Mélange Accessibility for All Magazine January 2022 | Page 18

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Retired attorney , Roger Chard

talks about a life of Grit , determination , self-reliance

AND excellence Part 1 of 2

My father was totally blind and was educated at the Michigan School for the Blind . He earned bachelors and masters degrees in music from Michigan State University and the University of Michigan . He taught at the Michigan School for the Blind , primarily as music director , from 1939 to 1977 . I was young enough when I went blind that I do not recall seeing .

Other than part time attendance at a public school in my junior and senior years , I was educated at the Michigan School for the Blind before mandatory special education , so I was not mainstreamed ( as once known ), or " included " as now known . I earned a bachelor ' s degree in social science from Michigan State University in 1969 and a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1972 . I practiced law in Ann Arbor , Michigan for thirty-eight years and was the only blind attorney in Ann Arbor for that entire time . With the indispensable reading assistance of my mother , college undergraduates , and others , I was formally educated and
practiced law for fifteen years before software and adaptive devices became available that converted print to speech , that let me echo my type strokes and read what I was typing , let me accelerate speech without increasing its pitch , and that allowed me access to virtually every local and online mode of communication available to anyone else .
My father lost his sight from retinoblastoma , and so did I . He and my mother came from Michigan Upper Peninsula mining country , and they instilled in me redeeming grit , determination , and self-reliance that , to this day , one finds in abundance in the UP . They grew up during the Great Depression , and they proudly exhibited the style of that era - making one ' s way with limited resources , with few if any second chances , with tough mindedness , by asking for and giving no quarter . They wanted me to learn as best I could , to be every bit the student and person that my sighted peers were , to be involved in a variety of activities outside of school , and to do
everything well in which I was involved . They wanted me to live a well-rounded life and their exacting , though not unreasonably demanding , personalities made that happen .
I entered kindergarten at four , and my father already had taught me a lot of Braille . I began piano lessons at age five . I went to summer school in second grade to learn to type . When I later typed assignments and made mistakes , type-overs were not acceptable , retyping the assignment was . That was a hallmark of my dad when I played French horn in his band . He was a driller : " We ' ll play it until we get it right ." I learn and practice music that way to this very day and carried some of that approach into practicing law .
My parents encouraged me to join the School for the Blind ' s first debate team , but the coach left after two years and the team disbanded . A coach at one of Lansing ' s public high schools asked me to debate for him , and my parents arranged for me to attend both schools and