Why Does a Blind Man Visit the Grand Canyon?

Why does a blind man visit the Grand Canyon?

To hear the sights of course.

I recently signed up for a tour from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon and to my delight it included non-stop narration over the 6 hour trek to the big abyss. Picked up some useful information and some pretty good food along the way (though I did not try the cactus fries).

Becoming the 48th state in 1912, most of Arizona’s land remains unspoiled; you pass through the desert dotted with cactus and head north through forests of pine, fir, and spruce trees. Large swaths of undeveloped land belong to many Native American tribes including the Navajo Nation. I was impressed to find that so much of Arizona’s reservation land remains casino free – unlike so many reservation hosted casinos around the country that give new meaning to “pay back.”

On our way to the canyon, we stopped in Sedona – a funky little town with metaphysical shops, talismans, vortexes, and celebrity vacation homes – a sort of Key West of the desert.

I’ll attempt to shrink the Grand Canyon’s long history into a short sentence: The Colorado River is a chisel that carved out the Grand Canyon over the past 6 million years, steadily cutting layer after layer of sediment into a channel that is 277 miles long, ranging in width from 4 to 18 miles with a vertical depth of more than 1 mile.

The outcome is a splendid example of erosion. The immense gorge is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is visible from outer space, and boasts 5 million visitors annually. It is a wilderness of rock, light and shadow.

Bottom line: I didn’t see much.

I couldn’t see the massive wingspan of the condor, nor glimpse deer, elk, mountain lion, raven or antelope, nor any of the 2,000 varieties of plants that populate the canyon. And, of course, I missed seeing the depths below.

However, though the sights were vast, so were the sounds. I cottoned to the many languages I continuously heard floating in the air within 5 feet around me – a mashup of accents from foreign countries like Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Russia and Kansas.

I visited the eastern and southern parts of the South Rim of the canyon. The soft cool wind kept surrounding me like a garment as I moved from point to point, wearing the breeze like a linen jacket at the Desert View Watchtower and then like a spooky cape at Yaki Point. I intoned a sublime meditation at Yaki as the environs took over my body and brain.

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I loved the blustering gusts at Mather Point even though I missed the sunset doing its slow dance with the vast cavern. I missed the sunrise too because I was asleep back in my hotel room.

Many visitors asked me if I felt anything awesome. I know they wanted the blind man to sense something grand. I did not want to disappoint them, so I channeled some down home Native American ideals I had just learned and waxed on about an “expansive spiritual space governed by Mother Earth and Father Sky and how we must work not ‘off’ the earth but ‘with’ the earth and how we must govern our behavior in a deep sort of way by asking how what we do to the land today will impact seven generations from now.” Some folks were mystified with my answer. So was I.

I felt a little bit like Kokopelli, the mythical formidable story teller and prankster who wanders around the Southwestern states playing his flute. (In full disclosure, while visiting a Navajo reservation I did buy a flute made of handcrafted birch wood, which sounds pretty nice.)

A friend looking at some of the pictures my girlfriend posted on Facebook said, “Holy c--p! Don’t look down.” I did look down but didn’t see anything. I’ll try again tomorrow.

And that’s just it – many nights after I crawl into bed, I wonder if I’ll wake up in the morning being able to see. And if that should happen, I plan on racing back to the Grand Canyon, though I might just shut my eyes when I get there.

Steve Gladstone The Blind Dude

All photos and video by Aida Zuniga

Retrievability

all photos courtesy of George Schiavone The sighted world does not put stuff back where they found it. Something placed just a couple of inches away from its designated spot can send a blind person on a sometimes endless wild goose chase to find it.

 The Toothpaste

Your toothpaste put down by your sighted wife a foot away from its usual spot just to the right of the sink, can be annoying, and if placed on the other side of the sink, grounds for divorce. I recall once picking up the toothpaste in its correct spot, twisting off the cap, squeezing a dollop of paste onto my tongue, and brushing with abandon. Within seconds my tongue and lips were numb, the understandable result of brushing my teeth with my wife’s diaphragm jelly.

The Housekeeper and the Spray Cleaner.

Housekeepers can be really difficult because the blind person assumes the HK automatically understands the importance of putting stuff back. And if not, surely once you point out the importance of doing so, they get it. But sometimes they don’t.

I had a HK who wouldn’t put my spray cleaner back in its place all the way to the left under the kitchen sink – possibly the easiest spot for a retrievably impaired sightling to remember. After the third time addressing her baffling behavior, I asked her why she wouldn’t put the cleaner back in the same place. She apologized again, but this time also asked: “Why do you need it?” Once my brain cooled down from almost bursting into flames, I asked her what happens if my dog vomits, or I spill something nasty on my counter, or have to clean the singed hair off the top of my head after combusting from being asked a really dumb question? I can’t report with certainty if the deer –in-the-headlights look was on her face, but the long pause before she spoke again suggested that she was beaming with that special look.

