This podcast is about the people and events that have influenced our lives enough to cause us to remember the stories of how and when these memorable situation took place.
Did we meet a stranger or an old friend who did something that day to cheer us up? Did a person or a particular event cause us to think about a firmly held belief in a different way? Did a friend say something that we will not soon forget?
Life is full of stories we have lived. Often we don’t realize their effect on us until later, but somehow, that story sticks with us and causes us to consider other ways of thinking; other ways of being.
This is how it was for me. My childhood was full of people and events that are remembered now as if they had happened yesterday. I learned so much from my parents and other friends not by their preaching, or even by there telling me a story, but by their allowing me to come along with them inside the actual story itself.
I would like to tell you some of these stories and also hear about your stories that have taken you inside their telling.
I think there is also something quite magical about speaking one’s story aloud. It is not just a simple retelling. It is, in many ways, a reliving of that particular event that makes it become even more alive in our minds.
I have often wished that I had possessed the wisdom in my youth to thank the people who helped change my life. I cannot do now what I wanted to do for some of them because they are no longer with us. I can, however, honor the memory of what they have given me. I will promise to let people know when they had allowed me to be with them in an experience that has given me reason to remember just how lucky I was to be in their presence.
Show Notes for Recent Episodes
- Here are some stories about my early college experience as the only blind student on campus. This was quite a jump from my life at the school for the blind. Given my fear of what I might find at a very good undergraduate college, was this a jump from the frying pan into the fire? […]
- My parents knew that no school in our area could teach a child who was blind. They also knew they couldn't educate me themselves. So, they had to do the unthinkable. They had to send me away to school before I turned 5 years old. For me, spending my first 4 years as an only […]
- As a very young child, you can only know your own condition. If you can't see, you don't quickly grasp the fact that others have something you don't have. It's even harder if you have light perception, because then people tell you that you can see. But, can you? This is the complicated story about […]
- In this story, my grandfather and I walk through my grandparents' apple orchard. In part, this is a sound painting of events that took place in the orchard each time I was there. People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. How many words does it take to describe a special sound, a […]
- It all started with ear-hand coordination and Daddy's faith that I could do what some thought impossible. No, it's not the normal way one acquires a recorder. Even so, that was the day my knowledge and enjoyment of sound changed forever, and I changed right along with it. Just another story that goes way beyond […]
- It started with a simple childhood game of ball I played with my grandparents. My Mom and Dad kept improving the game. Slowly, it became less a game, and more a way of life. From this game and other fun times with my parents, I discovered I could use my non-visual senses to create a […]
- For a year or so, around age 12, I had often played by an old abandoned well. I would throw stones or other things into it to see if I could hear them hit the bottom. I could hear the echo from the well if I spoke into it. I could smell a strange but […]
- Daddy and I were walking from the creek to the river to fish. Strange how a short walk can have such a life-long impact on people’s lives. When we got to the river, fishing was the furthest thing from our minds. It was the silence of the land and the quiet relationship between father and […]
- Episode Notes How does a 6 year old blind child safely walk almost any place he wishes before he learns to use a cane? How would you do it if you were somehow prevented from seeing the ground in front of you? How would you know what your foot would land on next? What if […]
- If you have ever tried to explain what something you can see might look like in the mind of a person who was born without sight, you have likely happened on an experience that taxes your knowledge of whatever language you speak. Visual objects can be much more easily described. Other people who see may […]