INVASION OF THE METAL MONSTER.

Did you know that rabbits are suspicious of any changes in their territory? I discovered this by accident one day when I bought something at a garage sale and put it in my bedroom. Gideon, the house rabbit who taught me so much about his kind, reacted in a completely different way than I imagined when he discovered what I had bought.

From When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies), here's the hilarious story of how my fur friend came nose to wheel with my purchase.

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On the same Saturday that Heather and Jason returned for the bunnies, I went to a neighbourhood garage sale. Among all the items in the driveway was an exercise bike. When I found out that it was only five dollars, I bought it. Then I realized that I'd have to lug it the three blocks back to my home.

As I consoled myself with the fact that it was a nice afternoon and that I had plenty of time, the woman who was looking after the sale took pity on me.

"How far do you live from here?" she asked. I told her."We could give you a lift home if you want."

Accepting her kind offer, I loaded my things into the car and the bike was in my bedroom in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, Gideon was impatient to be freed from his cage and when I opened the door, he raced out to survey the house?not knowing what waited for him in his territory.

Once my sock hurler arrived at the bedroom door, he froze. The poor guy was shocked and it took him a few minutes to work up the nerve to approach and sniff the bluish-grey metallic monster. I had never before seen his ears so far forward or his pink eyes so wide open. He crept up to the metal invader and acted as if it would pounce on him at any moment. When it didn't move and attack him, he gave it an intense sniffing. A half hour later, Gideon was still leery of it, but eventually he became used to the exercise machine.

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When a Man Loves a Rabbit contains many more fascinating stories of life with house bunnies. These range from the tragic to the hilarious. Click here to read more about this book and to order it. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

THOSE TRICKS WEREN'T FOR US KIDS.

Children usually forgive tricks played on them by adults. Lying is a different matter. The quickest way for an adult to lose the trust of children is to trick them with a lie and then refuse to apologize for it. I don't need a degree in child psychology to know this is true.

On September 20th, I posted an excerpt from Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) about a singularly disagreeable supervisor charged with our care each weekday. Here's how he retaliated when we complained too much about the early morning runs he forced on us.

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The strain on Mr. Thynne of urging twelve reluctant boys to do his bidding finally took its toll. Everybody groaned and complained so bitterly that he gave up enforcing his exercise plan. He decided that, since we refused to exert ourselves voluntarily, he would trick us into it. We were relaxing after supper when he came rushing in and exclaimed, "There's a fire on Eighth Avenue! Quick! Come and see it! Hurry before it goes out!"

We all ran down the stairs, out of the dorm, and up to the gate in the chain-link fence. Those of us with vision glanced all around for smoke and flames. "Where's the fire?" several of us asked as we strained to detect any sign of a conflagration.

"I just said that to get you guys to exercise," Mr. Thynne admitted. We groaned in unison and trudged sheepishly back to the dorm.

Because Mr. Thynne's conduct and attitude disgusted us, we had no respect for him. We nicknamed our supervisor "pretty boy" and "Mr. Knackers" behind his back. Life was bad enough with Mr. Moiarty on the weekends but now this singularly disagreeable man was running our lives all week.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

THE POINT OF NO RETURNING.

Most children dread going back to school. Nevertheless, they accept it as an inevitable part of being a kid. Unlike regular students, I feared being sent back to my former residential institution for a far different reason. Though I attended a public school in Edmonton, beginning in 1970, and went home on weekends, a nagging worry haunted me that I would again be exiled five hundred miles from my family for months at a stretch.

In Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), I described the ecstasy I felt when I suddenly realized that I would never be sent back to that soul-destroying institution. Here's what I wrote.

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The fear of being returned to Jericho lessened as I attended public school but it never quite disappeared. One September afternoon, a sudden realization struck me. The officials could no longer send me back to Jericho. That school only went up to grade ten. During the past two years, I managed to catch up with the rest of my schoolmates.

Because the public school curriculum was a year ahead of Jericho's, I needed to work hard at first in order to earn mediocre marks. Even so, my report cards conclusively proved that I could learn along with my sighted peers. I suddenly realized that I was fully integrated into the public system and had no need to fear being institutionalized again. The joy which swept over me was palpable. I danced around my housekeeping room for five minutes straight, gleeful that I was home to stay. "They can't send me back!" I repeated to myself. That was one of the happiest days of my high school years.

