weight. I made many friends and picked up skills that would serve me if I stayed off the roads. I toyed with the idea of staying at one of them forever. When I couldn't make up my mind, I was advised that there was no hurry. I could go to California and return. They seemed sure 1 would.
So when spring came I headed west over the hills. I stayed off the roads and slept in the open.
Many nights I would stay at another commune, until they finally began to get farther apart, then tapered off entirely. The country was not as pretty as before.
Then, three days' leisurely walking from the last commune, I came to a wall.
In 1964, in the United States, there was an epidemic of German measles, or rubella.
Rubella is one of the mildest of infectious diseases. The only time it's a problem is when a woman contracts it in the first four months of her pregnancy. It is passed to the fetus, which usually develops complications. These complications include deafness, blindness, and damage to the brain.
In 1964, in the old days before abortion became readily available, there was nothing to be done about it. Many pregnant women caught rubella and went to term. Five thousand deaf-blind children were born in one year. The normal yearly incidence of deaf-blind children in the United States is one hundred and forty.
In 1970 these five thousand potential Helen Kellers were all six years old. It was quickly file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (2 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:29 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt seen that there was a shortage of Anne Sullivans. Previously, deaf-blind children could be sent to a small number of special institutions.
It was a problem. Not just anyone can cope with a deafblind child. You can't tell them to shut up when they moan; you can't reason with them, tell them that the moaning is driving you crazy.
Some parents were driven to nervous breakdowns when they tried to keep their children at home.
Many of the five thousand were badly retarded and virtually impossible to reach, even if anyone had been trying. These ended up, for the most part, warehoused in the hundreds of anonymous nursing homes and institutes for "special" children. They were put into beds, cleaned up once a day by a few overworked nurses, and generally allowed the full blessings of liberty: they were allowed to rot freely in their own dark, quiet, private universes. Who can say if it was bad for them? None of them were heard to complain.
Many children with undamaged brains were shuffled in among the retarded because they were unable to tell anyone that they were in there behind the sightless eyes. They failed the batteries of tactile tests, unaware that their fetes hung in the balance .when they were asked to fit round pegs into round holes to the ticking of a clock they could not see or hear. As a result, they spent the rest of their lives in bed, and none of them complained, either. To protest, one must be aware of the possibility of something better. It helps to have a language, too.
Several hundred of the children were found to have IQ'
within the normal range. There were news stories abou them as they approached puberty and it was revealed that' .,. 40
there were not enough good people to properly handle them. Money was spent, teachers were trained.
The education expenditures would go on for a specified period of time, until the children were grown, then things would go back to normal and everyone could congratulate themselves on Page 3
having dealt successfully with a tough problem.
And indeed, it did work fairly well. There are ways to reach and teach such children. They involve patience, love, and dedication, and the teachers brought all that to their jobs. All the graduates of the special schools left knowing how to speak with their hands. Some could talk. A few could write. Most of them left the institutions to live with parents or relatives, or, if neither was
So when spring came I headed west over the hills. I stayed off the roads and slept in the open.
Many nights I would stay at another commune, until they finally began to get farther apart, then tapered off entirely. The country was not as pretty as before.
Then, three days' leisurely walking from the last commune, I came to a wall.
In 1964, in the United States, there was an epidemic of German measles, or rubella.
Rubella is one of the mildest of infectious diseases. The only time it's a problem is when a woman contracts it in the first four months of her pregnancy. It is passed to the fetus, which usually develops complications. These complications include deafness, blindness, and damage to the brain.
In 1964, in the old days before abortion became readily available, there was nothing to be done about it. Many pregnant women caught rubella and went to term. Five thousand deaf-blind children were born in one year. The normal yearly incidence of deaf-blind children in the United States is one hundred and forty.
In 1970 these five thousand potential Helen Kellers were all six years old. It was quickly file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (2 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:29 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt seen that there was a shortage of Anne Sullivans. Previously, deaf-blind children could be sent to a small number of special institutions.
It was a problem. Not just anyone can cope with a deafblind child. You can't tell them to shut up when they moan; you can't reason with them, tell them that the moaning is driving you crazy.
Some parents were driven to nervous breakdowns when they tried to keep their children at home.
Many of the five thousand were badly retarded and virtually impossible to reach, even if anyone had been trying. These ended up, for the most part, warehoused in the hundreds of anonymous nursing homes and institutes for "special" children. They were put into beds, cleaned up once a day by a few overworked nurses, and generally allowed the full blessings of liberty: they were allowed to rot freely in their own dark, quiet, private universes. Who can say if it was bad for them? None of them were heard to complain.
Many children with undamaged brains were shuffled in among the retarded because they were unable to tell anyone that they were in there behind the sightless eyes. They failed the batteries of tactile tests, unaware that their fetes hung in the balance .when they were asked to fit round pegs into round holes to the ticking of a clock they could not see or hear. As a result, they spent the rest of their lives in bed, and none of them complained, either. To protest, one must be aware of the possibility of something better. It helps to have a language, too.
Several hundred of the children were found to have IQ'
within the normal range. There were news stories abou them as they approached puberty and it was revealed that' .,. 40
there were not enough good people to properly handle them. Money was spent, teachers were trained.
The education expenditures would go on for a specified period of time, until the children were grown, then things would go back to normal and everyone could congratulate themselves on Page 3
having dealt successfully with a tough problem.
And indeed, it did work fairly well. There are ways to reach and teach such children. They involve patience, love, and dedication, and the teachers brought all that to their jobs. All the graduates of the special schools left knowing how to speak with their hands. Some could talk. A few could write. Most of them left the institutions to live with parents or relatives, or, if neither was
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