NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO HEARS FROM MONTANA'S BLIND

When Montana Association for the Blind Missoula chapter member Dan Burke heard a commentator on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" describe author James Thurber as "imprisoned by his blindness," he responded with a letter. A few short weeks later a portion of his letter was read on the same program.

Imprisoned by his blindness? Ah, the prisons of our minds; the shackles and chains we place on the souls of our fellows! As I sat this morning at my keyboard, working on an article about the ways language and attitudes still discriminate and limit people with disabilities, "Morning Edition" sent an almost textbook illustration into the sanctuary of my living room. It came in the form of your interview with the author (insert name, I thankfully forget) of a new James Thurber biography. In the interview you, Bob Edwards, referred to Thurber's "infirmities" and which we later learned meant his blindness and Thurber's anxiety about not being seen as blind. "Yes," said the biographer, "he was imprisoned by his blindness."

Bob, blindness is not a prison. Yes, loss of sight is a loss. But what in life cannot be lost--innocence, possessions, love, or breath itself? Neither is blindness black or white, as the author would suggest. The vast majority of blind people also have some vision. I am one of those. Having vision and being blind, therefore, are not mutually exclusive. Certainly, one might be tempted to wonder what Thurber might have accomplished with his cartoons had he not lost his sight, but the suggestion that he might have been diminished as a writer is laughable--and lamentable.

Imagine us saying "Gosh, "Paradise Lost" is a pretty swell book. It makes you wonder what old John Milton could have come up with if he hadn't been blind." One can easily understand, then, why Thurber would struggle with acknowledgment of blindness, and insist (as he apparently did) that he wasn't bothered by what "other writers" might be able to do.

Thurber's only mistake, it would seem, was to reject the blindness he experienced as the cause of his shame. As Thurber's biographer amply demonstrates via his own language, prejudice and limiting attitudes toward blindness are the greatest barriers that Thurber confronted. The true prisons are the confines of our minds.

I spent much of my life asking the jailer for the key--as Thurber seems to have done--and trying to trick my captors into letting me out on the premise of mistaken identity. It was not their mistake, but my own prison of attitudes about my blindness... The answer, I finally realized, was to get out yourself, to pick the lock or, even better, batter down the door. Sincerely, Dan Burke, Access Coordinator, University of Montana.

(NOTE: This article appeared in "The Observer," Winter 1996, published by the Montana Association for the Blind.)

FOOD HINT

by Sandy Nebergall

Is your snack too small? Regular sliced bread, white or dark, averages 60 calories per slice. This can add up fast, if you're counting calories. But the big bread companies have heard us, and now offer a wide variety of "light" breads, 40 calories per slice--and they're tasty. Combine light bread with a low-sugar jam or lowfat peanut butter, and discover how less is more!