HI again Ardith,  
    
  On Wed 2011-Aug-24 23:52, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to Richard Webb:  
    
  RW>  even if the daughter is reluctant the parents need to  
  RW>  push.  The rest of her life depends upon her developing  
  RW>  literacy tools,  
    
    
  AH>           That's my take on it....  :-)  
    
    
  My daughter is going through this right now, in fact I  
  thought about this conversation last week when she emailed  
  me, she's starting to cope with not having enough vision to  
  read anymore.  HEr uncle (mom's brother who is also blind)  
  got her set up with screen access using speech for her pc.  
  She'd thought she had braille down good enough, and did, for writing it, but  
  she used her eyes to read it.  NOw she's  
  having to adapt to that.  
    
    
  AH>           The more you can do for yourself, the less you're  
  AH> dependent on other people... who may or may not have a clue what's  
  AH> going on in your life... to do it for you.  You've captured my  
  AH> philosophy of education in a nutshell....  :-)  
    
  INdeed, I've often found my best teachers in life are those  
  who give  me tools I can use for myself.  
    
    
  RW>  YEs tools such as the handheld reader in a cell phone  
  RW>  developed by Ray Kurzweil and the NFB in partnership  
  RW>  are available,  
    
    
  AH>           All sorts of wonderful things are available nowadays...  
  AH> for a price! If you're under eighteen there are various charities  
  AH> who may help finance such things.  If you're no longer so cute &  
  AH> appealing you may find yourself on your own.  Either way, the  
  AH> ability to read Braille does give you more options.  :-)  
    
  INdeed it does, and keeping up with the technology does get  
  expensive.  
    
  RW>  but there's nothing like being able to use the blind  
  RW>  person's equivalent of a pencil to make notes or label  
  RW>  items that need labels, batteries not required!  
    
    
  AH>           Yes.  As I grow older I find myself developing more  
  AH> appreciation for what my ancestors did.  My parents were reducing,  
  AH> re-using, and recycling long before these terms were in fashion.  
  AH> I'm glad I acquired such down-home skills as making compost &  
  AH> cooking from scratch with minimal equipment.  And I'm glad things  
  AH> were built to last years ago because I don't enjoy shopping...  
  AH> unless I luck into situations where one person's trash may be  
  AH> another's treasure.  :-))  
    
  I'm much the same way.  We eat little that comes from a can  
  and none of the usual frozen dinner type things.  WE don't  
  garden as much as we should, I suppose we could occupy a bit of the backyard  
  here for gardening, but Kathy's not able  
  really, but I'm sure thinking about it if we're here next  
  spring.  I'm also thinking about finding a buddy that likes  
  to go deer hunting this fall, buying him a deer tag and  
  splitting the one he hunts for me with him.  I've got the  
  chest freezer, may as well put some meat in it this fall for us to eat  
  .  I  
  don't have the tools to hunt myself  
  anymore, and no inclination to go tramping in the woods.  
    
  Since my braille embosser for the computer went down though  
  I've sure been suing that blind man's pencil a lot,  
  especially for things like these hurricanes where I need the current info  
  available for shifts on the air.  Getting my  
  braille shorthand down again, punching away while the  
  computer reads the data to me .  
    
    
  Regards,  
             Richard  
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   * Origin:  (1:116/901)