Transcription Result

Stories that Change our Lives. Hello, everybody. This is Neil Ewers, and you're listening to episode three of a podcast called Stories that Change Our Lives. Stories that go far beyond the story itself to something or someone that has changed our life forever. Today's story is about animals. How I, as a very young child, tried to figure out what animals, well, I can't say looked like because I don't see them. But what could I figure out that would tell me something about what they might feel like if I could get close enough to feel one? Once again, my parents came through to the rescue. So without any further ado, here is the story. I was about 6 years old at the time, and lately I'd been asking a lot of questions about what various critters look like.

I'd felt a cat. We had one. I'd also felt a dog. I'd smelled a skunk recently, but I sure didn't want to know what that felt like. Many people who are blind have very little idea what various animals feel like. It's not that you can walk up to a lion and say, hello, Mr. Lion, may I feel your fur? Even squirrels, frogs, skunks, and other creatures are basically out of reach to someone who can't see what they look like. Also, I'd been asking where just about everything I ate came from. I like to eat.

My grandma raised chickens, so I knew that we were often eating either Phyllis, Samantha, or any number of chickens. I'm not really sure how she picked the names, but they all had one. Steak came from cows. I knew that much cause I'd overheard a conversation with Daddy and the man who owned the grocery store not far from our house. I'd also learned from that same conversation that pork comes from pigs. I'd never felt a cow or a pig, but I knew they had very tasty meat. At least it was very good when Mama cooked it. For a time, I was confused about our cat because Mama talked about cat food. Did we actually eat cats? I finally figured out that cat food was food for the cats.

But of course, that made me wonder where that came from as well. What I didn't know is how many legs a bologna had, what kind of fur did it have, and how long was its tail. We ate a lot of bologna, but I was puzzled about why I'd never heard anybody talk about them. Perhaps they came from the jungle. Mama had read me stories about animals that lived in the jungle, but she hadn't ever read me anything about a bologna. I was thinking about all of this One night when we had supper, we happened to be having fish. I remember my mother cooking it. I was very curious about whether fish were in pain when they were being cooked. I'd just burned my finger on a hot iron, and I didn't like that at all. So I didn't think fish would like to be cooked.

Mama, where do fish come from? Well, Neil, these came from the James river. She said, but, Mama, how did they get all the way from the river to our house? And what do fish look like anyway? And does it hurt to be cooked? Oh, yes. That's the way I would ask questions. Evidently, I didn't want to waste an entire sentence on only one question. Well, Neil, she said, daddy went fishing and caught these fish and brought them home. It doesn't hurt them when they're cooked because they're no longer alive.

Now, I had to think about that one for a minute. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of eating things that were dead. But that does raise a question and a question which I had to deal with later in life, but not right then. As for what they look like, she said, well, they're kind of fish shaped. She paused because she knew that wasn't going to help. This is my first memory of me taxing my parents ability to translate what they saw into something their child could never see. Mama tried again. Well, Neil, she said, they're wet, they're slimy feeling, and they smell like. Well, they smell like fish. And even that she knew fell way short of the mark.

But as you might have noticed, she did use words for senses other than sight. So I knew a lot more than I knew before. But I still didn't have any idea at all what I'd feel if I touched one. And I think they both knew that they both had to figure out how to bridge the gap that a lot of parents have to deal with if they have a totally blind child. It must be so much easier for parents of sighted children. You point to a bird and you say, that's a robin. You see them looking at something and you tell them what they're looking at, and then they know. Daddy broke in, there are many different kinds of fish. There are bass, perch, catfish, trout, garfish, and all kinds of other kinds of fish. I knew now that there were a lot of kinds of fish, but that made me even more confused.

Were there also many different kinds of cows? What about pigs? There was certainly a lot I didn't know. And we hadn't even started eating supper yet. And that's how it started. I wasn't just curious about the critters I ate. Evidently, I wanted to know about every creature I could hear. And every creature anyone mentioned. Much of the time, I didn't even know what I was hearing, Much less what it would feel like if I touched it. Sometimes Mama and Daddy and I would be out in the yard.

