Thunder Dog

by Michael Hingson

  I pored over my hand-inscribed Braille student handbook and found the school bus rules. It was right there under my fingers. According to the handbook, Squire was not allowed on the bus.

  Guide Dogs for the Blind had given me a special card to carry. It read, “California law guarantees a blind person the legal right to be accompanied by a specially trained dog guide in all public accommodations and on all public transportation.” But the card wasn’t any help now.

  As irritated as my dad had been when the neighbors called to complain about the blind kid riding his bike, he was a hundred times more incensed now. He called the assistant principal that evening and asked if there had been a complaint about Squire. There had not. The school offered me alternate transportation; they planned on hiring a car and driver to take me to and from school. But this idea, besides costing the school district unnecessary expense, went against everything my parents had tried to do. My entire childhood was about finding a way for me to fit in and function in the community, not separating me and treating me as special or disabled.

  My dad requested a special school board meeting to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, the district hired a private car and driver to ferry me back and forth to school. The Saturday before the school board meeting, my dad spent the day in the Palmdale Public Library, scouring Black’s Law Dictionary, known as the most widely used law dictionary in the United States and the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions.

  California law was clear: “Any blind person, deaf person, or disabled person who is a passenger on any common carrier, airplane, motor vehicle, railway train, motorbus, streetcar, boat, or any other public conveyance or mode of transportation operating within this state, shall be entitled to have with him or her a specially trained guide dog, signal dog, or service dog.”4

  The question my dad was researching was, is the school bus operated by the public school district considered a “public conveyance”? Dad reasoned that Palmdale High School was a public high school and all children in the district boundaries were allowed to attend. The school bus was a vehicle utilized by the school district to transport children to this public facility, so in his mind it qualified as a common carrier. My dad’s library research bore out his assumption.

  Mom, Dad, and I attended the meeting at the school district office in the public meeting room. It smelled like chalk dust, Old Spice, and Brylcreem. There were six or eight rows of chairs, and we sat in the front row. The school board members sat across the front of the room with the chairman in the middle. Squire rested quietly at my feet. I was nervous and excited.

  The school board took several hours to work through its agenda while we waited for our item to come up. Mom left to have a smoke a couple of times, and Dad’s foot tapped quickly, shaking the bench. Finally it was our turn.

  The superintendent began with a pronouncement: “The Board of Education has set a rule that no live animal will be allowed on the school bus. As a board, we are tasked with enforcing the rules. We will not make an exception to the rule.”

  My dad stood up, facing the board, was recognized, and asked, “Did anybody complain?”

  The superintendent answered no.

  “Did my son or his guide dog misbehave?”

  No, again.

  “The fact is, under California law it is a felony to deny access to public transportation to a blind person with a guide dog.”

  Go, Dad. I was proud.

  “You can have all the rules you want, but you are violating the law.” He was getting heated now. “If you guys keep this up, somebody’s going to spend time in the penitentiary.”

  The superintendent was quiet. The atmosphere in the room was thick with tension. My dad’s challenge lingered in the air. Then the superintendent turned to the chairman of the board who worked as a lawyer and asked, “Is that true?” His voice was laced with arrogance. The lawyer said yes, it was true.

  Pause again. Then an answer. His voice was loud and clear. “Well, we have our rules, and we have to go by our rules. Our local rules supersede the law because it’s a school situation.” My dad pointed out that since the school district had hired a car and driver to ferry me to school, that made that car a school bus under the law. The board chose to ignore his arguments and voted 2 to 3 in favor of supporting the school board rule. We had lost. Squire and I had been officially kicked off the school bus. My parents fumed all the way home.

  My dad was not yet done. His next step was a direct appeal to Edmund “Pat” Brown, the governor of California. Governor Brown was an advocate for progressive and populist causes, including education and fair housing, and his tenure was marked by social change. Dad wrote a letter to the governor explaining what had happened and requesting my reinstatement on the school bus. His plea was supported by a careful, detailed argument, the fruits of his library research. He ended the letter with “This is wrong. The school board is discriminating against my son.”

  Dad mailed his letter off to Sacramento.

  Next thing we heard, the superintendent of the Antelope Valley School District was summoned to a meeting at the state capitol. He went. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in that room.

  A few days later I got called into the assistant principal’s office once again. This time, the news was better. “Well, you’re back on the school bus,” the principal said. “Your dad made it happen.” He clapped his hand on my shoulder. I smiled, big.

  I was proud of my dad. Chalk one up for a man who never went beyond the eighth grade but who could wield a law dictionary when necessary. I learned that it is appropriate to take a stand and to defend a principle even if you have to knock on the governor’s office door in the process. Sometimes the little guy wins.

  High school went smoothly after that. I was pretty quiet and a bit of a nerd. Dad and I loved our ham radios and were part of the Civil Defense network called RACES, as well as the Military Affiliated Radio Service (MARS), the network of amateur radio operators who helped military personnel overseas communicate with loved ones here in the States. I kept busy with Boy Scouts, church choir, and academics. I joined the math club and became a mathlete, part of a mathematics team that participated in team competitions solving difficult math problems. I did all the work in my head and was pretty competitive.

