Celebrating WORDWALK’s Eighth Anniversary

Celebrating WORDWALK’s Eighth Anniversary

by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

                On this 19^th of January of this much-anticipated year of 2021, as we await tomorrow’s Inauguration, I am recalling the two times when I had the pleasure of touring Washington, D.C., and also surprising myself with marking the eighth anniversary of the initiation of this WORDWALK blog.  During this National Braille Literacy Month, within these thoughts of our nation’s capital and my blog’s anniversary is a braille connection.  So, let’s begin to connect the dots that will weave together this anniversary blog post.

                Fortunately, for my older sister and me, both of my parents enjoyed traveling:  throughout the years of vacationing with our parents, we visited thirty-eight states and many historical sites.  In August of 1965, after Mary Elizabeth had been graduated from Clinton High School and I was looking toward my sophomore year, our parents planned a summer vacation for the four of us in Washington, D.C.  As usual, this trip was a road trip.  Thanks to then Indiana Congressman Richard Roudebush, my mother had secured for us special passes to visit The White House, Capitol Building, the Smithsonian Institute, and other points of interest.  Despite the summer’s heat and humidity and a great deal of walking each day for a week, I greatly enjoyed touring the historical buildings and museums, as well as visiting the National Cathedral and watching the changing-of-the-guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. 

                At that time in the 1960s, a tourist could visit more rooms of The White House.  For whatever reason, the silk wallpaper most impressed my sixteen-year-old mind.  The Red Room was strikingly beautiful while The Blue Room was attractive in a stately manner; The Green Room completed this trio of famous rooms that were etched into my memory.  Near the kitchen, the guide told us about The White House china patterns, some of which were displayed in a special case.  Later, for my souvenir of this once-in-a-lifetime experience, I purchased a beautiful, full-color book simply entitled THE WHITE HOUSE.  Through the decades, I practically memorized the photos in this lovely book; happily, I still have this book on one of my bookshelves. 

                From 1983 through the first half of 1984, I worked on eighteen lessons of the Library of Congress course to become a braille transcriber.  After completing the eighteen lessons, which were checked by a Terre Haute (Indiana) resident who had already been certified as a braille transcriber, I selected a large-print book about President Harry Truman and First Lady Bess Truman for achieving the transcription of twenty-five brailled pages–11-by-11.5-inch pages–to be graded by someone at the Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C.  By the time I completed all of the meticulous work for this braille transcription course, I decided that I had put more effort into this course than into my first master’s degree:  my parents felt the same way.  Thus, rather than mail my manuscript of twenty-five brailled pages to our nation’s capital, my parents and I chose to take a second road trip to Washington, D. C., so that I could hand deliver my manuscript to the proper office at the Library of Congress.  Amazingly, in the summer of 1984, we did.  Although the office was in the annex of the Library of Congress, hand-delivering my meticulously brailled manuscript at the Library of Congress was a thrill. 

                During this second trip to D.C., we visited the Capitol Building again and even saw Senator Ted Kennedy coming down a stairway.  Although we did not tour The White House again, we tried to see some places which we had missed previously.  For example, we especially enjoyed touring Mount Vernon and taking a night tour to see the historic buildings in lights.

                In September of that year, a few weeks after our return from Washington, I was delighted to receive in the mail my certificate which is dated August 23, 1984, and verifies my being certified as a braille transcriber by the Library of Congress.  The accompanying letter noted that I achieved the score of 98 of 100:  I had made in those twenty-five pages of single-line spaced braille two cells of errors that I had not caught during my brailling and proofreading.  What a relief to know that I had achieved my goal!  This goal eventually led to other opportunities for me, including a fellowship grant for earning my second master’s degree in blind rehabilitation at Western Michigan University and a full-time job teaching braille and other rehabilitation courses before returning to the traditional classroom to teach English.  Yes, I am tremendously grateful that learning braille and training with my four Leader Dogs led to such wonderful opportunities.

With braille always nearby and Leader Dog Willow ever at my side, I look forward to another year of sharing my writings with my WORDWALK readers.  My special and sincere thanks to all of you, especially those of you who have been following WORDWALK since January 19, 2013.  Finally, my continuing appreciation to my friend Jenna who on a Saturday afternoon eight years ago, helped me to initiate this blog.  In January of 2013, I never imagined that I would average fifty or more posts each year for eight years … and still happily counting.

With great gratitude for your joining us on this 8^th-Anniversary WORDWALK,

Alice and Leader Dog Willow

January 19, 2021, Tuesday

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