Solution

After the fourth time my spray cleaner was missing, I bought a second bottle and hid it in my second bedroom closet. It’s always there, steadfast and ready for action.

I’m no longer married and that particular housekeeper no longer works for me. I can’t say it is just because they didn’t put stuff back, but there is certainly something missing in my life for which I am most grateful.

Practitioners of Retrievability

My two children are naturals at “retrievability” (a term coined by my buddy George) – putting things back in their specific spot so you can retrieve them easily with no angst or drama. Maybe that’s the key – train ‘em when they’re young. Unfortunately, blind parents aren’t in the majority, so there are only a few thousand adults, who were once children of blind parents, who practice this time honored tradition of putting stuff back.

I do notice that I do not constantly search for my keys and my cell phone like most of my sighted friends do. One of my pals actually puts his keys in my refrigerator when he comes over to visit. He is a practitioner of retrievability.

For blind folks, retrievability is survival; for sightlings, it’s a good idea.

Another equally troublesome behavior is when someone brings something to you and says, “I’m putting it on the table.” A table’s a big place. “I’m putting the candy on the corner beside the fruit bowl,” is much better. Or when you ask where something is and you’re told, “It’s right there.” “There” means nothing to a blind dude.

I once thought that these curious behaviors were compliments to me because the sightling forgot I was blind and was treating me like a sighted person. I realized I was mistaken when my dog recently threw up on my hall carpet and I hopped over to the cabinet below the kitchen sink and once again reached down into that empty void where the spray cleaner belonged.

My kids get agitated with me because I ask them after the fact if they put things away, turned off the lights and cleaned up their mess. But they are all forgiving as they know of my ongoing struggle with the sightlings of the world who put stuff down randomly, carelessly, arbitrarily, haphazardly, passive aggressively, aimlessly, casually, indiscriminately, indifferently, thoughtlessly, unintentionally, inadvertently, erratically, insensitively, or inconsiderately.

And so my daughter said, “Everything is clean, the trash is in the trash, and all the lights are out,” as she left my house last night. Ah!...a moment in Utopia.

My Minnie Vacation

Thank you Thespis! I closed Three Sisters after 30 performances and was hired straight away to play King Silvio in another fantastical iteration of The Love of Three Oranges, an updated 18th Century Italian fairy tale. The number “3” has been good to me lately. A little R&R was in order before beginning rehearsals for Oranges, so it was off to Disney.

Even worse than the broken desk chair, the broken refrigerator, and the broken shower door in my hotel room, was the one bar of soap on the little glass shelf along with the hand cream, shampoo and conditioner. (I’m reminded of the time when I washed my hair with hand cream!) Of course I forgot to ask for another bar of soap and the next morning I had to take the little piece of sink soap into the shower. Then later when I needed to wash the toothpaste off my hands, I had to hop back into the shower to retrieve it. Anyway, I got everything fixed and the maid loaded me up with extra bars of soap – compensation for my troubles. The good news is now I won’t have to buy any soap for my bathroom at home for about 6 months.

First off was Fantasyland. Part of the fantasy is not standing in line. However, I may have to drop that from my “Advantages of Being Blind” list. During this round of Disney, the traditional bump to the front of the line was met by the ADA police. I was informed that: “This ride is ADA compliant.” This was code for “all you disabled customers now have the same privilege to stand in line for 95 minutes to ride for five just like the rest of the schmoes.” Of course the stop-starting when you can’t see, the more than 27 toes you step on during that winding line maneuver, notwithstanding the burden for your companion who must diligently watch you and coach you to start and stop 197 times as you inch forward, isn’t considered an ‘undue hardship’ on the blind dude. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if most of the big round eared Crime Squad didn’t have a seemingly gleeful tone in their voice when delivering the news to join the rest of the sheep in line. It’s always a bit of a shocker when Disney employees behave like the normal rest of the world. Still I love the Mouse.

