Podcast Summary:
In this opening episode of The Blind Drive, Jeff Thompson, Liz Bottner, and Tim Schwartz get real about “ambassadorship,” authenticity, and living blind life on our own terms. With humor and sharp storytelling—from a “Scarlet Letter B” riff to a crosswalk shove gone wrong—they tackle the tension between educating the public and simply being human, bad days and all. They argue that respect should start with humanness first, that education helps but can’t be forced, and that confidence grows by getting out there: bus rides, ballgames, breakfast spots, and small wins that build community. Practical encouragement and gentle challenges abound—bring a friend, take that first route, learn the skills, and decide when (or if) to teach in the moment. No waiting for perfect tech. This is about motion, mindset, and everyday mastery—today.
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Full Transcript:
{Music}
Jeff: In a world where blind life doesn’t wait. Where skills are learned, not given. We don’t wait for tomorrow. We do it today. Real skills, real tools. Real life. I’m Jeff Thompson, along with Liz Bottner and Tim Schwartz. This is the blind drive. Let’s get started.
Intro: Three. Two. One.
Jeff: Well, just like Nathan Hawthorne and the Scarlet Letter A, we’re out there in public, but we’re brandished with this scarlet letter. B, we’re the blind person. You know, we got a cane, we got a guide dog, and we’re out there. But you know what? Every morning I get up, I get on the bus, I go to work. There’s 60 people come home from work, there’s 60 people, 15 people here and there. I stop at the store. There’s another 20 people. You know, I might be impacting 150 people a day. And they’re seeing a blind guy, typically. So am I out there being the ambassador? Am I wearing the cape? Honey, I’m going to go educate the world and put on my cape and head out there. No, I’m just being me, doing my everyday thing.
Liz: And we don’t need to write. We can choose whether we want to or not. And whichever answer we choose is okay.
Tim: Yeah, that gave me the different image you mentioned the Scarlet Letter B on our chests. Put it on a cape on our back because we’re supposed to be that superhero.
Jeff: Nathan Hawthorne would like it on the chest to go with the Scarlet Letter A. Yes he would. Yeah. Just to stick with. Don’t wreck my thing.
Tim: I like how you’re on a casual name basis with him, Nathan.
Liz: Right. It’s like. Wow. Okay.
Tim: Personable.
Liz: Indeed.
Jeff: Well, when we were kids, it was Nathaniel. Then Nathan,
and now it’s Nate.
Tim: Nate? I was just saying. Oh, well.
Liz: Well, then.
Jeff: I didn’t want to sound too posh.
Tim: So between friends, I see.
Liz: Yeah.
Tim: Nathaniel. It’s just Nate. Yeah.
Jeff: Well, welcome to the blind drive. I’m Jeff Thompson, and in the studio we have Liz Bottner. How are you doing, Liz?
Liz: I’m doing fine. How are you?
Jeff: Great. Do you want to do a little introduction on who is Liz Bottner?
Liz: Absolutely. I am a certified blindness rehab professional working in the blindness field. When I’m not working, I spend my time volunteering with a lot of different organizations within the blindness community. Mainly I dabble in podcasting and my interests are in accessibility, assistive technology. And when I say accessibility, I mean digital accessibility, mainly assistive technology. And I will try almost anything once. In terms of a hobby, I really enjoy blind sports, some of which have included blind hockey, blind ice hockey. I play goalie running, snowboarding, tandem biking. I really will try anything once, almost anything once. So that is a little bit about me.
Jeff: I remember talking about blind hockey to you, and I got involved and I was playing with the US hockey team for two years. I was in it for three years and I remember contacting you and asking you about it. Good stuff.
Liz: Indeed.
Jeff: And also in the other corner we have, it’s not a round table. We’re going to go with a triangle. We have Tim Schwartz. Tim, how you doing?
Tim: I’m doing really good. Jeff. How are you doing?
Jeff: I’m doing good. Thank you. Tim, why don’t you give a quick little introduction?
Tim: Yeah, absolutely. So as you said, my name is Tim Schwartz. People may have hopefully may have heard me from my podcast, Life After Blindness. I’ve also participated. I was with other podcasts. I was on the RNIB Tech talk podcast for a couple of years for. We moved a lot of that over to am I in Canada to be on the Double Tap podcast over there? And I helped launch that podcast, and since I’ve been taking a bit of a hiatus from podcasting until Jeff reeled me back in to come over here, which I’m very appreciative of because hopefully that’ll get me inspired to get back to my show. In addition to all that, I’m a proud father and husband, my wife and daughter and I love baseball. Going to Reds games here in Cincinnati, and I’ve spoken at a couple conventions I’ve attended once. I’ve spoken probably more times than I’ve actually attended. I played baseball once. I wish I had played it more. All this talk about sports, I’m like, I feel a little left out. I’ve interviewed people about blind hockey and baseball and other things, but unfortunately I just haven’t gotten in there myself. So yeah, I’ve been around the podcasting space for many, many years and, uh, I’ve participated in support groups and mentorships and all kinds of other meetings and things in the blindness community here in my local town. And, uh, so I’m happy to bring all that here, blend abilities and, uh, see what we can create here.
