Mike and all:

Speaking of needing to mention one's blindness in certain conversations, 
your story reminds me of something that happened either before or after one 
of our 40-meter round tables a year or so ago.

I don't know if anyone on list remembers this, but a ffew of us were trying 
to help someone figure out one of the functions on the TS590.  We were 
trying to give the individual verbal directions as to what to do, where the 
needed buttons were located, whether to press the button once, hold it down 
for the given function, etc..  And, out of nowhere, someone broke into the 
conversation and said something like:  "Why don't you just read the manual?; 
I'm sure it's in there!".

Well, someone other than  me  very calmly said that we were all blind hams 
trying to help another fellow blind ham to try to get something to work on 
his new rig, so please bare with us, and I'm sure we'll get it sorted out.

Needless to say, the intruder was mightily embarrassed, and very awkwardly 
said something like how we are all so amazing, and how he can't believe we 
can operate these new rigs as well as we can, etc..

This all goes back to one of my earlier comments:

Even though we all have different life situations and circumstances to deal 
with, it's the attitudes of others that so often can do very much more harm 
than good.

I'm off to the RV now.

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Duke, K5XU" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 4:01 PM
Subject: What Doesn't Matter on the Radio, Part 2


>A few months before I passed my Novice exam, I was listening to some
> guys around Mississippi on 75 meters. As they began telling each other
> what they had been doing that day, one of them said: "Well, I spent
> the day sitting on the floor with my wheel chair torn apart putting a
> new set of wheel bearings in it. Then he added, "That's the third set
> this year!"
>
> Someone asked what was happening to them, and he said: "It's like I
> told the folks at the factory. Just because I can't walk doesn't mean
> I don't enjoy planting my garden and playing in the dirt.
>
> Of course this drew a good laugh from the others in the QSO. After
> things settled down a bit, a relatively new ham said to him, "I didn't
> know you were in a wheel chair."
>
> My soon to be friend then told the new comer that he had arthritis,
> and had been in a wheel chair for 20 years. What he said next has
> stayed with me ever since.
>
> "I won't knowingly run over anybody with it, but I don't back down
> from talking about it when it needs to come up in natural conversation
> such as when John asked what I had been doing today."
>
> I was fourteen years old when I heard that conversation. Within a
> year, I had met this gentleman, both on the air and in person.
>
> About 14 years later, while talking with him at a hamfest, that story
> flashed through my mind. I had never mentioned it to him before, but
> that day I told him how his statement had made a big impression on me.
>
> His wife was with him, and they both thanked me for telling him.
>
> I will never know why I chose that day to tell him that story, but I
> will always be thankful I did. I didn't know it then, of course, but
> that was the last time I would ever talk with him.
>
> About two months later, my friend R. B., WA5OHQ, died from a blood
> clot following surgery.
>
> He is still a legend among those of us who were blessed to know him.
>
>
> Mike Duke, K5XU
> American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
>