7. A New Hope

Beam Me Up!!!

For the other geeks that may by some chance be reading this, I am aware that A New Hope was Episode 4, get over it I published it, like it or not. Ok, back to the tale.

The California School for the Blind was too far from home for me to go in the morning and come home that night. This was not going to be a conventional school, in more than one way.

Every Sunday at about 12:00 PM I would catch the bus, not a school bus but a charter bus, think Greyhound. This would make several stops on the way to the school about 300 miles from home. We would add more kids to the bus until we got to CSB at about 6:30 PM. On these long road trips you made strong connections with people that would come to be very close friends. This was a rather new concept for me. I didn’t have many friends before CSB.

My first day at CSB was a completely new experience. People treated me with respect; they treated me like I belonged there. Not like I was in the way or an inconvenience. I didn’t know how to react to this new life. It took me a week or two to get used to it. My confidence started to increase. I was making friends, I was popular. I was happy for the first time in my life. I belonged. I was, honestly, with my own kind. I even had a girlfriend.

CSB Halloween.

It was so cool to me because the Superintendent of CSB was also an albino. Burt Boyer. This man taught me so much about what I had to look forward to in my life. He showed me for the first time that I can do just about anything if I put my mind to it. I know this sounds very cheesy, but you have to realize that up until then I really didn’t understand there were other people like me, not only blind, but albino too.

Things were going great, my first school year I won several academic awards, I didn’t even know I could do that. I made the Honor Roll, received the Perfect Attendance Award, and received the Superintendant’s Award of Excellence. I look at this time in my life as my awakening into the man I am today. How could I have known things would change once again?

1. A Small History Lesson	2. Congratulations It’s A Freak
3. The First Five Years	4. It All Goes Up In Flames
5. School Daze	6. Say What?
7. A New Hope	8. Becoming A Sophisticated Redneck
9. A New Beginning – Literally	10. Back Into the Fray
11. They Like Me, They Really Like Me	12. 10011001
13. Let the Music Heal Your Soul	14. Taking My Sister to the Prom
15. My First Love, My First Broken Heart	16. From Zero to Hero
17. Livin’ On a Prayer	18. Moving On
19. Going Full Circle	20. The Rockford Files
21. Faith of the Heart	22. Partner, Friend, Lover, Wife
23. Turns Out She Was Right	24. A One-Legged Bear
25. Another Victim of the Game	26. Payin’ Bills with my Skills
27. A New Revell-ation	28. A New Page, A New Day
29. R We There Yet?