Jeff: Well, I’m glad to have both of you here. I’m Jeff Thompson. I run blind abilities, I do woodworking. I started at a training center for quite a few years, and I also taught at out at Enchanted Hills, which is part of the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired out on Veeder Mountain in Napa, California.
Liz: And I also just want to say that I believe my quote unquote podcasting debut as a guest may have been on the Blind Abilities podcast talking about my experience in a self-driving car. And now I currently co-host the Penny forward podcast as part of my involvement with Penny forward organization.
Jeff: That’s right. That was a while back.
Liz: Indeed.
Jeff: Was that Los Angeles? I mean, Las Vegas?
Liz: Yes. The 2019 National Federation of the Blind National.
Jeff: That’s right. I remember we went to that place and they had a big wild party and everything, and we got to learn about that stuff. Yeah. That’s cool. Did you win the ticket? Did you get picked?
Liz: I did, I they were poker chips. And I don’t know if everyone who went had a poker chip under their seats, but they asked us to reach under our seats and if we had a poker chip with the number one on it, I believe we were one of the people who were able to to get into the self-driving car. And I reached under my chair and I picked up my poker chip and I was like, Holy crap, this has a one on it, doesn’t it? Yes, yes it does. And so myself and my current guide dog, who was my fourth guide dog from Guiding Eyes for the blind, she and I both got into the back seat of the self-driving car, which did have a human in it. Full disclosure, because in Las Vegas, at several points in the route, mainly when you were on the hotel property, it did require that a human drive the actual car. But we went in the car and so that I can remember that now the feeling of, oh my gosh, I won this poker chip with a one on it, I can get in this car. How surreal. Yes. And I still have that poker chip.
Jeff: And the first autonomous ride. They did not avoid you because they had a dog. That’s great.
Liz: Indeed.
Tim: Deed just later.
Liz: Yeah, exactly.
Jeff: Yeah.
Liz: In non-autonomous vehicles. Many of them.
Jeff: Well, on the blind drive, I came up with a topic. How we present ourselves to society. Because so much is focused on how society perceives us. But are we actually feeding them? Are we out there not knowing that we’re causing them to feel like the stereotypical stuff is correct? Or are we making an impression on them like, hey, that’s nothing like Mr. Magoo, or that’s nothing like what I’ve thought about it. So I think when we’re out there and doing stuff, I think we are making opinions or people are able to draw that well, this person’s a successful. If I get on the bus five days a week, 60 people there, 60 people back, I’m impacting their thoughts when they see the blind guy consistently getting on the bus, getting off, probably going to work, and the people see me going from the bus to my work and all that stuff, my interaction with target and everything like that. They see that and they must get an opinion. The thing is, though, some people say we are an ambassador to the blind community. The entire world blind community is counting on you to be an ambassador, to show great representation and all that stuff out there.
Jeff: But when it comes to authenticity, I’m just me going about it. I don’t think about blindness when I wake up. I don’t think about it on my way to work. I don’t think about it. I just think of going from point A to point B and being me. And yet, no matter how much skills you have in traveling or your dog, you’ll still find that person that’s going to have a Boy Scout moment where they’re going to feel I’m going to save the day. And they interject theirself. They when they intersect you, when you have that intersection that you want to cross, and they’re going to be the hero, they’re going to feel good about themselves for that moment. And but I don’t think it’s just you. I don’t think it’s anybody else. I think it’s just anybody. Even if you’re the greatest cane traveler in the world, they see you as a blind person, just like penguins on an iceberg. It’s just penguins. You’re just a blind person. So what are your thoughts on that, Liz?
Liz: I think that it’s a bit of both that yes, we absolutely can just buy our day to day interactions, positive interactions of doing things and even sometimes negative interactions because it happens. We’re human and we’re allowed really that it’s okay. Uh, you know, we as well can have bad days. Uh, we have that that ability, uh, despite what other people may, may think or say to the contrary, but we can have a positive impact on people just by living our lives. That said, people are going to think what they want. And society as a whole, I feel like does not help that cause in a positive light, because of the ridiculous images that it puts into advertisements and TV shows and books. In some cases and movies stop. But really, we can choose whether to be or not to be ambassadors. We don’t have to. If we want to educate, we absolutely can. If we don’t, we don’t have to. But we have that power to decide when we want to and when we don’t. And either answer is okay. Having said that, I do absolutely think that there is just this heavy lift that is automatically put on us because of the thought that we do have to be ambassadors, even if we don’t. So I think there’s space for all of it, and there’s just complexities in this conversation, and all of them should absolutely be allowed to have the space that they need, because it’s all valid.
Jeff: And, Tim, you were told to be an ambassador.
