I have no intention of misleading the readers of Ezra’s Essays into believing that this essay has anything to do with the current law that forbids members of the military services from disclosing their sexual preferences. Quite to the contrary, this essay has to do with Miss Chicka, my wife, and with blindness.
Apparently there is a belief in the uninformed public that blindness goes with dumbness. I would like to take fairly vigorous exception to that mistaken belief. But the belief exists, as we may find out in the following essay.
For many years the Summit Medical Group has attended to our medical needs. That group was named after the town in which it was located, namely Summit, New Jersey. But about five years ago, the medical group began to get itchy feet and elected to move to a town two towns west of Summit called Berkeley Heights. When the Summit Medical Group exercised its magic in Summit, New Jersey, it had a four-story building plus an annex. All of the specialties were housed in those two buildings. But now in their new quarters, which really aren’t that new anymore, they have a campus-like setting. Rather than ascending or descending to find the offices in the old building, it is now a matter of determining in which building the specialty is located. Given a choice – and I had no choice whatsoever – I would have preferred the older four-story building.
In any case, in the new campus-like setting, which has several stories, there is a considerable amount of walking to do. When the office that will perform the specialty is located, the client such as myself will present himself to a clerk standing at a station and announce that he or she is here to see a certain doctor. The clerk will look at her list to determine whether this person has indeed an appointment. He is then told to take a seat, provided he answers certain questions. The questions are not hard. They want to know what is the state of your insurance, including a back-up carrier etc. and whether you still live at the address they have on their records. There was an occasion when I presented myself to the clerk and she then proceeded to ask Miss Chicka where we lived and what kind of insurance we had. Mind you, I was standing there mute, listening to this exchange, knowing that in the end Miss Chicka would throw a haymaker.
On this first occasion, the clerk outside of the examining room was fairly into her routine while asking Miss Chicka about me. The haymaker came when the clerk wanted to know where Miss Chicka’s husband lived. Miss Chicka answered, “Why don’t you ask him? He can talk.”
Apparently the Summit Medical Group did not learn its lesson with this exchange. There was another occasion when I had an appointment with Dr. Gruber, my long-time dermatologist. When we were admitted to the examining room, one of the functionaries came in to talk to Miss Chicka in preparation for the visit of Dr. Gruber. She was a nice enough person, but she asked such questions as, “Has he been here before?” I sat mute, knowing that another haymaker was in the works. As a matter of fact, I had been seeing Dr. Gruber for perhaps 20 years or so. Nonetheless, Miss Chicka refused to answer any more questions and said as follows, “Why don’t you ask him? He can talk.” The nurse or some other functionary was taken aback when she found that indeed old Mr. Ezra could talk a bit. My talking had to be sandwiched in with laughter as I indeed began to speak.
The clerks and nurses and doctors now know that they are to address their questions to me to avoid the wrath of Miss Chicka. So I say one of the drawbacks to blindness now is that I am denied the ability to hear Miss Chicka say, “Why don’t you ask him? He can talk.”
This essay is a sort of a triple header in that it involves not only the medical but the legal profession as well. For 40 years or a little more, I have been dealing with a lawyer in Summit, New Jersey named Cary Hardy. He is a personable fellow who is what I consider to be reasonably accurate in legal opinions. I have no trepidation about disagreeing with him if that happens to be the case. But about two years ago, I calledCaryto make a change in my will. In an earlier essay, you may have come to know about Jenny Masis who cleans our house every two weeks and whom Judy has brought along as a filer and introduced to the computer. The essay that you are reading at this moment was duplicated and mailed by Jenny.
I called Cary Hardy for the purpose of leaving some of my very vast fortune to Jenny upon my death. I thought that this could be taken care of with the addition of one single paragraph. I should have known much better than that. Somehow or other the small request reverberated throughout the entire will and so it was necessary to reproduce the whole works.
When I appeared to sign the will, Cary Hardy took me into his conference room with one or two of his assistants to witness what I was signing. Cary went through the will item by item and when he was finished with a page he would say, “Initial here.” In fact,Cary would take the forefinger of my right hand and place it where I was to make my initial. I hope that you are sticking with me as I disclose the inner workings of the legal profession. Obviously in rereading my whole will, Cary had a good bit of talking to do. As it progressed, I noticed that Cary was talking louder and louder. Finally, about half way through the reading of the will, Cary stopped and said, “Why am I talking so loud? Your trouble is with your eyes, not your hearing.”
There is one other interesting incident having to do with my lack of sight. It involves Ed Rodgers, a wonderful manager of a branch of the Chase Bank. When Miss Chicka and I went to see Ed about opening a savings account, Ed asked to see my driver’s license which he is required to do under the state of New Jersey law. Miss Chicka started to laugh and said to Ed Rodgers, “Do you realize that you just asked a blind man for his driver’s license?” Ed started to smile, and Judy said that it was the first time she ever saw a black man blush.
Actually, I have a license issued by the Motor Vehicle Department which attests to the fact that I am blind but nevertheless, I am required to carry that document in my wallet. It is carried so that when some authority such as a cop or a bank official asks me to show my driver’s license, I can reach into my pocket, produce my wallet and ask such official to page through it until he discovers my blind driver’s license. Once I had the blind driver’s license, I felt infinitely more secure in traveling the highways of this blessed state of New Jersey.
As a matter of fact, I would not recommend blindness to any other living creature. But the fact is that even in blindness, there can be a bit of humor here and there. Miss Chicka’s haymaker, Cary Hardy’s talking louder and louder, and Ed Rodger’s asking for my driver’s license are sources of considerable amusement to me. I suppose this goes to prove that even in the glummest of situations, old geezers such as myself find a little bit of humor to giggle at.
I realize that the opening lines of this essay might have led one to believe that I was going to deal with the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the government. But that is not the case, even though my strong feelings are that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy should never have been hoisted upon our military personnel. The sooner that it is repealed, the better I will like it. Ah, but this essay really has to do with providing a little bit of humor from blindness. But always remember, if you come by this house in Short Hills, don’t begin to question Miss Chicka about my condition. She may land a haymaker right between your eyes.
E. E. CARR
December 7, 2010
Essay 515
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Kevin’s commentary:
While I would actually like to read an essay about Pop’s thoughts on DADT, this essay was fantastic.
It strikes me that under some occasions, if the other party does not know Pop’s name, it may make sense to approach Judy to ask about Pop. Referring to someone as simply “sir” is going out of fashion and perhaps Pop would not know that he was being addressed. However in a doctor’s office or similar, when they clearly know his name, I can see how this would be a frustrating exercise. When I worked with athletes in the Special Olympics back at Northwestern we would occasionally encounter the same issues; people would ask myself or any adults around questions about the athletes, who in 90+% of cases were perfectly well-equipped to answer the questions themselves. It’s some combination of people assuming the worst and always looking for the easiest way of doing things.
About the blind drivers license, I wonder: does it have braille on it? Nobody who carries one has any idea what they look like unless someone else has described it to them. So if a policeman is rifling through Pop’s wallet, presumably Pop can’t even tell the guy what to look for. A bit of a strange piece of plastic.