FTGP Lesson 19-10-2012

Albino Power By John A. Walsh I was born an albino in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1945. No one in my family had ever known what an albino was, what it meant to be an albino, what had to be done differently because I was an albino. My parents, relatives and friends treated me just like they treated everybody else. That was just about the best thing they could have done. It gave me a leg up on trusting myself, so when the annoyances came along, I could deal with them. True, my schoolbook photo always looked like a snowball with two pieces of coal for eyes. Like most albinos, I had terrible eyesight, but the fact that I could barely see didn't bother me all that much. Kids would tease me, asking if I was joining the circus and calling me "Whitey." My grades suffered until eventually I overcame being self-conscious and realized it was okay to ask to sit in the front of the classroom so I could see the blackboard better. People stared at me when I held reading material right at the tip of my nose so I could see it well enough to read. Even when I was eight or nine, movie-theater clerks started asking me to pay adult prices because I "looked older." The worst part for me was that because my eyesight was so bad, I couldn't play sports very well. I didn't give up trying, though. I shot hoops every day and played whiffle ball (because whiffle-ball line drives can't kill you) in the summer. And I studied harder. Eventually, I got better at school and loved it. By the time I got to college I was double majoring, going to summer school and immersing myself in every kind of extracurricular activity I could find. I had learned to be proud of being an albino. I did my darndest to make "albino" a positive word. And I decided to make my living with my eyes - and in sports. I couldn't see well enough to play sports, but with a solid education and the drive to do it, I could make a living involved in the arena I loved. I've done it now for more than thirty years in print and in video, and now in cyberspace. People make jokes about how I'm the only "blind editor" they know, but the jokes are verbal smiles now, some of them signs of respect. And I make jokes about being an albino. I have even developed an all-white routine, if you could call it that. I was just a proud albino kid from the coal country of Pennsylvania. I now realize that being born an albino helped me to overcome obstacles, gain confidence, and be proud of my personal achievement and humble about my professional accomplishments. And here's the link to the video we watched...