Tim: Yeah. One of the first support groups I ever went to. There was a sighted person there who worked for the organization that put on the support group, and he made a I don’t want to say a big deal, but he made that a talking point about us being ambassadors and representing the blindness community and saying, hey, when you’re out there, you know, out and about, people see you and they see you as the blind, not just a blind person, but they’re going to maybe only have that one experience with one blind person, or maybe a couple blind people over a long period of time. You don’t know how often they may actually ever, maybe not even ever meet a blind person. So you might be the one. And so you need to show them that, you know, blind people can do things too, and that you’re just like anybody else, but you’re, you know, you can go out and do things. And I’m like, yes, like Liz was saying, that’s true. And I think you should always try to be that in public. You’re the best you can be. I don’t care if you’re blind or not. No matter what situation you find yourself in, in life, in public, you I mean, in private, especially in private, I guess, as well. But in public you should be respectful and pleasant and whatever. But you’re also going to have bad days. There are times where I am Mr. Magoo and I’m never daredevil on the other end of that spectrum, but I try to aspire to be. I’d love to say that I go around every day being a superhero. You know, the big B on my back, you know, On my cape. Or as you’ve said to us, Jeff, you know, having that that scarlet letter B on our chest, you know, making sure everybody knows that’s who I am.
Tim: And this is where I come from. And so expect my, my blindness, you know, but I’m. I wouldn’t even say I’m in the middle like my worst days are, you know, bumbling and problematic. And my best days aren’t even close to a, you know, to Daredevil as a superhero. I go about my business, and I do what I can do and try to represent myself as best as I possibly can. But I’m going to have a bad day and I’m going to be grumpy, or I’m going to be annoyed. And unfortunately, as a human being, sometimes that might come out. I try not to. I really try not to, especially if I’m walking around as a solo blind person. I am aware of the ambassadorship that, you know, people put that, you know, label on us. I’m understanding of it and aware of it, but I don’t want to always have to be wearing it on my sleeve or on my shirt or cape, as it were. You know, I just want to do what I do. And if people get a good positive reaction from that and say, hey, wow, look at that blind guy. He’s able to do things and go to work and get on the bus and, you know, navigate and go to a restaurant and whatever. And he can do all that stuff. Wonderful. Great. They get a positive image of that and hopefully they take that away for the next blind person they come across. But if they see me having a bad day, you know, you kind of alluded to that. It’s like there’s not much I can do about that. I just have to do my best.
Jeff: Hmmm.
Liz: What I want for myself and for anyone is regardless of what day you’re having, you May or may not be having or what you’re presenting as or maybe what you aren’t presenting as because for whatever reason, be respected for your humanness. Right. I want to be respected first and foremost for my humanness, and that this is just part of being a human. I’m having a bad day. I’m allowed. That should be afforded to me. And then you know what? Oh, I’m a human and I happen to be blind. Too often we as people who are blind or who have low vision, the blindness piece comes first. And the humanness piece, if it comes at all, sometimes comes secondary. And I want for me and for all of us for the humanness piece to come first, because that really is the first part of it.
Jeff: Yeah, it is like when I’m at a convention and you have 3000, 2000, whatever number of people at a convention, you might feel like a penguin on an iceberg, or you might feel like just a blind guy in the mix. But when I went to the U of M at school, there’s so many students on campus, I’m like, fine, Waldo, you know, the blind guy. You know, out of the blue there, you might be able to find him or not. But if you go to a small campus, yeah, you might stand out a little bit more, but you might make more friends because it’s familiar and stuff. So when you were talking about Liz, when you mentioned you can turn it on and turn it off, if your ambassadorship and stuff, you know? 29 times out of 30, I’ll give that educational moment and I’ll talk to the person and I’ll give that little bit of stuff, and I’ll take a sip of my coffee, and I’ll keep talking and go with the lights and cross the road and stuff. But every once in a while, that, that 30th time. Oh, I don’t know. Even I can’t even remember the things I’ve said sometimes. Like the bus driver. Where are you going? My friend Bob’s boom. I’m off, you know? So it’s like it’s being a smart aleck, but I’m, I’m a I’m a human being. And I hope that people see me as me and not as a blind person, technically. And I think at a national convention, I made a lot of friends with people over the years. And it wasn’t because, oh, have you seen them cane travel? Those aren’t the points. Those aren’t the facts that I’m looking for. The thing is, it’s the personality, the person behind the cane, the person behind the blindness, the person within. And that’s who we are, too. We’re people first. And the blindness, to me, is just something that we carry with us the things we carry.
