. I ask you, how many times are you going to have that chance? The trophies themselves are about two-feet tall and a foot and a half across. The base is a cross-section of a baseball surrounded by a series of flag poles crowned with triangular pennants. The polls in the front are shorter than those in the back creating a kind of open arch effect.
After the event, but before everyone left, I got a chance to take a look see at a World Series ring. Carl Beane let me hold his 2007 ring and explained all of the stones and their arrangement. He tells me that he now keeps his 2004 ring in a lock box at the bank but brings it out from time to time because he says that like your first child, your first World Series ring is special.
Now I have a couple of new books to read, a couple of new friends in Carl and Johnny and a few new stories to tell my friends and family over the years.

One of the many things Rick and I wanted to accomplish during our Seeing Eye Single Tour was to make contact with the public about what we were doing. To this end, Rick sent out hundreds of copies of a press announcement about the tour.
The first person to bring the tour to the public’s attention was Joe Castiglione, the voice of the Red Sox on WRKO and WEEI. He went through the press release during the eighth inning of a game between the Red Sox and the Royals. We tried to get the attention of the home team broadcasters at all of the parks we went to, but none of the others returned our email messages or mentioned us during the games we attended. I did get a short mention on the local station in Pawtucket Rohde Island during the Paw Sox game I and a number of my buddies attended before the tour, but that was about it.
We did have a lot of success when it came to internet radio and podcasts in the disability arena. Paul Edwards interviewed us for ACB Radio’s Tuesday Topics, Marcia Dresser interviewed us for Council Connection, the Bay State Council of the Blind show for their Radio Reading Service and ACB Radio program, we were interviewed for the Talking Information Service in Massachusetts, Robert Acosta had me on as a guest on his Sports Talk program on Access World and Larry Wanger interviewed us for his podcast, Disability Nation.
Only one time were Rick and I in the same place during one of these interviews. The interview for Disability Nation took place over the telephone with Rick at his home and me at mine and our interviewer at his New York studio. The interview with the Talking Information Center was live and took place over the telephone from our hotel room in Washington D.C. and our interviews on Tuesday Topics and Bob Acosta’s Sports Talk took place over Brian’s lap top using TC Conference from Talking Communities. The interview for Disability Nation took place before the tour and the rest took place after the tour. All-in-all we were kept pretty busy.
I can’t explain why the mainstream press didn’t pick up on what we were doing; they certainly had time to write about many other things that had little or no social significance. I guess I remain disillusioned with the fourth estate.
For now, I hope that you enjoy listening to our interviews and that you continue to check out what these internet broadcasters are doing. I have added all of them to my personal listening list.

The following is an article from a New Jersey news paper about a friend of mine. She, like me, is a graduate of the Seeing Eye guide dog school. It appears that we also share a love of baseball and enjoy not only the sport, but the adventure of going to the ball park. I think she gets the importance of being independent and being an adventurer. What do you think?

Morris Plains fan’s every visit a result of teamwork
By Steve Politi, The Star-Ledger,
September 14, 2008

NEW YORK — The doors to the D Train open at 161st and River Avenue and they step onto the platform, one unlikely Yankees fan guiding another through the dense game-day crowd.
Laramie leads the way. Jane Lang follows at his side. They walk up a stairwell to the street and past the vendors lined up alongside the famous ballpark. They circle around to Gate 4, where Laramie stops in front of his favorite tree. He has earned a quick bathroom break.
“Isn’t this place something?” Lang asks when they finally make their way to her seats behind home plate. This is a spot that gives her an ideal view of the old ballpark, from the famous facade that looms in the outfield to the infield grass that is always a perfect shade of green.
Except she has never seen Yankee Stadium — at least not in the way most fans have. Jane Lang is blind. Laramie, a golden retriever, is her guide dog. For the past eight years, they have made the trip from their home in Morris Plains to the Bronx too many times to count.
And one week from today, along with 55,000 other fortunate fans, they will make it for the final time. “I am very sad about it. I love it here,” Lang said. She is wearing a light-blue Derek Jeter T-shirt and dangly Yankees earrings, and Laramie has curled up on a Yankees beach towel spread at her feet. “The minute I step into Yankee Stadium, I feel safe. “I feel home.”
Yankee Stadium means something different to every fan who has walked through its gates since 1923. The first time Lang made this trip, she gripped the metal bar in front of her seat, heard those familiar sounds of batting practice and beer vendors, and couldn’t stop her tears.
“What are you crying for?” the usher asked her. “We haven’t even lost the game yet!” “I’m crying,” Jane Lang said, “because I got here on my own.”
That first journey was not without an unintentional detour. She had filled her pockets with eight pieces of candy, one for each stop the D Train would make, and popped one into her mouth every time the doors opened.
But she must have dropped one piece along the way, because she got off one stop too soon. It didn’t take long to figure out that something was wrong, though. Laramie wouldn’t budge until she got back on the train.
He leads her around puddles in the street and past careless teenagers talking on their cell phones as they walk. He makes sure she stops on every corner and waits for the light to turn green.
He walks like a typical New Yorker, never hesitant to bump his way through a slow-moving crowd. Lang follows at his right side, whispering “good boy” when he stops at the subway stairs or near the edge of a ramp.
It is a two-hour trip that could test the nerves of a person with 20/20
vision. Lang, 65, makes it about 25 times a year, sometimes with her husband Pete to help, but often just with Laramie. “You can’t be afraid,” Lang said, “because if you’re afraid, you can’t do anything.”
She has experienced Yankee Stadium in a way unlike any of the millions of
people who have come here. She has listened to the radio broadcast of the game in one ear and the reaction from the crowd in the other. If the other fans get angry about a call, she joins them. “Hey, ump!” she’ll yell from her seat. “Are you watching the same game I’m watching?”
Pete planned a special surprise for their 41st wedding anniversary, leading her onto the field before a game and into the Yankees dugout where Jorge Posada was waiting for her. She reached up and felt his face. He has such a great smile, he really does,” she said. “And he hit a home run that day!”
She was sitting next to Harlan Chamberlain the night his famous son, Joba, made his much-anticipated first start for the Yankees. Harlan, who uses a wheelchair, held her hand so tight she thought it would break, and when she touched his cheek, she felt the tears.
The Yankees have become her family. Maybe the fans around her are furious with the team for its struggles on the field this season, but Lang is grateful that they put a fresh patch of sod outside for Laramie if he needs to make a bathroom break. She kisses the concessionaire and sends Christmas cards to the ushers.
She wishes she could meet owner George Steinbrenner some day, because she
knows exactly what she would tell him. “You know what I would do? ”she said. “I would touch his face and give him a big hug and say, ‘Thanks for
giving me so much joy over the years.’ “
Lang hopes she can still visit the new Yankee Stadium next year, but Laramie, now 10, won’t come back after the final trip to the old ballpark next Sunday. The team even put his picture on the scoreboard screen last month, congratulating him on his upcoming retirement.
That day after the game, as the two walked down the steps to the D Train, fans spotted the golden retriever.

