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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