To Table of Contents
Blindness was not a permitted excuse to do something less well than I could .
Roger Chard Parry Peak
My father firmly believed that he and I must do things twice as well as our sighted counterparts to be regarded as their equal . I worked under the pressure of academic , piano , French horn , debate , and choral performance , and those pressures , the lessons from my parents of how to approach everything I undertook , and my own competitive nature got me through growing up and gave me a tough-minded foundation for moving into and through the workaday world , made me eager to pursue vocal study and performance , and to start downhill skiing after age forty .
Roger biking
I got married in the summer before entering law school , remained married until 2004 , and became the father of two boys , Brendan and Devin , one of whom went into business for himself , the other of whom became a police officer with the Las Vegas Police Department .
While growing up , I . . . spent time climbing bridges , walking railroad tracks and narrow , shaky , unguarded catwalks , riding switch engines , doing much that now is prohibited , but also learning how to travel independently