|
ADVENTURES OF A BLIND BUSINESS TRAVELER |
 To Boldly Go Where Others Freely Go Who
Are Sighted
By Larry Johnson
The door of the plane closed and the flight attendant began her
announcement. "Welcome
aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 155
with service to Dallas Love Field."
"Oh no!" I
jumped up out of my seat and protested. "Wait!
I'm,
I'm going to Houston."
"Well, sir, if that's where you want to go, you're on the wrong
plane."
The well meaning PSA, passenger service agent, had been so eager
to be of assistance, he took me through the wrong gate and put me
on the wrong plane. With the help
of the flight attendant I
scrambled quickly off the Dallas flight and hurried to board the
correct aircraft.
I love to travel by car, by train or by air.
For the past 20
years I have been working for a large telecommunications firm in
the southwest. During that
time I have had to do quite a bit of
business travel to attend meetings, make presentations, and
participate in training seminars and conferences.
In most cases, I travel alone. Because
I am blind this often
means relying on others for information and assistance.
It also
means careful planning, having patience and a good sense of
humor.
I've learned a lot about how to travel by myself.
I've also had
the chance to educate quite a number of sighted people on how to
be helpful to a blind person.
In planning my trips, the first step is getting to the airport.
For an early morning flight, I will call the cab company the
night before. Then, the
next morning I call again to check to
see if they have me scheduled. (Sometimes
my request gets lost
overnight.) Sometimes they
just can't get a driver to answer the
call. In those cases, it
is wise to have a back up plan. My
back up plan is my wife, Diana. On
a number of occasions she has had to pop out of bed, throw on a housecoat and
drive me to the
airport. I haven't yet
missed a plane, but I've come real close.
At the airport, I've gotten to know a lot of the skycaps for the
different airlines. Having
prepurchased my ticket, I ask for
their assistance to get me to the right gate on time.
Things don't always go as smoothly as one would like, however.
I
remember one time when, with just 8 minutes to departure time, I
was racing through the terminal, my hand on the skycap’s elbow,
rushing through security and getting to the gate with just 3
minutes to spare. After
catching my breath and checking in, I
turned to pick up my carryon bag which I assumed the skycap had
left next to me. It was
not there. Turning quickly to the
gate
agent, I asked, "Do you see where the skycap left my bag?"
"He wasn't carrying one when he brought you to the gate",
she
replies.
"Oh, my gosh," I said.
"It must be back at the security
checkpoint. I've got to
get it. Hold the plane."
While she protested, I began making my way back down the long
hallway. A fellow
passenger, overhearing the situation, asked if
she could assist me. I
readily agreed, and taking her elbow, I
implored "Let’s run."
Seeing us coming, one of the security people at the checkpoint
came to meet us with my bag in hand.
"I wondered if you would be
coming back for this" He chided.
Offering a hasty thank you, we turned and raced back to the gate
just in time for us to be the last passengers boarding the plane.
Usually, I prefer to arrive early and preboard.
The gate agents
are always helpful and willing to grant my request.
I do this
for two reasons: to meet
the flight attendants and to choose my
favorite place to sit on open seating flights.
When flying on a
Bowing 737, my favorite spot is in the lounge area.
There's more
knee room, I'm easily visible to the flight attendants and close
to the front exit door. I'll
pick a window seat if I want to
sleep, an aisle seat if
I want coffee.
My technique for receiving a cup of coffee or glass of juice is
to open one hand flat palm up and have the second hand open at
right angle to the other. As
soon as I feel the cup or glass
touch my palm I close my other hand around it.
To return an
empty glass or cup to the flight attendant is even easier.
I put
my napkin inside the cup, which signals it's empty and hold it in
my hand palm up on my knee. Seeing
this, they come by and pick
it right out of my hand. I
can even do this while dozing.
If it happens to be a rough flight, I've found it's a good idea
to ask for a top for that bouncing cup of coffee.
One interesting thing which I've noticed about flight attendants
is that male attendants will touch my shoulder when addressing
me, while female attendants generally touch my hand or knee.
