Blind Craftsman Helps Those Who Are Hospitalized With More Severe Disabilities

It’s been 16 years since Doyle Garrison, 67, of Costa Mesa lost his eyesight, but you’d hardly know it watching him work on his drill press, power saw, belt sander, lathe and assorted other potentially dangerous machinery.

“When I lost my sight and went through blind training,” said Garrison, as he machined one-inch-square blocks of wood on the bench saw in his garage, “I was taught not to be afraid of machinery.”

Most of what he makes is for patients at the Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center, where he has already accumulated more than 6,000 hours of volunteer service making such items as wider wheelchair armrests for stroke victims.

He has not been back to the hospital as a patient since 1975.

“If we can explain something to him,” said Roma Tate, of Fountain Valley, chief of occupational therapy, “he can do it. Doyle is the ultimate about what a person can do who is blind,” and that includes showing medical residents “what a person who is blind is capable of doing.”

Garrison made a series of jigs with raised dots as measuring guides, sort of like reading in Braille, to give him an accurate line on what he makes. He machined a device to show by touch the air pressure when he checks the tires on his wife’s car.

A one-time Newport-Mesa Unified School District maintenance worker, Garrison spends much of his time in his cluttered garage, which he wired himself. “I once had a relative help clean it up, but after he was through I couldn’t find anything,” he said. “I won’t let that happen again.”

His wife, Margie, 64, who drives him to the VA hospital, is only allowed in the workshop when he is there.

“I try to keep busy,” said Garrison, who served with the 643rd Combat Engineers in World War II, “and I like to help people, especially the disabled. I might not be able to do things quite as fast as a person who can see, but I think I can do more precision work.”

He will be exhibiting some of his work, including a button hooker for people with arthritis and a wooden Tic-Tac-Toe game for the blind, in the handicapped division of the Orange County Fair, which opens Friday.

Eudoxie Devigne, of Mission Viejo always had the nickname Ducky, a good choice considering she married a man named Swan. Now she’s Ducky Swan.

Aaron R. Orullian, 15, of Placentia has been spending a lot of his time in front of supermarkets and at his church trying to get people’s blood.

“I thought it would be a worthwhile project,” said Orullian, an El Dorado High School student who hopes to gain Boy Scout Eagle status through the blood collection. “So far I have 52 people signed up, but the Red Cross said it would take as many that show up.”

And especially people with O negative blood. “The Red Cross said it really needs that type of blood,” he said. The Bloodmobile will be at the Placentia Library from 2:30 to 7 p.m. next Tuesday.

Will everyone who signed up show up? “Most of them know me and said they would be there,” said Orullian. “I’m counting on them.”

In case you wonder if mature citizens spend money, the Huntington Beach Council on Aging reports that people over 49 possess 44% of all U.S. passports and take one-third of all vacation trips, including 72% of all recreational vehicle trips.

A real baseball fan, according to Rich Coberly, 43, of Newport Beach, wants to know baseball facts. For instance, Cy Young, in 1908 at 41 years and three months, was the oldest to pitch a no-hitter. And Nick Maddox, in 1907 at 20 years and 10 months was the youngest to throw one.

“I wrote the book (“No-Hit Hall of Fame”),” said Coberly, a hospital administrator, “because I couldn’t find a fact I wanted. That’s what happens when you’re a baseball fan or baseball nut or whatever you want to call me.”

So far, he said, 5,000 copies have been sold, 1,500 to libraries. “It probably won’t be a best seller, but the facts will be accurate,” he said, adding that many newspaper accounts he researched were not accurate. He is also a member of the 6,000-member Society for American Baseball Research.

And in case you want to know, Young pitched his no-hitter for the Boston Red Sox against the New York Highlanders (now the Yankees).

Acknowledgments--Georgeanna Stark, of Mission Viejo was given the merit award by the Orange County chapter of the California Assn. for Neurologically Handicapped Children for incorporating the creative arts in her language teaching at Tustin Memorial Elementary School . . . Mary G. Watkins, Cal State Fullerton administrative operations analyst, was selected from 825 staff members as the university’s outstanding employee.