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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-001/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Stuart Levenson, June 28, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-001 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Stuart Levenson Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|16(4)|30(5)|43(11)|60(6)|71(3)|86(1)|95(6)|107(7)|119(3)|130(4)|141(11)|153(10)|166(13)|180(2)|192(5)|203(15)|213(11)|225(5)|237(4)|251(8)|261(10)|277(7)|289(5)|300(1)|311(2)|323(12)|338(3)|353(1)|364(6)|375(11)|390(2) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_b7dbfauo& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_rgn2wk1r" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 22 Education So tell me a little bit about yourself. Levenson describes his educational experience in Savannah where he attended school until 12th grade. He mentions his two years at Armstrong State College--now part of Georgia Southern University--before he attended Oglethrorpe University in Atlanta from 1963 to 1967. Levenson describes his connection to Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) where he participated in the talking book program. He describes the difficulty of being visually impaired in the " ; mainstream" ; education system and his refusal to attend the school for blind and deaf in Macon. He talks about the difficulty of adjusting to the increased workload of college and how he had to hire readers to read his textbooks and other materials. Charles Ellis Elementary School ; community college ; eye doctor ; GLASS ; minister ; public school 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 456 Finding a job with the Social Security Administration What happened once you graduated from college? Levenson talks about the three years he spent at graduate school at Georgia State University before he dropped out. He describes the difficulty of finding a job as a visually impaired person. He talks about finally locating a job with a program for the blind at the Social Security Administration where he worked for 36 years. He describes adjusting to the increased responsibility and pace of work. college degree ; diploma ; Georgia Department of Rehabilitation Services ; job applications ; National Commissioner ; Richard Rich ; vocational rehabilitation 17 912 Impact of Technology How do you feel your work experience was different as someone who is partially sighted? Levenson describes the difficulty using typewriters to fill out forms. He talks about initially using monitors or " ; dumb terminals" ; before the Social Security Administration switched personal computers. He talks about using the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) computer program that reads the text on the computer screen out loud. He describes his love of email as " ; the most wonderful thing God ever created" ; because it enables him to communicate with friends across the world. He also talks about his frequent use of the telephone with an anecdote about locating a gift for a friend in Honolulu by calling gift shops in Hawaii. communication ; computer literacy ; directory assistance ; flat rate long-distance ; Humuhumunukunukuapua'a fish ; international ; spellcheck 17 1308 Support group / Challenges / Technology change Tell me more about your friend circle. Levenson talks about his friends as his support group that keeps him sane. He describes his childhood friends and his adult friendships--some over 50 years. Levenson says that the two hardest things about being visually impaired are relying on others for transportation and shopping. Levenson describes changes in his lifetime and the increased accommodations for the visually impaired through technology. birthdays ; Harley Davidson ; internet ; Lenox Square ; MARTA ; motorcycles ; neighbors ; one-room schoolhouse ; online shopping ; private school ; public school ; radio ; television ; Uber 17 IRVIN: Hello, my name is Stephanie Irvin. I' ; m going to have a conversation with Stuart Levenson for Our Stories, Our Lives, an oral history project with Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is June 28th and this is being recorded at GLASS Atlanta. Hello, Stuart, thank you for joining today. LEVENSON: Thank you. Very nice to be here. IRVIN: So tell me a little bit about yourself. LEVENSON: Well, I was born in Savannah, and that' ; s where I got all of my education through the--actually, through the 12th grade. Then I went to a--now they call them " ; community colleges." ; It' ; s called Armstrong State College. Now it belongs to the Georgia Southern complex. Until--I did that for two years and then decided I wanted to leave because everybody I knew was leaving, and I wanted to come to a small school somewhere else. And I found Oglethorpe University here in Atlanta where I have--where I was in 1963 through my graduation in ' ; 67, and then I just never went back. I stayed in Atlanta. IRVIN: And are you a patron of GLASS? LEVENSON: Oh, yes. I have been a patron of GLASS since before there was GLASS, probably since about 1956. IRVIN: How did you become a patron of GLASS? LEVENSON: That was so long ago, I don' ; t remember. I' ; m sure someone told my mother that there was such a service. You know, as a visually impaired person, you always hear about talking books. And I' ; d always heard about talking books. Probably I got informed about the talking book program through the eye doctor that I had in Savannah back then. IRVIN: What was it like being a visually impaired individual in Savannah? LEVENSON: Well, back then it was much more difficult than it is now, because there were none of the programs that exist now to assist a visually impaired student. My eye doctor--later doctor told me that I was going to be in a very difficult position. I wasn' ; t totally blind, nor am I totally sighted. I was in the middle, and the middle was slowly going to go away. So the school system, the board of education was not prepared for anyone with a slight limitation of any kind. So I came along. When I entered the first grade in Charles Ellis Elementary School, I remember still being there for one week. The superintendent of schools met with my parents and said no, we couldn' ; t do this, because they weren' ; t prepared to keep me as a student. They had no idea what to do with a blind person. Absolutely no idea. And the only solution was to go to the school for the blind and deaf in Macon, and my parents weren' ; t going to do that. Not then. They tried later, but I threw a temper tantrum and wouldn' ; t go. IRVIN: Well, how did you end up liking the school or disliking the school? LEVENSON: Which school? IRVIN: The one in Macon. LEVENSON: I didn' ; t. I didn' ; t want to--I didn' ; t want to go away from home. A very well meaning minister came to our house one night and tried to convince my parents that that was the place for me to be. I probably was about in the 9th or 10th grade, and being a precocious kid, I overheard most of the conversation and I threw what could be classified as one hell of a tantrum. I wouldn' ; t go because I didn' ; t want to leave home. And so I never went there. I continued in the--what now is called " ; mainstream" ; of the education process through graduation from high school and then into college and so forth. It' ; s the funny thing about it is that when I was in high school in the 10th grade, the A student in one of my classes, my history class, just happened to be the son of the very same minister. And we had long talks about why I didn' ; t go to the school for the deaf and blind in Macon. And he said, well, it wasn' ; t--even the kid knew better--that it wasn' ; t set up for everybody. I decided early that it wasn' ; t set up for me and I wasn' ; t going to do it. IRVIN: You had mentioned you went to college. How has that experience, moving into college? LEVENSON: College was interesting. I remember the first day I was at Armstrong. It was then Armstrong College. It was in the downtown area. Now they call it the historic district of Savannah. Armstrong took over several of the old mansions and turned them into classroom buildings. And I remember going to my English class. I had to take remedial English. Unfortunately, I took remedial English twice. I flunked it. And I took remedial math twice. I flunked that, too. But the first day I remember going to class and the instructor gave us--after we' ; d sat there for an hour. She gave us the homework assignment, which was half the book. And I remember leaving and I said, " ; Oh, that' ; s for the whole quarter." ; She said, " ; No, that' ; s for Monday." ; You got to be kidding! But college was interesting, because I learned quickly that you had to obviously adjust to it. But as a blind person or partially sighted person, you wouldn' ; t adjust the same as everyone else did. You had to make your own way. And I did. I hired readers to read to me my textbooks and other material that I had to read. I paid them the munificent sum of--ready for this? One dollar an hour. That' ; s what the going rate was back then. And I had quite a few interesting readers. I had elementary school teachers. I had a good friend of mine who was a fireman and we would read in the park in Forsyth Park in Savannah on the days when he was not being a fireman. It was 24 hours on, 24 hours off. We would we would sit by the fountain feeding the pigeons, and he' ; d be reading to me books. And then on other days I would go to one of Savannah' ; s plantation homes out on one of the islands near Savannah, and I would sit on the dock and be read to. I was read to in some very interesting places. But I learned to deal with it as best I could, and so did my instructors. They learned to deal with me as best they could, and most of them did pretty well. IRVIN: What happened once you graduated from college? LEVENSON: Therein lies the problem. When I was growing up, I was never told that I would never find--I couldn' ; t go to work and support myself. So here it comes. In August of 1967, the reason it was August of ' ; 67, I dropped one course at Oglethorpe. And so I had to take one course in the summer. Here it was in August of ' ; 67, and I was out of school. I had a piece of paper in my hand that said I had completed all the academic requirements and therefore I was let out, as it were. And now it was up to me to decide what to do next. Well, I didn' ; t want to go back to Savannah, because my family, God bless them, were really good. But what would have happened is they were--especially my parents--extremely protective. And I knew that if I went back to Savannah, I would wind up working in one of my uncle' ; s businesses. He had a liquor business. I probably would be selling bottles of booze, which I wasn' ; t willing to do. So I came up with the idea, aha, graduate school. So I went to Washington to look at American University, which accepted me, and I looked at Washington and said, " ; I don' ; t want to live here." ; So I enrolled and was accepted to Georgia State and went to school there for three years, taking one course per quarter. But in those three years I decided you can' ; t go on like this. So I was looking for a job. Now, in the ' ; 60s, finding a job for a visually impaired person was not what it is today. I knocked on doors. I filled out applications. I used to say that the shredding of my job applications, if you threw the shredded paper out the window on Peachtree Street, I could probably have my own ticker tape parade. I had people--what they call--what this one advertising agency called us, " ; community influential," ; important people in the community looking for me for a job. The State of Georgia, the Department of Rehabilitation Services tried to find me a job. They suggested that I go to work in the vending stand program, and I refused to do that. I was a headstrong kid, and I wouldn' ; t do that because I said I was educated and I had a college degree and I wanted to do something else. Finally, the secretary of a very important person in town, Richard Rich, who owned Richard' ; s department store, his secretary and I became really good friends. She knew a federal judge and the federal judge said that he knew of a program that the Social Security Administration was starting for blind people to put them to work in general information. You would learn all there was to know about Social Security and you would be on the telephone talking to the general public. So they said would I like to do that? Well, by then I would have done anything. So I went to Florida. The VR, vocational rehabilitation people sent me to Florida for a screening. I spent four days in Daytona Beach thinking I was in heaven, and then I came back here and they said they' ; d let me know. Well, I had been told that so many times that I just--oh, there goes that idea. In May, they told me that I was accepted and that I would spend the summer--June, July, and August--in Miami learning how to work for the Social Security Administration. I was accepted into the second class, the second class of students. They had one in ' ; 69. This was in ' ; 70. And that I would learn all about Social Security and I would come back in September and I would work in Atlanta and I was absolutely astounded. I couldn' ; t believe it. So the State of Georgia would pay for three months of my upkeep. That meant that they paid the hotel bill, and it was really a cheap hotel, believe me. And at the end of that time, Social Security did not hire you at that time when you were in training. They didn' ; t hire you until you went through the training. In September I went through training. I then came back here and swore an oath and then I was officially an employee and working on 730 Peachtree Street, where I worked until they moved out of that office and they moved over to 805 Peachtree Street. Then they moved out of that office, moved to 55 Marietta Street, and they finally moved to the office they' ; re in now, which is 401 West Peachtree, which is the Summit Building. So I was there for 36 years. I would have been longer because they said that after you worked for 40 years you got a free trip to Baltimore to meet the national commissioner. I said, oh, that was fun. Well, I took it for 36 years now, and I said that was enough. And by the time I left, they said well, they didn' ; t even give that anymore. So I left. I decided I had already met the national commissioner when she came to Atlanta. IRVIN: What surprised you most about entering the professional world? LEVENSON: What surprised me the most was that--and this is very trite--at the end of May--I went to work in September of the first year. At the end of May, I didn' ; t get out for a summer vacation. You just kept right on working, through June, July, and August. I mean, those were no different than any other months of the year. You just continued right on. They would give you the paycheck every two weeks, and there was no difference. You just kept right on going. Also, the world of work was what you made of it. In other words, I think I worked reasonably well. I saw people who didn' ; t work very well, who didn' ; t do what they were supposed to. Some of them were fired. It is possible to get fired from the federal government. It is not easy, but they can do it. But if they set their mind to it, they can really do it. But when you' ; re working, the fun is over. School is nice, it' ; s fun, it' ; s enjoyable. But in the world of work, you' ; re responsible for everything you do. You can' ; t go running to mommy and say, " ; I didn' ; t mean it." ; No. That' ; s over. You do everything you' ; re responsible for, for yourself, your own living situation. You pay your own bills, you rent an apartment, and it' ; s just the real world, as it is. IRVIN: How do you feel your work experience was different as someone who is partially sighted? LEVENSON: It was very different. First of all, now, let' ; s forget about computers and let' ; s forget about the electronics that we have today. When I went to work, let us say you called my office and you wanted to file for benefits. What I had to do was the forms were there and you know as well as I do--the government does nothing better than create forms. They create forms for the sake of creating forms. You took a form and you put it into a typewriter and you learned how to fill out the form on the typewriter, filling out the spaces so that someone was able to read what you had written. Not in longhand because you couldn' ; t do it. You had to learn to--you had to push the spacebar over so many spaces when you got to this part of the form. You had to turn the little wheel to go down so many clicks to get to the next line. You learned all of this. Now, no big deal. Now you sit down in front of a computer. You press the button, the keystrokes. The computer comes on. JAWS, in my case that' ; s what I used. JAWS comes up and it tells you where you are and you know what to do next. You press the Spacebar or the Tab key or whatever, and you go to the next available block and you fill in that. And then you go to the following block. It' ; s a lot different. In some respects it' ; s easier than it used to be. Most of that stuff now is all on computers and you don' ; t fill out a paper form. You fill out the form on the computer and you press Send and it goes off to who knows where. And that individual gets a phone call of their application. IRVIN: Tell me more about how you use technology in your everyday life. LEVENSON: Oh boy. Well, back in 1989, a little before then, Social Security had on all of our desks what are called " ; dumb terminals." ; In other words, this was a terminal, i.e., monitor. You could do nothing with it except read it, if you did see it. And mine, fortunately at that time, my vision was such that I could see it. And you could read the screen and know what was available. Now, you couldn' ; t feel anything out, but what you could do is read what was someone' ; s information, basic information that they had with the Social Security Administration. In 1989, they decided we would all get personal computers, so we all went to training and learned how to work a personal computer. I think that was the greatest help. Now, I have a computer--well, I' ; ve always had one since then. I had my own. I love email. I think email is the most wonderful thing God ever created. So I use email to communicate with my friends and whatever. I use it a lot more than I use the telephone. It' ; s wonderful, you can email anybody all around the world. I know people in Australia and people in Israel, and if you want to ask them question, you just call them up on your contact list and ask them the question and they answer you. You don' ; t have to worry about the time of day. You don' ; t have to worry about the day of the week. You don' ; t worry about anything. All you have to worry about is did you spell the word correctly, and I' ; m notoriously bad speller. God bless spellcheck. So I use email quite a bit. I use the telephone. I am addicted also to the telephone. We have now what is called " ; flat rate long-distance," ; which means I can call anywhere in the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii, and it doesn' ; t show up on the bill. I' ; m used to three minute calls and a call before 11:00 is more expensive than after 11:00. Now you don' ; t have to worry about any of that. If I