Blind Los Alamitos Man Opens Public’s Eyes to His Guide Dog Boosters of America Group

Edward Meier of Los Alamitos is blind, but that’s not the problem.

In fact, he has two problems. One is getting sighted people to hear him talk about guide dogs and the other is to get other blind people off the fast track long enough to join Guide Dog Boosters of America, which is headquartered in Los Alamitos.

“We only have about 100 members in California,” said Meier, the originator and president of the booster group, “and we know there’s a lot of blind folks out there with guide dogs who would benefit from our program by sharing information, even if it’s only about fleas. And we know that clubs and organizations would like to hear about us but don’t know we exist.”

Bud Melvin of the guide dog training center in Sylmar, one of three in the state that prepares dogs for blind owners, understands Meier’s problem. “When a blind person gets his guide dog, he just takes off,” Melvin said. “They want to be as independent as everyone else.” He estimates that 3,000 blind people have guide dogs in the state.

And veterinarian Frank Moore of Westminster, vice president of the 12-year-old nonprofit booster group and one of eight board members, knows the problem of getting owners of guide dogs to join.

“Those people hold jobs, have families and want to be independent,” he said, noting that, like sighted people, “many are living on the fast track. They, too, want to go as far as anyone else.”

Besides meeting monthly, the booster group holds four events each year, including two field trips on buses, a picnic and Christmas party where the dogs get the gifts.

Meier takes his German shepherd guide dog, Susie, when delivering his message to such groups as women’s organizations, church groups and service clubs, where he hands out pamphlets giving guidelines for sighted people to follow when meeting a blind person and guide dog.

“I give a lot of reasons why the guide dogs operate the way they do and what the sighted public shouldn’t do, such as feed the dog or handle the harness,” he said. “We urge people not to disturb the working of the team. They are very independent and very mobile.”

In addition to pointing out that his guide dog is “my eyes, my friend, my freedom,” Meier has a simple message: “Our purpose is not to be different, but to be accepted as anyone else.”

Beatrice Profitt, 49, a flight attendant from Huntington Beach, had the right name in winning $10,000 from her original $1 investment in the state lottery.

“I was happy with what I won,” she said. “I became an instant celebrity.”

Pacific Bell spokesman Steve Gould said the company is about to build a $220,000 house in Anaheim that will look like the other expensive neighboring homes but actually will be a switching station with $600,000 of equipment inside to service telephones in 1,600 nearby homes.

Regular switching stations look like concrete box structures and neighbors didn’t like that idea, Gould said, so with some fancy give and take, which included building a storm drain, the phone company got permission to build the house.

“But neighbors better not try to borrow sugar,” Gould quipped. “No one will ever be home.”

Eighth-grade teacher Wendy Wolff of Gisler Middle School in Huntington Beach asked her students to compose a poem or limerick about any topic, and the class selected news items that interested teen-agers.

Besides such subjects as acid rain, terrorists, music censorship and earthquakes, one wrote about the lottery:

Lottery fever is so “rad,”

Its even gotten to my dad.

To win $1 million would be just fine,

We’re on our way, we won $2 bucks last time.

If it helps my school to pay its way,

I want to know, why then can’t I play?

--Jason L. Smith

Acknowledgments--Industrialist and art patron Henry T. Segerstrom of Costa Mesa was presented an Arts and Humanities Award from the Orange County-based National Watercolor Society, which is holding an exhibit of 134 water-based paintings at the Brea Cultural Center through Dec. 20.