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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-004/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 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
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
16 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 Empish Thomas, August 16, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-004
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Empish Thomas
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
Journalism
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-16
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-006/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 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
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bridgette Suttle, October 09, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-006
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bridgette Suttle
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
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
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2018-10-09
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Georgia
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moving image
OHMS
-
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Title
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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
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.
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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/
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Oral histories
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
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Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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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
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Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
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24 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Title
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Interview with Chris Vandeford, December 11, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-008
Creator
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Chris Vandeford
Stephanie Irvin
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video
oral histories
Subject
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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
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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
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
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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
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
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-009/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Brian Mosely, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-009 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. Brian Mosely Kamesha Bradham oral history 1:|11(3)|21(4)|30(12)|40(4)|49(3)|56(11)|76(9)|84(7)|95(4)|106(2)|113(11)|122(15)|131(6)|141(9) 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_vqw29x74& ; 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_56iki5vk" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 32 Life story Well, I don't necessarily know where to begin except, perhaps, with my blindness. Mosely describes how he lost his vision, sense of smell, and got epilepsy from an accident as an adult. He talks about how he became involved with Walton Options for Independent Living which encouraged him to go to college. He mentions attending Augusta State University--now called Augusta University. He describes how assistive technology allowed him to be more independent, mentioning JAWS and iPhones. accommodations ; braille ; computer ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; guide dog ; independent living center ; Job Access With Speech (JAWS) ; voice-activated technology 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 389 Challenges / Assistive technology Okay. And you said you became blind because of an accident. Do you want to talk about that time? Mosely describes the challenges he faced after going blind, mentioning the difficulty of reading print and functioning in school. He also talks about avoiding people who try to take advantage of the blind by using a money reader and other technology. advocacy ; independence ; iPhone ; Job Access With Speech (JAWS) ; tape recorder ; tests ; Walton Options for Independent Living 17 594 Adjusting to becoming blind as an adult Okay. So do you want to talk about how you felt when you first became blind? Mosely describes the shock of suddently going blind as an adult. He talks about how the National Federation for the Blind and Walton Options for Independent Living introduced him to resources for the blind and helped him re-enter the workforce. advocacy ; Appling, Georgia ; braille ; computer ; disability community ; Job Access With Speech (JAWS) ; technology ; white cane ; Willie Jones 17 English BRADHAM: Hello. My name is Kamesha Bradham, and I am going to have a conversation with Brian Mosley for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Augusta Library, in Augusta, Georgia. Okay, Brian, thank you for coming and participating. You can start with your story. MOSELY: Well, I don' ; t necessarily know where to begin except, perhaps, with my blindness. I lost my sight during an accident that left me blind and with epilepsy and without the sense of smell. I, being blind, didn' ; t know what to do, where to go. I was new to Georgia at the time and learned about a place called Walton Options for Independent Living through another blind gentleman my mother saw. Through that independent living center, I was influenced to go, or consider going to, college. I went to Augusta State University which is now called Augusta University, and it was at that time that I learned how to use a screen reading program called JAWS. And it was at that point that everything changed for me. When I first went back to, or, when I first went to Augusta State University and met with the disability service department director, I was asked what accommodations I would need. And being newly blind, I did not know. And that' ; s exactly what I said: " ; I don' ; t know." ; And I was told they couldn' ; t help me if I didn' ; t know what accommodations I needed, and I asked for all of the accommodations for the blind. After playing around with braille and other options for the blind, again, I chose the JAWS screen reading program because it would allow me to use the computer, and it talked to me and told me what was on the computer, so it was a lot easier for me to picture the rest. I made it through Augusta State University with a 2.7 which is still a little bit above average grade point average. And my major was in psychology, but then I went on to work for an organization who helps other people with disabilities get jobs, and 80 percent of that job was data entry. And so I learned a lot more about assistive technology and how it could help me be more independent, especially in the workplace. Since learning JAWS, I' ; ve also fell in love with the iPhone because, even though it wasn' ; t made for the blind, it helps us in lots of ways, or at least it helps me in a lot of ways. I have an app on there that allows me to scan typed text, so I can pull my phone out of my pocket at any time and scan a document, and it will read it back to me. It helps me with navigating my way around if I' ; m walking with my cane or with my guide dog. So a lot of the voice-activated technology really helps me as a blind person. But during all of this, I never learned to read or write braille ; that' ; s something I still would like to learn, but more for professional reasons than personal because with the assistive technology that I just talked about, I' ; ve been pretty good with my independence. Like I said, I can read my own mail, navigate my way through the community, and get a lot of things done independently with that assistive technology. I also am a member of GLASS, so occasionally I can read a good book, and I like to enjoy that. And let me see--again, with the JAWS screen reading program, for me as a blind person, it opens up access to that worldwide web which, again, opens up access for me to what' ; s out there, what' ; s going on. There are still some glitches that they have to fix, some compatibility issues with different programs. Sometimes that' ; s on the developers of the other program, but it has been very helpful with working in the workplace, and it provides me with confidence when seeking employment to inform an employer that I can do something, and here' ; s how I would do it. So other than that right now, I' ; m looking to utilize some of that with the transition program with the youth with disabilities and trying to help them with preparing for post-secondary life. And that' ; s my story. (laughter) BRADHAM: Okay. And you said you became blind because of an accident. Do you want to talk about that time? MOSELY: No. It' ; s an unsolved mystery. BRADHAM: Okay. MOSELY: So yeah, it' ; s not something I really recollect too much about so, yeah. BRADHAM: Okay. And what were the hardest challenges you faced and how did you get through them? MOSELY: Well, some of the hardest challenges faced were the actual--my challenge with reading print and functioning in school. Say, for instance, when I had to take my tests: Before I became familiar, in fact, introduced to JAWS, I had to take my notes on a tape recorder, take my test using two tape recorders. And again, I was not able to access anything as far as the web or email or anything like that. And that' ; s where being involved with the independent living center, Walton Options, helped me because they provided me, not only with training using JAWS, but also a little bit more information regarding advocacy and knowing what it was that would best help me to overcome some of the barriers like all the time it would take to listen to the tape, to the questions on tape, record them on another tape, and then wait to find out what my score was going to be. I was able to actually introduce to Augusta State University how they could put my test on the computer. And by using JAWS, I could independently take the test and I could do it efficiently and effectively which was what helped me to end up graduating and actually not taking too much more than the four years required. BRADHAM: Okay. MOSELY: Now another challenge is always people in the community, of course, trying to take advantage of a person that' ; s blind, and that' ; s another reason why it' ; s good to have some of the technology like the money reader, which all of that comes with your iPhone, but it allows you to be able to make sure you' ; re getting your correct change or that you' ; re spending the right bill and, in some cases, that you can even look for certain products independently. So it becomes more of a help than anything. And when you don' ; t always have to depend on someone else to help navigate through the community, it helps with your independence and confidence. BRADHAM: Okay. So do you want to talk about how you felt when you first became blind? MOSELY: Yeah. When I first became blind, I was new to Georgia. I had been in Georgia for about eight months because my mom was here by herself and it was out in the country in Appling. And when I became blind, I really thought I was the only person in Georgia that was blind. I didn' ; t know anybody. I didn' ; t know anything about being blind other than Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. And so I didn' ; t know where to go for any type of resources or help or anything like that. I called my dad who was way out in Los Angeles, and he found someone from the National Federation for the Blind who, in two days, sent a FedEx truck to my house with the white cane that was donated and a pamphlet with information about resources in Georgia. And that was my beginnings because for about a year, I sat on the lawn every day kind of crying to God and just asking, " ; Why? Why me? What happened?" ; and finally realized, or God spoke and said, " ; Well, if you want something to happen, you' ; re going to have to get up and make it happen." ; And then I was--got out and that' ; s where I was introduced to an individual, who I don' ; t think would mind me mentioning his name, he was my mentor, Mr. Willie Jones, who introduced me to Walton Options. And it was from there, again, I was introduced to the world of the blind community, resources, and school. So before then, I really felt in the dark. And afterwards, I felt as if I had seen the light because it was after being introduced to Mr. Jones and in the resources that blind people could use. Like I never used a computer when I had my sight. I was a construction worker and a site supervisor training at-risk youth in landscaping. So I didn' ; t know how to type, I didn' ; t use a computer, so I really didn' ; t think being blind that this was something I was going to be able to do. But the moment I heard JAWS speaking and Mr. Jones telling me that' ; s what' ; s on the computer screen, I was motivated. So after that, I didn' ; t look back. And that' ; s like--I' ; ve been using JAWS now for the past 20 years and, like I said, I' ; m now motivated to try and start learning to read and write braille, more for professional reasons because I love the technology. I think that JAWS was a super, super invention for the blind. BRADHAM: Okay. Is that all you wanted to share with us today? MOSELY: I think that about sums up my story at this particular point because I' ; m--well, I' ; d like to add that I' ; m more about the disabled at large than the blind, period. I mean the blind is part of the disability community, so I like to say I' ; m an advocate for everyone with a disability--young, old, blind, or anything else. And I wanted to thank GLASS for this opportunity to archive our stories because I do think they' ; re important, and they may make a difference to someone in the future. Thanks. BRADHAM: 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-009.xml RBRL451GLASS-009.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Augusta, Georgia
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14 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Brian Mosely, December 14, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-009
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Brian Mosely
Kamesha Bradham
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video
oral histories
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Blindness
African Americans with disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
African Americans--History
Description
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Brian Mosely became blind, lost his sense of smell, and got epilepsy in an accident as an adult. Mosely describes how assistive technology has helped him retain his independence, mentioning the use of the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) screen reader program.
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2018-12-14
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Georgia
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moving image
OHMS
-
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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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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-011/ohms
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5.3 Interview with Daryl Rootledge, December 07, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-011 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. Daryl Rootledge Carol Waggoner-Angleton oral history 1:|12(6)|21(14)|32(9)|44(5)|55(1)|67(12)|80(10)|90(11)|102(7)|113(10)|125(2)|132(14)|141(11)|153(12)|163(1)|170(12)|180(14)|191(5)|204(11)|215(1)|225(13)|234(13) 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_pctprekw& ; 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_lwddkdou" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 28 Early life OK. My name is Daryl Rootledge. I was born in 1969 in New York, the City of New York. Rootledge describes growing up visually impaired due to aniridia, an illness that impacts the development of the eye during birth. He talks about having numerous unsuccessful surgeries to fix his vision. He mentions how his family helped him adapt to mainstream society because of not lowering their high expectation of him despite his disability. addiction ; cataract removal ; childhood ; colors ; corneal transplant ; detached retina ; heroin ; military ; parents ; siblings ; Vietnam War 17 236 Education I went to public school, elementary school, and I went through to my first year of high school in public school. Rootledge describes attending public school until ninth grade when he transferred to the New York School for the Blind. He talks about utilizing accommodations like large letters and recorded material to navigate the mainstream school system. At the New York School for the Blind, Rootledge describes learning life skills, mobility skills, and independent living skills. He talks about attending New York University (NYU) before going on to obtain numerous graduate degrees. braille ; clinical psychology ; cooking ; encouragement ; fraternity ; Georgia Council for Developmental Disabilities (GCDD) ; hearing ; itinerary teacher ; Kappa ; rehabilitation therapist and counselor ; rehabilitation therapy ; tandem run ; theology ; track and field ; University of Alabama 17 768 Parenting After I came out of college, I met a young lady and experienced the nuance of being a father and being a husband. Rootledge describes becoming a husband and having a daughter. He talks about raising his daughter as a blind parent after his wife died. He mentions using braille, large print and audio material as well as scanning technology to read to his daughter and help her with her homework. children ; education ; Georgia House Bill 891 ; granddaughter ; marriage ; widower 17 992 Career / Travels / Faith After college and having a family, I worked at vocational rehab for the blind and physically handicapped in Alabama. Rootledge describes working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the blind and physically handicapped. He talks about being an active member of the National Federation for the Blind and traveling around the world. He discusses having his own ministry and emphasizes the importance of his Christian faith in his life. Arabic ; audio ; Augusta, Georgia ; braille ; Hebrew ; homeowner ; Jerusalem ; Jesus ; large print ; property ; Somalia ; South America ; success ; Sudan ; support ; the Bible ; therapy ; University of Alabama Medical Center 17 English WAGGONER-ANGLETON: Hello. My name is Carol Waggoner-Angleton and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Mr. Daryl Rootledge for Our Stories, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is the seventh of December, [2018], and this is being recorded at the Augusta-Richmond Library main branch. Well, Mr. Rootledge, we' ; re very interested to hear your story. ROOTLEDGE: OK. My name is Daryl Rootledge. I was born in 1969 in New York, the City of New York. I grew up with [an] illness called " ; aniridia," ; which destroys some of the development of the eye during birth. My father was--my father was in active duty of the US military during the time of Vietnam where there was very high heroin drug use in the early to late ' ; 60s. That was a result of being born with aniridia and also with an addiction to heroin, which led to a lot of complications with my vision as a young child growing up. As a young man, I had some vision and got a chance to experience sunshine and got a chance to experience what real moonlight was, and there' ; s some people in the world that don' ; t get this opportunity to even see the beauty of this world. And we find ourselves, as human beings, taking the beauty of this world for granted, because sight is truly a gift that God has given mankind to cherish the colors, the flowers, and the beauty and the uniqueness of things that were built and developed by the hands of man, guided by the wisdom of God. Growing up, I had struggles with vision coming and going. Over a course of years, I' ; ve had sixteen surgeries, ranging from cataract removal to corneal transplant to exploratory surgery to detached retina surgeries. The list would have went on and on, but at some point you get very tired of waking up with the disappointment of still not seeing. Still had an interesting childhood. My brothers and sisters, you know, they didn' ; t give me any slack. You know, I have two sisters and one brother who is older. They didn' ; t give me any slack. Growing up in the household, my mom and dad didn' ; t give me any slack, you know? I had to still pull my load and didn' ; t mind if I was visually impaired or the language up to date, blind. They really wanted to make sure that I stayed as normal and as grounded as possible. So I didn' ; t have many pity parties. I wanted to have some pity parties, because there was a lot of things that I couldn' ; t do being visually impaired. Sometimes after a surgery I would have pretty decent vision and I would get a chance to ride a bike, and then the next month the aniridia takes over and I' ; m not riding a bike. It was a depressing thing, but it was something that my siblings helped me get through over the course of time and life. I went to public school, elementary school, and I went through to my first year of high school in public school. When I went to my first year of high school, I was having incidents of misjudgment with stairs until one day I just misjudged the turn on the stairs and had a fall and my mom said, " ; That' ; s it, that' ; s it, we' ; re going to go to the New York School for the Blind." ; I went to the New York School for the Blind. It was kind of different, because I was so used to being around sighted individuals, so used to doing extra work in order to keep up. And what I mean by extra work, I mean if somebody hit a baseball, I had to really concentrate being visually impaired to try to hit the same baseball. I had to really listen and pay attention and create different nuances that helped me to adapt to the kids playing football around. I had to do a lot of listening, and some kind of way I got through it. I got through it and I had a pretty decent drama-free childhood. When they went outside to play, I went too. I was there too. Sometimes my vision was pretty good where I could kind of get around, and other times I had my best friend, Jerome Martin. He--I would hold on to his shoulder and we would go. We would go. I fall, I get up, and these were the challenges that took place in my youth. But when I went to elementary school, I had to come up with solutions. So I worked with an itinerary teacher and I worked with my teachers in elementary school to create large letters. I had a recording device that helped me to get the notes that the teacher put on the board, and I had a person who was my itinerary teacher who read everything on my recorder where I could get assignments, and I found ways to adapt. So you know, my story is that of encouragement, because I want people to know that it is important to not give up on yourself. Self-belief is the most important thing that you could ever deal with when you' ; re dealing with life issues and life struggles. Blindness just happens to be one. There are several different stories that you can find out here, from multiple sclerosis to GCDD, Georgia Council for Developmental Disabilities. There' ; s a lot of things that' ; s happening in this world, but my story tells people who are blind and low vision that there is hope. There is a rainbow and a pot of gold at the other end if you persevere and do the best that you can to achieve all your goals. They' ; re reachable. And then I set up a system where I could get into the hallways by not giving up on society. This world has people and things that are bad, but for the most part people are still good. They still have a great heart. Be encouraged to speak to people who are your peers, because they will help you out and they helped me out a whole lot by going from class to class in the beginning of high school and elementary school, helping me out with getting gym equipment and playing games and still becoming active in the sect that we call society mainstream education. I was very fortunate to not give up and to be encouraged by my teachers and peers to be normal as can be. I went to high school and I had this same system in place. The teachers were familiar with me. I joined the track team and found ways of doing the two-mile run. I did a tandem run with another gentleman and we teamed up together and we won a state championship for two-mile run. I had a wristband on my wrist that tied me to his wrist and hey, we ran. We ran. We got it done. So it' ; s a real encouraging thing to know that being blind is not the end of the road. I went there to--from Westbury Senior High School to New York School for the Blind, and that' ; s where I learned my--some of my life skills that I would need being a blind individual. Growing from an adolescent to [an] adult male. I learned braille. I also learned home cooking skills and independent living skills, how to prepare my own food, how to live in a home environment by myself. I also learned academics that allowed me to graduate with honors and to get prepared for college. When I graduated from New York School for the Blind I was well prepared. I was well prepared with braille, being able to communicate. I was well prepared with independent living skills and my most important thing, but maybe the least to some people, is my mobility skills. My ability to be independent and travel and go to the places that I want to go when I' ; m ready to go. I was not a dependent person. My mobility skills that I learned allow me to become independent, and that' ; s very important when you' ; re blind and living the life that we have to live in the society that we live in. I went to college after I graduated with honors. I went to NYU and I studied clinical psychology. And I graduated from NYU with my master' ; s in clinical psychology, and then I said, " ; What else can I do? What else can I do? Can I do something else? Yes." ; I said okay, so I went to the University of Alabama and studied rehabilitation therapy and became a rehabilitation therapist and counselor for the blind and physically handicapped in Alabama. Got my master' ; s in that and then my understudy degree was in theology where I have a master' ; s in theology. I just continue to persevere, and my story is a reflection of someone growing up in the city and beig blind and also having different society strikes that they place on what you can be and what you should be and what you can achieve, but that didn' ; t apply to me being blind. That didn' ; t apply to me being in the city. It did not apply to me because I don' ; t use those nuances as excuses for success. Success is determined by the determination and the wit and your ability to fight through adversity, and as a blind person, I challenge you to be able to say, " ; Hey, I want to be the difference and not the problem." ; And doing that, I was able to go to college and get the help from my peers, join fraternities. A fraternity, Kappa. First blind person to do that in New York. So I didn' ; t put boundaries on myself and I had my braille skills. I had my audio skills that I learned more of in college and I began to achieve success in that. After I came out of college, I met a young lady and experienced the nuance of being a father and being a husband. I have a daughter. Her name is Javashia Rootledge and she' ; s my little princess. Her mom passed when she was four years old and I raised her as a blind parent. One of the bills that we' ; re championing here in Georgia is House Bill 891. It supports the right for blind parents to parent. We have that ability to do that. Just because you' ; re blind doesn' ; t mean you can' ; t be a successful parent and take care of your child. I' ; ve raised my daughter from four as a blind individual to now being twenty six years old, graduate of Spelman, and she' ; s a physical therapist now in Alabama. With my pride and joy she has, my little heart, my grandbaby and she' ; s eight years old and she' ; ll be nine and we just love each other. So it' ; s important to know being a granddad and being a father and had the opportunity to be a husband and do it all blind using all of the braille and large print and audio material to read to my grandbaby and to also read to my daughter. Using scanning technology to scan my daughter' ; s homework in where I could read it and check it. So it allowed me, with technology and with braille and large print technology, the ability to become a successful parent and grandparent. When society says how in the world are you doing this? How can you do this? Perseverance and the will to be successful in life and not give up. Also, my faith in God and my ability to minister this to blind and the physically handicapped individuals all over the world allows me the ability to tell my story and be very candid about it, because hopefully with this story being told it will give people the opportunity to know that success is just one step away. Just reach out and grasp it because it is there for you to have and to achieve. Print material and large material allows you the ability to read and to get out in to the world and hear and also read about stories and places that you just imagined in your mind. Braille is a successful thing when you' ; re doing business and you' ; re communicating. It allows you to become a part of mainstream society. And the reason why I keep reiterating about braille and print material and audio material because you want to be successful in the society and in the community that you live in. You don' ; t want to be a hindrance, because most people say, " ; Well, what can a blind person do?" ; Just as much as somebody that' ; s sighted can do. With the proper opportunity, anything is possible. Anything is achievable. After college and having a family, I worked at vocational rehab for the blind and physically handicapped in Alabama. I had a side practice of counseling that I did for the University of Alabama Medical Center where patients came in and I had my braille and I had my charts and I had a nurse who helped me fill out the physical forms that needed to be filled out, and I got the job done there with counseling and therapy. Doing that also and becoming an active member of the National Federation for the Blind, our motto is " ; To live the life that we want to live," ; but we have to be a part of it. We have to be in the room when there' ; s discussions about people who are blind and the things that they need to make their life and lifestyles better. Went in to ministry and I have my own ministry here. One step closer to God. Minister to a lot of people about change and change in the heart and the power of Christ and his love. Being blind, doing that, a lot of people wondered, " ; Well, how did you get a chance to read the Bible? Large print, audio, braille. It all goes back to [an] accessible format that' ; s created to help us to live better, successful lives. The story I always tell people is that Jesus told a story about a blind man. The disciples asked him a question. They said, " ; Lord, why is this man blind? Did his parents sin? Who sinned that caused him to be blind?" ; And Jesus simply said, " ; No, not the parents. No one sinned. He' ; s blind to show and prove the glory of God." ; So--and that' ; s been an important thing in my life that I can' ; t sit and have a pity party about being blind, because Christ said it' ; s for God' ; s glory, and I want to be that example of God' ; s shining glory in the society that we live in that from darkness can come light. A shining light as an example that success can be achieved if you apply yourself and read the accessible material that' ; s available for you. Educate yourself on things that are available for you to help you achieve a higher quality of life because God wants you to have life and he wants you to have it abundant and just so many other achievements. Being a homeowner here in Augusta. At first, I could not read the material that they had on the house and had to go back and fight for the rights for accessible material, large print, braille, but perseverance. I won. They had the proper equipment for me to have accessible reading material and now not only do I own one property but I own two properties in Augusta. It' ; s just--sky' ; s the limit if you apply yourself. And my story has lead me to so many places. To travel to Jerusalem, to learn Arabic, to learn Hebrew fluent, to travel to South America, to travel to Somalia, Sudan. Just to go to different places in the world as a blind individual. A lot of places that you go there' ; s braille. A lot of places that you go there' ; s braille magazines and large-print magazines and you can just get out there and live the life that you want to live as a successful person. I' ; ve traveled and I' ; ve educated myself. I' ; ve served God. I have been a father. I have been a grandfather and still is a grandfather and still is a parent. So life is achievable, a successful life being blind. And that' ; s, you know, the gist of my story and the success that I achieved. Overcoming surgeries after surgery. Overcoming the depression state and having supportive family and supportive peers, supportive teaching staff, and supportive people in the community that seen my goals and helped me to achieve my dreams. So the promise is put your hands out and try. Just take one step towards success and watch the outcome. You will definitely be blessed and be encouraged to live a happy successful life and my story proves that success is in the hands of the beholder. 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-011.xml RBRL451GLASS-011.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Augusta, Georgia
Duration
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22 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Title
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Interview with Daryl Rootledge, December 07, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-011
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Daryl Rootledge
Carol Waggoner-Angleton
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audio
oral histories
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People with visual disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Parents with disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Religious leaders
Families
Description
An account of the resource
Daryl Rootledge is a vocational rehabilitation therapist and minister. He was born with aniridia, an illness that impacts the development of the eye during birth. Rootledge describes navigating the educational system and raising his daughter as a visually impaired person, emphasizing the importance of his Christian faith in his life.
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2018-12-07
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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sound
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Georgia
OHMS
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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/.
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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
Date
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2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
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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-015/ohms
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Latinx
5.3 Interview with Luis Narimatsu, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-015 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. Luis Narimatsu Catherine Vanstone oral history 1:|18(3)|28(6)|41(6)|55(8)|68(3)|78(9)|90(4)|102(2)|116(4)|128(15)|158(6)|176(14)|192(8)|208(7)|226(5)|238(11)|253(4)|270(7)|287(4)|302(2)|314(4)|329(16)|346(1)|358(1)|376(9)|388(9) 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_rj00uobd& ; 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_kw4z1ols" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 40 Diagnosed with Glaucoma I was born, actually I was born overseas... Narimatsu talks about his childhood and young adulthood growing up in the Panama Canal Zone, since his father was in the military. Narimatsu explains,as an adult, he began suffering from headaches during the day and night, a common symptom of glaucoma. Narimatsu explains that he was eventually diagnosed with glaucoma, a condition that leads to excessive pressure in his eyes, and a result, eventual blindness. Narimatsu explains that after his diagnosis, he lost many of his friends and his job as a DJ. Narimatsu explains that he dropped out of college momentarily due to to his diagnosis. He reflects on how the self-denial of his condition as a young adult resulted in isolation and depression. Boscon Palmer Eye Institute ; glaucoma ; Panama Canal 17 408 Blindness rehabilitation services / using technology And then one day... Narimatsu explains how his faith helped him overcome his initial depression after his diagnosis. He recalls meeting his wife, who helped him to receive rehabilitation services for his sight loss. Narimatsu highlights the importance of the rehabilitation services, including learning how to use a cane and gaining independence as a result. He explains his siblings' help in introducing him to contacts who helped him get a computer specifically made for the visually-impaired. Narimatsu recalls that he eventually applied to the military again and was hired as a telephone operator. blindness ; computer ; Panama Canal Company ; United States Embassy 17 828 Teaching computer basics to the blind I worked there six years until the they closed down... Narimitsu recalls working for six years as a telephone operator for the 94th Signal Company as a telephone operator, until the Panama Canal was shut down. Narimitsu talks about his move to Georgia in 1999 with the hopes of working at the Warner Robins Air Force base . He recalls that in Georgia he had difficulty finding a job, though he eventually found a job in Bainbridge, Georgia teaching people with sight disabilities how to use computers. 94th Signal Company ; Bainbridge, Georgia ; Department of Defense ; Job Access with Speech (JAWS) ; National Industries for the Blind ; Panama Canal ; Ted Henter ; Warner Robins 17 1203 Georgia Industries for the Blind / Concluding thoughts So, I did the learning center... Narimatsu talks about how his work enables him to help other visually-impaired people in finding jobs, which he says is the most rewarding part of his job. He shares how Ted Henter, the creator of the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) screen reader program, helped him to get the career he has now as the Services Director of Georgia Industries for the Blind. Narimatsu ends the interview by sharing his belief that blindness should be used as an asset rather than seen as a weakness. Georgia Industries for the Blind ; National Industries for the Blind ; National Industries of the Blind Milton Samuelson Career Achievement Award ; Ted Henter 17 https://gvs.georgia.gov/georgia-industries-blind Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB) English VANSTONE: Hello. My name is Catherine Vanstone, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Luis Narimatsu for Our Stories, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Industries for the Blind in Bainbridge, Georgia. So Luis, what is your story? NARIMATSU: First of all, I want to thank the library for considering me for this project. That' ; s very interesting when--you know, when a lot of people lost their sight and their experiences dealing with blindness. I was born--actually, I was born overseas in a little place called--you know, a country called Panama, and if anybody knows anything about history, they know the United States went down there in 1903 to build a canal. So my dad was in the military in World War II, went to Korea, and then was stationed in Panama, so I was born overseas. Born and raised in a little place called the Panama Canal Zone run by the United States. And went to school and college down there and had two jobs, was working for the military, had my own business, going to college, and then--actually I was a DJ. So worked late at night, came home in the morning, went to school, went to my other job, and did that every day for three or four years until, you know, I was studying accounting. My major was accounting, and I started noticing at night, I started getting headaches, and then when I drove at night I started seeing halos around lights on cars and started getting headaches. I' ; d wake up and go jogging. I' ; ve always been a little big boy, so I used to go jogging at lunch time, and I thought maybe, you know, going jogging, you know, in the hot sun and working at night and these headaches. I started realizing I needed more and more light to see spreadsheets when I was doing accounting homework. I needed--one day I got home in the afternoon from work, and I decided I was going to go lie down and take a nap, see if I could shake my headache, and when I woke up, I had no central vision. It was like if you' ; re driving in the car and someone splatters soap suds on the windshield and they spread out. That' ; s where everything in the center was gone. Went to the eye doctor, they looked at me. They said, when I went there, my pressure in my eyes were sixty-four in one eye and sixty-five in the other, and if anybody knows anything about pressure in your eyes, the normal pressure of the eye should be around twelve to fourteen to sixteen. That' ; s normal pressure. I was up in the sixties. They diagnosed me with glaucoma. I did a couple of studies and realized it was a strange form of glaucoma. It' ; s glaucoma that usually doesn' ; t happen because glaucoma usually happens in older adults, not young. I was about twenty, twenty-one years old when I was diagnosed. Came to the United States. My dad brought me right away to Miami to the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. They did testing there. They didn' ; t want to do surgery on me because they said if they touched my eyes they could just damage more than what it was already damaged. Eye doctor back in Panama told me, " ; Get ready. Prepare yourself. You' ; re going to go blind. Five, six, ten, fifteen years, but you will go blind." ; That was a rude awakening for me. They tell you you' ; re going to lose your sight and I was not going to be able to recover what I had lost. They had me on all kinds of medications to keep the pressure down. The pressure was under control, but the damage was already there and it was going to be progressive. So there went my ability to drive. My DJ musical job started to be affected, because I wasn' ; t able to--you know, I was in charge of everything. I managed, I set up, I did the music, everything, and I was not being able to do that. So it started to get tough. It' ; s hard to depend on all those friends that you had when you were famous and everybody liked you because you were a DJ? All of a sudden, you didn' ; t have those. All of a sudden, they were busy and then next week someone else was busy and before you know it, they just tell you, " ; No, I can' ; t, I' ; m busy right now. I can' ; t help you." ; So I went through that phase where my friends started disappearing little by little. People that hung around me didn' ; t want to hang around me, because I wasn' ; t cool anymore. I was the one that needed to be helped out now. So that was very depressing. Had to drop out of college for a bit. I did graduate, but you know, after that I was trying to continue my studies and that was tough. I was still trying to deal with the emotional issues of having three vehicles in my front yard and I couldn' ; t drive any of them. I think that was one of the toughest things was to lose my independence. So that was tough. I got depressed. Very depressed. Started going to less places, because I couldn' ; t see well. I used to go to the clubs and hang out, and I stopped doing that because I used to bump in to things and play it off. I didn' ; t look for any kind of blindness skills training. I was trying to play it off like--I was low vision, legally blind, and I tried to play it off for a while, and that started getting bad and, you know, bumping into things and knocking things over. And I just started just going into a little shell, to the point where I didn' ; t leave my house very much. I just went around the neighborhood where I had a couple of friends who hung out with me and that was it. Got very, very depressed. I considered doing--you know, I considered a couple times just calling it quits and ending it all right there, because I just--I felt I wasn' ; t, you know, I felt I would never be myself again. Then one day, I don' ; t know. One day I woke up and something came to me. I started thinking about all the people in the world that were blind and who were successful, and I said, " ; I want to be like them, but what do I do?" ; So I just started looking for help. When I put that in the hands of the good Lord and said, you know, " ; Please, I need some help," ; and I put it in his hands, and all of a sudden people started appearing in my life. Strangers started appearing in my life to help me out. The first one was the person who is my wife today. Out of a prank phone call that she was making with her friends one night. Started a friendship and I ended up telling her that I was vision impaired and she helped me to go the United States Embassy and go to the library and I started looking up places where I could get some rehab. And I wrote a couple--she helped me write a couple letters to people, to agencies up here in the States to see who could help me get some rehabilitation. A lot of these places went and referred me back to a little place back in Panama, out in the country. So I decided to give it a try. So I went to a center for adults. And for those who don' ; t understand, outside of the military bases in Panama, we' ; re talking about a country that back then it was like a third-world country. And this rehab center was out of the center of the city. It was out in the country. And people that went there were a lot of people from--blind people that are from the country. People that, you know, they cook with wood stoves, they don' ; t have electricity, they don' ; t have irons. So my rehabilitation consisted of learning how to cook using wood stoves, ironing with--back in the 1800s when you ironed with a big old giant iron that you heat up over the stove. Learned how to do that. But I think the biggest thing I got out of there was learning how to be independent with a cane. That was my--that was my biggest gift they gave me. They taught me how to use a cane, how to get around with a cane. And that was for me--when I was able to use that cane, that gave me--that opened so many doors. I finally learned to embrace my blindness and started seeing that it could be--blindness could be my asset. Could be something that was helpful for me. Instead of, as I thought, something that was holding me back, it actually could open doors for me. After that I went back home. My dad got really sick. I had to go back home and help my mom take care of him. He was in the hospital. My sisters came down. He was--and my brothers. All my siblings were living in the States. I was the only one still living in Panama with my parents. So when my dad passed away in May, that December my brother came down to see me and he brought me a computer, and he goes, " ; Here Luis, I brought you a computer for you to use," ; and I sat there and I looked at him and I smiled. " ; That' ; s great, but I' ; m not going to use it? I can' ; t see the screen." ; And he goes, " ; We' ; ll figure something out." ; My brother was one of those computer wizzes, you know, back in the â80s. He came up with stuff and he managed to rig that computer so when I touched the letters on the keyboard it would say something. thought, " ; That' ; s nice, but how am I going to be able to use it to apply to other things that I used to do before?" ; My sister was living in the States and one day she called me and she said, " ; Luis, I went to the library and I saw this guy! He' ; s blind and he was using a computer. Do you want me to talk to him and ask him what he uses?" ; And I said, " ; Please do!" ; And so she did and he told her, " ; Tell him to call me," ; and, you know, she relayed that I' ; m in Panama overseas, I don' ; t have no work, I don' ; t have no money. I can' ; t--you know, I don' ; t have the money to make a phone call, you know? Back then you had to pay for those phone calls. You didn' ; t have cell service or anything like that. And he said, " ; Don' ; t worry. Tell him to call me collect." ; And I did. And he was living in Ohio, and he told me, " ; What do you want to do on a computer?" ; I go, " ; Everything I used to do before." ; One of my backgrounds in college was accounting and computers. So I was learning how to program and stuff like that on computers back in the old days when computers were just coming out. And he goes, " ; Okay, I' ; ll tell you what. I' ; ll talk to--I have a friend that lives in Florida, and I' ; m going to ask him and see how we can help you out." ; And he talked to his friend. He goes, " ; Call me back in about a week," ; and I did. And he goes, " ; I talked to my friend in Florida. He is very excited about helping you out. He told me to give him a call," ; and I did. And I called this guy in Florida and he tells me, " ; You know what? I was born in Panama. So I know exactly where you were born and I was born in the same place. I know all your neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, my cousin lives about two streets down the road. I' ; m going to tell him to go by your house." ; And about a week later, I had a knock on my door and the gentleman comes in and he goes, " ; Hey, my cousin Teddy--Ted told me to come and see you and to talk with you," ; and he came in and sat down and he read Ted' ; s story about all the accomplishments Ted had. Ted was an engineer and was a motorcycle racer and all this stuff that he had done before he lost his sight due to an accident and all the stuff he had done afterwards. You know, he was a Special Olympics skiing champion and gold medalist and this and that. So at the end of the day he goes, " ; I' ; ll tell you what. Let me get a hold of Ted and we' ; ll see what we can do with you." ; Two weeks later, I have another knock on the door and it' ; s Bert. Bert is Ted' ; s cousin. He came back. " ; Luis, I got you a box. Ted sent you a box." ; And inside that box was the JAWS screen reader program. And that' ; s an external box and all the training cassettes I needed to learn a computer again. And he goes, " ; Here, Teddy sent you this. He says he' ; s very happy to be able to help." ; And then I started corresponding with Ted after that. I' ; d record microcassettes, you know, back in the day when you had the little teeny microcassette recorders, and I' ; d record back. So Bert came back. Bert happened to also be the director of the Panama Canal Company, the IT department in the Panama Canal Company, so he was way up there in the Panama Canal Authority. And he brought his engineers. They hooked up all my software and all the peripherals that my brother had left me, and they made that thing talk to me. And I had WordPerfect on there and Lotus and I learned and I taught myself how to use a computer. About six months later, I applied for a job with the military again and I was reinstated working for the 94th Signal Company as a telephone operator. I worked there six years until they closed the canal down and the United States closed all bases. And I had to come, of all places, I ended up in Georgia. One of my good friends, my supervisor, had moved to Georgia and he said, " ; Come on up here. I live over here in Warner Robins. There' ; s an air base here. Stay with me. You can see if you can get a job on the base. It will be a snap. You already worked for the Department of Defense. Hey, come on up." ; And I did. Me and my wife, we didn' ; t have any children, we sold a lot of stuff, boxed some other stuff, sent it in the mail, and we came up here in 1999 a couple of months before they shut down the canal. I lived in Warner Robins about a year and a half looking for work and I couldn' ; t find work. Lot of job interviews. I did start working for--I did start doing some contract work for the vocational rehab services, teaching people how to use computers--blind people how to use computers. And then one day my counselor says, you know, " ; Luis, there' ; s a little place down in Bainbridge, Georgia, and they hire people who are blind, but I don' ; t know if--with all this, you know, your background and your experience and your education, I don' ; t know if you want to do that." ; I said, " ; Yes, I do." ; I don' ; t care. I was ready to wash dishes. I was ready--but I didn' ; t care. I just wanted to be able to work and I wanted to have that feeling. And my wife, when we got here, she had to go to work because I didn' ; t have a job. I had Social Security, SSI. The first time I ever applied for, you know, for assistance from the government. And then you know, I went to get some food stamps and they gave me twenty-four dollars a month because my wife was not a citizen. So here I am living off of $500, off my savings, and trying to find a job, you know, barely getting... She had to go flip hamburgers at a mall. You know, we were very--what, 1992? Came up in 1999. 2000. We didn' ; t have any children. She was--we had difficulty having kids, and God and behold, here we are, me without a job and I' ; m sitting at home cooking and cleaning while she' ; s working and boom, she gets pregnant. Lord have mercy. And so--and she had a bad pregnancy, because my daughter attached in the wrong place and it was a high-risk pregnancy, so she had to quit her job, and here we' ; re thinking about what we' ; re going to do, and all of a sudden, the good Lord answered my prayer and said there' ; s a place down in Bainbridge, you want to go down there, and I said yes I do. So she wasn' ; t able to make that first trip with me. That was October of 2000, and I came down and I toured this plant here in Bainbridge. One of the things that struck me was the folks here. The folks were happy and excited, and I said, " ; You know what? If they can be happy here, why can' ; t I?" ; That was in October, November. On Thanksgiving Day, with a couple of volunteers from the Perry office, VR office, I was heading down south to Bainbridge, Georgia. Doesn' ; t that sound like a country music song? Heading down south on my--it' ; s so weird. I was in my little red pickup truck pulling a U-Haul. I had fifty dollars in my wallet. I said, " ; One day I' ; m going to write a country song about that, you know?" ; And then I started thinking, " ; Well, that red truck is a Nissan, it' ; s not a Chevy or a Ford," ; so there went my country song. But anyways, I ended up here in Bainbridge, Georgia, in this little town called Bainbridge and the rest is history. I came in here and I looked around and I saw this scene, the things that the blind people were going through and the things that I could--I could either complain about how bad things were or I could make a difference. And one of the things that I saw was that blind people would have to go home to get someone to read their mail or something. I went and told the director and I told him, " ; Hey, if you give me the tools, I can teach these folks how to use computers." ; Back then we only had two computers in this plant. And he goes, " ; You sure?" ; I go, " ; Yeah, that' ; s my background. I can teach these folks how the computer--" ; and he allowed me--he got the computers and he allowed me to set up the training module and all the training material, and I started training people, all blind people and sighted people how to use computers. So I trained over 126 people at this plant how to use JAWS and all that stuff. And ZoomText and sighted people how to maneuver through Windows and better do tasks, basic, simple tasks, the beginning tasks that they could later use their eyes to do on their own. A lot of those folks right now are supervisors. I have two supervisors I taught computers that are out there. A lot of my blind people that I did teach are either not here or either in some kind of upward position in an office. But I did that, and I thought to myself--I remember when Ted did that for me. He sent me that box of tools for me and he told me, " ; Luis, these are the tools that are going to open doors for you. As far as you take them, that' ; s up to you." ; And I always told my students the same story. I always tell them, " ; I' ; ll tell you what Ted told me: These are tools that will open doors for you and it' ; s up to you how far you want to take it." ; And just so people out there who don' ; t know what I' ; m talking about, Ted, I' ; m talking about Ted Henter. Ted Henter is the one who invented JAWS, the screen reader. Back when I met him, he was struggling--they were a struggling company. He had not gone to Windows. So when he sent me that software, he said, " ; Luis, I' ; m not rich but I think these are tools that will help you out." ; So I have a lot to be thankful to Ted and his cousin for what they did to me. I see Ted every July when I go down to the Zonian reunion. We have a reunion in Orlando where all the folks from Panama get together and I see him, and I always make sure I give him a hug, him and his wife, and make sure to let them know that I' ; m really thankful for what he did for me. He didn' ; t know who I was. I mean, he was a total stranger and so was his cousin, and he gave me that opportunity to be where I' ; m at today. So I did the learning center and I was working production and they allowed me to come to--to take a lot of classes with NIB, the National Industries for the Blind, had some leadership courses and some business management courses. I took all those and the next thing I know, I' ; m in a corporate office helping Ms. Betty do recruiting, public relations, recruiting. I did that for a while. And in 2015, I was awarded by National Industries of the Blind Milton Samuelson Career Achievement Award, which for me was a big thing, you know, that--I have awards on the wall, you know, that I' ; ve won throughout my years working for the military and when I was here at GIB, I was nominated for employee of the year here and there, about six times. I have been able to travel all over the United States because of that. But winning the actual national award was a big thing, because that not only told me that I was good but that those people like Ted Henter and my wife and other people that I met along the way, Professor Lopez at the center for adults who gave me the benefit of--you know, allowed me to do things, a lot of things in my training as a blind person that those people, you know, it was--those are the people that that award is for, not for me. So you know, one of the things that I always say is I am here because of people that have been able--that have given me that opportunity and have seen in me that I may have the potential to do something. I' ; m not the smartest or the best or the giftedest, but I always say if what I do can open doors for other people with a lot more talent and a lot more things, then that' ; s all I care. I will never be able to pay Teddy back for the things, Ted back for the things--I call him Teddy. But I' ; ll never be able to pay him back. You can make a check for a computer and for software, but for what he did for me--so what I do is I try to pay it forward in anything that I do. When the phone rings and someone is on the other line saying, " ; I' ; m trying to find a job, I' ; m blind," ; and you know, I sit there because I remember when I was that person on the other side of the line looking for that help. So I make sure I listen to them and I try to give them the best advice of how to handle that and where to go and who to talk to. At the end of the day, if GIB is one thing they want to do, that' ; s fine. So now I' ; m a director here at GIB, one of the directors. I' ; m a services director. I run the services department where I have a call center--two call centers. I' ; m over the warehouse side on Robins Air Force base. I' ; m always looking for new contracts where I can bring talented blind people in to do services or work on the plant. So I' ; ve had a very long and interesting double-triple life. I had to invent myself a couple--reinvent yourself. But that' ; s the thing about being blind. You know, I tell people blindness--the way I view that is that--and I tell people, you know, " ; Use your strength to leverage your challenges to your greatest asset," ; and to me my--blindness was my challenge, but it' ; s also my greatest asset, because if it wasn' ; t for my blindness I would not be where I' ; m at today. I would not be able to travel all over the country and represent GIB and represent NIB, meet all those legislators and all those things I do when I deal with public policy and go to Washington, DC, travel all over the country to talk about GIB, talk about NIB, talk about opportunities and just talking about in general about things that people who are blind who think that I went blind or I won' ; t be able to do anything else. That' ; s not true. There' ; s--I tell people, " ; Open the door and look outside. That all belongs to you. It' ; s just a matter of you wanting it bad enough and going get it. Just like Ted told me, here' ; s your tools. How far do you want to take it?" ; And so for me, my blindness is my greatest asset. Just two things, I like to run my mouth. If you all can tell I haven' ; t shut up yet. I like to run my mouth. And my weakness is mobility. As I' ; ve gotten older, mobility has not been, you know--you don' ; t get around too much here in Bainbridge. There' ; s no sidewalks. You kind of depend on people. So running my mouth and traveling has always been beneficial, because you get to meet people. " ; Sir, do you need some help?" ; " ; Sure," ; and then you get to make a friend, because that person helping you, you can talk to them and they' ; re going to go help somebody else. Next time they see another blind person, you know, " ; I remember I met Luis." ; And I' ; ve made a lot of friends like that on planes and at airports and all places because it' ; s all about networking. But that' ; s kind of like my story of my blindness and my experience. I always tell people I am... I am the end result of the vocational rehab system here in Georgia. I know there' ; s a lot of people who have had challenges with them. But for me, my experience with them, from when I got here in 1999 to where I' ; m at here in 2018, when I got here in ' ; 99, when I moved down to Bainbridge, I just had a couple of dollars in my wallet and they started me out with paying for my house and utilities and stuff like that to where I' ; m at today as a director. It' ; s because of those folks at VR who had a passion and for what they do and saw in me someone that they could--they were willing to give their Thanksgiving to bring me down here and my family and my wife, you know, so that I had the opportunity to bring in a check. My first check I remember was for a couple of days. It was like for twenty-four bucks and that was like one of those happy days of your life because you' ; re finally making a paycheck again. So for me that was--that was a very emotional day. A lot of emotional days in my life. VANSTONE: Yes, a lot. And I want to thank you for sharing your fascinating story. I think it' ; s a great lesson on paying it forward and helping others. NARIMATSU: Thank you so much, Catherine. VANSTONE: 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-015.xml RBRL451GLASS-015.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Bainbridge, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
26 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 Luis Narimatsu, December 14, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-015
Creator
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Luis Narimatsu
Catherine Vanstone
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
Latinos with disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Latinos
Description
An account of the resource
Luis Narimatsu was born in the Panama Canal Zone. He began losing his vision in college as a symptom of glaucoma. After his diagnosis, Narimatsu eventually found work in the 94th Signal Company as a telephone operator. Afterward, Naritmatsu moved to Bainbridge Georgia to work in Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB), where he is presently the Services Director. In this interview, Narimatsu talks about the challenges he faced after his initial glaucoma diagnosis, the change of career paths as a result of losing his sight, and learning to use computers with his disability, eventually working in a role with (GIB) where he teaches others. Narimatsu talks about how his visual impairment has enhanced his life and career satisfaction in that it allows him to help people with similar disabilities.
Date
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2018-12-14
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Panama Canal Zone
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
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
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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
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-016/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 Robert Woodward, December 10, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-016 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 Robert Woodward Catherine Vanstone oral history 1:|13(10)|22(8)|31(9)|38(9)|46(3)|53(5)|62(4)|76(3)|85(11)|92(18)|102(13)|110(5)|118(1)|128(7)|139(2)|147(2)|161(12)|171(5)|179(12)|188(8)|198(4)|205(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_4ydt21u4& ; 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_lbndifs4" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 25 Switching career plans I grew up here in Decatur County... Woodward talks about how he lost eyesight in his right eye after a water-skiing accident, which caused him to cancel his plans of becoming a jet pilot in the U.S. Air Force. Woodward explains that after being diagnosed with a detached retina, he would eventually lose his sight in his left eye. After his Air Force plans were no longer possible, as a result, Woodward applied and was accepted into Georgia Tech as an intended aeronautical engineering major. Air Force ; Decatur County ; Georgia Tech ; Lake Seminole ; Mexico Beach 17 281 Finishing school / Working as an ambulance inspector At ABAC, I meta young lady who eventually became my wife. Woodward explains that he eventually left Georgia Tech after he decided he did not want to become an aeronautical engineer, though he eventually came back to attend school at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC). Woodward recalls that after many major switches, he eventually came to major in environmental health at the University of Georgia. Woodward explains that he began working as a health inspector for Dalton, Georgia in Whitfield County before he eventually was certified as an ambulance inspector for all of northwest Georgia. Woodward explains that he came to work in Gwinnett County as the overseer of the county's food services. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) ; Atlanta ; Dalton, Georgia ; Whitfield County 17 538 Jobs in northeast Georgia / Losing sight in left eye I went to work for the state... Woodward talks about how eventually came to work in Gwinnett County as a health inspector in the food service programs for the rapidly growing county, while also working as an EMT specialists for northeast Georgia. Woodward explains that he retired once the vision in the left eye was severely diminished as a result of retinal detachment. Woodward explains that the Talking Books program offered through the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) helped him to deal with his eyesight loss. He mentions that his sight was eventually restored in his left eye enough to be able to read large print. Bainbridge, Georgia ; Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta ; GLASS ; retinal detachment 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 852 Talking Books program / Georgia Institute for the Blind At that time I started walking from Faceville to Bainbridge... Wood ward explains that after the partial restoration of sight in his left eye from surgery, he would often visit a library in Bainbridge, Georgia which offered large print text. Woodward recalls that he would often walk the fifteen miles to the library from Faceville, Georgia before he eventually got his driver's licence back due to his sight restoration. Woodward explains that the large print program of GLASS helped him to deal with his loss of sight and that he does not want the GLASS program to move to Atlanta, and that he has fought for the GLASS program to stay in Bainbridge, Georgia. Woodward explains that he eventually came to work at Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB), a company with the mission of providing employment opportunities for people with sight disabilities throughout Georgia. Woodward explains that all of his previous education allowed him to work positions throughout the Georgia Industries for the Blind. Atlanta ; Blind Federation ; Georgia Council for the Blind ; Georgia Institute for the Blind ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency ; University of Virginia 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 1207 Hobbies and interests Do you have any other hobbies or outside interest outside of reading? Woodward talks about his hobby of animal rescue and rehabilitation, which he does at his non-profit, Woody's Gopher Hole Farm. He explains that while being on the Board of Directors for the Humane Society, he also took care of goats, cows, donkeys, emus, horses, and llamas. Woodward also mentions volunteering once a week at the Saint Francis Wildlife Sanctuary in Tallahassee. Humane Society ; Saint Francis Wildlife Sanctuary ; Woody's Gopher Hole Farm 17 English VANSTONE: Hello, my name is Catherine Vanstone, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Robert Woodward for Our Stores, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 10, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Decatur County Gilbert H. Gragg Library in Bainbridge, Georgia. So, Robert, what is your story? WOODWARD: I grew up here in Decatur County, born in Bainbridge, and then spent the first five years of my life in Mexico Beach. Then we moved back to Bainbridge. As the year of my graduation approached, 1969, it was the middle of the Vietnam War, and that' ; s when my blind story starts. I had plans. I had been appointed by Maston O' ; Neal, our congressman at the time, to the Air Force Academy and my plans were to become a jet pilot and go to Vietnam and kill communists. God had other plans for me. The week before I graduated from high school, I was involved in a water-skiing accident out on Lake Seminole and consequently lost the sight in my right eye. I didn' ; t realize it at the time, but the week after graduation is when I went to the eye doctor because I thought I needed my glasses changed, and he said I had a detached retina and that I needed surgery immediately and at the time there was only three places in the country that could do the surgery: One was Emory, one was MIT, and one was a medical school in California. So my parents chose Emory, of course. (laughing) This was on like, a Thursday. They operated on Tuesday. They were not able to save my right eye, so I was blind in that right eye. They told me that I would eventually lose my sight in my left eye, but they didn' ; t know when. The Air Force does not accept half-blind jet fighter pilots. (laughing) So my scholarship to the Air Force Academy was gone. I decided that since I couldn' ; t fly, that I could build them though. So I consequently--I hadn' ; t applied to any other schools at the time, but I applied and was accepted at Georgia Tech. I was the, I guess you would say, " ; valedictorian" ; here at Bainbridge High School. I received an [award] for the most outstanding student. I thought my future was planned, going to the Air Force Academy, but then everything got disrupted. After a year at Georgia Tech, I decided that I did not want to be an aeronautical engineer, but I didn' ; t know what I wanted to be. I came home and I had become a hippie by that time. And my father convinced me that if I would cut my hair and go back to college, that he' ; d buy me a new car. And so I took him up on the offer and I went to ABAC [Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College]. At ABAC, I met a young lady who eventually became my wife. And I kept trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I first majored in forestry. I switched to library science. I switched to social science education and then history, and I was almost graduating by then from the University of Georgia with a degree in social science education. But my girlfriend at the time was planning to stay in Athens and work on her master' ; s degree. So I said oh, " ; I can' ; t leave Athens," ; so I changed majors again. But going back, because of my blindness I was able to go to college on a Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation scholarship. They paid my tuition and they bought my books and supplies. I did part-time jobs to pay the rest, because my family could not afford it. So that was part of the reason I kept going to school, because I didn' ; t know what I wanted to do. And then from being [an] avid American wanting to fight communists, I had become very much an environmentalist. And so I changed my degree to environmental health. And I was--by that time, I had more creditable hours than any student who had not graduated at the University of Georgia. My degree required 195 hours and I had 315. (laughing) I was sitting on the steps of the microbiology building one afternoon and my major professor, Dr. White, was walking up the steps and said he wanted to see me after class that afternoon. And I said, " ; Yes sir, we need to talk about what I' ; m going to take next quarter." ; And he said, " ; Okay, but you' ; ll understand more when you come in this afternoon." ; I found out that afternoon that he had already signed my papers that I had graduated. (laughing) He said that I was educated enough. He also introduced me to a man who worked for the Georgia Department of Public Health, and he wanted to talk to me about going to work as a health inspector up in Whitfield County, Dalton, Georgia. And I said, " ; Sure. I' ; ll talk to you about it. I' ; m not sure what I want to do." ; Well, this was in the early part of December 1975, and I went to see the man, thinking it was an interview for a job, and he showed me where my office was and asked me when I could start. So I never had an interview. I did not " ; officially plan to graduate from the University of Georgia." ; They just mailed me my diploma. (laughing) But I graduated. I went to work for the state, and the state decided after about a year that I needed more education, so they sent me back to school and I became a certified emergency medical technician. What it was, was they needed an ambulance inspector. So after a year of school--I was still working for the state while going to school--I became the ambulance inspector for all of Northwest Georgia, from Atlanta north to Chattanooga and west. A few years later, I decided to quit the state and move back home and I did. And I went in to work in construction and started building houses here in Bainbridge. After a couple of years, that same man that I met at the university called me one day and said he needed me back and that there was a county in Atlanta called Gwinnett that was, at the time, the most rapidly growing county in the United States and they had a food service program that was deplorable and he needed help. I said, " ; Okay, I' ; ll be there." ; I went and became head of that operation, but then the state also knew of my EMT experience, so they put me in charge of all of Northeast Georgia ambulance inspections, from Atlanta, all of Atlanta, east to Augusta and down to Savannah. So I worked as a health inspector in Gwinnett County for three days a week, and then I covered all of Northeast Georgia for two days a week checking ambulance services. In the late ' ; 80s, the vision in my left eye had started to deteriorate. And driving in Atlanta, one eye to start with and then with a diminishing left eye, can be quite dangerous and I decided that I needed to quit. I retired from the state in ' ; 93 with a medical disability because of my eyes. My vision decreased, and I finally went to an ophthalmologist surgeon in Tallahassee and he diagnosed that my left eye had then become detached. My vision was down to--I could tell light from dark. I shouldn' ; t have been driving, period, but I continued to do so. But he convinced me that I needed to stop, that that was the end of it. They operated again and saved what vision I had left in my left eye. I moved back to Faceville and that' ; s where I became acquainted with the GLASS program. I' ; ve always been an avid reader. That was the only thing that kept me sane during those first months when I couldn' ; t work, I couldn' ; t do anything else. So I started doing the Talking Books program thing, but I found that they just put me to sleep. I can' ; t just sit and listen to something without some visual input. Through several operations, through doctors at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta and a doctor in Panama City, they were able to restore the vision in my left eye enough that I can read large print. At that time, I started walking from Faceville to Bainbridge, which is close to fifteen miles, and I would come to the library and I would check out two or three books and I would go by a local establishment here in Bainbridge and drink a beer and then I would walk back to Faceville. And that was my weekly routine. I had a friend who would bring me to town on Saturdays and we could get groceries. But I got my driver' ; s license back. The library has been a salvation to my sanity. As Catherine knows, I am a frequent visitor, at least once, twice a week. I try not to take too many books, because somebody else may be needing to read them also. So usually I limit it to two, unless it' ; s a holiday weekend and I know I won' ; t make it all weekend with just two books. So I' ; ll go to three. And that' ; s my story. The large print program has been a lifesaver to me. I' ; ve been able to financially help that program. And it means so much that I do not want this library GLASS program to close and move to Atlanta. And I have fought in many ways, both statewide through the Blind Federation and the Georgia Council for the Blind and GVRA and the library system, advocating to keep this library open. Thank you. (laughing) VANSTONE: Thank you. WOODWARD: If you want to ask anything else, that' ; s it. VANSTONE: So I do have one other question, though your story is fascinating. When you did get your license back, did you start working again or--? WOODWARD: Oh yeah, I forgot that part of the story. (laughing) Actually, before I got my license back a friend who is blind was telling me that he worked at the Georgia Industries for the Blind, GIB, here in Bainbridge. And he says, " ; With your education, we need you." ; And I thought about it and I was bored at the time and I said, " ; Okay." ; So I applied, and of course they accepted me, because that' ; s the mission of GIB: to provide employment opportunities for any blind person. I went to work as a standard production worker. Two years later, I had moved from several different jobs. There' ; s different jobs within GIB production-wise and I had mastered, I guess, all of them. The only thing I can' ; t do is sew. I am not good at the seamstress job. But then I became a production supervisor, and when I retired two years ago now I was production manager. GIB had--and GVRA had helped me again go back to school and get my master' ; s degree in business administration. So again, I was thankful for the state for educational assistance. I did this at the University of Virginia, which involved flying to Washington. It was a correspondence-type deal, but I flew to Washington for a week every six weeks, and I did that for two years and the state of Georgia paid for all of these expenses. So I was obligated to them again for an additional degree. (laughing) So all of my degrees from Georgia, my EMT schooling, and University of Virginia have been helped by GVRA in one form or another. The program has been renamed several times as the state reorganizes. We' ; ve been the Department of Public Health, then we' ; ve become Vocational Rehab. GIB was once part of the Department of Labor. And now we' ; re back with the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. So that' ; s the last part of that. (laughing) VANSTONE: So is reading about the only--do you have any other hobbies or outside interests outside of reading? WOODWARD: Other than animal rehabilitation. I started a non-profit little farm called Woody' ; s Gopher Hole Farm and I rescue gophers, tortoises. There' ; s about 50 that live on my farm. But then I branched into other animals, all domestic animals. I' ; m on the board of directors of the Humane Society and animals that the Humane Society accepts are dogs and cats. They don' ; t know what to do with rabbits and pigs or donkeys or horses that have been mistreated. Sometimes even a cow, goats that somebody has escaped and is bothering some neighbor. So I started taking in these. And I' ; ve had--I have had up to like, fifty animals. I' ; m now down to about twenty, but there' ; s still goats, llamas, an emu, more goats because they keep having baby goats, and donkeys. Donkeys have become a problem for people and they just abandon them. I' ; ve taken in horses from the Humane Society in Tallahassee. Then they would find them a home later, but that' ; s my passion is from my environmental sentiments and recycling and so forth, now to animal rescue. I also work with Saint Francis Wildlife Sanctuary in Tallahassee. I volunteer down there one day a week, so another passion is animal cruelty and preventing it and rescue. (laughing) VANSTONE: Well, I' ; m glad you' ; re there to help them. Well, I want to thank you, Woody, for coming in and sharing your fascinating story and your many degrees with us. (laughing) So thanks, Woody. WOODWARD: 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-016.xml RBRL451GLASS-016.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Bainbridge, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
23 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 Robert Woodward, December 10, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-016
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robert Woodward
Catherine Vanstone
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
Environmental health
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Nonprofit organizations
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Woodward grew up in Decatur County, Georgia. He worked in a variety of jobs, including as an ambulance inspector, food services inspector, and as an employee of Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB). After retirement, Woordward opened his own animal rehabilitation farm called Woody’s Gophers, and he also serves on the board of directors for the Humane Society. Woodward talks about his career and the impact that his partial blindness has had throughout his life. He talks about the ways in which he managed to cope with his disability by using assistive technology, such as large print text books and talking books.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-10
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