  I loved big band music, and my favorite singing group was the Kingston Trio. I also loved musicals, and my cousin Rob and I drove our parents crazy singing the songs from Music Man at the top of our lungs in the car on a family trip to Yosemite. There was a lot of “Trouble in River City” on that trip.

  Then I fell in love. Not with a girl, but with old radio shows. I loved Jack Benny and Fred Allen. Their quick and self-deprecating brand of humor tickled me. I listened to a military show called Command Performance featuring performers such as Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore, and the Andrews Sisters. The Beatles were just getting popular, but I loved the old stuff. I still do. I also listened to action shows like Gunsmoke; Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar; and Have Gun, Will Travel. When I got to college, I made some serious money through my love for old radio programs. My dad let me use his tape recorder to tape radio shows. I created a database of my collection and sold copies of old shows to collectors. I still enjoy them and have more than fifty thousand vintage radio shows in my collection. Decades later, the shows never grow old, and they never stop making me laugh. As Jack Benny would say, “Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

  I was too busy with school and scouting to think much about girls yet, although my parents made me take dance lessons. I also learned how to play piano, but I wish my piano teacher had let me play by ear. I hated having to read music by Braille because you had to play one-handed while the other hand read the notes. Michael Blizzard Hingson did not like to slow down.

  Even so, there are times when leaping out in front may not be the best choice. One day, many years later, a trip dow
n the stairs would require a 100 percent team effort.

  In the stairwell I start using an old trick the Boy Scouts taught me, checking the heat by touching the fire doors on each floor. I loved being a scout. I’m an Eagle Scout and a member of the Order of the Arrow, Scouting’s honor society. Two million young men have earned the Eagle Scout designation, while only 180,000 have earned the right to don the Order of the Arrow sash, which recognizes cheerful service to others. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.

  Then, more panic. Overwhelmed by the burn victims, the smell of the jet fuel, and the overall terror, David Frank’s voice begins to quiver. “Mike, we’re going to die. We’re not going to make it out of here.”

  My hand tightens for a moment on Roselle’s harness. She looks up at me, I know, watching my face and listening for a command. I relax my hand. I need to stay calm for Roselle. I cannot panic. I cannot let her sense any shred of fear in me.

  “David,” I say quietly, so only he can hear. I use my best managerial voice. “If Roselle and I can go down the stairs, then so can you.”

  I’m not afraid of the fire. If those burned women can make it down the stairs, so can we. Roselle is quiet and calm next to me. I know if the fire had gotten close, she would have become nervous and pulled at her harness. I’m not afraid of the descent; people are working together to evacuate, and it won’t be long before we’re out of the building and on our way home.

  But I am afraid of one thing. I can’t banish this thought from my mind. It’s there, nagging at me. A chill runs across my back. What will I do if the lights go out?

  6

  DRIVING

  IN THE DARK

  A joke is a very serious thing.

  WINSTON CHURCHILL

  The stairwell is bathed in fluorescent light. Some of the fixtures give off a slight, comforting buzz as we continue down the stairs. I remember hearing that in the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center, when a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds of explosives was detonated in the garage of our building by a terrorist named Ramzi Yousef, people had to walk down darkened stairwells, and for some it took more than three or four hours to evacuate. What would happen if the lights went out? I keep pushing away the thought.

  David, once right in front of me, has passed several people and moved about a floor ahead. He begins to act as scout, calling back whatever he sees. Every few floors, he calls back the number. “Sixty.” Then “Fifty-nine . . . fifty-six . . . fifty-four . . . fifty.”

  I’m still touching the fire doors, but they are cool. The fire must be contained to the upper floors although the air is still foul. There is a hint of smoke as well.

  As the traffic in the stairwell continues to build, the atmosphere warms. Bodies are closer together. Adrenaline is pumping. The acrid smell of sweat hangs in the air. The railing under my right hand feels warm and damp now, losing its original cool metal feel to the dozens, maybe hundreds, of hands gripping it on the way down.

  I’m still timing my breathing to the steps, but Roselle is breathing fast. Today our partnership is working well. While guide dog training has prepared Roselle to confront new and dangerous situations, there is no way any dog could ever be prepared for something like this. “Good girl,” I say to Roselle. “You are doing a great job. I am so proud of you.”

  I give her head a quick rub, and she lifts her head up against my hand. I slide my hand down around her left ear and stroke her throat. It’s damp. I bet her body is trying to flush out the stench of the fumes. I hope it doesn’t hurt her.

  “Forty-eight . . . forty-five . . . forty-three,” David calls back. I touch my watch. It’s 9:05. While our pace is slowing, my anxiety level begins to ratchet up. We’re heading down the stairs at a steady pace. Roselle is doing her job. David is ahead, scouting. But the buzz of the lights brings the fear back. What if the lights go out?