A teacher at Jericho had once told me that exceptional students did receive tutoring for grade eleven and twelve. I would have refused to go back to Jericho in any case since I proved my ability to learn in the public system. I was almost sixteen and conscious that I was a human being with rights. Though I did not matriculate, I passed grade twelve and received my diploma. My heart swelled with pride that I accomplished such a feat.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

STALAG JERICHO

Would I seem melodramatic if I occasionally refer to Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind as a prison camp? It had no armed guards in towers equipped with machine guns. Neither did it have search lights, delousing stations, vicious guard dogs, and barbed wire around the perimeter. How then could I and my dorm mates call it a prison?

In Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), I wrote about the unnatural way we were housed, fed, and poorly educated at that institution. The administrators micromanaged our activities so that we couldn't even go unescorted to the local store to buy chocolate bars. A supervisor took all of us there once a week like prisoners on a day pass. One particularly nasty "dorm parent" treated us like POWs, as I point out in the following excerpt.

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Back at the dorm, we had a new weekday supervisor whom I shall call Mr. Thynne. He was a tall man in his twenties, whose voice had an annoying whining quality to it. Everyone hated him almost instantly. One of his first unpopular ideas was to make us run up and down Eighth Avenue at seven o'clock in the morning.

The rising sun appeared as red as our eyes felt when we dressed hurriedly. "Come on, you lazy bums," he goaded as we struggled into our clothes, "You boys need to get your exercise."

When everybody lined up at the gate, he addressed us like a drill sergeant. "Listen to me. You boys will run each morning for fifteen minutes. It's not gonna kill you to do a little running." When we began to murmur, he said, "Stop whining. You boys don't get enough exercise so I'm going to make sure you do."

After the first few mornings of these pre-breakfast runs, even Charlie grumbled. Mr. Thynne refused to heed our pleas for rest and resorted to insults whenever we slowed down.

Michael summed up our feelings eloquently after one morning jog. "He's running this place like a bloody prison camp." All of us heartily agreed.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

A SHORT-SIGHTED APPROACH TO PROVIDING VISION AIDS.

Why didn't my parents buy me even basic visual aids before I attended grade eight? Any thinking person would have figured out that a boy with poor sight would need a monocular to read the blackboard and a proper magnifying glass for reading the textbooks. It wasn't until mid September of 1970 before my parents did anything to get the adaptive tools I needed.

From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here is how I had to scrounge together or do without visual aids when I was reintegrated into the public school system.

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I was ill-equipped, from a visual aids standpoint, to enter the public system. Since teachers scrawled assignments on the blackboard without verbalizing what they wrote, I needed to ask somebody what the teacher had written. Mom solved this difficulty when she took me to the CNIB to purchase a monocular. This visual aid magnified distant objects, allowing me to read the blackboard.

Some solutions to my visual aids deficiency were improvised. When my landlady gave me a couple of magnifying glasses, neither one enlarged print to the size I needed. Then I made a discovery. If I placed both together, the text book print became legible. A few years later, Mom arranged for an optometrist to grind a strong magnifying glass for me. That made reading even easier since I did not need to hold both glasses together.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME.

How many times have you rushed into something, then regretted it for years? This problem is common to all of us. Some people, including me, get fired up about some activity and become obsessed with involving others in it. Then reality sets in and brings us back down to earth with a resounding thud.

From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here's an excerpt that shows how trusting and foolish I became when I had a pair of two-way radios.

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Back at the dorm that September, I thought I would have fun with my new walkie-talkies. I faced the same predicament as I did at home, namely finding somebody to use one at some distance from me. Charlie agreed to take one transceiver and walk to the top of the school grounds while I made my way down the hill. As I walked, I felt eager to learn how far I could travel and still communicate with him.

The experiment was going well until Charlie said, "I'm not going to give you back your walkie-talkie. I think I'll just keep it. What ya gonna do about that, Atchison?" Horrified, I begged him to return it. Once Charlie felt satisfied with my pleadings, he agreed to give it back. I never let any boy use the walkie-talkies after that. The two-way radios remained in my locker until Christmas. I removed the batteries and used them to power my broadcast receiver.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

WELL-INTENTIONED DAMAGE

I've heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. How true that is. We've all had some well-meaning friend or authority figure ruin something we spent hours making, toss out something we needed, or buy us an inappropriate present. Certain churlish individuals act out of spite but most folks just don't realize the consequences of their deeds.

The motives of those who sent me five hundred miles from home for months at a stretch might have been either honourable or malicious. Whatever they were, I left that institution socially stunted. From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here's an excerpt that demonstrates the extent of my cultural deprivation.