want to talk to someone--well, somebody in Honolulu, which I did recently--there' ; s a member of the group that I eat dinner with--he' ; s 94, and we became acquainted and his two sons are really nice people. Well, he became acquainted with a fish. In Hawaii, there is a fish called the--let' ; s see if I can pronounce this correctly--Humuhumunukunukuapua' ; a. That' ; s a rockfish. It' ; s the state fish of Hawaii. And it got to be a joke. Every time we would crack a joke about something, we would say the name of the fish and everybody would laugh. Well, somebody said that they had been to Hawaii and they found that name of that fish on a baseball cap. Well, that' ; s all I had to hear because I wanted to give this particular friend that baseball cap with the name of that fish on the front of it. So two weeks ago, I spent one entire evening calling all types of gift shops and hotel gift shops and regular gift shops. I found it! And he now has the hat, on the front of which says Humuhumunukunukuapua' ; a. That I deal with the telephone. I can find, do a lot of things with the phone that most people can' ; t, because I' ; ve learned how to use it and what you can and cannot do with it, with the exception of directory assistance, and you don' ; t want to hear what I think about them. IRVIN: Tell me more about your friend circle. LEVENSON: You mean--I don' ; t call them " ; friends," ; I call them my support group. When you are visually impaired, you develop a support group, friends. You have to. You have no choice. If you don' ; t, you slowly go crazy. Now, I don' ; t mean it literally, but I mean, when I was a kid I went to a private school. Remember I told you I had gone to elementary school for one week and they said they weren' ; t able to take care of me, so my parents found a lady who ran a one-room schoolhouse. I could be president and I went to a one-room schoolhouse, and I went to that lady' ; s house. She would have homeschooled her kids, but her kids had grown. So I went to this private school until the seventh grade when I refused to go back and they put me in the public school system. That' ; s another story. But anyway, so the situation was that you had to make. I had no real friends except those people who lived in the neighborhood. The people down the street had a couple of kids. Two blocks over they had a couple of kids, you know. If you want to make friends in your neighborhood, have kids. They can do it. Well, now when I went to high school, junior high, high school, and college, I have quite a few friends all around the country, actually all around the world. They are my support group. I had this one particular friend in Dallas, Texas. I was out there visiting once 20 years ago, and Harry said, " ; You know, when you make friends with Stuart, it' ; s permanent. You never let go." ; And he' ; s right. I never let go. I have friends that have been friends for 50 years because I like people and I just think that all types of people make the world more well-rounded. And everybody' ; s different. My friendships are sort of compartmentalized. I had a birthday party about 15 years ago for my 60th birthday and my best friend who threw it said he--it was a surprise party--it took him three months to get ahold of all the people that he had to come, because he said your friends work, you had separate friends at work, had separate friends from your Lions Club, separate friends from this. He said, " ; It was hard as hell to round up everybody." ; But they all mean--they' ; re all very important to me. IRVIN: What are some of the hardest challenges you faced? And how did you get through them? LEVENSON: The hardest challenge I had to face then and still have to face today is transportation and just some things that I have to do during the day. Someone said blindness is nothing more than an inconvenience. Those are the truest word that have ever been spoken. For example, when you are in your home and you drop something on the floor, you look down and you see it and you pick it up. Not me. Nuh-uh. A lot of times I will go down on all fours, hands and knees, and with my hands have to figure out where that item is. And it' ; s never where you think it' ; s going to be! Going to different places--like here at the library, when we finish this I will go to the MARTA station across the street with assistance and pray that I remember enough about that MARTA station that' ; s over there to get on the train and go out to the closest MARTA station to me and then take Uber to my apartment. If I want to get something--there are some shirts that I want to buy. Now, one of my suppressed desires is motorcycles. I happen to love them. There' ; s a psychologist who says, " ; You always love what you can' ; t have." ; Well, I can' ; t go out and buy a motorcycle and drive it. No, that ain' ; t going to happen. But I am the best advertisement Harley Davidson has. Well, there' ; s this place in Marietta, a dealership that sells shirts. There' ; s one in Roswell, too. But I want some shirts, but I want them from the place in Marietta. For weeks I' ; ve been wanting these shirts. I have yet to find someone who will drive me to Marietta to go pick those up. I will eventually, but it just it just takes a while. If I want to go to the market, it' ; s difficult to do. I have to plan in advance who' ; s going to do this and when they' ; re going to do it and how much time they have to do. Like last night, I was at a concert and I asked this friend of mine who wanted to go to the concert. I said, " ; Do you mind stopping at Publix on the way back? I need to pick up a few things." ; I have to divide what I want, because I can' ; t spend a lot of time in a market because people just don' ; t want to do that. They' ; ll come and go quickly or whatever. But they don' ; t want to spend the time you normally would spend in a supermarket looking for things. I have to do it quickly. It' ; s almost like a surgical strike: Come and get what you want and leave. Same thing with any department store. I love Lenox Square. I used to walk all over the place when I could see better. Can' ; t do that anymore. So I miss it. Though, transportation and getting things is about the thing that I miss the most or find hardest to deal with. IRVIN: What do you find has changed the most from when you were a child who was visually impaired, as to when you are now an adult who is visually impaired. LEVENSON: Technology. Technology now is absolutely incredible. Technology in the ' ; 50s was basically the radio, the television, the typewriter, and that you that was it. Technology now, being able to communicate in many different ways. Radio and television, that' ; s still around. I have two TV sets. They' ; re glorified radios. I can' ; t see the screen anymore, but I listen to them, and I wouldn' ; t know what to do without them. Cellphones, what we now use as a cellphone and take for granted, in the ' ; 50s and ' ; 60s, you would mention that and people would laugh at you and say, " ; Buck Rogers! They' ; ll never do that kind of thing in this century." ; Technology has made life so much simpler. Now, I don' ; t deal with the internet all that well. I tell people that I' ; ve tried to order a shirt from Target when I was learning how to do that kind of stuff. And by the time I got to the end of the cart, the check was in my cart. I don' ; t know how I did it. I wound up buying four shirts. Of course, I eliminated that and didn' ; t buy any of it. I don' ; t shop on the internet because I don' ; t know how to do it very well. And besides, if I want to buy a shirt, I like to go to the store and pick it out and look at it as best I can see it and buy it. I don' ; t want--Amazon is good. That' ; s fine. Let' ; s not shortchange them. They' ; re good for what they' ; re worth. And I' ; ve used them. Other friends have ordered stuff for me, and I love getting packages. But nothing to me takes the place of going to a store, whether it be Macy' ; s or Target or Wal-Mart or Saks or any place and going to the stores. I used to know all of the sales clerks at Lenox Square. They would save me stuff that they wanted me to look at. Not anymore. It' ; s just a whole different world. IRVIN: Well, thank you so much for talking with me today, Stuart. It' ; s been a pleasure to have you. LEVENSON: I' ; m just getting started. (both laughing) Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-001.xml RBRL451GLASS-001.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
31 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Stuart Levenson, June 28, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-001
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stuart Levenson
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with disabilities--Education
United States--Officials and employees
People with visual disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
Description
An account of the resource
Stuart Levenson was born and educated in Savannah, Georgia. He attended Armstrong College before working for the Social Security Administration for 36 years. Levenson talks about growing up visually impaired, emphasizing the changing role of assistive technology in his life.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-28
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-002/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Vashaun Jones, September 24, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-002 RBRL451GLASS Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Vashaun Jones Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|13(14)|22(7)|32(3)|41(11)|52(16)|61(9)|72(3)|83(12)|93(6)|104(16)|113(3)|125(3)|134(12)|146(1)|155(12)|165(4)|174(2)|183(4)|193(3)|203(10)|210(7)|218(2)|227(13)|236(3)|241(11)|249(11)|259(9)|267(2)|275(4) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_4lsjius5& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_ho1zlaqt" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 46 The importance of failure / early life And it's a great journey, and it started for me born three months premature in Portsmouth, Virginia... Jones talks about how he achieved his dream by having everything he wants, being in great relationships, starting several successful businesses, and helping thousands of people across the world. He goes on to describe the importance of acknowledging failure, highlighting his divorce, bankruptcy, dropping out of tenth grade, blindness, and business failures. Jones talks about his early problems with his vision that stemmed from his premature birth. He mentions having sixteen unsuccessful eye surgeries before having one that restored his vision. He recalls disobeying the doctor's orders by playing sports which caused him losing his vision again a few years later as a result of two detached retinas. Jones describes how failing the third grade motivated him to try harder in school. astigmatism ; class clown ; cross-eyed ; Doctor Sponaugle ; Doctor Valone ; empowerment ; encouragement ; jokes ; nystagmus ; Portsmouth, Virginia ; travel 17 537 Dropping out of school And I'm visually impaired. I'm blind. I'm visually impaired. I'm blind. And, you know, what's the difference? Jones describes the difference between being visually impaired and blind, noting his experience with both. He talks about dropping out of the tenth grade since he was already making a lot of money selling newspaper subscriptions. He states that leaving school was an empowering failure because it taught him that he was in control of his life. computers ; education system ; Individualized Education Program (IEP) 17 853 Business experience And so you fast forward to business. Jones describes his experience working as a center director at the large telecommunication company, MCI WorldCom, before leaving to start his own business. He talks about starting multiple failed businesses in the debt collections industry before he finally started a successful business. bonuses ; corporate ; failure ; goals ; profit ; self-employment ; success ; telecommunications 17 1179 The blind community And I sell the business and I get a divorce. Jones describes struggling after his divorce until he embraced the disability community through Georgia Library for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) and Stella Cone, specifically. He talks about learning from the experiences of other blind people and then working to help others by sharing his failures and successes. case studies ; Clarke Atlanta University ; daughter ; Dave Ramsey ; GLASS ; JAWS ; parents ; Ray Charles ; Savannah Center for the Blind and Low Vision ; Stevie Wonder ; the Center for the Vision Impaired and Vocational Rehabilitation Services ; Zig Ziglar 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Vashaun Jones for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is July 24th, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Radio Reading Service in Atlanta, Georgia. JONES: Hey what' ; s up everybody? It is Vashaun Jones and I am here to tell my story, and it' ; s a very, very interesting one. A lot of people discuss various things, especially looking at the Facebook and YouTube and all of the social media and, you know, they talk about items and, you know, life. And it' ; s a great journey, and it started for me born three months premature in Portsmouth, Virginia. And I was at a race to come out, I guess. I had nystagmus, or astigmatism, where my eyes would shake. And I was cross-eyed and I just had a lot of eye issues due to premature birth. And, you know, a lot of people they talk about the successes ; they say things like " ; successful business owner" ; and you, know, they talk about the Rolls Royce or the Bentley or the private jet, and they never see the failure. They never see the start of that person, how they evolved. And so this is my start. This is my long, long streams of failures to get to this point. And you might say, " ; Well, what is this point?" ; Right here today as I said to record my story, at 42 years old I' ; ve accomplished all of my dreams. I have all of the toys that I wanted. I have great relationships. I was able to start several successful companies. I' ; ve been able to help thousands of people all around the world. I' ; ve travel to any place that, you know, I' ; ve always wanted to go to that I' ; ve seen with my eyes closed, I was able to realize with my eyes open at some point in life. And my goal has always been to help enough people get what they wanted out of life, and I knew that I would always have what I wanted out of life. And that definitely stands true. You' ; ll hear stories about my divorce. You' ; ll hear my story about bankruptcy. You' ; ll hear my story about never graduating the 10th grade. You will hear my story about being blind and you hear the failures in business that I had to be able to sit here today to tell you that you can do it. And so what I' ; m most known in my community of disabled individuals is for the encouragement, the empowerment and the ability to assist with equipping those of us with disabilities to be able to live with greater success, do more, and be excellent at the things that we want to accomplish in our hearts. Finding or creating work that is meaningful, purposeful, and profitable is my mantra. It' ; s literally a dream come true for me. So again, my name is Vashaun Jones. I was born three months premature in Portsmouth, Virginia. I had a total of 16 eye surgeries, none of them actually correcting the issue. And each one with great hope of success, and each one of them failing, just caused more and more problems and I became blind early on in life. It was exciting because I became blind and then I got my sight back, and that was due to lots of prayer and lots of going back and forth to specialists. And that was like the one time that my surgery was successful but it took a doctor, Doctor Sponaugle and Doctor Valone who are from the UK to literally give me this secret surgery that had been working over in the UK in the United States and they said, " ; Hey, we can pretty much get your sight back." ; And they did, and it was stable. And for years I was able to see, but they would always tell me you could literally step off a curve and be blind. And me being a young boy wanting to play, wanting to be out there in the world, wanting to be normal, I went out there and I played sports and I got hit in the eye and I had a detached retina in one eye, and I didn' ; t learn from that, right? Failure--didn' ; t learn from that, and went out again and was playing sports and I got hit in the other eye, and lost my sight yet again. And it was it was one of those things that you like man, I' ; m plunged back into this world of darkness all because of being hardheaded. And that' ; s kind of the storyline of my life ; it' ; s always been pushing the boundaries, seeing that I could do something despite people telling me that I couldn' ; t. And I think outside of just not listening to my parents and not listening to the doctor on proper care and not playing sports and, you know, from that point, early on, they told me, " ; You' ; re not going to be normal ; you can' ; t play sports like other kids." ; And I just, just didn' ; t believe it. I wouldn' ; t succumb to that type of mentality. If somebody else was doing it, that I felt that I could do it--not say do it better, but do it different, but still be able to do it. And that was kind of my first bout with failure, and the second was third grade. Miss Frank, she say, " ; If you don' ; t straighten up your act, I' ; m going to fail you!" ; And I did not believe her. But she was the type of person, she would say, " ; You catch my drift?" ; She was like super old school. And like I said, I' ; m 42 so imagine me in the third grade it' ; s like like old, old school, right? So I kept playing. I wanted to be the class clown, wanted everybody to, you know, laugh at my jokes. And come the end of third grade year, the joke was on me--failed. So like, you know, how do you how do you recover from that? You know, failing was something that my parents did not tolerate at all! Failure? Man, no! And I was in my room literally the whole summer as a punishment for failing the third grade. I looked out the window and I was able to, you know, see and hear all the kids in the neighborhood playing every day of the summer until I went back to third grade to say, " ; You know what? I' ; m not gonna make that mistake again. I' ; ll make some new mistakes, but I' ; m not going to fail school--period. Dot." ; And so it was like my first failure. And I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m blind. I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m blind. And, you know, what' ; s the difference? Well blind, for me, I can' ; t see anything ; that' ; s the state of my eyesight now. Visually impaired, you know, you still can be cool. You walk around. You don' ; t have a cane. You know, life is almost OK, you know, and I' ; ve been able to see and I' ; ve driven and purchased cars and all that great stuff. And so I' ; m lucky in that. But I would say my second failure--and there was some micro failures you know, down through my journey--but there' ; s a core premise that I want everyone that' ; s able to listen to this has to understand is that failure is inevitable. You' ; re gonna fail. It' ; s what you do with the failure, how you fail forward, that is