* * *

I was again having difficulty in deciding what the topic should be for this week's address, and as if in answer to my unspoken and unwritten question, I received an email from my old friend Ray.

Ray lives in the Chicago area with his wife, Karyn. They are both blind, and Ray is the President of the American Council of the Blind of Metropolitan Chicago (ACBMC). He had written to share with everyone on his email list what the ACBMC had done for Braille Literacy Month. He writes:

"Today, five of our members set up and manned a display table at Chicago's Herald Washington Library, the main library in downtown Chicago. What we had on display was pretty simple to put together. We had practical examples of how blind people use Braille in their everyday lives. We had a Braille bus schedule, a Braille sports schedule, a book and a magazine, a CD and a cassette tape that were labeled in Braille to show how Braille is used to help us keep track of things, a Braille Companion to show how Braille plays a part in the technological age, and a Braille writer. We did this for the first time this year."

I didn't even know that it was Braille Literacy Month, but it gives me another reason to update you on my progress.

If you've been following along with my weekly "Thoughts," you may recall that I began learning braille back in March of last year -- actually, I learned the alphabet in the early 80's but forgot most of it for lack of use. I completed the braille course in June, and began reading my first braille novel, "The Green Mile," by Stephen King, at the beginning of July. This week, I finally finished the six-part series.

In all, it took me six months to read this story, which includes a bit of a delay while I waited for part three. After finishing the second volume, I waited a week . . . then two weeks . . . still waiting for part three of this story about life on death row, "E Block" at Cold Mountain Penitentiary, I called the library and ordered "Carrie" (another Stephen King classic) just to get something to read while waiting for that third volume, which someone else was undoubtedly savoring. I was about thirty pages into that substitute when, at the beginning of September, I finally received part three and resumed my walk on "The Mile."

And, now that I'm done with my first braille novel, it's time to get back to my second, "Carrie." It takes a while to get a book once I put in my order, so I need to decide on another one soon. Any recommendations?