I have a lifelong friend named Ross. He was a cross-country truck driver.
With all the free time on the road, he would call me up to three times a day to talk.
I almost feel that I have seen the country, with all the phone calls that we have had because the conversation would usually start with, “Where are you now?”
When he answered his location, many times it was in a mountainous area, or the desert, and going through different cities.
The conversations would also include vivid descriptions, to the point of being able to see them in my mind. I can say that I feel that I could see what he was seeing, many times, and I almost feel that I have traveled through the country with him, for which I am grateful.
I rarely went anywhere out of my state of New York, as I am a homebody for the most part, but Ross and I were talking about me taking a vacation.
Ross said, “Why don’t you come down to my place in Florida?, because I hardly ever use it at all.”
Then he said, “Even if I come back there, I usually sleep in my truck anyway.”
after talking with my wife Diane about it, we decided to take him up on his offer and go for the vacation opportunity.
On our first visit to Florida, I want to describe the scene at the airport in Orlando, after we landed.
I spent forty-seven years in upstate New York, in the winter, with lake effect squalls, and especially bitter cold. I have never liked freezing weather. Winters just dragged on for me, and I could not wait for them to be over.
I felt like I was cold all the time. As I was getting older, it felt like it was getting worse as time went by.
Now, back to the airport. The date was February 1, 2002. I was walking with Diane off the plane. We went and retrieved our luggage. I had my winter coat on, unzipped, with my winter hat in one pocket, and my winter gloves in the other.
Diane walked me outside the building, into sunshine, and 72 degrees. The weather was perfect.
I made a decision right at that moment. I turned to Diane and said, “We are moving to Florida!”
We had just left tons of snow, and bitter cold, that I did not want to return to, as this weather was wonderful.
We spent almost two weeks there. We even looked around to see what was for sale. We went home, and with my next phone call from Ross, I talked with him about planning our next trip.
For the next three years, we spent two weeks, in the dead of winter, vacationing down at Ross’s place.
Diane and I looked around, and we got to know the area, and learned what our possibilities might be as far as living in Florida.
When I looked over our budget in Excel, I knew where we stood financially, and, at the same time, coincidentally, Ross wanted to sell the home at which we were staying.
It all worked out, and then by mid-December 2006, we moved into our new home in Florida, for the winter.
Prior to moving down to Florida, I had put my resignation in with the blind workshop, and they had given me a wonderful retirement party, with many hugs and a lot of love shared between us.
I retired from the blind workshop, as I now knew in my heart that my dream of becoming a Technology Instructor was unattainable there.
We really enjoyed our first winter in Florida. We enjoyed the beach, and community activities, and we gained so many friends.
Prior to our return to New York for the summer, I contacted the blind workshop from where I retired.
They invited me back in, for temporary work for the season.
I was delighted to be able to work for the summers, and I did that for four years, going back and forth as “Snowbirds.”
We went back to Florida, each winter, and my wife Diane got a job in our local area, while I, in retirement, took care of the household chores, and tended to my hobbies at home.
There were many neighbors, but they did not know what to do with a blind person, sitting by himself.
Therefore, there was not too much interaction with them unless Diane was with me.
While I was sitting on our side porch, in the beautiful weather, a thought came to my mind.
I was wondering if this local area had any blind agencies.
I walked into our home and approached my computer, to search for any agencies for the visually impaired in this area.
The local blind agency popped up in the search field, with a phone number. I called the number, and by coincidence, the CEO answered the phone.
I said to her, “Hello, my name is Dan, and I am blind, and I live in this local area. Do you have anything for a blind person to do?”
She replied, “I don’t know: who are you?”
I explained to her who I was, where I was from, and what I did at my earlier position, and that I was proficient with the screen reader, “Jaws.” She then asked me to come in to meet with her.
Diane and I went there to meet with the director the following week.
After our talk, she asked me, “How would you like to teach our teachers, the Jaws program, on a volunteer basis?”
I said, “Yes, I would be willing to do that.”
She said, “It would be a month, four hours per day, five days per week, and we will pay your expenses.”
She helped me get the transportation service set up, and as soon as that was active, I started my volunteer job there.
This position went very well, and I was making many new friends, sighted, and visually impaired.
After the month was over, the teachers were then prepared to instruct their students.
Before my last ride home from the agency, the director called me and asked me to come meet with her, in her office.
I sat down with her, and she said, “Dan, how would you like to work for us as a technology instructor for the blind?”
I could hardly believe my ears! This is what I wanted to do for so many years, and I had concluded that I was powerless over acquiring this dream.
I then informed her that my wife and I were snowbirds, and that we went up to New York for the summer months.
Then she said, “That’s alright, if you take the job, just take the summer months off, and come back in the fall.”
Again, I could hardly believe it. I fully agreed, and I started my new job as a technology instructor in November 2010.
The agency assigned me an office, in the middle of the building, and they assigned me two to three students per day, five days a week. My position included teaching visually impaired students to use screen readers, for computers, the Windows, and Office programs.
I also taught iPhone accessibility to my students, and the talking typing program for the computer.
There were four other instructors in the building, and they admitted to me that they assigned the hardest students to me, as they had learned how patient I am with others.
The transportation service, I found out, was the best in the country, and their actions really reflected their reputation.
As I was sitting at my new desk, I realized that I had the job of my dreams that I was as independent as I could be, and that I no longer had to suffer from the winter cold.
What a faith builder this job was for me. Now I knew that God, “in his plan”, had made my dream come true.
I now realize that the God that I have come to believe was fully in charge of all things.
I also realize that God has used my life, with other people, which was his design, to have blessings in their lives, through me, and my life experiences. I am so grateful for that.