going to propel you to where you want to be. And just as a side bar, the reason why I get to help so many individuals is for that particular reason. You have to know what you want to be in order for you to be able to make it happen. And so my next failure comes--major failure, I guess you can call it--was the 10th grade. And I had to make a decision because for me, in the time that I grew up, going to school was a direct correlation to the amount of money that you would make. And I, from the age of 8, has always been taught with both my parents to work, to earn, to earn your allowance, to earn your keep. And my mom always told me, " ; At 18 you' ; ll have to get out and face the world. And the world is reality, and reality is going to smack you in the face, and you have to be ready for it." ; Now in the 10th grade, you know, and I' ; m a great student, you know, I learned how to learn, number one, and I learned how to, for lack of a better phrase, manipulate the teachers. You know, I knew you know you bring them an apple and, you know, you tell them that dress looks good and, you know, all of that and you stood a better chance of having good grades versus. So I drop out of high school at 10th grade, you know. And on my high school wall it said, " ; Believe, achieve and succeed," ; you know, and nothing in the education, all the IEPs, all the teachers who didn' ; t know what to do with me, you know, they didn' ; t know. They couldn' ; t, you know, just learn this and hopefully life will work out. But I looked at if it was a direct correlation to the amount of money that I was wanting to make in the future. I was already doing it. I was knocking on doors selling newspaper subscriptions in the 10th grade. I was making $400 a week, you know. And it was hourly--I had to go out and kill it, (chuckles) literally--not literally but, you know, and bring it home. I had to, you know, sell this subscription, right then at the door, get the money, turn it in, and then at the end of the week, I would get a paycheck. And those skills taught me so much more than what I was getting in school. And then, at that time they kept saying, " ; Well computers are the future," ; but we had no computers. So it' ; s computers are the future, and this is what you' ; re telling me, but that' ; s not what is happening in school, nowhere. I mean in in Virginia, it was a disconnect for me. And I always felt that whenever I told this story in life, and this is like the first time, that it would be a failure. And it was actually the most empowering thing that happened in my life because I realize that I control my destiny. A degree didn' ; t control it. A educator didn' ; t control it. I had the ability to go out there and make it happen. So second failure was super, super empowering. The first one was third grade, and it was never to repeat the same mistake again--that was the lesson out of it. And so you fast forward to business. I again have always worked in corporate. I work for MCI WorldCom. I was the center director, lead 20, 30 managers, 300 people reporting. You know, and that was great corporate lifestyle was cool. You kind of learn and adapt and speak the language, and do the whole song and dance. And, you know, but it was it was phony. It was, you know, it was it my authentic me. I realized that I would be great at whatever I put my mind to and so I left. And I said-well, my dad always drilled to me, he said, " ; It doesn' ; t matter whether you taking out the trash or whether you' ; re fixing sandwiches at Subway," ; he said, " ; find out what that man is doing to get his supplies and to employ his people, and then you mirror it and you can do the same thing." ; And so I started a business. It was in collections. And in my book, if you help enough people get what you want, this story is fully fleshed out. But I realized in starting a business that there was a lot more involved than just saying, " ; Hey, I have a business name." ; There was a lot more involved than just having a business ; it was experience, it was relationships, it was having a great product, it was being able to assist and go above and beyond. And none of those things I knew ; I just thought the act of having a business was going to propel me forward. And so I failed. I failed miserably. I put a lot of money into a great idea. But, going back to my third grade lesson, I never made the same mistakes again. I knew business would work. So I tried it again. It failed. It failed for a different reason. So I tried it again. And it worked. And it worked for all the reasons that I failed in the past. Lesson: Don' ; t give up on your dreams ; they' ; re your dreams, not the government' ; s dreams. So I sold that business because I wanted to do something different. I wanted to elevate because I failed before. I grew something and I' ; d seen that dream realized, and I want to do it again, but now I want to do it in a different state. I want to do it in a different state of mind. I want to do it in a whole other atmosphere just to prove that what I knew was actually exactly what I knew. So I go back to Virginia. I open up a business a mile away from the beach. I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m married. I just left corporate at the highest level for the second time. And I start up this business ; it was collections. You know, calling people, " ; Hey, this is Vashaun Jones calling from xyz. I calling about your past due BellSouth Bill. Is this something that you want to pay today in full or should we set you up on a payment arrangement?" ; That type of work. And it was exciting because I was back killing it and bringing it home. What I produced, the work that I put in, was the result of what I got back. A lot different than going to work and working for someone else and fulfilling their dream. It was like I could literally sit here and say, " ; I want to make a thousand dollars today." ; And I could sit down and map it out. So if I' ; m going to work 10 hours, then need to make $100 an hour, you know, da da da da. And then you make $200 a hour and you' ; re like, " ; Man, I' ; m ahead of a game!" ; You know, and this is where the whole bonus-ing comes in, right? You had these goals and you set them and then you like overachieve them and like everything you overachieve were bonuses. So I got in that particular realm, used to bonuses, extra, you know. The check and all that was good. But you know, and you just get used to it. All right. Working for someone else never really worked for me. And I sell the business and I get a divorce. You know and the divorce was like super cool. It was like, " ; Hey when we met each other 10 years ago, we were just latching on to life and, you know maybe this, like, was a mistake." ; And I' ; m like, man, my parents never got divorced. I mean they' ; re together now, 36 years later. You know, and I feel that ping of failure, you know. And so I get the divorce and I' ; m at this crossroad because now I can' ; t see and I' ; m divorced and I' ; m blind and I' ; m about to lose it all--I' ; m talking about American Express cards and Mercedes Benz and all this stuff that life dictates to you and say you' ; re supposed to have and if you don' ; t, then you' ; re a failure. And I' ; m blind. So I haven' ; t--Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder were the only blind people successful that I knew, and I didn' ; t even know them. And so I' ; m like homeless in this whole thing. When you kind of look at it, it' ; s like this world that you' ; re just thrust into and you' ; re literally just trying to feel your way around it. And I came across the National Federation of the Blind. I came across the Georgia Library for Accessible Services and Stella Cone. And literally those two entities along with the Center for the Vision Impaired and Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Savannah Center for the Blind and Low Vision and, you know, all the blind people that I came across changed my life. Changed my life because I wanted to learn this thing called " ; blindness" ; so bad that I wanted to become a master of it. And once I became a master, I said, " ; I want to teach other people how to take this disability, this failure, this thing that' ; s looked at by the world' ; s optics as something that needs to be pitied, and I want to turn it into something so powerful, that it cannot be ignored." ; And I said to myself and I say to everybody I came across I said, " ; I' ; m going to learn one thing from every disabled person that I came across, and that' ; s what is going to help me to help other individuals master their life." ; And so you have all these failures that amount to experience in life that allows you to be able to help someone because you went through the experience of being homeless, the experience of divorce, the experience of bankruptcy, the experience of educational systems, the experience of life. That' ; s what allows you to help someone. If you never bump into anything, you' ; ll never be able to guide anyone. And so that' ; s the story of how I got here. The question is what is the story of Vashaun Jones ten years from now? I' ; ll be 52. I would have would have made tons more mistakes. I love making mistakes. I love failing. I love when people say that I can' ; t. It' ; s empowering to be able to sit here and tell a story of failure so that someone else listening can look at it and say, " ; I' ; m going to fail, too." ; And just don' ; t make the same mistake twice. Don' ; t give up on your dream. If it' ; s not working, find a way to make it work. My daughter, Ivy, graduated from Clark Atlanta--proud father, husband, two daughters. They told them her commencement speech, or told all the students, " ; Find a way or make a way." ; Life is not going to stop for us. It' ; s not going to be accessible unless we make it accessible. I remember Georgia Library for Accessible Services and Stella Cone and me having that first conversation like, " ; Man, we got to make all the libraries all across Georgia accessible!" ; You know, and she' ; s like, " ; Well yeah, we got it. It' ; s accessible. We' ; ll have JAWS in every library." ; And, you know, and then I realized that, oh I' ; m like you know along with GLASS, that I' ; m like the only one that really wants it because nobody' ; s going to the libraries to get all of this free education. And so my life has never been about me. You know it' ; s always been about showing people that you can do it and whatever that " ; it" ; is, whatever it is. You know, I have tons and tons of stories and I guess, you know, in the business side you would call them case studies--people that you' ; ve been able to help, you know. I don' ; t know. It' ; s right now for me, for Vashaun Jones for me to tell my story, it' ; s like so-- (sighs) --it' ; s like being on a beach all day and you have nothing but time to think and solve and implement and ask people, " ; Hey, can you help me with this? This is the idea that I' ; m having." ; That' ; s what excites me. When my parents come to my house 42 years later--and mind you, I left home at 17. I left home at 17. I was at that point probably make an 800 bucks a week, couldn' ; t tell me anything. And I said, " ; I will not come back home until I' ; ve made it in life." ; And to have my mom come a week ago in 2018, July, and she' ; s walking around house. She' ; s like, " ; Vashaun, you know, everything that a person wants when they retire," ; she' ; s like, " ; you got it now. You can just retire." ; And I' ; m like, nah, you know, my mentors Zig Ziglar and Dave Ramsey, you know, they didn' ; t retire. They died empty. You know they died giving and giving and giving. You know and that' ; s all I want to do I want to help enough people get what they want because I know a man with experience is not at the mercy of someone with an opinion. And I know that through helping you I' ; m inadvertently helping myself. And together, we can change the world. Thank you. IRVIN: Thank you for sharing, Vashaun. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-002.xml RBRL451GLASS-002.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
29 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Vashaun Jones, September 24, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-002
Creator
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Vashaun Jones
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
African Americans with disabilities
Blindness
People with disabilities--Education
Businesspeople with visual disabilities
Business enterprises
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Vashaun Jones was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He describes being blind or visually impaired throughout his life. He talks about his career, emphasizing the importance of failure to achieving success.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-24
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-003/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Rita Harris, July 12, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-003 RBRL451GLASS Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Rita Harris Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|11(9)|22(9)|35(3)|46(3)|57(4)|69(8)|80(6)|91(7)|101(9)|114(7)|125(9)|136(8)|149(1)|159(15)|173(7)|185(17)|199(2)|209(4)|221(10)|229(11)|241(16)|252(14)|263(4)|273(10)|284(11)|296(5)|309(7) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_ge7fqrhy& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_qg9l1dpv" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 21 Becoming visually impaired as an adult Hi. I'm Rita Harris and I will be telling you my story. Jones describes the impact of becoming visually impaired as an adult due to Retinitis Pigmentosa--a genetic disorder that damages the retina. She talks about becoming withdrawn and depressed because she could not longer do the things she loved like working, driving, and shopping. career ; dependent ; diagnosis ; family ; God ; Good Hope, Georgia ; independent ; ophthalmologists ; outgoing ; Religion ; retina specialist 17 261 Vocational rehabilitation services Well, a person--a friend of mine--referred me to vocational rehabilitation services, and I was assigned a mobility trainer that came to my home three days a week. Jones describes working with a mobility trainer to learn how to use a cane. She talks about the importance of regaining her independence by learning how to navigate by herself. Jones discusses her experience with the Leader Dogs for the Blind program where she continued learning mobility skills. cane skills ; Dr. Linn ; independence ; mental compass direction ; mobility orientation ; night walking ; Rochester Hills, Michigan ; visually impaired 17 Leader Dogs for the Blind https://www.leaderdog.org/ 734 Guide Dog At the end of the week, he asked me if I had considered becoming a guide dog handler. Jones describes her experience training to use a guide dog and the positive impact her dog, Madden, has had on her life. She talks about the importance of compatibility between a guide dog and owner, emphasizing that her dog had to be able to adapt to new situations, handle loud noises, and be stubborn. She describes how having a guide dog gave her the freedom to travel and go on adventures. Africa ; Atlanta Motor Speedway ; bucket list ; bungee jumping ; canes ; confidence ; danger warnings ; Hawaii ; horseback riding ; independence ; Italy ; kayaking ; Labrador Retriever ; mission trip ; mobility training ; Naples, Florida ; Orlando, Florida ; Paris, France ; Richard Petty driving experience ; school for the blind ; tandem bike riding ; Universal Studios ; Venice ; zip-lining 17 1304 Leadership and community involvement I am Vice President of Madison's Lions Club. I am on the ADA committee at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, as well. Jones describes telling her life story in the poem " ; Journey to light" ; which was featured along with her picture at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. She describes starting Living Life Team, Inc., a support group for the blind and visually impaired. 501c3 organization ; ADA committee at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport ; Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ; Madison Lion's Club ; Montessori school ; Morgan County Library ; motivational speaking ; overcoming obstacles 17 www.livinglifeteam.net Living Life Team, Inc. IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Rita Harris for Our Stories, Our Lives: an Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is July twelfth, and this is being recorded at the Morgan County Library. HARRIS: Hi. I' ; m Rita Harris and I will be telling you my story. I was born and raised in a small town in Good Hope, Georgia. And even from childhood all the way up through teenage adolescence through adult, I have always been very, very outgoing. I consider myself as an adrenaline junkie. The only thing I fear is the fear of God. Nothing. I don' ; t have fear of anything else. And I' ; m saying that to lead up to me being visually impaired. The year of 2002 is when I became visually impaired. Let me back up a little. From 1997 up until 2002, I notice difficulty in my vision and I had gone to three different ophthalmologists and I was misdiagnosed all three times. And when there was a very significant decrease in my vision, I went to a retina specialist, and that' ; s when I was correctly diagnosed with RP, which is known as Retinitis Pigmentosa. This was in 2002. Well, from there my life changed drastically. I went from being this total outgoing social person full of adrenaline to being socially withdrawn. And I went through anger, depression, and it was a very, very hard transition from me. I would not go on any social outings or would not accept any invitations. I would always make up excuses to why I couldn' ; t go, because in all honesty, I felt very ashamed of myself. I felt like I wasn' ; t whole. It wasn' ; t me. And for a long time, I tried to hide it. It was like that. You know, you smile on the outside and you cry as you' ; re dying on the inside. No one knew but my immediate family, which include my husband and my children. While I was in despair for such a long time, and like I said, I was just very, very angry. I was in denial. At first, I was in denial, because I didn' ; t want to give up the things that I loved doing, which was working--I work in the school system assisting children with disabilities. I loved shopping and I loved driving. I would drive to Timbuktu if I had to get somewhere. Reading poetry, dancing, are all things that I once loved to do, and it all had to come to a halt. I had to stop. So I went from being this totally independent outgoing person to being very dependent. I couldn' ; t--If I was out in a restaurant, I couldn' ; t even go to the ladies room without someone assisting me. So that took a very, very hard toll on me in my life and where I was in the way I was thinking. And a lot of people didn' ; t understand what I was going through, so that made it worse. I felt like I was in this alone, like I was on an island all by myself, and basically I was giving up. I was giving up on life. It got to a point to where I didn' ; t want to live any longer. But I, you know--And after just, you know, being in that self-pity party and self-pity party, I always say your true personality always