Intoxicated by Braille

I get my braille magazines from a deaf-blind friend who passes them on to me when she's done reading them. Then I read them while driving to work, eyes on the road, left hand on the wheel, right hand deep in SCW. Could I be the only person on the face of the planet who reads braille while driving his car?

I'm sighted (I hope so, you're thinking, if you drive a car!) and I’ve been intoxicated by braille ever since first learning to read it (visually) about 30 years ago when I worked as a transcriber at National Braille Press.Around that same time, I took a sign language class across the street at Northeastern University, where I fell in love with the teacher, who was deaf, and whom I eventually married. I also thereby became rather fluent in sign language, and eventually became an interpreter. But I never lost touch with the braille. And eventually I learned to read it tactilely. This is how I did it:

I was sitting in the proverbial traffic jam from hell one day, going absolutely nowhere on my way to work, when I reached over to the passenger seat where there happened to be a braille letter from a deaf-blind friend I’d met the previous summer at an AADB (American Association of the DeafBlind) convention. With nothing better to do, I tried to see if I could read it with my finger. I had no problem with "Dear Paul," but it took me the rest of my commute (about an hour) to make out the first two sentences. Concentrating on that braille letter in my lap, trying to read it with my finger, my eyes never leaving the road, made the time go by. And it was something to DO. And so, on the drive home, I continued reading. And the next day and the next. And lo, my habit of reading braille in the car was born!

If you do anything for two hours a day (an hour in, and an hour out) five days a week, for several years, you will get better at it. Which is what happened. I can now read braille quite proficiently with my right index finger. And I enjoy doing it! I also enjoy reading braille in bed at night when my wife would rather go to sleep. No problem honey, I'll read with the lights out. I enjoy reading braille in a dark movie theater during those interminable previews, and even during the movie itself when it sucks. But mostly I enjoy reading braille while driving--driving while intoxicated by braille! Do you think it's illegal? But our esteemed lawmakers and constabularies can’t even conceive of it. Who can conceive of me driving down the Mass Pike with my finger deep in Deborah Kendrick? And anyway, it's no more dangerous than driving while listening to books on tape, or eating a pastrami sandwich on rye, or keeping time with my thumb on my knee to an old-fashioned song in my head, eyes on the road. Eyes on the road!