A radial arm saw, is a DEVICE WHICH CAN GRAB YOUR SHIRT, PULL YOU INTO IT AND SAW YOUR BELLY WIDE OPEN... Well, it’s just a wood cutting machine which has a circular spinning saw attached to an arm which you pull in your direction. This cuts across a piece of wood quite nicely, and I happen to have used the machine while blindfolded. Now, this is some scary, no other word for it but shit! It’s a non-modified, industrial machine which can have quite a bit of bite. All students are required to learn the use of most of the devices in the industrial arts shop, and they are required to use them safely. Our instructor is often under sleep shades so this is a definite, blind teaching blind class which is not for the purpose of creating carpenters, but for creating confidence.
Many of those people who attend these training centers, have lived what one could call “
a “normal” life, and after blindness, have given up that life because they thought that such things were not meant for them. Being blind meant sitting home, getting paid not to work, often just being “humble and still” while life moved all around them, in all directions, leaving them behind to only remember the life which they had previously lived.
A woman in my class, intelligent, witty and with a great job left her work behind because she was going blind. It did not occur to her that having two masters, and having almost finished a PHD, she might have only needed to adapt to the new situation as opposed to walking away from it.
I had never thought of my fear as a barrier before, but when the instructor said, “I can feel the fear in you, you’re very nervous.” It really hit me that the reason why I was afraid was that I could not see what was going on in front of me, and this fear, was probably what kept me from ever playing around with power tools.
“Now you know how to use the machine,” the instructor said, “you’ll be cutting your own wood from now on, I’m lazy.”
So, that’s what I’m doing from now on, relying on myself.
This was not the only experience which would of made most people question their personhood. For the past week and a half or so, I’ve been walking around, learning travel skills under sleep shades. Now, I thought that the coolness of the cucumber was always with me, as it turns out, I was simply feeling safe because the travel instructor was paces behind me. The first time I crossed a street with 4 intersections, the crossing took about 5 minutes. The second time about 40 seconds.
The instructor, who, whether he knows it or not is known all around as one of the best in the business, is also blind. He gave me a call while I was in a home management class making biscuits from scratch and told me that I should do my first route alone.
This meant going from the training center to the student apartments alone, under sleep shades, and when I mean alone, I mean the instructor was eating lunch at Sonic’s.
I thought I was brave, cool, awesome, and then I started stalling… The route was finished and it took me 40 minutes: It’s a 15 minute walk each way.
So, now, conversations only heard in Louisiana, while preparing to use the radial arm saw….
M: I’m telling you, Ima gonna hurt you.
W: now, you do that but listen up, you remember that law don’t ya? For every action there is a what?
M: hmm, an equal positive and negative reaction?
W: uh hum…. You got it…
M: Oh, I see. now who was it that said that?
W: Oh, that was, hmm, what this boy name?
M: What is, that boy name?
W: Boy name is Neuton…. Yep, that him.
