ANCIENT& not so ancient WISDOM
offering a weekly positive perspective

December 23, 2004

"Live life to the fullest!"

- Martin Knight (1952 - )

There is no other just like you. You are irreplaceable and you will impact many as you live your life. Live life to the fullest.

I am hoping that the timing of this email is such that you have a few extra minutes to read it. I know you will enjoy the stories included and they will contribute to your life – they have mine and they relate to a comment I received from last week’s AW [Ancient (and not so ancient) Wisdom].

I did receive a great deal of feedback on last week’s AW and a few questions. To answer the questions: Yes, despite the fractured vertebrae, I still play rugby with the Bucks and our season begins January 8; my neck does hurt sometimes, but only if you include every morning and afternoon, and no I don’t take Celebrex; I surf every chance I can create, and no I haven’t surfed Maverick’s yet; and my nose is still on watch (and on my face), and yes I take precautions with the sun.

The piece of feedback I received that I would like to comment on and has lead to this week’s AW was this: 

Jeffrey,

I don’t know how I ever got on your list but your wise words have meant a great deal to me this year…a year nearly as challenging as yours (though I certainly haven’t handled it with the “grace” it appears you have!).

Happy Holidays to you and yours – and here’s to your “nose".

I responded that I was glad to contribute and clarified the “grace” part, because I don’t feel I handled what occurred in my life this year with a lot of grace. I feel I got through it kicking, stumbling, and screaming. Which I think is the important point – It’s not how you get through something, it’s what comes out the other side that is important and what you do with it.

My image of “grace” during hardship looks like Gregory Peck in The Big Country. My actions immediately at the time of my hardship don’t fit my image of “grace”. I do feel I have opportunities ahead to demonstrate “grace” and will work to meet those opportunities and I believe that constitutes “grace”. So thank you and I hope you enjoy these stories about others demonstrating a great degree of “grace”. (Note: A few specific references in certain parts of the following emails were removed.)

Dear Mr. Hansler,

   Today I was looking through some papers on my husband's desk and found an e-mail from you with the subject of Ancient (and not so ancient) Wisdom.  It was from Friday, February 21, 2003.  It was about change.  My husband at that time worked as a salesman.  I remember him bringing this e-mail about change home and having me read it along with another of a speech of Anne Morrow Lindburg about success and happiness.  They both really affected him and helped him and I reach the decision to make a huge change in our lives and for him to start his own business in March.  Over the next five months my husband worked from home, and while it was all not easy beginning a business as I am sure you know, he and I spent a lot of time together.  He also got to spend more time with our children.  We also got to spend a wonderful vacation at the beach and visiting relatives.  These are things that would not have happened had he not quit his busy, stressful, and time-consuming job.  All of the memories I have of those times are very precious to me now because he died in a motor accident.  I wanted to thank you for sending that e-mail for the changes it made in my husband then and for what a different meaning it has for me dealing with the huge changes in my life losing him has created. 

And the following is a compilation of emails sent to me by Martin Knight.

Dear Mr. Hansler: 

I would like to thank you for your great little book, SELL LITTLE RED HEN! SELL!  It was easy to read and I had problems putting down without reading it all the way through at one time.  I am blind with Retinitis Pigmentosa and read through my computer with adaptive equipment software that is connected to my scanner.  I put the book down on the screen of the scanner, hit the scan button and then the scanner scans the page and makes its funky noises, then it tells me that is presenting the image, recognizing the text, and then it tells me that it is done, and then it reads me the page. 

I am without sight but I have vision.  March 27, 1952, I was born in Concord, New Hampshire, I was a 6lb. 12oz, 17" healthy baby boy but I was born with six fingers on each hand.  After about a year, the extra digits were not working so they were removed.  The day after the surgery, I became cross-eyed.  I saw several doctors in my early years.  Two years later, my sister joy was born and she seemed to be a healthy baby with no extra digits.  A year later, my brother, Bill, was born and he had the extra digits.  About two years after Joy was born, the doctors noticed a hole in her heart.  No hospitals could take care of her in New Hampshire (She is now an echo cardiology technologist as well as an independent business owner). Our father had college friends that lived near a hospital in Connecticut and always told him that whenever he wanted to come to Connecticut he was welcome to and so we moved to Winsted, Connecticut,

In the summer of 1956, he stayed in Winsted with the friends and found a teaching job and home for us to live.  One day our next door neighbor, a local ophthalmologist asked our father, ‘How would you like to have your son’s eyes corrected?’  My father was dumbfounded because we had been through NH and could not find any eye doctor to correct the cross-eyeness. The cross-eyeness was corrected: one in July and the other in August before I entered kindergarten.  When it was time to enter kindergarten, I fought tooth and nail with my parents and had temper tantrums.  They said that I was going to school, and I told them that I know that you are lying to me and it is not school but another hospital.  I had nine surgeries from birth to kindergarten, both hands twice, both feet once, tonsils, and my eyes.  I hated white shirts and when my father came home from teaching school wearing a suit with white shirt he had to take the white shirt off when he first got into the house or there would be a screaming monster on their hands.  I had a typical child life until fifth grade when I lost depth perception and could not play with the guys.  I had no friends since I could not play ball with them.  After seeing what a toll this was for my parents we went to a local psychiatrist in Lakeville and saw him regularly for two years.  He was a friend as well as my doctor. 