I'd ask questions about things I heard. What is that sound, Daddy? What is that sound, Mama? Sometimes they could see the things I was hearing, and so they knew what it was. Sometimes, in fact, most of the time, it was nowhere to be seen, even though we could hear it. Where do you think it is? Mama asked. And off I'd go to try to figure out where I heard it last. They would follow right along behind. Much of the time, we never found it.

Daddy would say, I guess creatures don't always want to be seen. But every once in a while we'd find it. And they would try very hard to describe it to me. But there was always an uncertainty in their voice. I think they were sad that they couldn't put it into words that even made sense to them. It's not easy to tell a person who is blind what something looks like. Come right down to it, it's not always easy to describe things, period. Give me a picture and a thousand people, and they'd probably all describe it differently. And maybe nothing of what they said would have anything to do with helping me figure out what it would actually feel like. So what they were saying, as much as they tried, just wasn't working.

And they knew it. How could they tell me in a way that I could understand? Once my dad showed me how to make a paper airplane. We played with it a good deal. We actually wound a rubber band around the propeller and tightened it up as tight as we could. And it would fly for a long time before it crashed. It flies, he said, but it doesn't look like any plane I've ever seen. And I'm not sure how I'd make you one that did. They even tried using modeling clay. They thought that might help because they could make something that I could feel.

But artists they were not. I remember Mama telling me once that she and Daddy made two different creatures without the other one knowing what creatures they were making. They then traded, closed their eyes and tried to figure out what the creature was. We didn't use modeling clay much after that. They tried other ways. They'd often say, neil, imagine our cat. And then give it a longer, more fluffy tail. Or make it fatter or skinnier. Or make its legs longer or shorter and make its head bigger and a different shape. That was better.

But I sensed that they were still trying to tell me something that I wasn't getting. They just didn't know how to get it across to me. I didn't know how to help them. I was the one asking the questions. Meanwhile, life at our house went on. Mama cooked and cleaned as she always did. And often sat at the old sewing machine mending clothes that I or Daddy or my sister Linda had done something to that rendered them almost unwearable. And yet she could make em work. Still, each time I heard a noise and asked what it was, they still tried, but I think they just didn't know how to put it into words. One day, Daddy came home with a lot of books.

It was an encyclopedia. They just wanted to look at all the things I wanted to know about. In the hope that somehow they'd be able to describe them better. While that didn't work as well as they thought it might, it did tell us a good deal about the creatures I was asking about. We learned about the cycle of the caterpillar and how it turned into a butterfly. About a variety of frogs and where they lived. About which snakes were poisonous and which were not. And all about how long they were, where they lived and what they ate. We even learned about lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my.

We learned about a lot of animals. The problem was we raised more questions than we could answer. It's funny how that happens. You go in search of something and you discover that you end up with more questions than you started out with. Daddy used to say that that was the way life was to him. Running out of things to ask would be very sad. That made me feel better because I was nowhere near running out of questions. Come to think of it, I haven't gotten to the end of that list yet. Mama would make up stories about many of the creatures we learned about. And if she couldn't think of a story, she'd get a book each night and read to me about all kinds of wonderful things, people and places.

But never once was there a story about a baloney. She was spending more and more time sitting at the sewing machine. She said it was because she thought, given her income, that she might have to go to work. She was a good seamstress, people said, and a number of companies had asked her if she wanted to come and work for them. I'd often ask Mama, whatcha doin'? Oh, I'm just sewin a few things. She'd say. One day, I came to the table for lunch and reached out to find my plate. What I touched was not something to eat. It was covered with fur.

At first, I thought my cat had decided to eat my lunch. Mama, I asked, what's wrong with Kitty? But before she had time to answer, I realized that Kitty was asleep. And come to think of it, it didn't feel like Kitty at all. Mama, what is this? Well, Neil, it's a squirrel. But, Mama, where did this squirrel come from and why isn't it moving? Well, Neil, she said, it's a homemade squirrel. I made it for you. I wanted you to know what a squirrel felt like, so I tried to make one for you.