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My social skills were likewise inadequate from being isolated in Jericho. As a result, I rarely gazed at people who spoke to me. My knowledge of etiquette, beyond saying "please" and "thank-you," was nonexistent. No one even taught me to hold doors open for ladies.

My conversation skills were similarly insufficient. I often answered questions without asking people any. My isolation made relating to sighted students and their activities difficult. They also regarded me as an oddity at best and a freak at worst.

Many of my social blunders were due to adopting mannerisms from the other children at Jericho. I often stared at the ceiling, rocked back and fourth, and held my head at an odd angle. These visually distracting habits were inoffensive to totally blind people but they bothered my sighted acquaintances.

Years later, a church friend told me that I was difficult to be with at first. "You're a likeable person now," she confided.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You
may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.

THE BEST PLAYGROUND OF ALL.

What was your favourite place to play when you were a child? For me, it was a tract of undeveloped land on a residential school compound. Armed with only my imagination, I spent many happy recesses and hours after school exploring it. In my mind, it became everything from Sherwood Forest to an alien planet. It also helped me fend off my chronic homesickness.

From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here's an excerpt that tells how we lost that marvellous play area due to government officials and their uninformed idea of what sort of recreation we would enjoy.

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During my time at Jericho, I fell in love with the small forest behind the classrooms and the plain above it. Whenever I played in that undeveloped area, I felt free from the supervisors and their judgmental scrutiny. That natural wonderland became my refuge. Therefore, I felt absolutely horrified when I saw what had happened to it. Landscapers had ripped it up and put in sidewalks and shrubs. Worse yet, the grownups admonished everybody not to play in the shrubbery and to keep to the sidewalks. The plain above the school, once a wild mix of boulders and mud, now had sod, a cinder track for running, and a path for walking.

Other unwelcome changes took place too. The strip of lawn, which we used for soccer, was also gone from behind the school. Dirty grey sand and a few large rocks were spread in its place. A set of swings and teeter-totters were erected by the grade two classroom. Next to it, a pyramid-shaped wooden structure with a built-in slide had been constructed. Behind the Music Room a concrete bunker had been built. It had an open door on the lower level and a hole in the ceiling with a metal ladder going up to the roof. This was level with a sidewalk and a wall ran around the top of the edifice to prevent children from falling off.

Though playground equipment was installed, its novelty soon wore off. In fact, some boys only used the bunker as a convenient place to urinate. While we did play reluctantly on the new equipment, it was highly inferior to the natural playground we had lost.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief.

THE COLD WIND OF FREEDOM.

Remember back in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed? People in satellite countries and former USSR republics immediately found themselves without masters. For the first time in their lives, these folks had to make their own decisions rather than relying upon the government.

Like the former citizens of the Soviet Union, I had to learn quickly how to make my own personal decisions. In many cases, people assumed that I ought to know how to do this without being told. From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here's an excerpt that demonstrates how unprepared I was in 1970 for freedom.

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Because of being cloistered at Jericho, I lacked the social graces and mobility skills which children learn as a matter of course. The culture shock of returning to the public school system proved difficult for me to cope with. The tumult from hundreds of children alone disoriented me. I forgot how loud the hallways became when classes ended. Since we now went to different rooms for every subject, I needed to learn quickly where each was.

As I habitually walked to school when I attended grade one in Fort Saskatchewan, I assumed that I was supposed to travel the same way to my new school. I came in late the first few days since I kept underestimating the time it would take to walk there.

My teacher sent me to the principal's office on the third morning. "You are expected to be in class on time. Why were you late again today?" he demanded as he glared at me through his black horn-rimmed glasses..

"I live fifteen blocks away and it takes a long time to walk that distance."

"Why don't you take the bus then?"

"I don't know how," I admitted as I stared at the floor.

"You'd better learn to take the bus or find a ride with someone. You can't keep coming late to school."

My mobility skills were so deficient that I had no clue regarding how to catch a bus. The first time I tried, I did not know where to deposit the fare. "Stop fooling around," the bus driver demanded as I searched for the box. In desperation, I placed the coins on his hat which he left on the dash board.

Nobody told me that I qualified for a special bus pass which would allow me to ride for free. "Why don't you have a CNIB pass?" one driver asked. "If you can't see well, you should be allowed to have one."

Mom set up an eye exam appointment and, once the proper forms were filled out, I was the proud owner of my own pass. The freedom of not having to pay fifteen cents per ride as well as being able to travel wherever I wanted delighted me.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this compelling story. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.