I
haven't quite figured out the sexual implications of all this,
but I don't mind.
Some attendants are quite solemn, while others are friendly and
jovial. I remember one
young male attendant on a recent flight
who concluded his routine narrative on how to use the oxygen mask
by saying: "By the way
Folks, once you put the mask on, it's
okay to inhale."
I'll forever remember the time when I had to fly with a female
co-worker who was absolutely petrified of flying, only I didn't
know it. As we sat on
the runway waiting to take off, she
suddenly turned to me and asked, "Larry, can I hold your
hand?"
I thought, well, is she getting romantic? Extending my hand, she
gripped it in a vice, digging her nails into my flesh.
It was
then that she revealed her phobia.
Once we were airborne, she
let go and asked the flight attendant for a strong cocktail to
calm her nerves.
I think it's a good idea to strike up a conversation with your
seat partner. Often it can
be quite interesting and sometimes
very helpful. Once on
a flight to Amarillo. I made
the
acquaintance of a gentleman who Not only helped me off the plane
but drove me to my hotel.
But, you can also encounter some rather strange folks, too.
At
the airport terminal in Houston while waiting for my flight, I
had a middle age woman try to pick me up. She offered to be my
companion on future trips. She
said she was looking for a mature
and intelligent companion. It
didn't matter to her that I
happened to be married. She
attached herself to me so that she
could preboard as I did. Her
name was Charlotte. When the
flight attendant brought our glasses of Sprite, she proposed a
singing toast "Getting to know you".
As the plane landed and she
struggled to get her bag from the overhead compartment, I slipped
quickly on ahead and out the plane.
Fortunately, I was met by
Kevin, a passenger service agent who knew me and knew about
Charlotte. He quickly
escorted me away from danger.
About hotels. I always try to pick
those hotels which have
airport shuttle service and on site restaurant.
It's more
convenient than having to leave the hotel and find a restaurant,
especially for breakfast.
For security reasons many hotels now use plastic key cards.
These are a problem for blind people, because they feel the same
front and back, top and bottom.
What I do is instruct the desk
clerk to place a small piece of scotch tape on the bottom front
edge of the card so that I can easily tell which end to insert
into the door slot.
After registering, I always ask the bell person to provide me with
a quick orientation of the lobby, directions on where the
restaurant, pool, hot tub gift shop, etc. are located.
When we
get to the room I ask his/her help
in figuring out how to use
the TV control and AC regulator.
I make it a point to always carry lots of $1 bills so that I can
tip skycaps and bell persons. They
are essential to my reaching
my plane, hotel and other locations quickly and safely.
I've learned that some hotels slide your bill under the door
during the middle of the night.
Some have message lights on the telephone to "tell" you
when you
have a message. I just dial
the operator or ask at the desk when
returning from dinner or a meeting.
I always use the hotel's wake up service, and have found it to be
pretty reliable. Some wake
you with a recorded message including
the time and weather. Others
provide a personal greeting from
the operator. Still others
just give you an impersonal busy
signal. I don't mind as
long as it's on time.
At one hotel in Salina, Kansas, after checking in and getting my
key I went off to a meeting. When
I returned later that evening
and tried to use my key, it wouldn't work. After some wait,
hotel security came and opened my room for me.
The next morning
I went to the desk to check out and they told me that I had never
been there.
Checking in at a hotel in Topeka, I explained that I would like a
room near the whirlpool because of a flare up of bursitis in my
neck and shoulders. Overhearing
my request, the general manager,
surprised me by giving me a luxury suite with a whirlpool built
right into the bathtub at no extra charge and then, to top it
off, had orange juice and coffee sent up to my room the next
morning. Boy, I felt
special.
By contrast, there was the hotel in Wichita which could not find
my reservation. Eventually
they did figure it out. They had me
listed as Larry Johnson smith. Now
there's an alias for you.
Sometimes I have been lucky enough or persuasive enough to get
the hotel shuttle driver to take me to a nearby restaurant to
have dinner or to my appointment at a local community college.
Some hotels are quite easy to get around. Others are a challenge to memory and navigation skills.
