CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I could see, very early on, that blindness included kids who were totally blind, those who could see only light and shadows, and others, like me, with partial sight.

The partially sighted kids formed the largest group at the School by far. In this group, even those of us with the same eye condition might see the world in very different ways. Most of us could see the big “E” on the doctor’s eye chart, but nothing more, giving us the same acuity score on paper, and yet, what we saw was not the same. I could read and write print, as an example, while others couldn’t. Some could play baseball in the daylight and others only at dusk. Others could do fine needlework, while another could hardly catch a basketball.

Explaining what partially sighted people actually see gets even more fuzzy when you add into the equation varying degrees of colour perception, blurriness, light sensitivity, or restricted fields of vision. You get the picture, but even then, with so many variables, you don’t really. It’s as hard to pin down as it is for me to imagine what it’s like to see 20/20.

I’ve seen more ophthalmologists in my lifetime than eye drops in a bottle, and, despite the obvious limitations of the eye chart, not one has ever taken the time to ask what I “actually” see. One of the least attentive, a man in a blue shirt and a bright red tie, insisted that I couldn’t possibly see colour. I’m not supposed to have depth perception either, having vision in only one eye, but I know I do. I can’t prove it, and science says it’s not possible, but in my mind’s eye, I see it every day: a world of curves and crevices, roundness and fullness.

Despite the ranting, I’d be first in line to say that ophthalmologists make miracles come true every day―and twice in my own case. The first happened when the retina in my one good eye totally detached and the second when the same doctor returned me to partial sight after a surgery-induced cataract. But still, blind and visually impaired people expect that if there’s anyone out there who knows what they actually see or don’t see, it must be their ophthalmologist.

For every cause of blindness, there was someone at the School to raise its banner. There were kids with congenital disorders of all kinds, and others blinded from infection or diseases like scarlet fever, meningitis, and diabetes. Some of the kids were blind from accidents and far too many from human error, as in too much oxygen during incubation or deformities of all kind from drugs like thalidomide. The sound of that word, even today, is cringe inducing.

No matter how limited some of the kids were, particularly when mental and other physical disabilities got added to blindness, they found friends like themselves and laughed as often as I did. It was no different than people of the same culture coming together, speaking the same language, getting the same jokes or bearing the same burdens. Whether adding sums in the classroom, playing music, or kicking a ball, they participated as best they could, and much better there than in public schools as they were, back then, in the early Sixties.

There were some kids, I’m sure, who needed more attention and more advanced support than what the School provided, but, overall, you’d be amazed at what these kids accomplished. I learned so much from just watching and listening. As young boys we sometimes teased the ones who had the higher mountains to climb. In that sense, regrettably, we were no different than other kids.

As many kinds of blindness are hereditary, there were lots of brothers and sisters attending the School. I envied them, thinking selfishly how nice it would be if Earl were there or an older sister to watch over me. Despite the rules and close supervision for keeping the boys and the girls apart, brothers and sisters were allowed to meet and spend time together.

For the blind children with mental and other related learning disabilities, the School offered auxiliary classes with a slowed-down curriculum. There, the kids could work at their own pace with other students like them, talking, laughing, and learning at nearly the same pace.

For the more severely disabled children―and there were many at the School―blindness was sometimes the lesser of ills. I used to think a large team of social workers and psychologists might have helped, but a good friend from the School, Vivian Maclean, reminded me recently of how much these kids did for themselves. When I thought of how they came together and all the things they did, I saw what she meant.

As to behaviour, the kids at the school were no less full of mischief nor better behaved than anywhere else. I heard and repeated my share of bad words and off-colour jokes, having such a large group of friends to draw upon and older boys who were generous enough to share.

If by some stroke of luck a door was left unlocked or a classroom unsupervised, we were sure to take full advantage. When old enough to know better, thirteen or fourteen, we often played with the mineral rocks and chemicals that filled the chemistry cabinet in one of the classrooms. The cabinet was often left unlocked and unattended.

We played with droplets of mercury, sulfuric acid, ammonia, and other chemicals that should have been locked away. One of those chemicals got mixed into a bottle of pop and passed around the school. I didn’t drink the pop, but there was such a commotion about it, something important going on, that not wanting to be left out, I joined in and said I did.

Within the hour a dozen of us were lined up and rushed to the VG Hospital across the street. All stomachs were disgustingly pumped and lesson learned. I didn’t need to be there, but on the plus side, after swallowing a plastic tube and throwing up whatever had gone down, we got ice cream and had to drink enough cold milk to frighten a cow. I wouldn’t recommend it, but the feeling of ice cream and cold milk on an entirely empty stomach was absolutely heavenly. However, getting there was no fun.

I wouldn’t have been alone in faking a cold or a sore throat either, the nursing station being such a pleasant place where Aspergum and kind words were given out like candy. It seemed, at the time, that Aspergum was the cure for everything. In times of extended illness, you got to sleep over in the medical ward. It was a nice rest from the daily routine of school and lineups. It was breakfast in bed, a private nurse, or so it seemed, a bath and clean sheets every day. Overall, with about 180 boys and girls living at the school, we were well cared for.