Tim: It’s always tricky for me because I’m just shy of six foot four. Carrying around this big, long white cane and people see me coming from miles around. So it’s like, oh, there’s that big, tall blind guy, you know? So it’s like, I can’t hide. I can’t sneak away. But I think you’re right, though, it is a matter of, you know, putting yourself out there and how you’re interacting with people in that 30th time you’re talking about Jeff can be really horrible. You’re talking about crossing the street. I had a situation once where I got off the bus. I knew where I was because I was getting off the bus. I knew I just wanted to cross the street right where I was after the bus, you know, went through the stoplight and, you know, the light would be green for me to walk. I knew that’s where I was going so I could go walk down the street to my apartment. Some very well intending person came up behind me, grabbed my shoulders, and she pushed me basically across the street. The other block, the other direction, like parallel with where the bus would be driving on the street. And so then I’m like, okay, I either have to cross back where I just started from, or cross over to the opposite block from where I started, from the opposite corner diagonally, and then start traversing back down the street to go to my apartment.
Tim: But I’m like, what are you doing, lady? What are you what are you doing? Why are you. I don’t want to go this way. And she just kept saying, you go this way, you’re going to go this way, I’m going to help you. And I’m like, but, but, but I didn’t need help. But I could have yelled at her and cursed at her. I did question her, and my body language should have given it away, that I was not comfortable and that that was not what I needed, but she just kept on guiding me by pushing me across the street. And I tried my best to keep my cool. And I think I did until I got to my apartment. And then I kind of exploded just to nobody in general. But it was just frustrating. But I had to make that choice. Like you said, Liz, I really had to take a step back and be like, all right, I’m really only going to be half a block or a block, whatever however you want to look at it off. You know, one side of the street off of where I needed to be. Is this really changing everything in my life right now, this minute? It’s going to cost me an extra minute, minute and a half of crossing the street.
Tim: Okay, take a breath. Calm down. It’s not the end of the world. Was it frustrating? Sure. But it didn’t, you know, break my entire day. So I had to make that choice of just saying. All right, let it go. She thought she was doing something nice. But then you have those other times where people are, you know, almost as if they’re just barking orders at you or yelling things at you, and they get really angry at you when you don’t listen and you’re trying to do what you want to do or what you know you should be doing. And that can be very frustrating in that, you know, that 30th time you’re talking about Jeff, it’s like, okay, I know where I’m going. You know, I know where the door is. But thank you. You know, you try not to say something snarky like, thanks, but okay, I got it, you know? And then there are those well-intended people that maybe you did need that advice and you find, oh well, that wasn’t the right door or that their advice was correct. And then you’re like, oh, okay. Well, glad I didn’t yell at them because they did help me, you know? So it gets tricky. And you really have to kind of think about the situation and, you know, think through how you want to react to each one.
Liz: But Tim, with your example of, of the person grabbing you, I mean, yeah, and I agree with all of the things that you said, but there’s also some deeper questions and things that I think resonated with me as you were speaking. Oh, yeah. First and foremost, I really want to know what gives someone the idea that it is okay to grab a stranger. You know, would they do that to a fellow sighted person? I don’t believe so. And so why is that a thing that that happens to those of us who are blind or who have low vision?
Tim: Also, because I know I’m not the only one, right?
Liz: Exactly. And then, yes, it took you an extra minute or so to backtrack and things like that. But in terms of my earlier point of society, not helping with the stereotypes people are then watching potentially this person grab you and push you, you know, what are they thinking? And that shouldn’t matter at the end of the day. But that’s still I mean that’s that doesn’t help either. But really and truly what is going through people’s minds when they think it’s okay to just invade personal space and grab and if anything, what? And if not, they stop. Like I said earlier, just stop. Don’t do it.
Tim: And when they did that, I did have that thought of, you know, this is my personal space. What if this was and I and I know it shouldn’t matter in today’s world, but you know, the stereotype of what if that was a man grabbing a woman, you know, that could be a scarier situation. What? You know what I mean? What? What’s going on here?
Jeff: Double standards. Come on. This was a woman grabbing a man.
Tim: Yeah, well, I guess, but. But it’s the idea of the other people. Like you said, Liz, there were several other people in the crosswalk seeing this happen. Nobody else said anything. Nobody stopped her. Was I was saying, no, I don’t want to go this way. I don’t know, what are you doing? Why are you grabbing me? I’m saying these things out loud. I want to go the other direction. Nobody stopped her and said, hey, don’t you hear him? He’s saying he wants to go the other way. And I know there were people around. We all got off the bus together and were walking across the street. You know, we’re all crossing that crosswalk. So there wasn’t anybody coming to my aid to say, hey, stop that. I’m not blaming them. Absolutely not blaming them. And I know that’s not what you were. You know, you were saying necessarily it’s not blaming them for inactivity. But at the same time, what are these people thinking when they’re seeing something like that happen? What was that woman thinking? And like I said, I can only presume she was well intended, thought she was being helpful, but then come up to me and say, do you need help getting across the street? I’ve had for that one instance with that one woman. I’ve had dozens of other experiences where it’s, hey, do you need help getting across the street here? It’s a busy intersection. Or do you want me to let you know? You know, whatever. You know what I mean.
Liz: Or even. Do you need help? Yes. Right. Okay. How? Yes. You know, what help do you need? Really?
