[Critique Group 1] June Piece for critique

[DQ Noriega]

Chapter 14.

New Faces and New places

 

Curt needed to take a fifth year at college to earn a teaching credential.
I knew I would probably need to complete a two-year Master's program to get
hired as a social worker.  Our college didn't have that Master's program.
So I started taking some counseling classes that were transferable to a
graduate school elsewhere.  We moved up into the foothills to be closer to
where Curt would do his student teaching.  I commuted down to Turlock.  I
spent three nights a week with Scottie and her dog Dippy in a two-bedroom
apartment.  If I scheduled things carefully, I could manage to spend half
the week attending classes and half up in the mountains with Curt.  

 

Tammy and I did several practicum type classes that gave us a chance to work
with children who were mobility impaired. We  also gained experience with
adults and children who were developmentally delayed. I led a support group
for teens with disabilities at the high school.  Everywhere we went Tammy
was a hit.  She maintained a quiet patient demeanor when the children forgot
the rules and buried her in a pile of petting hands and hugging bodies.  She
lay down and waited for me to dig her out and remind them that they were to
form a line and say hello one at a time.  Some handlers remove the harness
before allowing the public to touch or speak to their dogs.  I found that
inconvenient with so many young children eager to greet her.   I could put
Tammy at a sit, order her to rest and allow her to be petted.  Each dog is
different. Some dogs get too excited to permit much interference. Once when
I got a little confused about my location I asked a man raking leaves for
the name of the next cross street.  Tammy sat beside me patiently for a few
minutes.  He came closer to answer my question but didn't speak to her or
try to pet her.  Tammy didn't like being ignored.  Finally, when she thought
she had been overlooked long enough, she sat up and offered the man a paw to
shake hands.  

 

On another occasion, a new mail carrier knocked at our door.  He had an
armload of large cartons of braille books from the library for me.  Tammy
was out of harness and so felt entitled to greet him.  She came bounding
toward him.  He was so startled that he fell backwards down the porch steps.
She stood above him wagging and squeaking her favorite toy, a bright yellow
rubber ducky.  Fortunately, he was unhurt and we shared a laugh over my
fierce protector.

 

A kitten showed up to invite himself to join the family.  He was so small I
could easily hold him in one hand.  Loki was an orange tabby. His coat was
long, thick and fluffy.  His feet were the largest things about him.  He had
seven toes on each paw.  They were arranged so as to resemble a catcher's
mitt.  He grew to be an eighteen-pound gentle giant.  We named him Loki, but
that eventually morphed into Lucky.  He set about to establish his
dominance.

 

When Tammy and I arrived home, she customarily went to her dish for water
and a few mouthfuls of kibble.  It wasn't unusual for her to find a small
orange puffball fast asleep in her bowl.  She summoned me with a bark to
remove the obstruction.  Other times she found him stretched at full length
in the middle of her rug.  When a bark didn't cause him to do more than open
one eye and yawn, she flopped down on top of the intruder in her personal
place.  He scrambled out from under her and bit her on the tail or paw.  The
game was on.  An orange streak raced up and down with a black avenger in hot
pursuit.  They charged about until the kitten fearing he couldn't escape
sought shelter under the couch or bed.  By this time, Tammy would be running
too fast to stop.  She ended up running into the piece of sheltering
furniture.  

One day as Tammy passed the dining table.  Orange paws snaked out from where
a kitten was lying in wait on one of the chairs.  They attached themselves
to a waving otter tail.  Of course, Lucky was the one to be surprised.  His
slight weight didn't phase the dog.  She went on wagging her tail, kitten
and all.  

 

In the summertime, I fed Tammy outside on our small porch.  A rather
bedraggled old tomcat started hanging around under the porch and helping
himself to left over dog food.  He was snaggle-toothed and had many scars.
After assessing us during the warm weather, he decided to retire from his
life of independence and moved in when the nights became too cold.  Each
time I opened the door, he dashed inside.  Unlike Lucky, Alouitious
Bartholomew Cat wasn't interested in playing with Tammy.  They developed a
policy of mutual aloof disdain.  He only lived with us for about a year,
before passing away quietly in his sleep.  

 

One of the teachers Curt worked under for his student teaching had a wife in
a wheelchair.  We became friends and often met for lunch or to run errands
around town.  We never failed to draw a lot of attention.  She was really
adept at bouncing her chair up on two wheels to handle curbs in those days
before curb cuts.  She had a car adapted with hand controls for her to
drive.  I opened heavy doors and pushed pedestrian signal buttons.  I think
the town of Sonora thought the circus had arrived whenever we hit its
streets.  