It's as close as I can come, and it kind of looks like a squirrel. It's not exactly the shape it should be, but I've never made a squirrel before. She'd gotten some furry feeling material and some stuffing and had stuffed it so it had almost the exact shape of a squirrel. Even the tail was long and fluffy. So this is what a squirrel looks like, I said. Daddy, who was sitting across from me, said, well, Neil, it looks just like the one I saw the other day. To this day, I don't know whether he was thinking about a live squirrel that looked like this or if he was referring to the one he saw Mama making. I carried that squirrel around with me for a very long time, imagining how it could jump from tree to tree without falling. I likely even slipped with it. I think Katie was a bit jealous because I didn't play with her much.

I'd bring the squirrel to lunch with me every day. About a week later, with squirrel in hand, I came to lunch. I was just putting it on the table when Mama said, neil, I think the squirrel has company. Sure enough, there was another stuffed creature in my plate. Mama, what is this? Well, Neil, that's a skunk. I must have turned up my nose, remembering how bad the skunk in our yard had smelled. Don't worry, Neil. This skunk has a much nicer smell. I made it for you because I wanted you to know what something like a skunk looked like.

This isn't exactly it, but it's as close as I could come. Mama, I asked, does this skunk look like other animals? Well, maybe some, she said, but there are a lot of animals in the world that have very different shapes. It kind of, I thought, looked like Kitty, but not quite. And Kitty would have not a thing to do with it. Little did I know it then. But in the Days, weeks and months ahead, I would meet many such creatures that magically came from Mama's sewing machine. The magic was, one, that they all looked different. And two, when people saw them, they were amazed at how lifelike they looked. A couple of weeks later, something else appeared.

Mama, this is all wet. Well, Neil, that's a fish, and fish have to live in water. But Mama, remembering what Daddy had said. What kind of fish is it? Daddy said, it kind of looks like a perch. It felt so different than any of the other critters I'd felt then. There was a day that she said, neil, this, what you're feeling now, is a bird. It's called a robin. But there are many other kinds of birds that look very different. Some are bigger, some are smaller, some are really big.

I'm sure they would feel different, too. Robin, she said, can fly, and they sometimes walk around on the ground looking for worms to eat. Mama, I said, what is flying and what is a worm? Well, Neil, she said, they flap their wings and they can actually leave the ground. They can fly, just like you and I can walk. They can go from one place to the other right above our heads. I'm not sure an eli can make something that feels exactly like a worm. They're long and very slimy, and they crawl on the ground where they dig holes that they can get into. When it rains, they often come out of their holes and stay on the ground. And then the robins have a real feast.

One day, Felix the frog showed up. Oh, yes. I'd begun to name my critters. If Grandma could name her chickens, I could name my critters. Not that they would have picked the names I chose, but since I couldn't communicate with them, I decided just to go ahead and give them names. Tom was next, a very large turkey who sat in the middle of our plate, taking up the whole plate. I knew that Daddy used to go to the woods to hunt turkeys. He had some turkey collars, and when he played them, they sounded exactly like turkeys. He'd play the sound, and Mama would try to mock the sound the turkey made. She'd try a couple times, and it was the weirdest noise I'd ever heard her make.

And then she'd just totally dissolve into laughter. That laughter sounded so wonderful, it made me totally forget the turkey and anything else we were doing. I loved her laugh. It was so full of mirth, so full of life and so very musical. She had a bit more trouble with Albert, who showed up not long after the alligator. We'd heard about on the radio. It even felt scary to me. I did not want to take Albert to bed with me. And so he spent the night sleeping by Kitty's bed. Kitty would hiss.