prevails, because I knew that is not me. That' ; s not how God wanted me to live. So I prayed and I prayed and I asked God to help me get out of that situation. Well, a person--a friend of mine--referred me to vocational rehabilitation services, and I was assigned a mobility trainer that came to my home three days a week. And he gave me a cane. I had no cane training, no daily living skills training prior to this. So he gave me issued me a cane and he would train me inside and outside of my home. And once I mastered that, we would leave home and go downtown and work on intersection crossing, going into department stores working on independent shopping. And I did really good, because when I saw the difference that it would make in my life, then those light bulbs started going off in my head again. " ; Yes! I can do this! I can get back to the way I used to be!" ; So I was completely on a mission, and for the ones that know me, they know when I set my mind to going on a mission, I do not let anything stop me or get in the way. I do not take no for an answer. So I was I was headed forward. After about three months of training, he told me--said " ; You have done exceptionally well" ; and asked me if I had heard of Leader Dog for the Blind, which is located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. And I had not. Well, he recommended for me to get connected with the Leader Dog for the Blind. So I said sure. In order to get connected with Leader Dog, I would have to display a certain level of mobility skills and using a white cane, because this was in an accelerated orientation and mobility training week long class that Leader Dog was offering. So we continued to work on it. He had to actually video me--doing intersection crossings, going in and out of businesses using my cane, going up and down flights of stairs, crossing four way stop signs--to prove that I had a certain level of cane skills. Well it was submitted, the application was submitted as well as the video, and I was accepted. So I flew to Rochester Hills, Michigan, for a week. And you have to go alone. No one can go with you. And that was my first time--I had flown many times, but that was my first time flying solo since becoming visually impaired, let alone staying in a strange place for a whole week without someone familiar being there with me. There at Leader Dog, there were six of us in a class, and each one of us had our one-on-one instructor. My instructor was Dr. Linn. He was awesome. He was a veteran. He--and I didn' ; t realize this at the time, but you' ; re with them spending so many hours that week with them, they' ; re doing more than just teaching you mobility orientation--mobility skills. They' ; re actually observing you, and they' ; re recording your every move, how you walk, the strides that you take, how fast you walk, the way you think. They' ; re analyzing your thought process, the way you think mentally, the way you are physically, your personality, your character. And I didn' ; t know this at the time, but going on through the week long class, he saw my potential. He saw that I could be stubborn. I could be very adamant. And he pushed me to the limit. He introduced skills and techniques to me that I didn' ; t even know existed and I didn' ; t even know I had it in me to do it. We would go downtown Rochester Hills, Michigan, to a headquarters building, a place I' ; d never gone before, and we would walk like three or four different blocks. And learning--He' ; d tell me the name of the streets. And also, back up, he taught me compass direction which is, at any--when you' ; re walking anywhere, using your mental compass direction--north, south, east and west--at any given time when you' ; re walking, you should be able to stop and point back into the direction of where you started from. And I learned mental compass directions. So one day we was walking and we had gone about four different blocks. And he said, " ; Okay your job is to take us back to where we started from." ; And I said " ; Okay! I can do that." ; So I pointed back using my mental compass direction. He said " ; Wait a minute, you have to take us back a different route in which we came." ; And I couldn' ; t believe he was asking me to do that. I had to do it. So I gathered my thoughts and I was able to do it using my mental compass direction and all the techniques that he had taught me to learn. He also introduced night walking, was something I had never done before because it is totally different walking at night. Keeping in mind, I should have mentioned this earlier, that I am not completely blind. I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m legally blind. I am totally blind in my left eye and I only have less than 13 percent left in my right eye. So I have a little bit of vision. I can see shapes. I can' ; t tell colors. I can' ; t see details when I' ; m looking at a person. I can' ; t see what their face looks like. So I go by shapes and feel and sounds. But night vision is totally different because that less than thirteen percent that I have in the daytime is completely dark at night and I can' ; t see anything. So that was really challenging for me to learn to walk and go from point A to point B independently, without someone assisting me, was challenging. But I mastered that as well. We also went to malls that was like three or four different stories, floors, and he told us to drop an anchor, meaning when you enter into a large place that have multiple floors, you listen for a specific sound that you can use to know that that' ; s where you entered in, so you listen for that sound when you' ; re trying to get back to the point to go out. He would give an assignment. For instance, I had to find Nordstrom, which was on the fourth floor, and I had to do this alone. I was able to ask someone for directions, but they was not able to guide me or lead me. I learned to do that, which also I learned to be an advocate for myself, meaning asking for help when you need help, but not allowing someone to take your hand and guide you or pull you because you have to be in control of yourself at all times. They just need to verbally give you directions, and then you take it from there. That was completely new to me, as well. So I mastered that. At the end of the week, he asked me if I had considered becoming a guide dog handler. And I told him no I had not. I never owned a dog. I didn' ; t know much about dogs, to be honest. And he said, " ; Well, you have done so well with this. You would be an excellent candidate for a guide dog handler." ; I said no, I don' ; t think so. No way, no how, I won' ; t do that. But he ignored me because, again, he saw my potential. The last day of class he arranged for a guide dog trainer to come in and bring a dog, and for me to work with the dog. Well I had one day to see the difference, and immediately I fell in love with it, because I realized that a guide dog will let you know when there' ; s a moving vehicle coming, or won' ; t allow you to bump into something or fall into a hole or step off of a curb. But a cane can' ; t tell you those things. The cane totally depends on the technique that you' ; re using. But a guide dog, you can you can move more faster, which that is how I live my life: in the fast lane, because I do a lot of traveling as well. So I fell in love with it, and when I had to go back the following day, I went to the airport and all, he asked me then " ; Would you like to get a guide dog?" ; I said absolutely. Normally it takes six months to a year to be accepted into the guide dog program, but when I returned home I got a call two days later saying that I had been highly recommended and they had a program set up in Naples, Florida, within the next two weeks, and would I' ; d be willing to go? And by this time, my adrenaline is going again! I' ; m going back to my old self! You know, it' ; s only poppin' ; now! I said sure. So two weeks later I flew to Naples, Florida, to train for my guide dog. And it was amazing, because you don' ; t know. It' ; s almost like carrying a child, and you' ; re giving birth and you don' ; t have the ultrasound to know the gender of the baby. It' ; s a total surprise when the baby gets here. Because they don' ; t tell you the breed of the dog, the color, the dog' ; s name or the gender. They don' ; t tell you anything. That first day--the first two days, you are in class, orientation class, where they are talking verbally, explaining everything to you. The second day, we went to our hotel rooms, and the trainer came in with our dogs. And it' ; s one on one, because you' ; re in your individual room with your trainer. And that' ; s how you meet your dog. And when I--My dog' ; s name is Madden, and when I saw him--he' ; s a chocolate lab. He was three years old at the time--He was two years old at the time. I' ; ve had him for three years, so he' ; s five years old now. And I honestly--I don' ; t know who was more nervous, me or the dog, because this was new to him. He was going to be leaving the trainer whom he had known for the past year going with me, a new owner, and to a whole different new environment. And I didn' ; t know anything about dogs, so this was just totally new to me. And I always tell people when they ask me that when we met and the trainer left out the room and Madden sat on the floor and he held his head to the side and looked at me, and I sat down on the floor in front of him and held my head to the side and looked at him. And I said, " ; Oh boy, you don' ; t know what to do with me and I don' ; t know what to do with you, but by the grace of God we' ; re going to make it through this thing." ; But we did. We worked vigorously eight hours a day together training. We would walk at least four or five miles per day in training. He was trained, but I had to be trained. I had to learn all the basic commands--stay, calm, forward, left, right. Had to learn his pace of walking. He had to learn to adapt to my pace of walking. But one of the good things is I learned one of the reasons why they observe you so closely is because when you' ; re matched up with the guide dog, they match the dog perfectly to fit the client and their lifestyle. For instance, I' ; m always on the go, always on the move, so I' ; m moving fast. My days could be very unpredictable, so I have to have a dog that can adapt to a change at any time. And there' ; s no telling what I' ; m around. He has to be able to handle loud noises, ' ; cause I' ; m very adventurous, and I have a personality. I have a very strong-willed personality, very adamant, and so I have to have a dog the same way, and vice versa. Because with my dog, he has a strong-willed personality. Someone who is easygoing and laidback, he will just completely take advantage of him. Just like a child will. They learn what they can get away with. So he has to have someone that can really handle him as well as me as well. Because, for one thing, if he senses danger--for instance, if we' ; re walking and there' ; s something he senses of danger, then he is so adamant he will just put on breaks. And with me being strong-willed, then I would say come on boy, let' ; s go. We gotta go. Let' ; s go. But with him being the same temperament as me, he wouldn' ; t budge. And I learned that he' ; s letting me know that there' ; s something unsafe for me and that' ; s why he refuses to go forward. So it kind of works--You know, it' ; s a twofold situation. But he is awesome. We go everywhere now together. Because of him, I have gained my confidence back, my self-esteem, which leads to that independence. And I have to give my guide dog, Madden, a lot of that credit. Because of him, my life has totally turned around. I thought it was good before I started losing my vision, but my life is actually absolutely wonderful now. It' ; s better than ever. I have a new life. I' ; m involved in so many things because of my newfound confidence and independence. I am--I have a bucket list, and I have been chipping away at that bucket list and I' ; m almost to the end of it. I have gone--Since I got Madden, I have gone to Italy. I' ; ve always wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I did that. The gondola boat ride in Venice. Going to Hawaii. I' ; ve always wanted to fly over an active volcano. I told you, I am adventurous. I did that. Let' ; s see. I' ; ve gone horseback--I do horseback riding. I' ; m trying to name them all. Kayaking, tandem bike riding, and this is all since I' ; ve lost most of my vision. I' ; m trying to think of anything else I' ; m leaving out. Bungee jumping, ziplining. Madden and I actually went to Orlando, Florida, alone, because we travel solo a lot. And I had gone to Universal Studios before, you know, with my family when I had sight. But I just wanted to do something challenging, so I went to Orlando, Florida, alone--just Madden and I--and we went to Universal Studios, just the two of us. By ourselves. And it was so much fun, but I really--We wrote rides together, and the ones that he couldn' ; t ride, they will accommodate and they had the kennel cages brought up right there and had someone to watch him. But he was able to ride with me the King Kong ride. He was able to ride Earthquake--I mean, he rode a lot of rides with me. That' ; s why I had to have a dog that can handle adventure and noises. I' ; ve gone to Atlanta Motor Speedway and did the Richard Petty driving experience where I got in a racecar and had a racecar driver to drive me. I' ; ve done that. Oh gosh, what else? There' ; s so much. I feel like I' ; m leaving some things out. I travel all over. I am looking forward this month to going to Africa. Madden won' ; t be able to go with me, but because of my independence I' ; m able to do it. I will be going to Africa to do mission work, and I will also be going to visit the school for the Blind as well. I am Vice President of Madison' ; s Lions Club. I am on the ADA committee at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, as well. And Madden and I just completed a project with Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, where I told my story and I was creative with it because, by the way, I do poetry as well. And I wrote my journey. It' ; s called Journey to Light, my story of my time being vision impaired. I put it in poetry, and it was chosen, so Madden and I will be on a display, a twenty four foot wall on the international concourse F at the Atlanta airport where there' ; s pictures of us and graphic art, designs of Madden and I, and the poem. And it will also be printed in Braille form as well. So that' ; s exciting. I do motivational speaking. I go into classrooms and do presentations on the visually impaired, because my main thing is encouraging, encouraging, encouraging, because no matter what your obstacles are, you can overcome those obstacles. You have to believe in yourself, where I--My motto is you reach for the stars. You don' ; t allow your disability to handicap you. And you don' ; t have to have a disability to reach for the stars. You can do anything you set your mind to. You just have to be dedicated and determined. And you also have to have that mind of persevering. And you can do anything you set your mind to. Because I look at myself where I started as to where I am now, and I just thank God for my mindset, my willingness, and my confidence and gaining that independence back. And that' ; s what I try to instill in everyone. Only entertain positive, because positive would take you far. Negative would take you nowhere. It will keep you in that hole, in that place of darkness, whether you' ; re sighted or visually impaired. Now I' ; m trying to think if there' ; s anything else I' ; m leaving out--the most important thing! Through my whole ordeal of difficult transitioning from becoming independent to dependent, God placed it in my spirit to start--I had a vision to start an organization. The organization is called Living Life Team Incorporated. We are 501c3 organization, and it is an organization that supports the blind and visually impaired, because I felt as though I was alone, I was ashamed, and I want to help others go through that transition with less difficulty, so they feel like that there are others that understand. I' ; m not in this thing alone. So that' ; s what I did with Living Life Team. It has been in existence since 2016. Now we have grown tremendously. We have a great group. We have a board of directors and I have about a total of 15 blind and vision impaired individuals that come every month. We meet on the second Thursday mornings every month at the Morgan County Library. I bring in different resource speakers, different activities, sports. We go on trips. We go on field outings as well. We have wonderful social gatherings. We do open topic discussions. We do goal-setting, so anyone who is having difficulty or dealing with some things, then we come together collaborative as a group to help that person work through what it is that they' ; re going--what their struggles are. And we really become one family. You know, when one' ; s going through something we all do. So we try to come together and help. We have a great, great group. But Living Life Team is a wonderful organization. I practically eat, sleep, and breathe it. It is my baby. Everything I do, I' ; m representing Living Life Team. No matter what I' ; m doing. When I go to Africa, I' ; m going to a school for the blind and I' ; m going to be representing Living Life Team as well. That' ; s Living Life Team. Is there anything else I' ; m leaving out? I hope I' ; m not leaving anything out. There' ; s so much going on in my life right now. I do motivational speaking. I also had an opportunity on last month to go to a Montessori school and talk to the students as well on being visually impaired and overcoming challenges as well, so that was that was really interesting. We have a web site, which is www.livinglifeteam.net, as well as a Facebook page, which is Living Life Team as well. Thank you. IRVIN: Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Rita. You' ; re a very interesting person. You have a good day. HARRIS: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-003.xml RBRL451GLASS-003.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
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Madison, Georgia
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28 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Rita Harris, July 12, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-003
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Rita Harris
Stephanie Irvin
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video
oral histories
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People with disabilities--Education
People with visual disabilities
Self-help groups
African Americans with disabilities
African Americans--History
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Rita Harris was born in Good Hope, Georgia. She worked in the school system assisting children with disabilities before she became visually impaired due to retinitis pigmentosa. Harris describes adjusting to life as a visually impaired person. A self-professed "adrenaline junkie", she has travelled extensively and gone bungee jumping and ziplining. Harris also talks about starting a support group, Living Life Team, for people who are visually impaired or blind.