In seventh grade, when the guys got to know you for whom you are not whether you can play ball, I had many friends.  In my freshman year at high school, I was considered a liability so they got rid of the liability by only allowing me to have academic studies and study halls.  No extracurricular activities like gym class, industrial arts class or clubs.  I sat at a separate table in the cafeteria because the staff was afraid that I would spill on myself or other people.  The only other people that sat there had disciplinary problems and had to be watched. 

March 15, 1967, almost two weeks before my fifteenth birthday, I had my annual eye examination.  After the exam, my ophthalmologist sat my parents and me down and explained that I was being declared blind with Retinitis Pigmentosa from the Laurence Moon Beidl Bardel Syndrome. 

After my freshman year at Gilbert, I attended a summer school program where I started to learn what I needed to learn to go from the sighted world to the unsighted world.  I learned how to fold money to know what bills are what, cane travel, techniques of daily living.  I then toured Oak Hill School, the school for the blind in Connecticut.  After touring the school and seeing that I could participate in everything at school, studies, gym class, industrial arts, extracurricular activities, it was almost a no-brainer to decide to attend Oak Hill.  I saw the school with fellow students during the day and ate in the dining hall with students also. 

Shortly, after I was declared blind my brother Bill and sister Debra were also declared blind. Our parents explained to us about Retinitis Pigmentosa, a gradual deterioration of the pigment in the retina, which first starts as night blindness, then tunnel vision, then no peripheral vision since the rods go before the cones go in the retina, and then finally you lose the central vision.  They said that the doctors did not know how long that would take but that we will never see again like we did before. 

Then our parents told us the following:  ‘Live as much of a normal life as possible.  Do what you are able to do and do it your best at all times.  Be as independent as possible but there is nothing wrong in being interdependent when you need to be.  NEVER use your blindness as an excuse.’

After high school, I attended Northwestern Connecticut Community College where I received an Associate of Science degree in General Arts and Sciences, in 1973.  In 1972, I became a member of the Winsted Lions Club sponsored by District Governor Milan "Mike" Knight.  July 29, 1974, on a leap of faith I  left Winsted to Middletown, CT to become the darkroom technician at Middlesex Hospital.  When I first started at the hospital, I only knew a handful of people and knew how to travel the block from the Northern Middlesex YMCA to the Hospital X-Ray Department.  In 1976, I transferred my membership from the Winsted to the Middletown Lions Club.  For many years, I served on their Board of Directors.  From 2002-2003, I was their President and recently was awarded the 100% Club President Award for my excellent year as president.  I was recently nominated by my fellow employees and was honored by a finalist and one of two runners-up for the Fran R. Corcoran, Jr. Employee Recognition Award, formerly known as the Employee of the Year for Middlesex Hospital.

I am the Chairman for Middletown's Mayoral Committee Concerning People with Disabilities, blood donor of 130 pints or 16.25 gallons, governing member of the Northern Middlesex YMCA, member of the Loyal Order of the Moose Chapter 1547, in Middletown, CT, member of South Congregational Church where I am Chairman for their Board of Outreach and play in their hand bell choir.  I am now a Zone Chairman for District 23-C of the International Association of Lions Clubs.

I enjoy sports of all kinds, country music, 50's and 60's music, and puttering on my computer with its adaptive technology, screen reader for the e-mails, internet use, and word processor.  Open Book with my scanner helps me read my mail, books, magazines, and newsletters. 

I feel that in my lifetime I have accomplished and continue to accomplish our parents’ wishes as they asked us when we went blind in 1967.  I feel that I have lived life to its fullest.  Lived as much of a normal life as possible with my situation of being blind and having vision.  Doing what I am able to do to my best and doing my best at all times.  Living as independent as possible and have learned to be interdependent when the times need me to be interdependent.  Never used my blindness as an excuse.  I try to help educate and inspire people that people with disabilities are able to do what they are able to do when that becomes the choice that they make as I have done in my lifetime.

It was great hearing from you and I am honored that you were inspired by my e-mail letter to you.  Feel free to use any of the information from this e-mail and the other e-mails that you received from me today about my life and feelings about your awesome book SELL LITTLE RED HEN SELL. 

Your friend,  Zone Chairman Marty Knight 

Wishing you a wonderful holiday and great inspiration.

Sincerely,