  As I walk, I mull over what I know so far. There’s been an explosion, and the building took a tremendous hit. The explosion rocked the building, blew out windows, and ignited a maelstrom of a fire. From the smell of the jet fuel, I’m pretty sure an airplane struck our building. So far, there has been no hint of emergency assistance. There are no alarms, no firefighters, and the fire sprinklers have not activated. I’m assuming the power at the top of the building has been cut off by the explosion, but on the 78th floor we still had power in our office, at least when we left. We still have power in the stairwell. But how long will it last?

  There are no windows in the stairwell. There are hundreds of us enclosed in cement and steel. We don’t know what’s going on above us or below us. We have no idea what’s happening outside or even on the floors as we pass by. Without cell phones or contact with the outside, we are, all of us, in a blind descent.

  Then the thought I’ve been pushing away returns. I can’t ignore it anymore. What if the power goes out? If the fire spreads or the power systems begin to fail for some other reason related to the crash, the stairwell would be plunged into darkness. Through voices, breath, and movement, I can tell that the people around me are anxious, driven by a desire to get out of the building and into fresh air and freedom. There is no panic yet. New Yorkers are tough. But if everything goes dark, that could change. The irony is that if the power went out, Roselle and I would be fine. After living for fifty years in a world designed for the sighted, I’ve been forced to find ways to adapt and to cope. My parents’ refusal to send me away to a home for the blind because I might become a burden prompted me instead to get creative, to learn how to survive, and to find and use the tools I need to make a life. A very good life.

  There are certain advantages to being blind. I can save money on electricity. When I became proficient at reading Braille, I used to stay up till all hours reading in the dark. I like to think my parents never knew, but parents know everything, so they probably had a pretty good idea of what I was doing when I was supposed to be sleeping. I’ve developed a strong awareness of people’s thoughts and feelings, gleaned from the sounds of their movements and their voices. I can’t read their faces or look in their eyes, so I read everything else. I can’t even really verbalize how I pick up on feelings and thoughts; it’s intuition, honed by years of listening carefully. I learned to hear the coffee table, I learned to hear the driveways on my street, and I learned to hear people’s emotions, too.

  Try it out. If you are angry or irritated, the muscles in your face tighten up, especially around your mouth and lips, and the tone of your voice changes. It’s sharp and short. On the other hand, if you are happy and relaxed, even smiling, your voice takes on a relaxed, open tone. It’s the same with other emotions and mental states, such as sleepiness, sadness, guilt, fear, anxiety, enthusiasm, and love. I can hear them. Anyone can, if they pay attention.

  The challenge of growing up blind also forced me to develop a boldness and a confidence as I faced new situations. And working with a partner helps.

  Suddenly a thought hits me. Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?

  I can be a guide.

  If the lights go out, Roselle will guide me, and I’ll guide the others. The lights might not work, but we can still get out. Roselle and I will lead the way.

  Immediately, the fear lifts. I take a deep breath, hold it, and breathe out. Relax. We are still moving downward, a long line of people on a journey none of us wanted or anticipated. But we are in it together.

  I call out, my voice loud and strong. “Don’t anybody worry. Roselle and I are giving a half-price special to get you out of here if the lights go out.” People around me laugh. The mood lightens, and we talk quietly as we walk.

  I like to think that even in the most serious situations, I can find humor or some other way of relieving stress. I learned a lot about this in college.

  Heading off to college challenged me to learn how to manage my fears. At first, being out on my own was daunting, as it is for any freshman. I had visited the University of California at Irvine with my parents before high school graduation, and we g
ot the chance to meet with the chairman of the physics department. Everyone in the department was warm and welcoming and seemed to have no qualms about having a blind kid, so I applied and was accepted. My parents were over the moon; all of their hard work was paying off.

  It must have been hard to let me go out on my own into the sighted world. But just as they’d let me shove off on my bicycle and brave the mean streets of Palmdale, they let me take off to the manicured, curving pathways of Irvine. There were a good many more people at UCI than in the whole city of Palmdale, but I was excited and looking forward to the academic challenge.

  I did have Squire with me, though. But I also had learned to use a white cane, and I explored just about every pathway on the 1,500-acre campus, located in the coastal foothills of Orange County just south of Los Angeles and only five miles from the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I walked with a cane, I purposely took different routes to build a 3-D map in my head so I would never get lost. Once I learned the campus, I rode my bike or walked with Squire to get around.

  I also took different routes whenever I walked with Squire. Guide Dogs for the Blind trains students to travel a variety of routes so that a dog does not get overly familiar with a particular routine. I had a friend who walked her phone bill to the phone company office every month. One day she took a walk in the same neighborhood but headed to the dry cleaner’s instead. Her guide dog didn’t know; he dragged her into the phone company, ignoring her commands and tugging on his harness because he thought he was supposed to take her there. Like us, dogs are creatures of habit and easily fall into a rut, so it’s better to keep them guessing.