Amusement Park

I recently went on vacation with family to a water park. I had not gone to any amusement type park venue probably since the mid 1980s. It was interesting. I enjoyed the water roller coasters and especially The Sling Shot ride. I did think that the $30 extra cost to ride this ride was a bit steep. I particularly appreciated that one of the ride workers offered to go with me. I learned that several hearing impaired and visually impaired park goers had also tried the ride. I suspect if I could have seen the ground rushing up to meet me, I would have lost it or never ridden this monster at all. I did wonder what it would have been like to ride The Slingshot just before the park closed at 8:00 pm. The panoramic view of sunset spangled water, color fragments, and kaleidoscopic shifts of scene would have been, no doubt, startling.

I had heard some amusement parks allow disabled visitors to bypass the incredibly long lines for rides and walk thru a special entrance. (Well, that's what a blind friend told me about an amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri.) If such an accommodation exists where I went, we never found it. I decided that if it did, I would use it not because I was blind, but because of my wacked out FMS which can make it hard for me to stand for long periods of time.

Imagine that!

A Walk Down Yesteryear's Biblio-lane, Part II

A Walk Down Yesteryear's Biblio-lane

Summer 1981. It was a time and place so far removed from where I am now that I have to strain to remember it. I was so different then. I believed, naively as it turned out, that a straight-A report card was a ticket to ride, that my teachers knew best and I should run where they pointed. I did not realize the health challenges waiting around the proverbial corner. I read voraciously that summer--everything from science fiction anthologies, contemporary young adult stuff, to biography and mystery. I'd even recommend a few of the books. Most filled time for a teen-ager losing the remains of his residual sight in a small Louisiana country town. I hope I ended that summer a better person than when I began it.

Job expert lectures online--and YOU can listen in

Some 70 percent of blind people in the U.S. have been said to be unemployed. So its great to read the following notice:

Best-Selling Author to Give Web Seminar on Employment

Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling job-hunting book in history, "2006: What Color is Your Parachute?" will participate in Seminars@Hadley, a series of Internet lectures hosted by The Hadley School for the Blind, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time, Thursday, June 15. Participants can listen to Mr. Bolles field questions on finding a successful career, disabilities in the workplace and connecting to your spiritual life.

This seminar is free, but registration is required for this interactive seminar. To register, go to http://www.hadley.edu/seminar/ and follow "Registration" link...

Online courses

The Hadley School for the Blind has been in existence since the 1920s. Over the past several years, it has offered several online courses. I participated in one in December of 2002. I am taking another one now and am about to finish it. Visit and put in your password and away you go. I have found the course interesting and am glad to help the school with this pilot project. Related: text and audio about Cynthia Groopman, who has taken courses at Hadley.