To Table of Contents my favorite . It certainly was unique and was the most different venue of any I have experienced . Footing was a challenge , walking among noisy penguins , getting to and from little islands by Zodiac , and kayaking among seals and whales presented travel experiences that one typically does not encounter . Everything I did there was a first for me . I confess that I did not wander off on my own , and I don ' t think much of anyone else did , either . A close second favorite was a visit to the village of Kuranda , Australia , including the fifteen tunnels , tropical rainforest , forty bridges , and waterfalls between there and Cairns . I was extremely fortunate to be with my partner on that trip , for nothing was truly accessible . That does not mean that a blind person cannot engage fully in such adventures , though . Often the biggest challenge is convincing the person in charge of your capabilities , despite the lack of so-called accessibility . I ran into that for the Antarctica trip , until I told the doctor that I skied black runs in the Rockies . He decided I would be " fine ." Even though people with disabilities are all over the place , a person who encounters us , frequently has never dealt with a blind person , a person in a wheelchair , a person who is deaf . Accessibility will vary tremendously from country to country , and some places are never going to be " accessible " - -churches , palaces , castles , caves , cobble stone streets and walkways , or historic terrains .
In conclusion
Over four decades ago , a young man with a Ph . D . in organ performance from the University of Michigan applied for membership in an Ann Arbor health club . He was denied because he was blind , and the proprietor admitted it . His joining would be " unsafe " for him and other members . It ' s " common sense ," he said . I sued the club to force admission . Negotiations went nowhere , and the case went to trial .
The club had not interviewed the plaintiff ; not based its decision on any safety studies ; had no complaints or other data against the application from its membership ; and had no bad experiences with blind members at any of its other franchises . Its insurance risk evaluators did not , and could not , produce anything from within or without the club to support lack of safety , and no one else produced evidence supporting lack of safety . Better yet , there was a Michigan law defining health clubs as a place of public accommodation that was required to grant access to the blind , and it contained no safety exception ; Plaintiff ' s case was open and shut , right ? Wrong ! The judge heard the testimony , he even visited the facility , he upheld the denial and dismissed the case .
So I needed a better way to tell the court of appeals what was at stake . We had all the evidence and the law , but we had been trumped by " common sense ." In his previously referenced speech , Dr . Jernigan made many valid points , none more valid than this one :
In reality the accomplishments of blind people through the centuries have been out of all proportion to their numbers . There are genius , and fame , and adventure , and enormous versatility of achievement , not just once in a great while but again and again , over and over . To be sure , there is misery , also poverty and suffering and misfortune aplenty , just as there is in the general history of mankind . But this truth is only a half-truth and , therefore , not really a truth at all . The real truth , the whole truth , reveals a chronicle of courage and conquest , of greatness , and even glory on the part of blind people , which has been suppressed and misrepresented by sighted historians , not because these historians have been people of bad faith or malicious intent but because they have been people with run-of-the-mill prejudice and ordinary misunderstandings . Historians , too , are human ; and when facts violate their preconceptions , they tend to ignore those facts .
My judicial panel was people