Walk in circles round him and sniff him all over. Finally, satisfied that she was still the queen of the house of critters, she'd settle down and go to sleep. The very last creature that appeared on the table in front of me was the strangest creature I had ever felt. It was much longer than the others. It had a round body and very short legs. Its head looked like it wanted nothing to do with its body. It seemed to be looking in every direction you didn't want it to look. There was no fur. It almost felt like it was made of rubber. And when you moved it, its body pieces didn't seem to want to go where any of the other body pieces did go.

Mama, what is this strange looking animal? She laughed. Well, Neil, what do you think it is? I felt it some more and she laughed some more, so much that she could hardly keep from crying. She knew she had me now. I really don't know, I said, and that only made her laugh more. Well, Neil, she said, I'll tell you. It's a very rare animal and very few people have ever seen one. More laughter. When she was finally able to talk, she said, well, Neil, what you have in your arms is a wild bologna.

And there I sat, cuddling the world's now extinct wild bologna. We spent the next five minutes asking silly questions with tears just streaming down our cheeks. If there was such a thing as a wild bologna, what would it eat? Did it live in a hole in the ground or did it live high up in a tree? We gave up on the tree idea. Nothing whose parts flopped around like that could have ever gotten up a tree. Finally, we just gave up. But Mama had one more question that caused the laughter to start all over again. Neil, do you think you'll sleep with it tonight? Of course I did, because I knew she'd check to see if I had it in bed with me.

The last thing I remember before going to sleep that night was her soft giggle as she closed the door to my bedroom. That was a wonderful magic time in my life. I understand now that part of the magic was that she and Daddy had worked on these lifelike animals together. Daddy would say, no, I think his head has to be a bit bigger, or, I wonder how you make Neil know how fierce he looks. But it was Mama's idea that had caused the magic to happen in the first place. So very much of that magic was the love that Mamma sewed into each and every stitch of every critter she made. She wanted me to see the creatures of the world. She knew I couldn't see them with my eyes, but she also knew that I had a longing to know them in a way that had to be somehow unlike seeing them with my eyes. There was also a kind of pride in her voice and her laugh. She had figured it out.

She'd finally discovered a way to show the world of creatures to the blind sun she loved so dearly. I think about this now, and my hands, my mind and my heart all remember. Now when I hear a squirrel, a bird, or any of the creatures she made, or even creatures she didn't make, which I knew she would have if she'd had time, Mamma was right here with me saying, neil, feel this. What do you think it is? To this day, I'll never know which of us, me or Mama, was changed the most by the making and enjoying of these wonderful creatures. What I am perfectly sure of is that both of us had discovered a new and very meaningful way to love and to be loved by each other. We had begun a lifelong journey of discovery. In her own way, I think she learned more about how I see the world than just about anybody I know. Even her ability to describe things after that got better. I have to think that she spent many hours thinking about just how to do this.

She'd learned a lot from making those critters and she put it to good use. I do have to confess that I had to stop recording this episode in a number of places and just sit, holding my parents in my mind. I love them so very much and miss them so. Can anyone even wonder how this story has changed my life? Every time I think about these creatures, I believe change still happens. I become more aware of how hard it was for them to figure out how to show me the world and how it must have felt to ultimately be able to hand it to me on a silver plate. Each time I think about Mama's laugh, I often break out into laughter myself. Each time I remember her love filled, soft southern voice, I'm reminded to be nice to the people I meet along the way. In all the years I knew her, I never heard her say a bad word about anyone. Ever.

And often, when I'm in a situation that causes me to wonder how I can deal with a person who seems to be a particular challenge, I have to stop and ask myself, what would Mama do? I miss them. I love them dearly, and I'm a very different person as a result of being their son. Thanks everybody for listening to this story, and now I'd like to hear from you. There are a couple ways to reach me. 1. Via email my email address is storiesavenswood.org that's storiesavenswood R A V E N S W O O D O R G. You can put your comments in the text of the email, or you can send an audio attachment with whatever you want to say. You can also leave me a message at the following phone number 608-650-6652. Once again, that's 608-650-6652.

I'll be back in a couple weeks, and I hope you're here too. Thanks again for listening. Sam.