Second Sight

The experience of recovering vision after 15 years of blindness is captured in journal entries made by Hine, emeritus professor of history at UC Riverside. Told at age 20 that he would eventually become blind, Hine, aided by his wife, coped with diminishing sight, finishing graduate school, progressing in his academic career and even finding ironic humor in the notion of research by a person of low vision. When total blindness came at the age of 50, it lasted 15 years, a not unhappy period, as Hine, now fluent in Braille and assisted by advanced computer technology, lived in a lively world of sound and touch. Then a high-risk operation restored partial vision to one eye, and he was catapulted into a new world where vision was dominant. Despite his joy at independence, he also felt some ambivalence at the loss of the precisely ordered lifestyle blindness had imposed on him. Hine reflects on the published attitudes of blind writers, as he effectively conveys the texture of his well-lived and well-appreciated life. (Aug.)