 

For his 21st birthday, Curt's parents took us to San Francisco for the
weekend.  We had tickets to a play and went to a fancy restaurant for
dinner.  I dressed up in heels and a cocktail dress and Curt wore a suit.
As we got on to the elevator with my in-laws, an older woman boarded the
car.  We were talking among ourselves and she must have heard us both
address Florence as mom.  Finally, she asked which of us was actually her
child.  My mother-in-law was a wonderful person with a gentle loving nature.
She responded politely that Curt was her son and I was his wife.  The lady
gushed, "Isn't he wonderful to have married her?"

 

I felt a jolt of anger go through my husband, but before he could say
anything rude to the lady, my darling mother-in-law replied sweetly, "Not
particularly, he happens to be in love with her."  It has always amazed me
how people feel free to say rude things or ask personal questions of people
with disabilities.  They don't seem to have any sense of being discourteous.


 

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were assigned a polite young waiter.
He ceremoniously seated us and explained the specials.  He left us to decide
and went to fill our order for beverages.  After placing our drinks on the
table.  He asked if he could bring water for Tammy.  I assured him she was
fine and didn't think any more about it.  When he placed our dinner choices
on the table, he knelt down and placed a large platter with a steak bone
before Tammy.  My good girl never even lifted her head from my foot.  She
knew that anything not in her familiar dish was not hers.  Unless of course
it was ice cream and our waiter hadn't brought any of that irresistible
temptation to the table.  

 

Curt found a job teaching junior high science and we were off to San Jose.
There was a statewide hiring freeze on for social work positions.
Specialized units handling caseloads of Hispanics or Japanese welfare
recipients had worked efficiently and a unit was formed to attempt to bridge
the cultural barriers for Native American clients.  A small unit in the
Santa Clara County Welfare Department was given the task of handling
relocated Native Americans. At this period, the federal government was
following a policy to force assimilation by offering people still living on
the reservation a payoff to move to major cities away from their extended
families and people. Attempts to starve, infect with disease, push them onto
lands not fit for farming or any other form of gainful work, poison them
alcohol, deny them the right to speak their native tongue of practice their
own religions or cultural beliefs had diminished the population, buthad not
succeeded in assimilating them in to society. As a result of this latest
latest federal program, large numbers of Sioux, Navajo and even an
occasional Eskimo or Chippewa were living in the area.  When I enquired
about entry-level positions, I was told there weren't any openings.  As I
turned away in frustration, I tossed back over my shoulder a flippant
remark. "I guess you have your token Indian."  The clerk called me back to
fill out an application.

 

I was hired under a rotating number to circumvent the hiring freeze and had
to hunt down my paycheck each month.  It was sent all over the building,
depending on who was taking a pregnancy leave or using up vacation time.
The unit consisted of a single caseworker and two aides.  The aides were not
allowed to do a lot of the work because they only had A.A. degrees.  That
meant that I was assigned over a hundred cases to handle.  In the days
before talking computers and scanners to read print, there was a lot of
paperwork to process with no effective means to get it done.  I labeled the
top sheet of each stack of forms and clipped a template explaining how many
spaces to move my typewriter carriage over or down to fill out the blanks
correctly.  I made braille notes about my clients and filed those in the
front of each folder.  I was frustrated by a system which required that a
form be filled out for each action I took, even when that action didn't lead
to a positive result.  The readers I used were not allowed to read documents
from client files because the files were deemed confidential.  I could send
out notices and use a driver to meet clients in their homes and appear in
court.  The everyday paperwork was my biggest stumbling block.

 

Tammy had her role in all of this activity.  She remained quietly at my side
or under my desk unless voices were raised.  If an angry client stormed into
my office,Tammy would move to place herself between me and the angry client.
I only had to place a hand on my dog and speak softly to the upset
individual.  I pointed out that loud voices agitated my dog guide and since
I didn't want anyone bitten, they should please take a seat and explain
their problem calmly.  I offered to do my best to assist them.

 

The paperwork was a trial, but it didn't take long for me to realize that an
additional problem was my empathy.  I often felt like a girl scout with a
box of bandages trying to help at a major traffic accident.  Seventeen
year-old mothers of three needed so much more intervention than a
fifteen-minute visit and discussion of how to live on a budget.  Indian
women used to depending on large close families of sisters aunts and cousins
were overwhelmed by the loneliness of city living.  A welfare check
estimated to provide for the minimum needs of a family left no margin to
handle the unexpected crisis or the natural generosity of Indians toward
each other.  I also found myself wanting to take home each child thrown into
the system through no fault of his or her own.  Good loving foster care
homes were hard to find.  Brothers and sisters had to be separated when no
place for more than one child could be found.  Children who had been in the
system for awhile became harder to handle and often acted out to test
whether the adults in the new family cared enough not to toss them back.
Sadly, their doubts were often justified. If small change disappeared or
something was damaged, the foster child got the blame and I would have to
hunt for a new placement.    