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2018-07-12
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Georgia
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moving image
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-
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2018
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
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5.3 Interview with Empish Thomas, August 16, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-004 RBRL451GLASS Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Empish Thomas Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|13(7)|24(2)|36(11)|48(8)|59(15)|72(9)|82(12)|93(3)|103(8)|114(1)|123(3)|134(8)|145(11)|158(2)|170(7)|182(14) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_fqqdsd4q& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_vjkqjxo9" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 22 Life before blindness My name is Empish Thomas, and it's interesting how life's journeys take you around in a complete circle. Thomas describes her summer job working for the Office for Civil Rights Department of Health and Human Services where she typed investigative reports and compliance reports for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thomas describes being totally sighted at the time and interacting with disabled coworkers including someone who was blind. She talks about graduating from Florida A& ; M University before going to work at a public relations firm in Atlanta. Civil Rights Act of 1964 ; civil rights investigators ; clerk typist ; Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (Florida A& ; M University) ; Government agency ; journalism ; section 504 rehabilitation act 1973 ; Tallahassee, Florida 17 247 Losing vision And within six months' time of moving here, I start to lose my vision. Thomas describes losing her vision to uveitis which is a condition that causes inflammation in the back of the eye near the retina. She talks about losing her job and finding another where she was able to get accommodations for her worsening vision. Thomas describes going to a vision rehabilitation program to learn about screen reading technology, using a cane, braille, and mobility skills. CCTV ; closed captioning device ; eye doctors ; light sensitivity ; low-vision therapy ; magnification ; medical insurance ; medical treatment ; Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act ; white cane 17 551 Freelance journalism I went through all of that, came back to work successfully then I got downsized. Thomas describes losing her job due to downsizing and deciding to work as a freelance journalist. She talks about expanding her freelance business while also working for a small non-profit. She describes taking a position at a vision rehabilitation center where she worked for ten years before returning to freelance journalism. blind ; editors ; magazines ; marketing ; newspapers ; nonprofit ; public outreach ; public relations ; the stock market crash of 2008 ; writing 17 781 Entertainment and civic engagement Now outside of my work, because work is not all the things that I do, I'm a great lover of books. Thomas describes her love of books and talks about how she participates in multiple book clubs and uses the National Library Service (NLS) talking book library, Bookshare, and audio books. She talks about her appreciation for audio-described movies both at the movie theater and on Netflix. She describes her recent involvement in local government where she talks with the mayor and her city councilwoman about making changes locally. education ; family ; friends ; World Book encyclopedias 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Empish Thomas for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives" ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is August sixteenth, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Radio Reading Service in Atlanta, Georgia. THOMAS: My name is Empish Thomas, and it' ; s interesting how life' ; s journeys take you around in a complete circle. When I was sixteen years old, I worked at a federal government agency called the Office for Civil Rights Department of Health and Human Services. It was one of those federal government jobs that a lot of high school kids did during the summer and also during the school year for an internship where we worked part-time and went to school part-time. And I was a clerk typist. This is back in the ' ; 80s, so I' ; m kind of dating myself a little bit. So this was before PCs and personal computers and iPads and tablets and stuff where someone, or co-workers, rather, I should say, would give a clerk typist their work because they typed it all in longhand, and I would type up everything--memos, correspondence, letters, things along that line--and then hand them back to my colleagues. Well, in that position I worked with civil rights investigators. And so I typed up investigative reports and things along that line. And I also typed up voluntary compliance reports, things in that area where people would voluntarily comply with the civil rights laws which is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, section 504, Rehabilitation Act of things along that line. I had co-workers who were disabled. My supervisor was in a wheelchair. I had one co-worker who had cerebral palsy, and I had one co-worker who was blind. Now you may be asking why am I talking about all of that. Well, when I was sixteen years old I was totally sighted. I did not have any problems with my eyesight. I had no idea that later on, ten years later fast-forward, I would be totally blind. It was just a summer job, and it was a great opportunity to be able to work, get valuable work experience, but I had no idea that that experience at that particular agency would help me as an adult and would further me along my life journey later on. So, as I said before, it' ; s funny how life takes you a whole circle around in the different things that you deal with. So I really appreciate that experience, that time, the folks I worked with because they really helped me later on in life. Now fast-forward ten years later. It' ; s 1995, 1996. I just graduated from college. I went to school in Tallahassee at Florida A& ; M University. It' ; s May--yeah, I' ; m graduating in May--that' ; s correct--(laughs)--trying to remember when I graduated. And I just got my degree. I just got a promising job at a PR firm in Atlanta, Georgia, so I' ; m very excited about coming to the Atlanta area to work in my field. I got a degree in journalism, specifically in public relations. And so I' ; m moving here. I' ; m very excited starting my career, starting my new life. I' ; m young. I' ; m single. I' ; m ready to go. And within six months' ; time of moving here, I start to lose my vision. It starts off kind of slow but kind of fast where I have problems with sunlight. I' ; m like Dracula, you know, I can' ; t deal with the sunlight ; I have to wear dark wraparound glasses even indoors. I have to keep the shades down, the curtains. I can' ; t deal with indoor light. And my roommate is telling me, " ; Empish, you gotta go to the doctor and see what' ; s going on with your eyes." ; So I went to the hospital, went to the doctor' ; s office. And they couldn' ; t tell me exactly what the problem was so they referred me to a specialist who referred me to another specialist who finally told me, " ; This is what you have: You have uveitis which is a condition that causes inflammation in the back of the eye near the retina, and we' ; ve got to get you some medication to get the inflammation down." ; I had never heard of this condition before, didn' ; t know anything about it, had never had any problems with my eye site prior to that time. Nobody in my family had any types of vision problems. Didn' ; t even wear glasses. So I was quite in shock by this development, but was glad that I had found a doctor who knew what it was and could give me some medical treatment. So I started this journey of taking medication, going to eye doctors, surgeries, low-vision therapy--all of those kinds of things. I ended up losing my public relations position that I had gotten, and started temping and trying to kind of figure out what to do with my career. I was temping at a corporate company working in H.R. where they ended up hiring me on fulltime, and so I was able to get really great benefits, medical insurance, and that sort of a thing. And they also provided the accommodations that I needed. And, go back to that job I had when I was sixteen, I remember those laws I used to sit and type all day when I was a clerk typist--that section 504, that Rehabilitation Act, civil rights laws. I remembered all of that--accommodations and things like that--for people in the workforce. And I remember that co-worker that I had that was blind and the types of technology she used. Even though it was in the ' ; 80s, a lot of what she used at her job, I started to be able to use, too. And I was able to share with my supervisor that I needed a CCTV, which is a closed captioning device, that I needed magnification on my computer screen, handheld magnifiers, special pins and dark lined paper, even using a white cane because that' ; s what I saw her use. So I knew that a person with a vision impairment could work, could thrive, could live and function. I didn' ; t know all of the things that she had done to do it, but I saw her do it every day when I was a teenager. So my supervisor, I was very fortunate to work in an environment where my supervisor and my employer as a whole were very open-minded to working with me and helping me to stay in my position at work. But my vision got worse. So those low vision devices that magnification on my computer, the CCTV, those special pins and paper, it didn' ; t work anymore. I magnify my screen and I magnify my screen, and it' ; s not working. And so now I' ; m having to go to my supervisor and say, " ; Hey, you know, I need to go through a rehabilitation program. I need to take time off from work and learn more skills so I can come back to the job and continue to work." ; And she was still very responsive to that, very supportive of that. So I took off a year from my job and I went through a vision rehabilitation program where I learned how to use screen reading technology. I learned how to use a white cane. I learned some braille. I learned daily living skills. A mobility instructor came out to my job site, taught me how to catch the bus, how to get into my office building, how to get home safely from work--all of those kinds of skills so that I could be able to return back to work and keep working. I went through all of that, came back to work successfully then I got downsized. (laughs) Well actually we all got downsized, so it wasn' ; t anything personal. So then I' ; m out of a job, (chuckles) not sure what to do next. This is 1996--no, 1999. So I said, " ; Well what do I do with myself?" ; I was working. I' ; m now totally blind. I' ; ve lost all my vision. I' ; m what now, twenty nine, twenty eight years old and I' ; m not sure where to go next. But I still had a love for writing and journalism. I didn' ; t really get a chance to do much in it because I lost my vision right out of college. So I decided that' ; s what I wanted to do, but I wasn' ; t sure how well I' ; d be received because now I' ; m blind. And who' ; s going to hire a blind journalist? I didn' ; t think many people would really be receptive to that. So I went into freelancing where I could work from home and kind of do it a little bit behindthe scenes. I went online ; I learned about freelancing gigs ; I set up a Web site and I started pitching stories to editors in magazines and newspapers and kind of building up a little bit of a freelance business. And I was quite successful with it. I had a little part-time job at a small nonprofit, so it didn' ; t quite, you know, financially it wasn' ; t all of my earnings, but it wasn' ; t half bad. For a couple of years I did this along with the work I did with my nonprofit, and it was a great experience for me ; it was a great esteem booster--it helped me to feel really great about the fact that I could do this work. And it allowed me to use my degree that I had worked so hard for ; I was actually able to take advantage of it. And then a lot of the editors I worked for had no idea that I was blind (laughs) which I thought was kind of interesting. So, but then the market crashed--it was 2007, 2008--the economy tanked. Things were going kind of crazy. A friend of mine told me about a position at a nonprofit at a vision rehab center--the very place where I got my training. And I went there to work for several years--about ten years, actually--and I started doing public relations, marketing, public outreach to the community telling them about the agency and how they could access services and the programs that we had to offer at the time, and did a little bit of journalism there as well. So I stayed in that position for several years. And so here we are today and I' ; m back freelancing again at home. So I' ; ve come back around full circle again, as I shared before. It' ; s funny how life is--you go around in these different circles on your life' ; s path and life' ; s journey of constantly coming around and around again. And you learn these different valuable lessons about how life can take you topsy-turvy. But you come back around and you learn new things and you meet great people networking and building great relationships. And I' ; ve been really fortunate to have that. Now outside of my work, because work is not all the things that I do, I' ; m a great lover of books. I grew up going to the library all the time. My parents were great lovers of books and reading newspapers, magazines. When I was in third grade, my dad bought me my very first set of World Book encyclopedias. I don' ; t know if you guys remember those, but I had a set of World Book encyclopedias when I was in the third grade. And so I still love books and literature. I subscribe to the NLS talking book library, Bookshare, audio books--so I love the library. I' ; m in part of two different book clubs--one, we go out to eat once a month ; the other one is that my local community library where we meet once a month. So I' ; m always reading and checking out different things. I' ; m a big lover of movies. I particularly love audio-described movies, so I' ; m at the movie theater on a constant basis all the time trying to check out the latest and the greatest flick that' ; s out. I love Netflix audio-described movies as well, too. So I check those out at home if I' ; m not able to get to the local movie theater. And I love spending time with my friends, both sighted and blind. I' ; ve built up some really great relationships over the years, so I' ; ve been able to really enjoy spending wonderful time with friends. And my family, as well, has been very supportive of my life and the different things that I' ; ve been involved in. Lately I' ; ve gotten involved with my local city council--not so much being in a particular position there, but more so getting involved in the way of just becoming more aware and becoming more educated in how city government works. Sometimes you' ; re not always able to impact government on the higher levels, but local level government, you can make a difference. And so I' ; ve been able to get to know the mayor of my city, my city councilwoman--I' ; ve gotten to know her and attend her meetings. We' ; ve had many conversations about changes that can take place in my city, and really making a positive role and a positive impact there which has been really encouraging to me to learn more about how to advocate educating myself on how local city government works. I never would have thought I' ; d be involved in something like that, but I made a decision this year to really get involved in that. And it' ; s been a really great experience for me. So I' ; m real excited about that. Each day I try to learn something new, reach out to someone new, and take advantage of all the opportunities that exist for me. So it' ; s been a great journey. IRVIN: Well thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Empish. THOMAS: You' ; re welcome. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-004.xml RBRL451GLASS-004.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
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Atlanta, Georgia
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16 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Empish Thomas, August 16, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-004
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Empish Thomas
Stephanie Irvin
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video
oral histories
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People with visual disabilities
Journalism
People with visual disabilities--Services for
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Empish Thomas grew up sighted before losing her vision after college to uveitis, a condition that causes inflammation in the back of the eye near the retina. Thomas describes navigating the workforce while blind, discussing her careers in human relations and freelance journalism.
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2018-08-16
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Georgia
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moving image
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
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Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2018
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
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5.3 Interview with Jarrett McNutt, October 29, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-005 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Jarrett McNutt Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|12(3)|23(4)|34(4)|42(17)|53(1)|60(12)|69(16)|80(2)|89(2)|98(2)|108(7)|116(5)|125(17)|134(16)|145(1)|155(4)|164(14)|178(9)|187(12)|197(1)|204(13)|213(14)|223(1) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_5dp2qatg& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_qn3cqqyn" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 25 Family history Well, it is a pleasure to be here. My great-grandfather, George Hanover McNutt moved to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1847. McNutt describes his family history, beginning with his great-grandfather who moved to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1847. He briefly talks about the lives of his grandfather, father, mother, and siblings. Billy McNutt ; chemist ; Civil War ; Confederate troops ; education ; Ershell McNutt ; farming ; George Hanover McNutt ; Grand Ole Opry ; MacArthur's army ; Maud McNutt ; Milford McNutt ; Mississippi State University ; moon dust ; moon rocks ; Nashville, Tennessee ; Noel McNutt ; Patton's army ; Paul McNutt ; Reynolds Aluminum ; the Battle of Shiloh ; Thomas Nebraska McNutt ; Vera McNutt ; Wernher Von Braun ; World War II (WWII) 17 303 Early life / Working on family farm My father died, and I was born in December, and we lost the farm that we were on. McNutt describes how before he was born, his family lost their farm because his father died. He talks about working with his siblings on multiple farms where he picked cotton and managing the family's farm as a twelve-year-old alongside his fifteen-year-old brother. Christine McNutt ; Columbus, Mississippi ; doctor ; education ; Erschell McNutt ; Mississippi University for Women (MSCW) ; mules ; Orville McNutt ; sawmill ; scholarship ; Sherben McNutt ; Tishomingo 17 518 University and seminary education And then I did all right in elementary school. I was valedictorian in my eight grade class. McNutt recalls being valedictorian in eight grade but then barely attending high school. He mentions joining the army and serving oversees in World War II. He talks about deciding to become a minister and to attend Mississippi College, and later, seminary. He briefly describes working as a minister in different hospitals. Augusta, Georgia ; Camp Gordon ; elementary school ; infantry ; Louisville, Kentucky ; minister ; Missouri ; Pineville, Louisiana ; Winston-Salem Hospital ; World War 2 ; WW2 ; WWII 17 657 Clinical Pastoral Care Organization I am a certified supervisor in the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization. This organization is designed to educate ministers so that they can be more effective in their churches. McNutt describes his work as a certified supervisor in the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization where he helps young ministers of all Christian denominations learn how to apply theological teaching and become more effective preachers. Bible ; gospel ; internship ; Southern Baptist ; theological education 17 851 Staring a family While in graduate school in Louisville, Kentucky, one of my friends was bragging about a pretty little nurse that he had discovered. McNutt describes marrying his wife, moving to Louisiana, and having two baby girls. He talks about his wife being diagnosed with tuberculosis which prompted him to hire a woman to run the household and care for the children. He talks about his wife's recovery and their baby boy. babysitter ; childcare ; hospitalization ; marriage ; physician 17 1105 Growing old / Legally blind And he's now and engineer in Kentucky, and his company had built a factory in China. McNutt describes his children's careers and their families, talking about his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He talks about being 92 and discusses his health difficulties, including being legally blind, having a lung deficiency, and requiring use of a walking stick or wheelchair. He thanks the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) for their Talking Books program and the Veterans Administration for his medical care. Association of Churches in Mobile ; engineer ; family ; handicap ; nurse ; teacher ; Women's Missionary Union (WMU) 