To get to my room at the
Holiday Inn North Little Rock I took careful mental note as the bellman
escorted me through the lobby, past the dining area weaving among tables and
chairs, alongside a bubbling fountain, up two short flights of stone steps the
second one ten degrees to the left of the first, then down a long hallway, out
through a glass door, about 20 feet along a sidewalk, around a corner and there,
at last, my room, the second door on the left. Whew! I think I
got it.
If getting to the lobby from a particular hotel
room's location is especially difficult or complicated, the smart
thing to do is simply to call the desk and request a bellman to
come and assist.
I remember one time letting my desire for total independence get
the better of me. And so,
there I was, with 20 minutes to get to
the airport and lost somewhere in the labyrinth of hallways of
another Holiday Inn in Little Rock.
It was 6:30 a.m. There was
not a soul around and I
couldn't find the right hallway to get to the hotel lobby.
Finally, in desperation and thoroughly
embarrassed, I knocked on a guest room door. A gentleman
answered and I ask him to please tell me which way was the lobby.
It's right behind you". he said more than a little annoyed and
slammed the door. So
much for bold independence.
ADA notwithstanding, many hotel rooms are sill not labeled in
braille or raised numerals. I
have used a variety of tricks to
label my room such as a rubber band on the doorknob.
I tried this
at a hotel in Washington DC, only to return later and discover
that some diligent housekeeping employee had removed my
rubber band.
At the Hilton hotel in Kansas City I kidded the bell person
because they had put the Braille number for my room upside down.
Later that evening, I returned to the hotel, took the elevator up
to my floor and promptly forgot my room number.
Embarrassed I
walked along the corridor trying to remember the number, when
suddenly I came across a number which was upside down.
Voila!
Their mistake was my salvation.
The Hampton hotel in Houston has a toilet with a big round button
on top of the commode. Pressing
it, you think the toilet has just exploded.
It scared the daylights out of me.
I am not the kind of person who goes out of his way to find a weight
room. I enjoy riding a bike, not a
stationary one, but outside in the open fresh air. And so it was a rare occasion indeed that found me one
afternoon venturing into the ultramodern fitness center at a Hilton Hotel.
The attendant asked me if I
wanted to try one of their brand-new computer-controlled
treadmills. I have a low
cost nonelectronic one at home. So
I thought "I can handle that."
Well, he punched in a bunch of buttons to program the speed, incline
angle and time. I climbed on.
He hit the start button and off we went.
It was set for a very leisurely pace.
There was a lady next to me on another treadmill.
We fell into conversation. Ten
minutes later, I felt the machine begin to slow down.
Wanting to verify the time, I lifted my hands from the handles to read
the time on my Braille watch. That
would have been okay except that I also stopped walking.
Bam! The next thing I knew
I was bouncing off the wall and on to the floor.
The attendant ran up to me to see if I was hurt.
My hipbone and elbow stung a little, but I was too embarrassed to admit
it. It's been a while now, but I
haven't visited a hotel fitness room since.
A visually impaired traveler must be positive, assertive and
resourceful. If I am to
direct a sighted person, my boss or another colleague, for instance, to drive
with me to a meeting site, I try always to have very precise visual directions.
When getting advance information about the meeting location, I'll ask
about landmarks, the color of the building and other visual cues.
Since I'm the passenger on these trips, I've found that my
sighted companion will usually open my door for me to get in
first. As a courtesy, I
try in turn to find the door lock
to
unlock their door before they get around to the other side.
This
can be quite a challenge however, since, in case you haven't noticed,
there are no standard door locks in cars today. If I can't locate the lock quickly, I'll lean over and open
their door with the inside handle although neither are door handles always in
the same place or of uniform shape. On
one occasion trying unsuccessfully to do this for my boss, he opened his door
and finding me stretched out across the seat, slyly observed "Laying down
on the job, huh Larry?"
Over the years, whether my trips have been long ones or short ones, for
me they continue to be exciting adventures.
Reprinted by permission from the author and
from Catholic Digest. | 
