In February of 1981 I went to Asia, with ten days in Hong Kong. Whilst there I all but accidentally learned from an optical clinic that something "was not right" about my eyes, and I should not delay in seeing an ophthalmologist when I returned to the States. I soon found that I had two serious eye conditions. How serious and how rapidly developing they were I learned over the next year, as uveitis and "galloping" cataracts rendered me all but helpless.

I had my first cataract removal shortly thereafter, and then the second. In the spring of 1984 I suffered a detached retina and shortly thereafter I realized that I was seeing less and less, with focusing becoming a real challenge. The capsules behind both eyes, traumatized by the cataract surgeries, were occluding, with the result that I appeared to be looking through frosted glass.

By the winter of 1984-85, was so seriously sight impaired that I could not function in my office nor drive a car. I could see movement and color, but was unable to focus on specific objects at all.
Reading, TV or the movies and any normal sight were beyond me.

The following story took place in that environment, and only shows just how resilient we can be when we put our minds to a given task... or when we are forced by necessity to overcome serious obstacles.

One night in the grip of yet another bitter Cleveland winter, with my wife out of town attending to her elderly parents, a Lake Erie blizzard came upon us suddenly. Knowing just how perilously low we were on fresh food reserves if we got snowed in, I knew we simply had to get to the market for provisions. With no functional sight at all, and being well over a mile away from any store, I called every cab company in town, but bad weather had all taxis overbooked.

I certainly wasn't going to try and drive my wife's new Mercedes SD in my condition -- she would have had my neck if anything happened to her "CatMobile." And my old '65 Fleetwood was in Florida with my son. Thus, the my newer car was the only alternative.

Already snowing, I told my younger daughter to be my "eyes." and hop into my beloved, beautiful Brown Lady, my 924-S Turbo -- that's a Porsche to the uninitiated –– mine had been was the newest member of the Porsche family in 1980, and I had the first one ever sold in North America!

"You can't drive, Daddy," she exclaimed.

"I can, with you seeing for me," I replied. May the Divine bless ten-year-olds. They still believe their fathers are all-knowing, and with my confidence thus instilled in her, she didn't even hesitate.

After all, I could see light --- each street lamp looked to me like thousands of Christmas tree lights! Car lights the same, and I could easily distinguish between red, yellow and green signal lights came at me they appeared as hundreds of other pinpoints of light each. We made it to the market uneventfully, although the parking lot was a most treacherous trap for the unwary and a nightmare to negotiate. My daughter's calm and sensible guidance got us into a parking space in the crowded lot without incident. She then gleefully picked out our food and goodies, and with our chosEn provisions, we started home.

I had determined the route with only two major turns, on the brightest-lit streets (Coventry and Cedar Roads) to help us negotiate and for my daughter to direct me more easily. The first turn was a breeze, a right turn at a signal onto Cedar Road, the main east-west thoroughfare. The second was a left turn across traffic onto Tudor, also at a signal light, to go down the very-lightly-used side street. I knew the roads by heart, and was pleased with our unimpeded progress as we carefully approached the second signal on a red light - I was the first car in line.

My daughter confirmed there was no traffic coming up the side street, so as the light turned yellow (which I could make out), I pulled across the line of oncoming traffic stopped at the red light, making my turn before the oncoming light turned green. I was just congratulating myself on having "beaten" the heavy traffic and making it safely onto the side street with a straight shot towards home when I heard the siren.

The first car in the oncoming line had been a Heights policeman! -- And he immediately turned and came after me.

Knowing my driver's license was easily identified by its plastic cover, I pulled it out and gave it to my daughter to verify before the officer even approached the car. It was snowing - heavily -- VERY heavily, and I apologized profusely to the Officer immediately for getting him out in this heavy weather.

He was NOT impressed with my concern for him.
"Why did you cut across me on the red like that?" he demanded rather angrily. "Didn't you even see me right in front of you?"

I certainly wasn't about to answer that I hadn't the faintest idea that the oncoming sets of car lights I saw at the signal included an easily identifiable marked police car!

I couldn't have been more calm, solicitous, or logical. Looking directly up at him from my hot little sports car, I replied oh, so calmly, "Because, Officer, with all this nasty weather, I knew that my car waiting to turn left was just another obstruction in the roadway, and a potential traffic hazard to both east-bound as well as west-bound traffic holding up traffic trying to turn left."

"Don't you know there's no excuse for jumping the light," he retorted angrily.

"You're absolutely correct, Officer," I agreed amiably.. It was entirely obvious that sound logic regarding the bad weather conditions wasn't going to cut any ice with him this night. His disposition seemed no better than the miserable weather.

"Lemme see your license," he commanded.

"Yes, Sir," I responded with no further comment, taking the license from my daughter and handing it to him.

I heard him grumble under his breath, "You damn' Porsche drivers think you own the road...."

"Well," I thought silently, " if that was his problem, then who was I to question his misguided fury over what kind of car I drove. I was more than happy to let him think that and not be concerned with my being blind!"

With no more hesitation, he proceeded to write me the ticket for an illegal left turn, telling me he was doing me a favor by not adding in the charge of running a red light. I nodded and thanked him, holding back a smile.

He then thrust the citation book through the window. "Sign here," he commanded. I saw the movement and reached for what I knew must be a citation book. Grabbing it with my left hand, I fumbled for my own pen with my right, not knowing he was holding out his own pen toward me. But my eyes were cast downward as if I were "looking" inside my own coat, and found mine just as he told me gruffly that "Here's my pen!" as he held his toward me.
Little did he know that I hadn't the faintest idea where "Here" was!

I started to sign at the bottom of the page, and he immediately objected. "Not there," he said disgustedly, "on the line." He paused, ever so briefly, and through my head went the obvious question of someone in my predicament - where was the line?? — just where was I to sign the citation??

" - Up here!" And thankfully, with my left hand holding the citation book, I could just barely feel generally where he tapped his finger.

So I signed, in a large, flowing script that covered at least an inch or more of the page.

"Hrrrmmmmph," he snorted, "You certainly have a large signature."

"Well," I concluded, "I was wrong to make the turn the way I did, jump the light and there's no use denying it. I'll be down to Mayfield (the location of the local City Hall Court) to pay this just as soon as the weather clears."

My daughter never could understand why I laughed so hard as we watched a "blind" cop getting back into his car to turn around and continue his protection of the Heights. I was still chortling audibly, laughing as I slowly pulled away from the curb and drove the remaining two blocks to my home, crossing an all-but-deserted Fairmount Boulevard before turning carefully into our narrow driveway from instinct and experience.....

Whoever said sports cars are hard to drive??? Or that ten-year-old daughters can’t be cool??

Return to Gift of Sight Speech Taipeh June 1994 Page I

01/07/94//edit26/07/95, 18/11/08