Tim: Exactly. Yeah. What can I do for you? How can I help you?
Liz: Exactly.
Tim: And that’s the education, unfortunately, that a lot of people just don’t have and don’t receive. One of the things I’ve been preaching for years is all of this starts with education. I’ve always said that disability studies should be something that’s studied in school, early and often, with every other type of social type studies that we talk about. Why aren’t there? I mean, I know people like ourselves or, you know, people that are blind or deaf or otherwise disabled, you know, visit schools and give talks and things like that. But it’s like it almost really should be part of a curriculum. Curriculum, if I can say the word. Um, to, you know, to educate kids early and often of blind people aren’t scary. We’re just like you. We just have to do things a little differently and get them young.
Jeff: I would push up against that a little bit. I mean, you got book smart and then you have street smart. If you’re going to put yourself out there on the street like we all do. I agree. We’re going to go out there. We have to expect some of that. So we have to have our armor on. You know, we have to be prepared for situations like that. Not that that you screwed up. She probably went to the next block and was looking for someone six foot eight. She was she just finished a six foot four guy.
Tim: So she just likes steering tall men around. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
Jeff: So when you’re out there, you’re subjecting yourself to society, and society has so many interpretations of what blind people need, what blind people represent, and that they need help. Probably. So like Liz, you mentioned the books, the movies, all the stuff in society, the magazines, everything that people learn from and gain information from. Yes, Tim, you mentioned educating people and stuff like that. But I think being an ambassador, I think part of that is that we need to educate the people we interact with. Because I tell you what, I am very seldom in a place that I don’t frequent. What I mean by that is I have tendencies that I’m going to work, or I’m going to a friend’s house or I’m going. But I if I looked at the map of me over the last 15 years, you would see some very thick lines that were probably routine type of stuff. Certain stores that I go to, certain other things like that. So if I can educate someone once in a while 29 out of 30 times, I think that’s pretty good. Yeah. So there’s no quick fix, just like in education. Be nice at all. Teachers had to take something in their curriculum about accessibility, or all people who are becoming web designers that they had to take part of their curriculum was accessibility, but they don’t have that technically right now. And if you go to all the big conventions, there’s groups of people that meet and talk about having that stuff, trying to interject that, you know, but here we are, down in the trenches, going out into the streets, because if you’re not going to get out in the streets, you just don’t know what you don’t know.
Tim: Well, if you’re not getting out there, what kind of life are you really leading? What you’re missing out on a lot of, you know, community and interactivity and being social. And that’s not a great way to live either. But I totally agree with you, Jeff, but I think it should be both, if possible, if we can and when we can try to be that ambassador. I’m not sure if that is the best word, but it is a word, you know, try to represent ourselves as humans, as Liz said. But as you know, people who are blind as well, in the best positive light we can as often as we can, you know. But the other flip side of that is outside of the occasional interaction I might have with somebody where they might learn something about me or about blindness. Why can’t it also be something that’s, you know, even if it’s a couple chapters in a social studies class or a health class to have, you know, discussion about people that are blind or deaf or in wheelchairs, why can’t there be an education that starts in elementary schools to talk to kids so that they’re not out? I’ve had so many kids that are afraid to approach me or talk to me because they see the cane and they freak out. You know, little kids that are like, but mommy, they’re blind. And even the parents sometimes doesn’t know what to do or to say, and that I can do my best in that instance to say, you know, I use this as an extension of my eyes. It helps me to see by feeling the ground or obstacles in front of me, etc., etc. I can go through all that.
Jeff: I’m late to work.
Tim: I can go through all that. And I have many, many, many times in my life I’ve done that. But why can’t it also be that we have education? And I know that’s a bigger, huge, big conversation that, you know, is way above our pay grade. But in my Pollyanna kind of pie in the sky idea, it’s like, why can’t we have both of those things to help society, to help people to understand, okay, they’re not that scary. They can do things and they might need my help. And here’s the best way to ask them if they need my help.
Jeff: Let me ask you this, both of you. When you notice someone in a wheelchair, do you pause and say hi? Or do you notice they’re in the wheelchair and just go on by because it’s just another person?
Tim: This is where I get to be a sarcastic jerk. I don’t see anybody in a wheelchair.
Jeff: Right? But sometimes.
Tim: If.
Jeff: I know the bus makes that sound and it goes down and it picks up the bus and they strap them in up in the front there, they ask a couple people to move out of those seats, and they fold it up and they strap it down, and then you take off. I mean, have you ever been on the bus and you’re kind of running late and all of a sudden you hear the ding, ding, ding. And now, oh, they got to pick up a person in a wheelchair. It’s like, are people with disabilities? And you’re sitting there with a guide dog or a cane or something like that. You know, it’s interesting how society works and how we work. And one of those things is, if you don’t get out there, this stuff doesn’t bother you at all because you’re. You got a TV, you got a remote, you got a computer, you got a screen in front of you and that’s it. But if you grab the cane and walk outside and try and make it around the block once more, power to you. You know, do it twice. Extend your block, take notes and get further and run into this type of situations where you wonder why they think that way, because that’s what makes you grow. And I think that’s what really helped me get a thicker skin and get a softer touch to it. That how I do take the time sometimes to explain what’s happening.
