The Blind Guy who watched Star Wars

“Okay,” Kevin said. “Read it to me one more time.”

He was sitting in what passed for us, our Green Room. This is a small area where on air talent and guests go to decompress, wait, and get ready to go on the Air. In a few minutes, Kevin would be going on the air to give the news.

Every weekday, from 3 PM to 5 PM, our college TV station went on the air. The local cable company had their own feed that did little more than display the time, temperature and barometric pressure. But they gave us two hours a day to do our thing.

Our studios were small, crammed with two camera, a small set, broadcasting equipment, and people almost stepping on each other. In the middle of the this turbulant sea, Kevin sat with a girl.

The girl had a clipboard in front of here. “Okay, here we go,” she said. “NASA announced today the launching of Voyager one…”

Kevin picked up the rest of the story. “Voyager one is one of two probes launched for a tour of the outer planets. The state of the art imaging system will send pictures of the giant outer planets and moons. ” He stopped himself. “Okay. I think I got it.”

I looked up from the director’s console. “One minute, Kevin,” I said.

“Cool.” He stood up, his white shirt perfectly ironed and his tie in a GQ approved Windsor knot. The girl helped him with his jacket which he quickly button. Holding out his hand, she put a white cane into it. “There’s a cable about two steps in front of you,” she warned.

“Thank you.” Using the cane, he navigated his way through the minefield of cameras and set and took his place as the anchor for the news.

Holding a blank piece of paper in front of him, he raised his sightless eyes to a camera he couldn’t see.

Kevin was one of the first people I’d met at Adams State College. It’s kind of hard to miss a guy crossing campus being guided only by a cane. He was into broadcasting and public speaking, and we got to work closely over the years.

it was easy to forget he’d never seen the Sun or the Moon and concepts like stars were outside his scope. His blindness closed a lot of the world to him.

But it opened others. His girlfriend was name Chelsey, and she was from Africa. A beautiful girl, her dark skin almost seemed to shimmer in the Sun. Someone made the mistake of asking him about dating a black girl. Obviously that insensitive lout wasn’t the first. Kevin would look around in mock horror and go., “Oh, my God!”

Invariably the Lout would ask, “What?”

Kevin would gasp, “I guess, I’m color blind, too!”

The idea of differences in skin pigmentation was lost to him. He treated people not according to our standards, but who that person was.

His blindness opened a different world to him.

But the biggest surprise was when Star Wars came out.

I’d heard of Star Wars in a Newsweek article a few years before.

Then I saw the trailer at a Star Trek Convention. All I could do was shake my head, smile, and say, “This think is going to be huge!”

But the surprise came opening night in Alamosa. I was one more person in the sea of people that stretched around the block and I was standing next to Kevin and we were talking. Finally, I asked the question everyone in line was burning to ask.

“Bro, don’t take this the wrong way,” I started.

“I know. What’s a blind guy doing waiting to see Star Wars?”

“Exactly.”

He smiled. “I might not see it like you do. But I can hear it. I can imagine things.”

Standing in line, he reminded me it was about story. For eons, humans have sat around campfires, or under the stars, or in front of radios and heard stories. It was their imaginations that filled in the visual gaps.

“Besides,” he added. “I’m not going to let being blind rob me of the experience. People say I can’t do this or that. To heck with that.”

I smiled remembering that. I’d never had better company at a movie than the blind guy who couldn’t see it.

“Five, four, three, two, one.” I said, counting down. “Cue Talent.”

The red light on Camera One came on.

We were on the Air.

“Good afternoon, Alamosa from KASF-TV.” Kevin identified himself and then shaking the copy a little, began the news of the launch of a space probe that would send back pictures he’d never see.