“Make way for Laramie!” they yelled, and the crowded parted to let them
through. He will lead her down those steps one last time next week, and Lang knows she’ll be crying when he does. But they’ll leave this place with a lifetime of memories from a ballpark she has seen in a way nobody else has.

You may not have noticed that I didn’t bring Bethel with me to the last game in the Seeing Eye Single Tour. Why not? Fenway only allows a guide dog user to purchase a wheel chair area seat, the only place where a guide dog can fit, 72 to 24 hours before a game. This is the result of an old out-of-court settlement between the Red Sox and the wheel chair using community where no consideration was made for the needs of a guide dog user.
I have been able to exchange my ticket once and purchase a ticket directly once to seat in one of the wheel chair area seats. The first time it was for the game between the Red Sox and the Yankees when Boston got four back-to-back home runs. It was a wonderful game but very cold up in the back of the grandstand section where the wheel chair seating was. The wind was very, very cold.
The next time I got to sit in the wheel chair area seating was just a couple of weeks ago. My friend Rick and I wanted to see the Red Sox play the Rays. Rick got the tickets and they were terrific!
Our seats were just 100 feet from Gate E and up a easy-to-navigate switch-back ramp. We were half way between third base and the left field fowl poll, about twenty rows back. To my left was the Green Monster and to my right was the infield. It was a night game and there was a little rain but no rain delay.
As much as I loved the seats because I was able to bring Bethel to the park, Rick loved the seats because of the uninterrupted field of view. Even when the fans in front of us stood up to cheer, Rick could still see the game. He hates the seats I usually get behind home plate about 27 rows because there is an isle right in front of us and the fans keep standing between him and the game. No problem like that where we sat to see the Red Sox and Rays.
We lost the game but had a lot of fun. Bethel was a real charmer, making friends with the other fans, Rick loved seeing the balls hit the Green Monster and I loved hearing the voice of the announcer over the sound system and the balls as they bounced off the wall.
If you ever get a chance to sit in the wheel chair seating area, I would encourage you to do so. Bring along your guide dog and a low vision friend. These are not seats for those with 20 20 vision or those who can walk around the park. For those who do need them, they make all of the difference in the world.

One of the things I try to do between work and family is to read. On an average year I read about 100 books. Most of them are fiction, but I set myself the goal of reading at least one non-fiction for every 9 fiction. Most of the time this comes in the way of cookbooks or books on history of some kind.

This year I have started to read books on baseball as part of getting ready for my Seeing Eye Single Tour of 6 baseball parks in the Northeast. I must say that it takes a little getting used to a conversational style of writing to get through most of these books. In the Big Popi book, he must have said “Dude” a thousand times.

Because I am blind I have to turn to a very few sources to locate braille, audio or e-text books. Here is a web site I used after a friend of mine, Judi Cannon of Watertown, Massachusetts pulled this list together for her employer the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library Accessible Books on the Red Sox and Baseball. It not only lists books that have been produced for the Library of Congress, National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, but those recorded at the Perkins Library itself. She also mentions a video about baseball that is audio described.

I also read books from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and Book Share. These are both not-for-profit organizations; RFB&D uses volunteer readers to record both pleasure and text books, and Book Share where volunteers and members scan books and then place the results online for members to download and read.

Let me know if you have any additional locations I might get books on baseball from. What are your recommendations for titles and do you have any ideas on locations for additional information on baseball. For now, enjoy these books and enjoy the sport of baseball.