Tim: But before we can get to that empathy and that understanding of a person’s single, you know, experience, somebody that’s, you know, getting their wheelchair put onto the bus or what have you. I think that starts with education. The people that are sitting on the bus going, oh God, that’s going to be another five minutes while we load this person on the bus. They aren’t obviously empathetic to that person in the wheelchair. Enough to know, but this is what’s necessary. Or they do know. Maybe they do know. Yes, this is necessary. But you know, it’s having that education and that understanding and developing the empathy to say, okay, well, this is just how they have to live their life. Just like I might have to accommodate things for myself. And that goes back to that understanding and that education.
Liz: Absolutely. When I have been on buses and people in wheelchairs have come on the bus, I haven’t said anything because I’m usually I don’t really know where they are necessarily to say anything. But I have always smiled inside and maybe even outwardly, I don’t know. But, you know, I’m glad that we’re getting out there and you know, they are just like me doing their thing. And I get annoyed at people who, you know, have, you know, expressed frustration that they have to move or if they make comment, it’s just like but again, it goes back to education. And I absolutely agree that it should not all be on us. It should come from society and from us to supplement that. But it should not all be on us. Just as in my view, the built environment should be accessible to anyone and everyone who comes in contact with it. You know, the burden should not be on us to bring accessibility into wherever we go. The same goes for educating people about people, some of whom have different abilities than everyone else. That’s okay.
Jeff: Hmm. And like we were talking before, the difference between authenticity and or being authentic or how society says that’s success. You made it to work.
Tim: You’re so inspirational. Yeah.
Jeff: Oh yeah. Society has all this inspiration porn. I think looking back at it now, I’m. I’m smiling in a sense. No, I did not get outwardly upset with people getting on the bus with wheelchairs and stuff and the time frame. I don’t think I ever was late because of anything. I take a bus, I have to take a bus, and I’m usually 40 30 minutes early to wherever I’m going because I’m taking the buses. And that’s the nice thing about public buses. And I hope after the pandemic here, that they come back a little bit. Now that people are starting to go back to work, because a lot of public transportation has been threatened a little bit with cutting it back, and some of us need that, no matter if it’s a pandemic or not. So society, we have to live with it. We have to live within it. And it’s our playground. It’s our earth, right?
Liz: Yes. And we are allowed to own it. Also, I want to go back to the education piece. Uh, we’ve talked a little bit about it, but what we have not brought up yet is there has to be a want from the other person who you are educating to be educated.
Tim: Yeah. That’s true.
Liz: And if that’s not there, you can educate all you want. It’s not going to matter. And that is when I struggle with why should I, if it’s outwardly obvious to me that it’s not going to go anywhere in me educating or attempting to educate. I won’t even say educating because if they don’t want to be educated, they’re not going to be educated.
Jeff: Hmm.
Liz: It’s within my power to say yes or no. I would, I want to educate, I do not want to educate. And either answer is okay, but when there is, is no want from the other side to understand. And when there’s no empathy and when the person just doesn’t care, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to put myself through that. I’m not. And that’s okay.
Tim: I would have loved to have educated that lady that pushed me across the street in the wrong block, but there was no opportunity. There was nothing I could do or say that was going to tell her, even though I was saying out loud, what are you doing? Don’t. I don’t want to go to this corner. It didn’t matter. And so I was like, well, I’m not. Once I get to that corner, I’m not stopping her or grabbing her and saying, hey, by the way, we need to have a conversation right now. You know, it wasn’t going to happen.
Liz: But in a way, I feel like you actually were educating her in the way that you could in that moment. She just wasn’t paying attention. She wasn’t actively listening to what you were saying, and apparently neither were any of the other people on the street. But in the street.
Tim: Yeah, that was disheartening. But yeah.
Jeff: I had a great situation. I came to the my typical stop. I was walking up the block and I come to a stop and traffic was going by and the guy just was nonchalantly, he just goes, should I let you know when we can cross? I said, oh, I was just listening to that truck right there. The load shifted and because there was a thump in the side, a box of a bigger truck that went by, and he turned to me and says, you heard that? I said, yeah, yeah. He probably didn’t load up the truck very well because the boxes just tipped over. Oh, and sounds like traffic just stopped right now. And we we talked nonchalantly as we crossed the street, and that was a perfect moment where he realized how tuned in I was to the sounds that were happening around me. We just had a regular conversation, and it was just one of those moments that didn’t even scratch a 10s off my time or anything. It was just in fluid motion. That’s the type of people I wish I would meet so much more than some of the others.
Liz: Yes, that’s how every moment should be in my mind. It really is.
