It was a magical evening. May 15 marked the end to a long career at the Colorado Center for the Blind for Tom Anderson. More than 150 people came to send Tom and Linda off to Kansas after 27 years teaching Braille – and several other duties. We fed them, and gave the tribute to Tom and Linda that we felt they deserved. And we did it without electricity.
That Friday was a generally mild spring day. Sure there were sprinkles and rumbling thunder in early afternoon as the Center’s Board of Directors met in our new conference room, but all that passed over us.
The magic came in the form of a power outage around noon, and it didn’t strike us as magical at first. More than 150 people had sent us an RSVP saying they were coming to Tom’s retirement party, and we’d promised them all Tom’s favorite – dinner – a nice Italian sausage sandwich with grilled onions and peppers, along with pasta salad and other sides. The food had to be cooked.
Then there was the matter of the program. We had the gym set up with all the chairs and the sound system. Ah yes, the sound system that would carry the voices of our presenters from one end of the gym over the heads of 150 people to the other end. It didn’t run on batteries, even if we’d had enough DoubleAs to make it carry for over an hour.
The first word from Excel Energy was that the power would likely come back on line about 3:30 in the afternoon. That was later revised to 8:50 p.m. It turned out that an entire utility pole had burned up, leaving the Colorado Center for the Blind and 500 other residential and commercial customers without power.
The Colorado Center for the Blind is part of the National Federation of the Blind – the oldest and most effective organization “of” the blind in the history of the human race. We believe in the capacity of blind people, we teach our students to believe in their own capacities and – most significantly – we have faith in our collective capacity as an organization.
So here’s what we did …
Kimberly and her hand-picked crew of assistants had begun the prep work on Thursday afternoon and started some of the cooking on Friday morning. When the power went out though, there were still dozens of Italian sausages, gallons of pasta for pasta salad and onions and peppers to grill. They switched everything to the two gas stoves. The gas oven didn’t work because the controls are digital, and therefore electric.
Our volunteer Madeline ferried The hand-made bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers to our apartments two miles away to use the ovens there, then brought them back. Everything was kept warm in serving pans heated by sterno to wait for the 5 p.m. serving time. It was a fine meal under any circumstances!
At 4 o’clock, Duncan and another volunteer Mike grabbed canes (I had mine already) and the three of us scurried down the dark stairs to assess the situation in the gym. Mike got an impromptu cane lesson on the way. We propped open all three doors to the outside on the north side of the gym. It was adequate lighting for our sighted guests, and Mike felt he had just enough light to run the video camera on battery – as long as the program didn’t run too long or too late in the evening.
As guests started streaming in before five, they typed up Braille messages to Tom and Linda in the lobby, got a drink and went in to be served in the meeting room. Guests filled the tables in the meeting room and the picnic tables outside. It was a gorgeous evening!
By 6:45 the gym chairs were full and Director Julie Deden kicked it off. Members of our Board of Directors had come from all across the country, as had members of Tom’s family and former students. The program started with a congratulatory speech from special guest Dr. Marc Maurer, Immediate Past President of the National Federation of the Blind, and from Mrs. Patricia Maurer. Dr. Maurer described the framework for the need and success of NFB training centers, including the Colorado Center for the Blind, and the role Tom Anderson has played in our efforts for all of its first 27 years.