For George Brown and Wes Truex, the darkness comes slowly.
ERIC SUCAR staff George Brown (r) watches as Wes Truex uses a closed-circuit-television device that magnifies the printed word in Brown’s Shawnee Drive home Friday. Both men are members of Eyeopeners of Point Pleasant/Brick, a support group for blind and visually impaired people. Brown, a newspaper reporter for more than 51 years, can no longer read. Detached retinas in both of his eyes have taken their toll. The longtime member of the Brick First Aid Squad can no longer answer calls.
“My right eye has practically no vision,” he said during an interview in his cozy Shawnee Drive home.
I can’t read and I can’t drive. For someone who used to drive a police car, an ambulance and a fire truck, that was pretty hard.”
Truex, 90, has only peripheral vision now. Macular degeneration in both eyes has made it impossible for him to see straight ahead.
“I have no center vision,” Truex said to a visitor. “If I look at your face, I can’t see anything. I have peripheral vision.”
Both men are members of Eyeopeners of Point Pleasant/Brick, a support group for blind and visually impaired people that meets at 10 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Point Pleasant Beach.
Eyeopeners was founded 25 years ago by visually impaired people who banded together to help each other maneuver through life without full vision.
“How do you fill a cup of coffee when you can’t see what you are pouring in the cup?” Brown said.
And the group needs help. The
3,000 grant Eyeopeners receives from Ocean County is in danger of being reduced. Group members rely on the funds to get them to and from their meetings.
Ocean Ride, the county’s bus system, answered part of the problem. But the buses pick up members only once a month. It costs Eyeopeners $150 for each bus run, which the group cannot afford, Brown said.
Ocean County’s donation is based on revenue it receives from the state from the Casino Control Act, which mandates that 7.5 cents of each dollar of casino revenue goes to funding programs for senior citizens. But that revenue is down due to the faltering economy, Brown said.
“Which means less money coming into the fund,” he said. “So we are very much afraid we won’t get
$3,000 grant, or it will be reduced.”
Group members need people who can set aside two hours on the second and fourth Tuesdays to drive group members to meetings and then back home again, Brown said.
Eyeopeners means “a lot” to Truex.
“It gives me something to do, along with the fact that I’m the treasurer,” he joked.
Group members share both problems and solutions to living life without vision, Brown said.
“You have a problem, you can’t figure out something, there’s a lot of assistance devices that are available for someone that is blind or visually handicapped,” he said. “Sometimes you get someone that is really depressed. We can cheer them up a bit.”
Depression is one of the first things a newly blind or visually impaired person has to deal with, Brown said.
“Depression, that’s the first thing,” he said. “Then anger. ‘Why me? Why not that guy?’ Eventually, you either have to accept it, or you’ll go nuts.”
Brown’s first retinal detachment came in 1964. He had surgery to repair it, but a scar remained on his retina. He had surgery again when the other retina detached, but it “didn’t take,” he said.
Brown fought his fading vision. His wife, Mary, drove him to his job at the Asbury Park Press, where he had worked for 34 years. He had to sit with his face almost on top of the computer screen to see.
“I was determined,” Brown said. “I was going to keep on doing what I did all my life.”
When Mary suggested he start attending Eyeopeners meetings, he didn’t want to go.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to go. What can it do for me?’ ” he recalled. “It did a lot for me.”
When Mary Brown died several years ago, Brown asked Truex, his longtime friend, to move in for companionship. The two men rode the Brick First Aid Squad’s rigs together for years, before their vision began to fail.
Brown is still the vice president of the Brick Township First Aid Squad, but he no longer goes on calls.
“I’m the vice president and I have to go,” he joked.
Brown met his second wife, Dianne, through Eyeopeners. Dianne, who has no vision problems, used to bring her first husband, who was visually impaired, to the meetings. The two couples became friendly and sometimes went out to dinner together. Dianne’s husband died a few years ago.
One day Brown decided he wanted to see a play, but wanted someone to go with him.
“I said, what the heck, I’ll call Dianne,” he said. “One thing led to another and we got married.”
Their home is equipped with devices to help make life easier without full sight. Brown hits a switch on the wall and a disembodied voice tells him the inside temperature is 71 degrees.
Truex can still read with the help of a closed circuit television, a device that has a screen that can magnify images up to 25 times their size.
“It’s the only way I can read,” he said, as he scanned a piece of paper underneath a light fixture connected to the television.
“I can’t use it,” Brown said. “There’s too much glare for me. It’s hard to describe what I can see and what I can’t. I am able pretty much to function normally. My real problem is depth perception. I can’t judge the height of things. I can’t recognize faces.”
He pauses during the explanation when his wristwatch starts beeping.
“It’s 11:45 a.m.,” another voice announces.
Their advice to newly blind or visually impaired people?
“Seek out a support group,” Brown said. “They exist all over the state.”
The two men had adjusted to their vision changes. But it hasn’t been easy.
“I still have dreams when I’m back at work,” Brown said. “I get some of the wildest assignments in my dreams. And I can see perfectly.”
Anyone interested in volunteering to drive or who wants more information about Eyeopeners may call Brown at 732-892-5117 or Anne Moran at 732-785-5527.