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) English IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Jarrett " ; J." ; McNutt for " ; Our Stories: Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is November 29, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Columbia Library in Evans, Georgia. Thank you Mr. McNutt for being here today. MCNUTT: Well it is a pleasure to be here. My great-grandfather, George Hanover McNutt moved to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1847. He died before my grandfather Billy McNutt was born. And my grandfather Billy was a nine-year-old boy in the schoolyard when he saw the Confederate troops marching into the Battle of Shiloh. He said the soldiers were--some of them were barefooted, some were crying, but he said the others of them were singing. And then my father was Thomas Nebraska McNutt. And my mother had a fourth-grade education, and my father was a farmer and logger. And my oldest sister, her name was Vera, and she spent her life helping raise the rest of us McNutt boys. There was only ten of us in the family. Then my second sister Maud was married to Charlie [indistinct] Wilson and they lived in an adjoining county. And then my oldest brother Paul, he went to high school and it was really expensive. It was a boarding school and the cost for tuition, room and board was ten dollars per month. But he didn' ; t have ten dollars, but a neighbor man loaned him ten dollars to start school. And then he graduated with honors at the high school, and then he got a chemistry degree at Mississippi State University. And then in World War II, well, he had a commission when he graduated from Mississippi State. The reason I can remember his graduation is that my mother got me dressed, cleaned up, and told me to not get dirty, and I spilled a bottle of ink on the front of shirt, and so from then on, I could tell whose shirt was whose because mine had the blue spots on it. But this brother, he was a lucky man because in 1941, thirty men by the rank of captain were scheduled to go to the Philippines to join MacArthur' ; s army but, at the last minute, they decided to send twenty five, and my brother Paul was number twenty six. Later he served as a commander of tanks in Patton' ; s army, but he got injured. And then he was a chemist and worked with Wernher Von Braun in developing, well, he wrote the manual for evaluating the moon dust and moon rocks. And then my other brother Milford McNutt was a man of many talents that spent his life in his own workshop building items. One thing that he built was a $3,000 wall plaque that was for an automobile agency. The owner had killed a moose out west and wanted a good board, and so my brother made this fancy wall mount. And then my next brother was Noel McNutt and he was the--he wasn' ; t a mean fellow, but he was tough. And he worked at Reynolds Aluminum and the government froze him on his job, and would not allow him to join the military because they needed the aluminum. But he played country music. He took his band to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. And then he ran a music show in a national armory. He never did tell us how much money he had, but I do know that he had money in eleven banks and savings associations. But he was a good man. Then my next brother was Ershell McNutt. He was the one who helped my brother find another place to live. My father died, and I was born in December, and we lost the farm that we were on. And a widow woman and a bunch of boys are not very welcome on a landowner' ; s land, but a club-footed doctor allowed us to move to his large farm in the back woods. And we moved there and made a good crop, but my mother wanted us to go to school. She had a, as I mentioned before, had a fourth-grade education, but she had a Ph.D. in determination. She was a quiet lady, but she knew how to manage boys and girls. So we moved to another farm. My eighteen-year-old brother Erschell took the mules and hauled logs to a sawmill and sawed lumber on our cousin' ; s farm about one mile south of Tishomingo which had a good consolidated school. So we moved there, and we went to school and farmed. And I was--when I was ten years old, I was picking two hundred pounds of cotton a day. And my sister Christine was one of the--my sister that worked along with us boys, and I' ; ll talk about here later. Then my brother Sherben took over the leadership of the family, and we bought a team of mules that had not been broken, but we--the neighbors said, " ; Those mules will run away with you kids!" ; But we taught the mules how to pull a wagon and how to pull a plow and got along with them beautifully. My brother Sherben and my sister Christine were in the same grade in school and they finished together. And then they graduated from high school, and my sister won a contest for writing the best paper on alcoholism. And then her paper won first place in the county among five other high schools. And the prize was to be a $100 scholarship for her to go to college on, but the officials in the county said, " ; We never have given a hundred dollars, and we' ; re not going to start with you." ; But my sister--I referred to as the " ; Unsinkable Molly Brown." ; She was not an obnoxious person, but she was very determined. She got the hundred dollars to go to college on, and she went to MSCW at Columbus, Mississippi, and played the bass fiddle in the orchestra. And we picked her up in a wagon at the train station and brought her home one afternoon after her first year, and the next morning she put her bonnet on and went to the field with us and chopped cotton. I was twelve years old and my brother was fifteen--my brother Orville--when we took over the farming, but it was no big deal because we had grown up on the farm. And then I did all right in elementary school. I was valedictorian in my eight grade class. But then we moved and my high school was very slight ; I didn' ; t go very much. I would go days when we had ballgames. And then Uncle Sam called me to go the Army, and I reported over here to Camp Gordon here in Augusta and took the infantry training, served overseas, and then came home, and I was going to be a minister. I decided I was going to be a minister when I was sixteen years old, but I didn' ; t know where to go to school. But I got enough information that I found out that I needed to get a college degree before I went to seminary. But in the hill country, the most education that we ever had over a minister was that his hound dogs treed a rabbit in a vacant school. That sounds ridiculous, but we just did not have educated ministers that I grew up with. But I went to Mississippi College, and didn' ; t take me four years ; it took me a little over two and a half. But it then I went to this seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and picked up another degree after three years. Then I took an additional year of training at the Winston-Salem Hospital. And then my first job was at the 3,100-patient mental hospital in Pineville, Louisiana, and we lived there nine years. And then I moved to Missouri. A psychiatrist that worked with us, I worked with in Louisiana, became the principal, the head doctor, at a hospital in Missouri, so I moved up there, and I was there for about ten years. I am a certified supervisor in the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization. This organization is designed to educate ministers so that they can be more effective in their churches. And I might say that it is somewhat like what you do in the medical field when a medical student gets a college degree, then four years of med school, then he takes an internship. We follow that same pattern in theological education. For example, my interns had to have a four-year college degree, a three-year graduate degree, plus experience, and pass the " ; McNutt Test." ; And the McNutt Test was very simple: Do you want to get in and work and study and make your reports and respond to the situation? Or, do you want to sit around drinking coffee and bat the breeze? And if they wanted to drink coffee nd bat the breeze, I did not and would not have them as students. And it was a rare privilege to walk along with young men and women who devoted their lives to Christian ministry--I had Jewish rabbis, Catholic priests, Catholic theologians. I' ; m Southern Baptist, myself. But what I did, I did not grant degrees ; their seminaries are the ones that gave them their degrees, but I could provide the training. This is a broader step in theological education. It' ; s simply taking a person who has read a lot of books and has a lot knowledge but, then, how does he apply to the people, real people? How does he get along with them? How does he relate to them? That' ; s--and many pastors are very effective and never had a day of CPE in their lives. They don' ; t need it because they know how to meet people ; they know how to greet them ; they know how to share what we call the gospel, or the good will, or the Bible. But it does help young ministers learn how to be more effective quicker. And so that' ; s been my career in theological education. It' ; s been a pleasure to walk along with men and women of different denominations. They didn' ; t try to convert me, and I didn' ; t try to convert them to be a Baptist. But it was a delight to see how many different people have so much in common. And this has been a wonderful career, and I' ; ve enjoyed it thoroughly. It' ; s hard work but very rewarding. While in graduate school in Louisville, Kentucky, one of my friends was bragging about a pretty little nurse that he had discovered. And I thought he was just bragging ; you know, boys do brag about their girlfriends. But sure enough, I found out he was telling the truth. And so I found out that he was an honest fellow. And so we started dating, and we got married after a short courtship of three and one half years, and we moved to Louisiana, and our daughter was born about a year later. And then a year later than that, the second daughter was born. And when the second daughter was five months old, my wife was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was hospitalized. And she was hospitalized for a period of eight months and would have been longer, but they made arrangements so that she could be followed by a physician at our own hospital, which she did. And this physician was excellent and helped her along real well. The thing that I discovered that there' ; s a lot of work involved in taking care of children. I was accustomed doing heavy labor back on the farm and could do that and did do it. But when you make bottles of milk and fold diapers and do a dozen other things taking care of babies, you wind up at about 10:30 at night exhausted, and you' ; d get up the next morning and fix breakfast and go to work and so forth. But we found a babysitter who was a large lady from Texas. And she and her daughter needed a place to live while the daughter finished at college which was nearby. And this lady came into the household and took over, but she never one time gave me advice as to how to raise my babies. And she was a lady of quality and stayed with us even a month or two after Vera came home to make sure Vera was well taken care of and that we made it all right. And one time, when I tried to find--I travel 45 miles to find a lady who needed a job desperately. And finally she said, " ; If your mother was living with you, I would come and live with you." ; We lived in a big house, and there was a separate apartment in his house where a lady or a family had lived and work for by--work for--taking care of the babies and providing meals for me. And this lady from Texas, if she ran short of food for the evening meal, she' ; d go to a neighbor' ; s house and borrow something. She was a delight. And one time, when he had visited a lady who needed a job, and she said--she' ; s the one that said, " ; If your mother was living with you, I' ; m come and live with him." ; Anyway, when this daughter was, I guess she was about three years old, and the younger baby was asleep--I had already put her to bed--and then this daughter spoke up and said, " ; Daddy, we do not need a lady." ; And that made me feel good. But we did need a lady to run the household and take care of things. But I thank my wife, she made a splendid recovery and, later, we had about a bouncing baby boy. And he' ; s now and engineer in Kentucky, and his company had built a factory in China. And our second daughter was the WMU, or the Women' ; s Missionary Union of the Association of Churches in Mobile. There' ; s 146 Baptist churches in Mobile. And the women' ; s organization, she was president of it for several years, and she works as a nurse. She' ; s a registered nurse and retired last year, but she' ; s continuing to work. And this daughter is a teacher and she takes care of Vera and I now and she and her husband and her two sons. And she has--she won' ; t tell you about it, but she has five-months-old great-grandsons ; they' ; re twins. And they have an older sister who is almost three years old now. So we had a wonderful time Thanksgiving. I told them that Vera and I had won the jackpot. And I said proof of it is these little ones and my daughters and my son and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I want to say that I' ; m only ninety two years old, and the Veterans Administration considers me legally blind. And I do take shots in the eyes once a month to maintain what little vision I have. And I am being treated also so for a lung deficiency. And I walk with a walking stick. And the V.A. is planning to give me a wheelchair, but I resist using a wheelchair, but I do need one when I stir around very much. But I' ; m fine that life can go on in spite of our difficulties. And fortunately, my daughter and her husband and her two sons and one of her grandsons is ten years old and the other one is four years old and they are a delight. And the ten-year-old assists me everywhere I go ; he' ; ll open doors for me and help me stand up and he' ; ll run and get my walking stick for me. He does things without me asking. He' ; s a pleasure to be around. He does well in his school work. He' ; s the son of her second son. And she has two sons. And the other son manages a restaurant for a living and he' ; s a delight, and he' ; s the one that has twin boys and the little girl that' ; s about three years old, and they live here in the area. So my wife and I do indeed feel blessed. And we think what--we thank the GLASS organization for their splendid cooperation with me. All I have to do is call in what books I want and they come within a day or two. And I usually have more books than I can read at one time. But I read them and put them in the mail box. And it' ; s a blessing indeed, and I deeply appreciate. And I find that Vera and I are not accustomed to being waited upon. But now, at this stage in our lives, we have to be waited upon. And it' ; s a different lifestyle, but we appreciate it very much. And she and her family does unbelievable things for us, and our neighbors do the same thing, and it makes life enjoyable, and helps us tremendously. So I want to say that if anyone has had difficulty with handicap, their injuries, or whatever, that life can go on. So I am very thankful for what the Veterans Administration and other organizations are doing to assist me and my wife in living more comfortably. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-005.xml RBRL451GLASS-005.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Evans, Georgia
Duration
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24 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Jarrett McNutt, October 29, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-005
Creator
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Jarrett McNutt
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
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United States. Army--Soldiers
World War, 1939-1945
Religious leaders
Blindness
People with visual disabilities
Description
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Jarrett McNutt served in the army during World War II before becoming a minister and working for the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization. He talks about his family history and his career as a minister.
Date
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2018-10-29
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-006/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Bridgette Suttle, October 09, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-006 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Bridgette Suttle Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|12(3)|22(7)|33(14)|44(2)|54(15)|66(8)|76(2)|86(3) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_o0wmgv8e& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_qpbljtn7" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 21 Family and education Thank you for having me. Well, I am an adopted and only child of what I thought to be the world's greatest parents. Suttle describes being adopted by " ; the world's greatest parents." ; She talks about how her grandfather was blind which made it easier for her to accept her blindness when she lost her sight as an adult. She mentions growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, graduating from Riverwood High School and then attending Savannah State University. She talks about having a child and working as a master corporate trainer at wireless provider company. adoption ; Grady Hospital ; New Jersey ; overachiever 17 121 Consequences of untreated diabetes And my life continued on beautifully until some years later. Probably, when I was about thirty-five, I started to notice some things--noticed things with my vision. Suttle recalls being diagnosed with type two diabetes as a young adult but not doing anything to treat or manage her diabetes for seventeen years. She talks about losing her vision at 36 to diabetic retinopathy, a condition caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels. She discusses the trauma of having her foot amputated after she stepped on a nail and the depression she felt after losing her job. hospital ; legally blind ; wheelchair 17 290 Disability services And, at the time, I didn't know the change that was happening, but there was a change that was coming. Suttle describes how her mother helped her out of her depression by connecting her to disability services including the Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) and disABILITY LINK, two Atlanta-based organizations. She talks about learning how to adapt to her blindness as well as to advocate for herself. Suttle discusses talking steps to manage her diabetes and getting a prosthetic which enabled her to walk again. cross-disabilities community ; exercise ; independent living ; life skills ; mobility training ; rehabilitation ; therapy 17 English IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Bridgette Suttle for " ; Our Stories: Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is October ninth [2018], and this is being recorded at GLASS Atlanta, the recording studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Bridgette, for being with me today. SUTTLE: Thank you for having me. Well, I am an adopted and only child of what I thought to be the world' ; s greatest parents. I was certainly reared and trained to be a super-achiever. My grandfather was blind from birth, and my parents and I often joked about how God created and made things because my blindness came later on in life, and it was something that was already very familiar to everyone in our family, so it wasn' ; t it wasn' ; t as big of a deal as maybe it should have been or as big of a deal as others took it. Again, I was reared and trained to be a super-achiever. I did grow up right here in Atlanta, Georgia. And I often say that, although I was born in New Jersey, I came straight here to Grady Hospital, so I am a transplant Grady Baby. I went to high school here in Atlanta, Georgia ; graduated from Riverwood High School. I later went on to Savannah State University in the fall of 1990. By the mid-nineties, I had graduated college ; I had a baby and considered myself to be a young, up-and-coming corporate professional. I did eventually settle with a wireless provider as a master corporate trainer. And my life continued on beautifully until some years later. Probably, when I was about thirty-five, I started to notice some things--noticed things with my vision. I knew some, probably seventeen years prior to that, I had been diagnosed with diabetes--type two diabetes. And from that point of diagnosis, I did absolutely nothing to maintain or control my diabetes diagnosis. And I didn' ; t do anything because I felt fine. When I looked in the mirror, I felt like I looked fine--just really had no idea what was going on the inside of my body. Well, it certainly started to tell on me. At about thirty-six, my vision started to severely blur, and this was due to an eye condition called diabetic retinopathy which, of course, is a condition caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels. This eye condition, to date, has rendered me legally blind. After that, at the age of thirty-seven, my right foot was amputated--I stepped on a nail. By the age of thirty-eight, I was absolutely broken. I was depressed and jobless. And I felt like, you know, how could a person with such wonderful parents and what I consider to be a beautiful life, you know, how in the world could I allow this to happen? I was totally devastated--just not devastated, but also in a wheelchair. And I sat in a wheelchair for three years just kind of allowing life and my weight and the fact that I had walked into the hospital but could not walk out--I had allowed those things to overtake me. And, you know, the medical profession, they all told me, " ; Hey! You' ; re healed!" ; You know, " ; Everything is back to normal." ; You know, but inside of my head I thought, well, how do you heal from going blind, like emotionally and mentally? And even, how do you heal from an amputated foot emotionally and mentally and even physically? I couldn' ; t figure out how to get back in the game, and it was a game that, you know, I had been taught to perfect. And so, just there I sat. And, at the time, I didn' ; t know the change that was happening, but there was a change that was coming. And I strongly believe it was due to what I call my " ; pushy, praying, meddling mama." ; She refused to allow me to accept defeat for myself. So what she did is she got me involved with resources, first, through the Center for the Visually Impaired--that' ; s also known as CVI, which is--it was a training and rehabilitation center for the blind. And there, I learned to cope, and I even learned to live with my visual impairment. I participated in various group and one-on-one therapy sessions. I also partook of courses that taught me to do things like launder my clothes, cook and prepare my foods, and even maintain and operate a computer, you know, with no sight. From there, I learned about another resource, and that was disABILITY LINK. disABILITY LINK was a center of independent living that offers services and resources to people of the cross-disabilities community. So that means, no matter what your disability is, this place has something there to help you. From there, I learned to advocate for myself. I learned to read a situation according to the different sounds and maybe even the cadence of a person' ; s voice. And that is just something that I did not have before losing my sight. So now, what you have before you, you have the voice of recovery right here. You know, this is the voice of independent living ; I certainly am hope. Again, I have a voice, and I' ; m determined to use it. I have learned to maintain my diabetes through what I eat, what I drink, and through exercise, which is something I absolutely hate, but it is absolutely--it is a necessary, especially in my world and in my life. I have now been walking with a prosthetic for over six years. I am no longer a crippled, below-the-knee amputee ; I am now able to stand tall and strong with the strut of a proud peacock. Again, I am recovery. And what I' ; ll say is my sight is extremely bad, yet my vision is crystal clear at this point in my life. IRVIN: Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today, Bridgette. SUTTLE: You' ; re welcome. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-006.xml RBRL451GLASS-006.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
