The article about the 50-year-old blind woman who went sky-diving for her birthday was fantastic. There are a lot more of “us” out here just like her — and having a great time of it, too.

I’m also blind, and I am an attorney. I went through law school back in the 1980s, when there was precious little computer technology compared to what is available today.

And I sure wasn’t alone; there are a lot of “us” who did similar things.

If we want to succeed, we have to think outside the box. It isn’t an option; it’s a necessity.

Like her, we know we can’t give up or take things lying down. We have to be, by nature, a bit scrappy, keep going and find a different way to live life.

Those of us who are blind might be “designed out” of the mainstream, but we get things done.

She had a career as a vocational rehabilitation counselor, is now retired and is doing motivational speaking.

I have practiced law exclusively in the field of disability law, and I also do motivational speaking, although I don’t have a website about it.

It’s the quiet, “I’m just living life” way of doing things that most people miss about “us.”

Even though I’m blind, folks on West River Road have become used to seeing me out with my snow blower after a storm, or mowing the lawn with the power mower, or using my table saw in the driveway when I’m building something.

The white cane still draws attention, but hopefully in a positive way. My wife tolerates a lot with a husband like me, and she has grown accustomed to me and my power equipment. She does tend to draw the line at me using a paint sprayer. Now that is unfair.

My point is that we’re all out here, people like her and I and countless others who disprove the myth that the blind are helpless to varying degrees.

We have our down times, too. For example, I went blind when I was an electrician a long time ago, not an experience I’d recommend to anyone at all. I got cancer at far, far too early an age, was told that I was terminal and was going to die. They were wrong about that, thank God.

In the middle of cancer treatment, I was laid off. Try looking for a job when you’re over 50, battling cancer, and it’s in the middle of an economic depression.

Am I unique in any of this? No, not a bit.

What I am is just like everyone else, only I have a bit more trouble keeping my socks matched up in my sock drawer than most folks — except those who are color blind, that is.

I’ve also been sky diving, down in Jupiter, Fla., many years ago. I highly recommend it for anyone and everyone. It’s a rush unlike anything you’ll ever experience. You wear two parachutes when you jump out of the airplane, so you have two chances for one to open. How many chances do you get when you try to cross Marginal Avenue in Portland around 5 p.m. on a weekday?

I’d rather sky dive than get on a submarine. Why do people get on a boat that is designed to sink? And they squint sidelong at sky-divers?

I’ll end this column by pointing out that “we” are just like everyone else out there. Some of us like a staid, quiet and reserved lifestyle. Still others will go after Moby Dick in a rowboat with a harpoon, knife, fork and a jar of tartar sauce. If anyone ever finds my rowboat without me in it, you may find that it is battered, swamped and cracked and the harpoon will be gone.

But that jar of tartar sauce will be empty, I promise you.

Ross Doerr is a lawyer from Augusta.

Copy the Story Link