After visiting EPCOT and connecting with Figment, eating several chocolate covered frozen bananas, and riding through the Maelstrom and purchasing a new troll to add to my excellent collection of supernatural beings, I was off to Hollywood Studios. While at Guest Services there, I was offered a descriptive audio device which automagically described some of the action inside the rides. For example, during Pirates of the Caribbean, instead of just hearing a clunk on a table, a descriptive character voice told me that “Jack Sparrow raises his mug of rum, drinks it, and puts it down on the table.” Nice! Years ago I only heard a machine gun rattle, roaring propellers and felt the heat from a sudden burst of a fireball during the finale of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. This time through my little device with headphones, I learned that “Indiana Jones was trying to rescue his partner Marion, who was shooting at the bad guys with a machine gun from the cockpit of a plane that was spinning out of control, while flames were racing toward the plane from an ignited gasoline tanker which exploded just as Jones and Marion leap to safety.” Über-cool.

Now we just have to train all the employees at The World to offer these handy-dandy devices. No one offered me the audio description machines at The Magic Kingdom nor at EPCOT. (Perhaps the very thorough ADA Crime Squad trainers need to be recruited to train the customer service reps at all the parks.) These nifty headsets will be on my list for Santa next go-round.

Now off to another magical land – Lugubria – and the search for three oranges.

The Airport

The Airport

The airport for blind folks presents a unique environment of inconsistencies and some people who take themselves way too seriously. The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport offers some fine examples.

Seeing Eye Dogs

The curb-side sign outside the FLL Airport reads: “No Pets Allowed Except Seeing Eye Dogs.” This sign begs some clarification of terms. All dogs trained to assist blind folks are not “Seeing Eye” dogs, like all tissue is not “Kleenex” and all soda is not “Coke.” The correct generic is “Guide Dog.” So when people ask me if my dog Billy is a seeing eye dog, I get cranky and resort to education. To be fair, New Jersey based The Seeing Eye was the first school in America (1929) to train dogs to help blind people navigate the obstacles they face every day while moving around their neighborhoods. There are now a dozen or so schools producing guide dogs, Billy being Florida-trained. This airport sign demonstrates the depth of unawareness for the right term even in the chain of command at an international level. The situation was about to be remedied when the check in guy asked me if I got my dog in Jersey. I offered to buy him a Coke.

Maintaining Visual Contact

I cannot maintain visual contact with my personal belongings. In the past 6 weeks I’ve been to New York, L. A. and Nicaragua. While waiting for my flights, I heard the recurring announcement to “please maintain visual contact with your personal belongings at all times.” I considered turning Billy to face and stare at my carry on suitcase but that cliché was even too much for me.

The Shoe-Nazi

I always get my ticket at curb side and take an escort to the gate. It’s clean and efficient with the only obstacle being that one in ten shoe-Nazi who insists on me removing my shoes. Just to be clear, since they always pat me down anyway, why take them off? They can swipe my footwear with a chemical and analyze it with their goggles and science kit. On my latest trip to L. A., I got that thug that behaved like Cerberus at the gates of Hades, growling at me to take off my shoes. After removing them and walking through the scanning arch, he said, “You can’t see without your dog, right?” I said, “I can’t even see with him.” Whoosh—flutter! I could hear his ears flapping as the comment zoomed past his head. He patted me down like the nefarious guy I was and I was off down the corridor once again.

The Dictator-In-Waiting

When I was sighted half my life ago, we always got our tickets at the front desk. Now checking in at curb-side as a blind dude, I missed the part when the technology changed to the friendly kiosk where you print your own ticket. On our way to New York for my son’s college graduation a couple of weeks ago, my daughter grabbed my credit card and printed our tickets to LaGuardia. Cool. When we arrived at the gate, the attendant asked for Billy’s papers. Papers? What papers? He indicated that I needed to produce “proof that he was a seeing eye dog” (snicker snicker) along with a history of his vaccinations and current blood line. The dictator-in-waiting also informed me that Billy should be wearing his certified vest. I asked dictator-in-waiting why he wasn’t wearing his certified jacket. “What jacket?” he asked. “The white straight one,” I mumbled. Whoosh—flutter! I explained that I travel a lot and have never been asked for my dog’s complete record at any airport. He said that I could not board the aircraft without it and I dropped the guy to the mat in a full nelson in my imagination. Then he noticed the service animal box wasn’t marked on my ticket during the kiosk check-in maneuver. I figured out the curb-side folks must always have check marked that box for me. My daughter was upset that I took the gate guy to task.  I think she thought he was cute.

A Cautionary Tale

When you’re blind, be careful when the guy sitting next to you on the airplane is being rude, ignoring your questions or not returning the obligatory ‘thank you’ to your ‘god bless you’ when he sneezes. Though no one needs to be tolerant of the insolent, he may be wearing headphones.

Steve Actor, Music Critic, Blogger

Steve's reviews for MiamiArtzine can also be found in the "News" tab of Insight's website.  Many thanks to Steve and Roger Martin for permission to post them, here.