 

Many of the people I worked with became hardened to other people's pain and
just shuffled paper.  I didn't win many brownie points from the others in my
office by treating clients with respect and courtesy.  My running all over
the building to get a signature to authorize emergency food or some other
intervention irritated others.  They had no problem taking a coffee break
while keeping someone sitting down in the lobby with five hungry whining
children.  When my temporarily borrowed number finally ran out, I was let
go.  

 

I had gotten in the habit of filling out only one form to note the apartment
found or whatever action I had completed successfully instead of six for the
places I called without success.  So my productivity ratings were low.  I
had run into a bizarre form of reverse prejudice.  The three others in my
unit were full bloods.  My chestnut hair and ivory olive complexion were
considered in their opinion to be too light.  I was treated to remarks like,
"You look more like a Chinese than an Indian."  I left wondering just where
I did belong.  I had never thought too much about my identity as Quietwater,
daughter of Twilight Woman granddaughter of Redbird.  Though I had inherited
my Grandmother Luella's petite build and lighter complexion, I had always
been accepted by my large extended family.  Once when we were children, my
mother gave us each a dollar to spend at a carnival.  The carnies refused to
take my tickets and let me ride for free.  When we got home, my mother asked
if we had had fun.  My middle brother Ruben said "Yes, but I don't get it
why everyone is so nice to her, just because she's a girl!" It didn't occur
to him that my blindness was why the ride operators treated differently. At
home I was his big sister.  So dealing with prejudice about my blindness and
my mixed blood was something I didn't quite know how to handle.  I had
always won approval from my teachers and my family for working hard and
doing my best.  It was a shock to work with people who neither respected my
efforts nor wished to help me be successful in the tasks I undertook.  I had
moved out of the school environment where I was that cute little blind girl.
This was the real world where some of my co-workers wondered why I was
receiving a higher salary.  When it seemed obvious to them that a blind
person couldn't do the work.  They couldn't imagine how they would perform
the job if they were blind.  So in their opinion a blind person just
couldn't do it.   It's times like this that the steadying presence of
friends and family are really important. I now had   Curt and Tammy to help
me weather a storm of self-doubt. Tammy let me know each day that I was the
most important person in her life.  She didn't care if it took me longer to
fill out a form on my typewriter than it did someone using a pen.  I was
still her special girl, like no other because she loved me.   

People's responses to guide dogs can really be funny.  One day as I pulled a
shopping cart behind me and worked to collect a few items at the grocery
store, a little girl approached us and commented, "I bet your dog doesn't
like being carried around with that handle."  Trying to picture myself
slinging my ninety-pound dog over my shoulder like a purse sent me into
hysterics.  Another child inquired if my companion was a dog or a pony.  

 

While I waited in a candy store to buy a pound of peanut brittle as a
birthday gift for my father-in-law, a young man came up to us and asked if I
were training Tammy to pull a dog sled.  He wanted to know where he could
get a harness to try to train his dog to pull.  I don't know if the
confusion was caused by the fact that people are surprised to see retrievers
guiding or that they expect all blind people to fit some sort of stereotype
of a shuffling head-down person wearing dark glasses.  Blind people come in
all shapes and sizes and can be couch potatoes or downhill skiers.  They can
be young or old.  They might have been blind since birth or have recently
lost vision.  Guide dogs have to be carefully selected to match the
lifestyles and personalities of the blind people with whom they are teamed.
The matching process has to take into consideration strength, walking speed,
and overall temperament. Will the dog need to walk long distances, handle
heavy traffic or spend hours lying quietly in a classroom or office?  Will
the dog need to be able to handle subways and crowds?  Will it need to be
strong enough to brace someone with balance issues?  Will it need to be
accustomed to small children, horses, cats?  

 

Many factors go into choosing the right dog for each handler.   When Tammy
and I were matched, we were young, energetic, and lively.  Her gentle
responsive nature was well suited to my soft voice and quiet handling style.
We fit neatly together like the two halves of a whole. Among guide dogs,
there is always one dog who holds the star position among the rest.  I have
loved all of my dogs, but Tammy was my star, my perfect match.     

 

 

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