[Missouri-l] Pony Express Association of the Blind provides fun, fellowship for local low-vision residents

[Denny Huff]

Keeping things light without sight

Pony Express Association of the Blind provides fun, fellowship for local
low-vision residents 

Jennifer Gordon

St. Joseph News-Press 

 

Dee Ann Sutherland is the president of the Pony Express Association for the
Blind.

Vision fades, but friendship lasts forever. The members of the Pony Express
Association of the Blind in St. Joseph have lost a lot - driver's licenses,

independence, spouses - but they have one another. And together they have a
good time.

 

The group, founded in 1958, is unusual for an organization affiliated with
the Missouri Council of the Blind both because it has several sighted
members

and because none of its current low-vision members was born blind. The
composition might explain why the ties that bind the group are ones of
fellowship,

not vision impairment.

 

Some of the sighted members, such as Marguerite Smith and Lorene Brokaw,
started coming to the meetings with their low-vision spouses and have
continued

to come after they've passed away. Margaret Lyle came with her mother, Opal
Williams, until she passed away in 1984 and likewise kept attending. Pat and

Larry Carr accompany Pat's mother, Alice Graham. Bob Lafferty comes with his
wife, Pat, who lost her vision a year and a half ago.

 

For the low-vision members of the organization, the 29-member group provides
much-needed solidarity. Shirley Estes started coming to the Pony Express
Association

of the Blind meetings in 2006.

 

"I had lost a lot (of my vision)," she says. "I just wanted to be with
people who were experiencing the same thing."

 

Dee Ann Sutherland, president of the Pony Express Association, says the
group helps with problem solving.

 

"All of us have different levels of vision," she says, "It's good to get
together and talk about problems and how to deal with them in different
ways."

 

Blind or low-vision residents have another option for support groups in St.
Joseph, the local chapter of the Missouri Federation of the Blind. Unlike
the

Pony Express Association of the Blind, the Missouri Federation of the Blind
has more of a political bent. It sends representatives to Jefferson City to

lobby for services for the blind and helps connect members to lawyers for
discrimination cases.

 

A Christmas feast 

 

During the first full week of December, the Pony Express Association went to
the San Jose Steakhouse and Mexican Grill in St. Joseph for a special
Christmas

dinner meeting. The group normally meets every other Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
at the Joyce Raye Patterson Senior Citizens Center.

 

Family members drive some of the gathered 18 group members to the San Jose
Steakhouse; the rest come in with Leland "Buster" Daise, the driver for the
Older

Adult Transportation Services (OATS) bus. The service for disabled and older
adults makes a special trip for Pony Express Association of the Blind
meetings.

Mr. Daise is always the driver for that run, so he's become an honorary
member of the group.

 

Betty Beaver and Trudy Steele use lit magnifying glasses to examine the
menu. No one in the group reads Braille; with extra magnification, the
low-vision

members can see well enough to read print. Mr. Lafferty reads the menu to
his wife and alerts her to when the waitress comes by to take everyone's
orders.

 

When the dishes arrive, the waitress identifies everything on the plate,
whether the country-fried steak has white or brown gravy and the side dish,
before

she sets them down.

 

The second Pony Express Association of the Blind meeting of the month offers
other activities for members. During one, the St. Joseph Police Department

put on a safety presentation. At another meeting, a group gave a
presentation on living wills. The members of the Pony Express Association
are well into

retirement age but are looking to bring in younger members.

 

The Missouri Council of the Blind hosts events as well. Ms. Beaver and Ms.
Steele have attended the Missouri Council of the Blind's camp at Cobblestone

Lodge in Steelville, Mo. The campsite, designed for the legally blind,
offers all the usual activities such as canoeing, Bingo, card games and ring
toss

- with modifications. The playing cards have Braille on them. During ring
toss, people will stand behind the pole and clap to guide the low-vision
campers.

 

"We don't sit around and feel sorry for ourselves," Gerry Loubey says after
Ms. Steele and Ms. Beaver recount a Cobblestone Lodge canoeing adventure for

the group.

 

Getting through the day-to-day 

 

Resources for the blind at both state and local levels also help give
low-vision members the opportunity to live as normally as possible. Only a
handful

in the Pony Express Association of the Blind live in assisted living
facilities. The OATS buses take those unable to drive to doctor
appointments, grocery

stores and other shopping trips. MERIL, in collaboration with the Missouri
Department of Family Services' Rehabilitation Services for the Blind,
provides

a low-vision resource center for the St. Joseph area. The low-vision
resource center sells products to help make reading, note taking, using the
computer

and watching television easier. The state will subsidize the cost of
equipment for Missouri residents over the age of 55 who cannot read the
newspaper

with the best correction. Everyone else may purchase the equipment directly
from MERIL.

 

The Northwest Missouri Rehabilitation Services for the Blind office in
Kansas City also provides counseling, independent living and vocational
courses for

residents to help them adjust to life without vision.

 

Other activities members could do with their eyes closed before vision loss
made that more than a saying. Lifelong cook Alice Graham keeps up her work
in

the kitchen, though she now avoids recipes that call for boiling water. It's
difficult for those with low-vision to tell if the water is hot enough or

if it's been boiling for a while. Ms. Graham was so familiar with her
kitchen and her measuring cups that when her vision started to go, she began
cooking

by feel. She's in the kitchen less now only because a tornado damaged her
home in 2006 and destroyed her utensils. Getting accustomed to new measuring

cups was a challenge, her daughter said, but not one that has prevented her
from making her beloved pies.

 

Life is still bright for the Pony Express Association of the Blind. The
members stay at the restaurant long after the food has been served and catch
up

with one another.

 

"I never dreamed blind people could have so much fun," Ms. Estes says.

 

 

 

____________________________________________________

 

Denny Huff - President

Missouri Council of the Blind

Toll Free: (888) 362-1383

Cell: (636) 262-1383

MCB Phonecast: (816) 298-8969

 

 <mailto:DHuff at MoBlind.Org> DHuff at MoBlind.Org

 

 <http://www.MoBlind.Org> WWW.MoBlind.Org

 

_________________________________________________

 

The purpose of Missouri Council of the Blind shall be to promote the general
well-being of our members and legally blind people in Missouri, and to
support or participate in other programs promoting the best interests of
legally blind people everywhere.

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