TSB Friends

We were settling into our new lives, I was getting to know my brother Tim really for the first time. Being 13 years old than me he had left home when I was very young.  However because I would be attending the Tennessee School for the Blind (every state has at least one school that specializes in the teaching of children with visual impairments) Jacobb became the focus of the family’s attention.  He was younger, and he had been the one with the harder life so he needed more love and affection.  This is understandable.  Besides, I wouldn’t be home very often.  I was getting ready to start traveling quite a bit.

I started TSB during the 1995-1996 school year.  It was AWESOME, except for one small problem.  None of my credits from CSB would transfer.  All my classes were completely non-transferable.  Why?  Well, till this day I’m not quite sure. Could be any number of things.  Whatever the case, they gave me a choice.  I could go to school on a Vocational Program, this would allow me to graduate with a special education diploma when I turned 18 a year and half later.  The other option was that I could start back at the beginning of my high school career.  This would allow me to get a real high school, fully academic diploma.  I thought it over and decided that I wanted a real diploma not something that wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.  I decided to start all over again.  Unfortunately, I had to wait for the new school year to start before I could get started.  So I would attend numerous elective classes until the next school year.  This was cool because it let me get to know the students and staff.

Starting the 500 Yd. Backstoke. (2nd Place)

One of the coolest parts of this time was the ability to learn about the differences between CSB and TSB.  The biggest of which was the fact that TSB had sports teams.  Legitimate sports teams that were exactly the same as their high school counterparts.  I was too late for wrestling, or track & field.  So I joined the swimming team and despite my large size turned out to be pretty good,  I had to be an exhibition competitor because of my late entry so I couldn’t win any medals, but I did very well and would have placed 2nd if I had made the team in time to be on the varsity team.

The next year I would be even more surprised by the talents I didn’t know I had.  The ability to actually compete, do well, get rewarded, this was all great.  But I was nervous about the classes.  If my credits didn’t transfer then it’s obviously much harder work then CSB was.  I was scared to death that I was going to go back to my dumb straight F self from public school.