8 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bridgette Suttle, October 09, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-006
Creator
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Bridgette Suttle
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blindness
Diabetes--Complications
African Americans with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Bridgette Suttle was born in New Jersey, but she grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She became legally blind as an adult due to complications from type 2 diabetes. Suttle describes managing her diabetes, having to have her foot amputated due diabetes, and becoming blind.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-10-09
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-007/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with John McCarty, December 07, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-007 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. John McCarty Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|17(10)|29(14)|40(7)|54(4)|67(4)|81(15)|94(12)|106(4)|121(6) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_cys44kqo& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_t8anaqfb" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 29 Struggle to communicate You're welcome. Thank you for having us. Joan McCarty reads John McCarty's written account of his story. He describes his struggle to communicate with others as an autistic, non-reliable speaker. He talks about how he had trouble expressing himself before he learned new ways to communicate, including using spelling and the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). autism ; books ; chores ; exercise ; family life ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; motor skills 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 147 Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) Then I learned RPM. The world changed significantly for me in late 2014. That is when we found RPM, Rapid Prompting Method. McCarty describes learning to communicate with others through the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) which uses gross motor skills to point to letters on a letter board or keyboard in order to spell out words and sentences. He talks about going through RPM training and finally being able to express himself. 60 Minutes ; Cure Autism Now (CAN) ; Elizabeth Vosseller ; Helping Autism Through Learning and Outreach (HALO) ; motor functioning ; Soma ; speech pathologist 17 338 Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) My mom started getting me books on CD at the library mostly focused on the Civil War. I now had more interesting things to do. McCarty describes becoming part of GLASS due to his vision impairment. He talks about the benefits of using talking books offered through GLASS because of the large variety of materials available. Alex Haley ; audio books ; Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) ; In Her Own Words ; Michelle Obama ; The Autobiography of Malcolm X 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 411 Community Involvement Along with some of the others who have found RPM as a way to learn and communicate, we formed a book club. McCarty describes forming a book club with others who use RPM. He talks about taking two university classes and getting his GED. He talks about educational speeches he has given about his experience with autism to various organizations including the Boy Scouts, Creative Consulting Services, Drake House, and the Sangha Unity Network. < ; i> ; Angela's Ashes < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; Life of Pie < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; Station Eleven < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; The Martian < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; Glass Castle< ; /i> ; ; book club ; Darcy Elks ; Gwinnett Technical College ; Perimeter campus of Georgia State University ; Sangha Unity Network Self-Advocacy Planning Session ; University of Virginia ; Wheel Power 17 English IRVIN: Hello my name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Joan McCarty, the communications partner of John McCarty, for " ; Our Stories: Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, Georgia' ; s talking book and braille library. Joan will be sharing John' ; s story as written by him. It is December 7, 2018, and this is being recorded at the GLASS Atlanta recording studio in Atlanta. Thank you, Joan, for joining us today. JOAN MCCARTY: You' ; re welcome. Thank you for having us. " ; I am going to talk about my personal communication history and how I am working on building community. I' ; m also going to talk about how Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, GLASS, has helped me along the way. I have written this script for Joan to read. " ; I' ; m twenty three years old now, and I' ; ve only been able to communicate effectively for a short time. I am an autistic, non-reliable speaker ; I cannot use my mouth to say what is in my brain. In fact, my brain does not do a very good job of controlling my body. Because my brain does not do what most brains do, I appear totally checked out. My mouth and throat make noises that mortify me. I cannot smile like others though I am often happy and smiling inwardly. I cannot read to myself because my eyes do not work together, and I cannot track words on a page. " ; Not too long ago I learned to do spelling as a way to communicate and learn. Before I could communicate through spelling, I did not have a lot of options or intellectual stimulation. I am, and I always was, part of the family life through chores that I did: emptying the dishwasher, taking out the garbage, putting my clothes away. I learned how to bake, and I volunteered at church organizing the books in the pews. I exercised mostly on the rowing machine but also on the stationary bike. " ; I' ; m part of a large family and my mom always read to us. Even when she didn' ; t know how smart I am, she made me listen to age-appropriate books--Charlie Bone, Percy Jackson, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, among others. " ; Then I learned RPM. The world changed significantly for me in late 2014. That is when we found RPM, Rapid Prompting Method. RPM was developed by an Indian woman named Soma who worked with her son Tito. My mom knew about RPM in the early 2000s when she saw a 60 Minutes episode on TV. An organization called CAN, Cure Autism Now, brought Soma and her son to the U.S. " ; Soma was able to figure out how to replicate what was working for her son with other non-verbal autistics. In general, the theory goes like this: There' ; s nothing wrong with the language center in the brain--it' ; s the motor. A lot of autistic people have difficulty with their motor functioning, particularly fine motor. Speaking is the fine motor function of the language center of the brain. " ; Because gross motor is easier to train than fine motor, a person learning RPM harnesses and trains the gross motor function of the shoulder and arm to point to letters. Initially I used a pencil and poked it through a stencil while doing lessons. Eventually I moved to a laminated letter board. I now use a keyboard when I' ; m answering questions during presentations or doing my email. Using a letter board is faster and less exhausting than the keyboard because a keyboard takes a lot more motor control. " ; My day of freedom came on November 8, 2014, when my mom learned to use the letter board. It was during an RPM therapeutic workshop over the weekend of November 8, 2014, that I attended with my mom and dad. The person running the workshop, Elizabeth Vosseller, is a speech pathologist from Herndon, Virginia. Elizabeth started some lessons with me, and then taught my mom what she, Elizabeth, had been doing during the workshop sessions with me. " ; Elizabeth started simply. She said what RPM was and then asked me to respond to a simple question to which she knew the answer. In my hand was a pencil ; in hers, was a stencil. She used gestures and her words to coax my body to do the next-to-impossible: to insert the pencil through the letters on the stencil. It was the hardest work I had ever done. " ; Elizabeth and I worked intensely over six sessions during the workshop. As Elizabeth realized my control was getting a little better, she asked a question to which she did not know the answer: ' ; Tell me something you see in the sky.' ; " ; Somehow I was able to get out what was in my head: ' ; The big dipper.' ; " ; During our sessions, Elizabeth asked me about my interests, and I was able to spell that I liked books--in particular, books about history and the Civil War. " ; My mom started getting me books on CD at the library mostly focused on the Civil War. I now had more interesting things to do. One day, when we were working on a lesson on cephalopods that included a video, I got very frustrated, but I was able to tell my mom that I could not track the movement on the screen. She took me to an eye doctor who said that my eyes did not work together, and my vision was distorted. The doctor signed the papers so that I could become part of GLASS. " ; Using GLASS material is better than CDs ; they play from start to finish and there is an incredible amount of material. Almost any book and many magazines are available, especially through BARD. Braille and Audio Reading Download. I have a GLASS profile that automatically sends me books, and I have enjoyed books that I never would have chosen for myself such as Michelle Obama' ; s In Her Own Words and The Autobiography Of Malcolm X written with Alex Haley. " ; Along with some of the others who have found RPM as a way to learn and communicate, we formed a book club. A recently acquired ability to communicate broadened our opportunities to participate in meaningful and age-appropriate activities. Our first book was Life of Pi which I hated. We have done a broad range of genres from memoirs like The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and Angela' ; s Ashes by Frank McCourt to dystopian science fiction like Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and The Martian by Andy Weir. " ; Our activities through the book club led to a chance for those of us in the book club to take a class on the Perimeter campus of Georgia State University. The class was a remote Duke University House Course called " ; Beyond Christian Intentions: Colonialism, Evangelism and Reconciliation in Native American Communities." ; This was a six-week course that ended with a group project. From there, another class: physics. A retired physicist taught a University of Virginia course called " ; How Things Work." ; " ; At home I was working on preparation to take the GED, and then I went to GED prep classes on the Gwinnett Technical College campus. " ; Because I could communicate now, I was invited to speak to the Boy Scouts at our church. I presented with Darcy Elks during her meaningful day seminar about the value of social roles including my role as a book club member. I also presented to Creative Consulting Services direct support professionals. I have been able to have a positive impact on homeless families who have autistic kids by presenting a training for the staff at Drake House, a shelter in Roswell, Georgia, for homeless, single mothers. " ; I presented my Wheel Power through the Sangha Unity Network Self-Advocacy Planning Sessions, which is a topic for another day. These sessions are expanding the influence of self-advocates throughout the state of Georgia, hopefully like this GLASS oral history project. " ; I am honored to be able to share a small part of my history." ; IRVIN: And thank you, John, for sharing your story and, Joan, for sitting with us today. JOAN MCCARTY: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-007.xml RBRL451GLASS-007.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
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9 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with John McCarty, December 07, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-007
Creator
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John McCarty
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
Autism
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Description
An account of the resource
John McCarty is an autistic, non-reliable speaker with impaired vision. In this interview, Joan McCarty reads her son, John McCarty’s, account of his struggle with communication before learning the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), which enabled him to become involved in his community.
Date
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2018-12-07
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-008/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Chris Vandeford, December 11, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-008 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Chris Vandeford Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|12(7)|21(10)|31(13)|40(12)|52(6)|58(13)|69(10)|80(5)|88(10)|97(12)|111(11)|121(7)|129(10)|139(14)|148(3)|155(14)|163(12)|177(1)|186(8)|198(4)|206(15)|218(11)|228(7)|241(4) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_45s54o0e& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_l9fwipaa" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 27 Losing vision Awesome. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. Okay. My name, obviously you've heard is Chris Vandeford. Vandeford describes gradually losing his vision due to diabetic retinopathy, a condition caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels. He talks about having eleven eye surgeries to improve his vision but that none were successful. He mentions becoming depressed because he no longer had the ability to drive or read books. anesthesia ; blindness ; comic books ; diabetes ; Emory University Hospital ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; laser surgery 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 631 Learning from others Another bit of advice I can have for somebody that may be listening to this that, yeah, I may be sounding a little bit down now telling you this, but it's also to tell you it may not be--it may not be the easiest thing in the world... Vandeford describes the importance of finding reliable friends and becoming involved in organizations for the visually-impaired or blind like the National Federation of the Blind. blindness ; community ; connection ; involvement ; motivation 17 782 Search for employment But getting back to what I was saying is I went through everything and basically after finishing up my last surgery, giving up my driving, starting to get used to how people are going treat you... Vandeford describes going through vocational rehabilitation in order to find work. He talks about working with Adam Hinchliffe at the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. He discusses learning braille, cane skills, and computer skills at the Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) of Atlanta. He describes his current internship where he teaches people how to use Android phones, and he talks about his plans to attend Georgia State University to become a certified rehabilitation counselor. Anna Trotman ; family ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; Greg Akins ; keyboarding ; Lynn Miller ; National Federation of the Blind 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 1141 Importance of self-care and community involvement Also, what's been rewarding for me too, is the National Federation for the Blind--or, excuse--of the Blind ; Anna would correct me on that one. Vandeford discusses his involvement with the National Federation of the Blind where he works to pass better legislation for the visually impaired and blind. He describes being motivated by others in the disability community. He emphasizes the importance of self-care, both in terms of physical health by monitoring his blood sugar levels and emotional health by becoming involved in the community. advocacy ; Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) ; friends ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) English IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Chris Vandeford for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, Georgia' ; s talking book and braille library. It is December 11, 2018, and this is being recorded at GLASS Atlanta' ; s recording studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Chris, for being here today. VANDEFORD: Awesome. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. Okay. My name, obviously you' ; ve heard is Chris Vandeford. I have been blind now or started to lose my vision in the beginning of 2015. What I can say is that it definitely took me by surprise when this all started happening. I was driving to work one day and noticed that the tire on a van was oval shaped. So this is a little strange, so you start to worry a little bit. You get to work, and I had my boss and his wife calm me down. I, later that evening, met with my wife discussed it with her and began the plans of what we were going to do. So the next day we ended up going to an eye doctor out in Lawrenceville--I forget the name ; please forgive me for that--but we went out there and not five minutes in they looked at my eyes and said that I needed to immediately go to an eye surgeon at Emory. And we tried to set up an appointment that day, but we were unable to due to being late in the evening, and Emory is one of the top eye facilities in the nation and it' ; s constantly packed, as we learned over the next three years to now, you know. We went the next day and I was told I was going--I had black spots on my eyes, and it was due to diabetic retinopathy and my blood sugar getting out of control. One thing I can say for people that are listening to this that if you ever go to an eye doctor and they tell you you have something going on with eyes and you should see a surgeon to have laser done to it to get rid of the spots, you should do it because, unfortunately for me, I had probably two to three years earlier been told when I was getting a new pair of glasses that I had spots on my eyes and I did nothing about it. I should have had the laser done. It' ; s not like the surgery that you hear about to fix your eyes. It' ; s to prevent your eyes from basically being ruined, your retina being pulled off. That is one thing that I can pass along to others that keep your sugars under control and, also, when your eye doctor tells you to do something, you should take care of it because it can change in a matter of no time. Well, we went in to see the doctor, and they told us that I would need the laser done and also possibility of other surgeries beyond that. Well, they put the anesthesia in my eye with a needle and they also coated my eye just to numb the pain before that. Well, unfortunately they didn' ; t warn my wife, who was in there, who saw the Q-tip sticking out of my eye and turns and looks and says, " ; Oh God!" ; It scared her but it made her laugh, too, and it freaked me out, but it' ; s also sort of a little bit of a comic relief right there in a tense moment. But after that, we sat around and we waited. And about an hour later, after the eye had numbed, we went and did the laser surgery. The laser surgery--I had several of them done over the next three years, but the first one always takes you by surprise because it feels like you' ; re being punched in the face by a professional boxer and your eye' ; s on fire, even if you have the anesthesia in your eye. Beyond that moment and that day and being scared, I slowly got into the habit of going to the eye doctor over the next two to three years, not by choice of any matter or sort like that. They basically did eleven surgeries on my eyes. They put bubbles in there to keep the retina up. They cut pieces of the retina out. They did anything that they could to save my eyesight, but what happened was like a slow train crash or car crash that you can' ; t stop. You' ; re doing everything in your power to prevent it from happening, but nothing seems to be working and you finally get in to a feeling of " ; OK, we' ; re going to do this surgery. I guess this will--we' ; ll try to stop it this time" ; , but it gets to a point of you don' ; t really have any faith in it because it' ; s just--nothings doing it. And I' ; m generally a very positive person. I generally always look at the bright side of things, but even in situations like this, if you' ; re going through something similar like this, you' ; re going to have your moments of depression ; you' ; re going to have your moments of feeling defeated at times. I continued on the surgeries and continued on trying to work, but the doctor told me that they didn' ; t want me doing any heavy lifting for fear of popping a blood vessel or for fear of tearing up the eye anymore, creating pressure on it, or anything like that. I did my best. I' ; m normally an active person, to try to stay busy with your mind with reading which turned out to be a good thing that my brother' ; s girlfriend, Stephanie Irvin from GLASS--I guess the word would be " ; serendipitous" ; --was in my life to provide a reader for me, and help my mind keep working during this time that I hadn' ; t learned how to use any sort of screen readers or anything like that ; very, very fortunate to have that happen in my life. But we continued on with the surgeries and nothing was working. I would recover for a month or two, go back to work, and something else would go wrong ; we would have to have another surgery. And this went on for about two years until I had to make the decision after one of the last surgeries, after I had some vision in my eye, and then I had a wreck ; I had an accident, and it was raining and I ran into the back of somebody. I had to make the decision that I couldn' ; t drive anymore. And when you get to that point in your life, you feel like things are going OK. You' ; re keeping it under control, your depression, you' ; re keeping under control how you' ; re feeling. You' ; re trying to put on a good face, but once your freedoms start getting stripped away, you don' ; t drive any more. You don' ; t--you can' ; t read a book. I used to love the feel of a book in my hand and turning the pages and speeding through a book and reading and never stopping. I was a huge comic book fan. I have three cases of comic books--no, make that five--that I can' ; t enjoy any more--not just for the art, but for the stories and how they compare to the real world out there and sort of escapism in the same sense. But losing the ability to drive and get yourself around and starting to depend on other people really was one of the straws that broke the camel' ; s back there for a while. After that happened, getting to work was more difficult. My wife would take me, but it was becoming more and more difficult. I was having to put my face closer to the computer screen, and I couldn' ; t lift stuff at the warehouse because of ruining my eyes. And people start looking at you differently, or you feel it. You know, somebody can tell you--my wife, for the longest time, says, " ; No, that' ; s just in your head." ; Well things change. Another bit of advice I can have for somebody that may be listening to this that, yeah, I may be sounding a little bit down now telling you this, but it' ; s also to tell you it may not be--it may not be the easiest thing in the world ; it may be the most difficult thing you can go through in your life. But, by the end of this, I' ; ll be able to tell you that there' ; s things that you can do to make your life better. You can get through this. You can survive, and you can create a life. But continuing on from what I was saying is you feel like people that were in your life to help you, that were going to be there for you, abandoned you. You' ; re going to learn that some people can' ; t handle you being blind. They can' ; t handle dealing--I guess is the best way to say it--dealing with your blindness, or it' ; s not so easy for them anymore to come and go. You feel like sometimes you' ; re a drag on them in your own mind. But you also learn that there' ; s people in your life that you didn' ; t think would appear that will show up that will be there for you, that will keep lifting you up when all you want to do is be down. Also this--you going through your blindness, however you lose it--mine was diabetic retinopathy--you' ; re going to find new people in your life if you look for them, if you put yourself in situations to meet them. I would say once you go through the initial shock, the initial depression, to put yourself out there, to put yourself in situations that you' ; ve never put yourself in before. Be involved with organizations like the visually impaired blind society, or the National Foundation of the Blind. Put yourself out there with other people that are going to teach you how to get through this. But getting back to what I was saying is I went through everything and basically after finishing up my last surgery, giving up my driving, starting to get used to how people are going treat you, I began to try to put myself in situations that would benefit me in the future because I want to still build a life for my family, for me and my wife. I' ; d love to still have kids. I want to get a house. I want to do all this stuff. But I can' ; t do that just by laying around and being depressed and " ; woe is me." ; So after we got through all of that, and continued on, I called in to--who did I call in to? I ended up calling a gentleman who directed me to Center for the Visually Impaired. I somehow ended up getting the number because I was trying to find a way back in to the workforce. His name was Adam Hinchliffe, and he worked for Voc Rehab, Georgia Vocational Rehab. He now works for CVI and he' ; s a fantastic gentleman with a quality organization. But he told me that I would have to throw myself in to the work ; I would have to put everything into it to learn the skills to be able to move forward and to be able to get to where him and others were, where they were contributing members of society, and also making it so people didn' ; t look at a blind person, or looked at blind people as " ; OK, they' ; re blind, so they' ; re not usable ; they' ; re not worth anything." ; Very good on my soul, very good on getting me moving in the right direction. So in November, after testing with CVI, Center for the Visually Impaired of Atlanta, I began--I began working with them. I worked on braille. I worked on that with Anna Trotman. I worked on my keyboarding with Greg Akins, who was the president of the National Federation of the Blind who got me involved with that, Earnest, Rasheeda, everybody at CVI who taught me my cane skills, my PC skills, my braille, Lynn Miller. Several people over there that are very interested in helping the blind out. I threw myself in to my work and into preparing myself for the next step. It' ; s been a huge journey for me to even get to this point because you think you' ; re going to just go through life and work hard, move on to the next thing, but you don' ; t expect something like this to jump out at you. And organizations like GLASS and CVI, they have really helped me prepare myself after, like I said, the initial shock and depression, to move forward. My grandfather went blind, but for different reasons ; he had a heart attack, and he went blind. And I always told my family that I hope that never happens to me, and you see what happens, you know, under different circumstances. But I' ; m rambling on a little bit. After I went back to CVI and I' ; ve been working on that, I finished up all my classes. I' ; ve built relationships with the instructors, the directors, and started building roads to other jobs, to connections, you know? Started talking to people because that' ; s the only way you' ; re going to move forward if you' ; re going through this. If you' ; re going to move forward in life, not just in your daily living skills but in trying to find work and trying to make it better for people in our situation and to be a part of the solution, you' ; re going to have to work hard at it and deal with these things that come your way. I have gotten myself an internship there now, and I' ; m working with teaching Android users--Android phones--to people that don' ; t know how to use smartphones and stuff and it' ; s been very rewarding. I' ; ve been very fortunate to be happy with the work that' ; s come my way through CVI. I' ; m hoping that once I finish school--I' ; m going back to Georgia State, and I' ; m going to get my certified rehabilitation counselor degree and, hopefully, move into a position with vocational rehab, CVI, the VA or something like that after about two or three years of school and can go from there. Also, what' ; s been rewarding for me too, is the National Federation for the Blind--or, excuse--of the Blind ; Anna would correct me on that one. It' ; s been very rewarding being involved in that and getting started with trying to work with them on better legislation for the visually impaired and blind, and working through that process and meeting new people and figuring how to live in this world as a visually impaired person. I would say that, even though this has been sort of like a, like I said earlier, a little bit of a down--talking down about this stuff, it' ; s not easy ; I' ; m not going to lie to anybody out there that' ; s listening to this. It' ; s not easy, but it can be done. And I' ; ve seen people that have it worse than I do who are blind, deaf, who have multiple sclerosis--they have all sorts of different diseases--that, every day, get up and go to work. They do what' ; s necessary to get through the day, and they don' ; t complain. They may have some aches and pains here ; they may have days that are just rough. But it' ; s just amazing for me, for someone that was just for a hot minute there was depressed about it and worried about things, to see these people do this, and do it well. It' ; s been very rewarding for me. For that, working with NFB, CVI, and GLASS and meeting all the interesting people that come into my life, and I can say that you, the listener, can do this, too. One thing else I can say is please, please watch your sugars! Take care of yourself as far as what you eat. Monitor it. Don' ; t just blow it off. Somebody can be diabetic and they can be the skinniest person in the world and still have high sugar and still have high risk for problems such as your muscles, such as losing your eyesight or other body parts. But monitor that religiously. I would also say throw yourself into the life. Get out there because if you don' ; t involve yourself with organizations and you don' ; t involve yourself with people around you, you' ; re not going to get the skills to move forward and you' ; re not going to--you' ; re only going to get more and more depressed and you' ; re going to have problems with that, and you can have a happy life. I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by good family and friends who have supported me, but you need to work at those relationships too, because this is a learning experience for them. When I first started that, I didn' ; t think that it would be. I think people would just adjust, and I' ; d be the one going through the tough parts of this, but I' ; ve learned a lot from this experience as far as personal relationships and knowing that it' ; s not just difficult on you, it' ; s difficult on the ones that love you and the ones that want the best for you. But you can help them get through it by helping them understand situations. Sometimes people can be ignorant about situations unless they' ; re going through it or unless they' ; re told, and that' ; s why I say advocate for yourself and advocate for those that are blind and around you and in the same situation as you. Other than that I would say just keep your head up ; it will get better. And if you ever need someone to talk to, look me up on Facebook or, you know, contact people at CVI or Stephanie at GLASS or Lamar behind the glass here ; I' ; m sure they' ; ll be willing to help. There' ; s plenty of people in this world that are willing to help you out. You' ; ve just go to know how to ask and to put yourself out there. But other than that, Stephanie, that' ; s about all I have to say. IRVIN: Well thank you so much for joining us today, Chris. VANDEFORD: Okay. Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-008.xml RBRL451GLASS-008.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
24 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Chris Vandeford, December 11, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-008
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Vandeford
Stephanie Irvin
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blindness
Diabetes--Complications
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Description
An account of the resource
Chris Vandeford became blind as an adult due to diabetic retinopathy. He talks about losing his vision, going through vocational rehabilitation, and becoming involved in his community, both through his work at the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency and the National Federation of the Blind.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-012/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Anna Trotman, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-012 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Anna Trotman Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|17(9)|32(1)|45(6)|58(11)|72(14)|83(1) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_pmqezegi& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_xe0dpifc" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 24 Early life and education You're welcome. I was born in 1981 in Montgomery, Alabama. Trotman describes having numerous health problems as a child including jaundice, spasmus nutans from chickenpox, retinitis pigmentosa, and kidney failure. She talks about her worsening eyesight due to pseudotumor cerebri, a false tumor that puts pressure on the right optic nerve. She mentions attending the University of Alabama for a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies and a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. She talks about attending the E.H. Gentry Technical Facility where she was introduced to braille. blood clots ; Centerville Elementary ; deaf ; depth perception ; disability community ; Gwinnett County, Georgia ; hearing aids ; hospitals ; kidney dialysis ; kidney donor ; Montgomery, Alabama ; optic nerve ; Shiloh Elementary ; Shiloh High School ; Shiloh Middle School ; speech therapy ; spinal taps ; surgery ; visual impairment 17 263 Career From there, I didn't really know what to do. My parents had always taught me that, even if you have obstacles in your life, you don't give up. Trotman describes teaching braille to adults at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. She talks about attending the Louisiana Center for the Blind in order to train to be a vocational rehabilitation counselor and then working for the Iowa Department of Blind. She discusses her current job at the Center for the Visually Impaired where she teaches adults braille and helps them apply for programs offered through Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS). Bookshare ; Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) ; braille books ; braille instructor ; home management skills ; mentors ; talking books ; white cane skills ; work experience 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) English IRVIN: Hello, my name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Anna Trotman for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, Georgia' ; s talking book and braille library. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded in the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Anna, for being with me today. TROTMAN: You' ; re welcome. I was born in 1981 in Montgomery, Alabama. I was born with jaundice and spent the first three weeks of my life in two different hospitals, mainly because they thought I was going to be retarded. But it turned out that I had blood clots in both of my kidneys that that would continue to decline until I was sixteen years old when they finally failed. When I was learning to walk, my parents noticed that my eyes would go back and forth, so I had spasmus nutans from chickenpox. They also noticed that I couldn' ; t tell the difference from where the carpet started and the tile ended. So they knew that I had some depth perception problems. We moved to Gwinnett County in 1985. They also knew that I had some problems with speech, so I started speech therapy when I was four years old. I went to public school--Centerville Elementary, Shiloh Elementary, Shiloh Middle School, and Shiloh High School. At the age of seven, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which is an eye condition where light doesn' ; t come in and you can' ; t see some colors, and you also have depth perception and no night vision. I continued to live a healthy life in school. I would sit very close to the board. I' ; d wear thick glasses and use my listening skills to get through towards high school. At age eleven, I had to have surgery for--some surgery. And then at thirteen, I had eye surgery to strengthen the muscles in my eyes, but it didn' ; t work. Like I said, when I was sixteen years old, my kidneys failed, and I was on dialysis for six months, and then my father was tested to be a donor and he gave me his kidney when I was--on October 22, 1998. And I have been rejection-free for almost twenty years. In 2000, I got black spots in front on my right optic nerve, and a neuro-ophthalmologist at Emory diagnosed me with pseudotumor cerebri, which is a false tumor that puts pressure on your right optic nerve. So I' ; ve had four spinal taps to relieve the fluid. When I graduated from high school, I went on to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham and earned a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies with a concentration in communication management and a minor in health education. In 2003, my eyesight got worse. From the second spinal tap, I lost my hearing. So I use digital Bluetooth hearing aids. I graduated from college. In 2007, I went to the E.H. Gentry Technical Facility. It' ; s a residential adult training center for people who are blind, deaf, and who have general disabilities. So I got to be around other blind people, other deaf people, other people who had general disabilities, and I learned a lot from there. That is where I learned braille in about four months and use it every day since. In 2008, I decided to go back to school. And in 2009, enrolled in the University of Alabama for my master' ; s degree in rehabilitation counseling and earned my master' ; s degree in 2011. From there, I didn' ; t really know what to do. My parents had always taught me that, even if you have obstacles in your life, you don' ; t give up. So after my master' ; s degree, I did some paid work experiences and found the love of braille again and teaching it to adults who are blind at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. But there was no jobs in teaching braille, so I decided that I needed some more training, especially in cane travel and home management skills. So I attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind in 2013. Under sleep shades for eight hours a day, learning alternative techniques and everything. Then in 2015, I got a job as a vocational rehabilitation counselor at the Iowa Department of Blind. But that didn' ; t really work out, because it was isolation and it was with people that were not very friendly or nice. It was just very isolated, so after that, came home, started looking for braille instructor jobs and found this incredible, amazing opportunity at the Center for the Visually Impaired teaching adults in braille. And one thing that it allows me to do is to, once a student learns braille and sees what it can do for their lives, I also help them apply for GLASS, Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, so they can get talking books, braille books, BARD. One thing that I love about the State of Georgia: You get a free Bookshare membership, which is not very known in other states. You usually pay for the membership. My message to other people is, there may be obstacles and other things in your lives, but don' ; t ever give up. And always find mentors and people that can help you and show you the way. IRVIN: Thank you so much, Anna, for taking time to talk with me today. TROTMAN: You' ; re welcome. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-012.xml RBRL451GLASS-012.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
7 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Anna Trotman, December 14, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-012
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anna Trotman
Stephanie Irvin
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Teachers of the blind
Description
An account of the resource
Anna Trotman was born in Montgomery, Alabama and experienced numerous health problems as a child that caused her to become visually impaired. In this interview, Trotman talks about her education and career as a braille instructor at various organizations, including the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind and the Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) in Atlanta.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS