Blind Date

Post Summary

Little boy sees TV movie where a guy spends a day blind-folded.

He longs to do something similar.

One day he does.

After doing so, he realizes that being blind isn't all it's cracked up to be.

-----------------

The little boy sat in the front seat of the Ford LTD station wagon, staring at the unusual-looking pedestrian crossing the street in front of the car.

"Mommy, why is that man tapping a stick?"

"He's blind, honey," his mother answered.  "He's a blind man."

"What's 'blind'?"

"Well, he can't see," she said.  "Do you know what it's like when the lights are turned out in your room at night?  That's what it's like for him."

"I feel sad for the man."

"Yes," she continued, "but blind people have their other senses heightened."

Little Mark wore a puzzled look.

"He can hear better than we can.  To make up for the blindness."

"That's good", concluded the little boy.

>O<

After walking home from school, 10-year-old Mark came through the front door, took a right into his bedroom just far enough to toss his backpack onto the bed, and then returned to the living room where he snapped on the television.

He listened as he ran into the kitchen to grab something to snack on.

"The ABC Afterschool Special presents: Blind Sunday" said the television.

This episode was one that he would never forget.

A high schooler meets a pretty girl at the swimming pool.

She's blind.

He's intrigued by her independent ways, and they become friends.

Wanting to know what her world is like, he agrees to her suggestion that they go on a date in which she'll show him around their town.

He will be blind himself, his eyes bandaged shut and covered by dark sunglasses.

During the day he sees firsthand the prejudice and discrimination that she faces constantly.  At a carnival, the operator of a ferris wheel refuses them admission.  "Safety issues", he says.

They walk, they take the bus, they have lunch.

He's like a fish out of water, suddenly in the dark, but she confidently guides him about, and they have a really good day together.

In the late afternoon, they sit in a park on grassy slope.  She invites him to remove the bandages.

His eyes open for the first time in hours, he gushes out loud about the beauty of the park, the colors, the brightness, the--

Suddenly he catches himself and stops.  He apologizes to his friend, who he realizes cannot and will not ever see what he's seeing.

She smiles and says it's okay.  To break the awkward silence, she asks him to describe a wildflower that she's touching with her fingers.

He describes the flower, a daffodil, as being "beautiful", just as she is.

Mark thought that it would be so much fun to have a Blind Sunday of his own.  Mainly so that he could experience the same new-found appreciation for sight as did the boy in the television show.

>O<

As the years passed, through middle school and on through high school, he thought about being temporarily blind on occasion.

Walking home from Hayward High he found that the 30 minutes seemed like just 5 if he "walked blind".

This odd technique involved walking down a straight sidewalk with the eyes closed, and then only "blinking" them open for an instant every 4 or 5 steps.  Then with eyes closed again, one simply walks along the "after image" of the sidewalk, still imprinted, seemingly on the back of the eyelids.

Of course, this was really nothing like the television program that moved him so much.

>O<

Who could accompany him on a day of blindness?

He'd rather it not be another guy, since he reckoned on having to touch and clutch his guide throughout the day.

He was really awkward with girls, but a girl would be a logical choice.

What girl could he get to take him?

Years passed...

>O<

They were already dating. 

Her name was Anne.

He trusted her.

She was willing.

"Blind Day", as they called it, was on.

She picked him up by taking the bus and trolley from Pacific Beach to his apartment in La Mesa.

He answered the door wearing sunglasses over the white gauze pads he had taped over his eyes early in the morning.

Vision was now absent for Mark.

Holding his hand, she guided him down the steps and out to the sidewalk.

Not that he needed much guidance, since he should have had those steps memorized by now after years of ascending and descending them.

Walking down the sidewalk toward the trolley he asked her to let go for a moment, to see if he could keep a straight line.

He could not.

Without his sight, Mark continually veered off toward the left.

Down at the La Mesa Depot trolley station, she purchased their tickets from the machine, and they commenced to waiting.

Attracted by the sound of the nearby fountain, he headed in that direction.  He asked that she tell him when he was just at the edge, but no further.

She agreed, but with a smile that he was unable to detect in her voice.

The sound of water and a wet feeling at the toe of his canvas shoe alerted him to the fact that he'd been duped.  She laughed out loud, good-naturedly, and apologized.  Then laughed again.

Then she called him over, and he slowly walked towards her voice.  She guided him, with "a little to the left" and "okay, go straight" and then when his face made contact with the specific lamp post that she'd had in mind, she laughed again.

It was harmless since he'd been traveling at a slow speed, and the impact was minor.

Thus ended her mischevious experimentation with "misleading the blind".

They took the trolley downtown and he listened to the familiar sounds that the trolley makes.

A bus then took them up Park to the zoo, and there they enjoyed the animals.  She by sight and sound.  He by sound and smell and descriptive words from his partner Anne.

There were several bronze gorilla sculptures, two of which were by the entrance, which he enjoyed touching and feeling.

Using the restroom was not the major problem that he'd expected it to be.

Planning ahead, he'd vowed that he'd simply ask another man to point out where the urinals were.  It didn't prove to be necessary, however.  Using his hands and knees he was able to find the sinks and then a urinal.

After a morning at the zoo, they were ready to see more.  Mark especially.

>O<

Lunch at a fast food restaurant was delicious.  Juicy hamburger and fries.  The smell and taste - the important features of such things - were present and fully satisfying.

>O<

The afternoon found them at Mission Bay's Belmont Park and the Giant Dipper rollercoaster.

Without the thrill of being able to see how high and steep the car had climbed, the ride was slightly lacking.  Kind of fun the way it dropped and tickled the tummy, but also very annoying in the way that it unpredictably jarred and shook him from side to side.

Walking from the great white wooden rollercoaster, Anne led Mark to the edge of the beach, and they strolled for while.

Suddenly she stopped.

"Oh!  There are some dolphin out there!"

She described to him five or six dolphin, jumping out of the water as they made their way north, just several hundred yards offshore.

"At first I saw these people on the beach pointing, and then I saw them," Anne continued.

"Woah, cool," said Mark.  "I've never seen dolphin in the wild before."

"Do you want to take the bandages off?"

"Mmmm.... no.  I'll keep them on."

"Are you sure?  It's late in the day now.  Wanna see?"

"No," he said.

He had a picture in his mind, rendered from memories of photographs and seeing the dolphins at Sea World.  It was enough.  In fact, it was a "scene" he'd never forget in the years to come.  He saw it in his mind very vividly, though slightly colorless and gray and damp and cold.

Having that mental image was a privilege and advantage over anyone who had been born blind, and would never be able to conjure such.

>O<

It was very late in the afternoon when she dropped Mark off at his apartment.  She didn't stay of course, but got back on the trolley to head home to Pacific Beach.

He'd chosen not to try and recreate the ending to the ABC After School Special "Blind Sunday".

No sitting on a grass slope and then gushing about how beautiful it was to see things.

He left the bandages on and listened to his CDs and the radio and ate something from the cupboard.

When it was time to retire he got in bed and pulled the bandages away from his eyes.

The room, though dark, was seemingly full of light, that of the streetlamps outside streaming past the edges of the curtains.

It had been a tiring day and he looked forward to enjoying his full vision again in the morning.

>O<

Many years later he heard that the myth of blind people having "heightened senses" other than vision was now being debunked.

When you're singing a song in the bathroom, and then walk into the closet, you may scarcely notice the sudden absense of echo.  If you were blind, however, it would be more glaring.

Being blind is really something to be avoided if at all possible.

And the restoration of sight to a blind person...  priceless.