Jeff: Hmm.
Liz: Or most of them. I’d say most of them.
Tim: Yeah. For most of them. Right.
Jeff: 29 out of 30.
Tim: Yeah. 20. Right. Yeah. You get that nice little moment of you know is there something I can help you with or what can I do to help you? Like we said before, I love those moments. Those are great because it’s like, those are the ones that make me smile inside and out, you know, outwardly smile, like, yeah, actually, sure, you can help me. Or like Jeff said to that person, nah, I’m good. I can listen for the truck. But even that simple answer tells them I’m okay. I’m going to listen for the truck. But that said, there’s an unspoken in there too, of if Jeff maybe made a wrong step or there was some sort of something else going on, an obstacle of some type. He was with a person that might have offered up, you know, some sort of help, or it might have said something. And boy, if only they all could be that way.
Jeff: An invasive type of help. I don’t mind.
Tim: That. Yeah, yeah, they’re there if you need them.
Liz: If you, as the other person, are coming at the situation with a preconceived notion of what you are going to quote unquote do, or how you are going to quote unquote help. That’s not helping.
Jeff: I think me noticing something that he probably noticed that he didn’t think I could ever see or do that, and I nonchalantly just mentioned it. It put us on a new another level of understanding that now we are communicating. Now we had conversation instead of him just coming on and just spewing something onto me that he thought that I needed, you know? So I don’t like the salesman approach to that type of thing. I like I like when you’re just blending in, I want to be Waldo. Just not too many people will even notice me. I just need to get to A to B, get my coffee, get to work, get to this, do that. And you know, we just get into that. I think the main thing is the people that are out there doing that, there’s a lot of self-censorship going on. I don’t think that’s a word, but self-censorship.
Liz: It is now. Yeah, it’s okay.
Jeff: And we’re just locked into our own thing. We’re just going about our own thing. And when something intersects us and it’s like, it’s like, do any of you ever remember if you were cited at one time, you’re walking down a hall, someone else is coming at you, and anyone else has the hall. You both go left, you both go right, you go, and then you almost stop. And one person takes an intentional step to the right. So you go around each other. It’s like the timing is just impeccable, just right on. And it’s just like. And I think sometimes in the blindness world, we’re just tapping along and just come across these situations where people feel like they’re stuck and they have to have to help, have to offer and feel good about themselves.
Tim: I wonder, though, if there’s a flip side of this, turning it on its head, where maybe there are people that want to help. And I’m optimistic that more people would want to help than there aren’t, I hope, but they just don’t know what to do. They don’t know what to say. Yes. And so that’s where you get the aggressive I want to say aggressive. That maybe sounds too much but sounds too aggressive. But, um, you know, those people that are kind of yelling at you like, go left, go left.
Liz: No, no, it’s aggressive.
Tim: That’s a fair go that way.
Liz: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah I.
Liz: Mean I think.
Tim: Probably a fair word. And like they’re trying to help but because they don’t know what you need because they don’t understand and they’re like, I want to help them, but I need to yell at them one because, well, aren’t all blind people deaf? So they need to yell at us. Um, but then they don’t know what we can do. They don’t understand what we’re perceiving. Like you said, Jeff, where, you know, that gentleman didn’t understand necessarily what you could hear, what you could sense, what you know, what your understanding of your surroundings were. Thankfully, he asked and offered, but I think a lot of other people just they’re just like, you know what? I should help that person, but what do I say? Or what should I do? Or can I can I help them? And I’ll just I’ll just yell out the first thing that might be helpful, you know, and that’s obviously not the best way to handle it ever. But I wonder sometimes if those people in their best intentions just kind of get panicked or freaked out or whatever, you know, word and just don’t know what to say and don’t know what to do. And it just kind of gets blurted out, possibly aggressively. And I don’t want to say that that’s excusable. I’m not. But I think it could be a thing sometimes. I’ve talked to some people, they’re like, you know, I saw a blind person and I didn’t really know what to say. I wanted to help them. But, you know, what do I do? And it’s like, well, what would you do for anybody else?
Jeff: I think for the people who are aggressive, they should go straight to jail. Do not pass go and do not collect $200.
Tim: Right.
Liz: Don’t even collect a thousand.
Jeff: Right.
Tim: Eight.
Jeff: Nothing in this game of monopoly blind.
Liz: Nothing and like it, right?
Jeff: And I’m going to take Saint Charles from them.
Liz: Yeah.
Tim: Say, you see an older person having trouble, and they’re walking up to a building and, you know, they’re, you know, they’re going in to where it’s like a heavy metal door. And hopefully you’re a nice, kind person with empathy and you go and get the door for them. Well, why is that different than hey, blind person, can is there anything I can do for you, you know, or just saying to the person, hey, can you want me to get the door for you? Would that, you know, would it help if I get the door? It’s the same idea. But for some reason, blindness freaks them out more than just. Oh, it’s a person with a walker, or it’s an older person. I remember as a teenager there was an older lady that rode our bus metro bus downtown, and she got off where she would go home and she was elderly. She was having trouble walking. She had these big grocery bags and she, you know, didn’t really ask. She didn’t even say anything. But I said, ma’am, that’s a lot to carry. Would it be helpful if I carried some of those for you to your apartment? And she was so overwhelmed with appreciation and just. And I wasn’t doing it to toot my own horn or anything. It was just like, this is how I was raised, you know? And I saw her in need and I asked if she needed help. I would hope that anybody would do that. But for some reason they see a dog or they see a cane and it’s different. I don’t know why. I don’t know why psychologically that’s different, but it’s sometimes I feel like it makes people react differently.
Liz: It does. It shouldn’t, but it does.
Jeff: Hmm. I think this is a great conversation. Something that in the back of my mind, I think I’ve had this conversation a hundred times throughout my life and here we are today, and it’s almost the same conversation I had 15 years ago, ten years ago, five years ago. And things do change, but things don’t change. And every time it’s just like you go back to your high school one day after you graduate and no one knows you. So that’s what. That’s what it’s like in society. Everybody moves on and everybody goes, and it’s always a continuum. And you’re just injected all the time when you’re down in public in a bigger city. People that just don’t know you go to a baseball game. The Reds, Tim. And what do you do? There’s 50,000 people there and you won’t see them again.
Tim: Thankfully, I made I’ve made a habit of going to enough games in my life. I actually had season tickets for a while. They weren’t everyday tickets. They were like weekend package or whatever. And so the ushers in my section, my seat that I had, you know, for my tickets, got to know me. So when I would come up either by myself or with a friend or my wife, and they would see us coming and they’d be like, hey, Tim, you’re back. Okay, how’s it going? We got your seat ready here for you. You know.
Jeff: You didn’t get caught on the Kiss camera, did you?
Tim: Uh, no. We have not been caught on the kiss cam. Although I would be with my wife, not somebody else, but that’s a whole nother podcast. But no, like, I got to know them and they got to know me and they understood. And you know that I might need a little bit of help, but not a lot. And it was always good.
Jeff: I think that’s the best thing about getting out is because you do have a consistency, and there are some consistencies out there that you do run into people and you do notice people. And I think that’s awesome.
Tim: When I came out of high school and actually really kind of out of college, my grandfather, who was also blind by the time I was that age, gave me the best advice I could have ever had. When I went into the workforce, I got a job in downtown Cincinnati working for a major bank, and he said to me, when you start this job, there’s a particular restaurant up like a block and another half a block around the corner from where you’re going to work. Pick that one or any other local restaurant and go in for breakfast. Or go in for lunch and be a regular. Get to know the people. This was before I had lost my vision. He was already blind, so it really had nothing to do with blindness, but I was able to apply it over time because he’s like, go in there and, you know, meet people, meet people sitting at the counter at the restaurant or the waitresses, the people you know, at the restaurant, whatever, and get to know them, get to know the, the vendors outside your building that are selling hot dogs or whatever, you know, get to know those people as you go by and say hi, because you never know who you’re going to see what situation you might be in, what help you need, help they need, and just get to know those people. And it was the best advice I ever had for working in a new. And anytime I worked at a different company or a new environment, I would get to know the people that worked locally or, you know, somebody at a restaurant or whatever, because then you have that community and you have that understanding and they get to see you all the time as a blind person, and they get that understanding. It kind of rubs off.
Jeff: And I think if people want to start getting out there more often, get some cane travel skills and stuff. And like I said earlier, walk out the door. Walk down to the end of the driveway. Go to the mailbox. Come back. Go down to the neighbor’s driveway. Turn around. Come back. Go down to the end of the block. Check it out. Listen. Pay attention. Take a right. If you know you take three rights, you’re going to end up back where you started from and you didn’t even have to cross any streets. So I challenge you to get out there and actually get out there.
Liz: And if you need to bring someone with you, bring a friend, bring it, bring a trusted someone with you. If that makes it easier, that’s okay. Yeah, it’s almost more fun because then you’re both doing something together. More than one of more than two of you. A group. I mean, I love that going with a group to a place or meeting people at a place, it’s just it’s a good thing.
Jeff: Just like this podcast, we got three people here, right doing this and talk about stuff and I like it. So Tim, Liz, I think that’s a wrap. I think we covered it. I’m looking forward to another topic next time.
Liz: Awesome. Thanks for having us Jeff.
Tim: Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. It’s a great conversation.
Jeff: All right. I’ll get the lights.
Sound effect: A light switch clicking off.
{Music}
Jeff: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective check us out on the web at www.blindabilities .com. On Twitter at Blind Abilities and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store. That’s two words, blind abilities.
And if you want to leave some feedback give us some suggestions give us a call at 612 367 6093.
We’d love to hear from you. I want to thank you for listening and until next time bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share-
What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.