Free Thunder Dog by Michael Hingson Page B

learned to use a white cane, and I explored just about every pathway on the 1,500-acre campus, located in the coastal foothills of Orange County just south of Los Angeles and only five miles from the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I walked with a cane, I purposely took different routes to build a 3-D map in my head so I would never get lost. Once I learned the campus, I rode my bike or walked with Squire to get around.
    I also took different routes whenever I walked with Squire. Guide Dogs for the Blind trains students to travel a variety of routes so that a dog does not get overly familiar with a particular routine. I had a friend who walked her phone bill to the phone company office every month. One day she took a walk in the same neighborhood but headed to the dry cleaner’s instead. Her guide dog didn’t know; he dragged her into the phone company, ignoring her commands and tugging on his harness because he thought he was supposed to take her there. Like us, dogs are creatures of habit and easily fall into a rut, so it’s better to keep them guessing.
    One interesting route I discovered was underground. A one-hundred-yard-long utility corridor ran underground from the computer science building to the engineering building. For some reason, the facilities people kept the tunnel access doors unlocked, so I got in the habit of using it as a shortcut, as did many others. I usually had Squire with me, and there were places I had to duck for pipes. Squire noted the hazards and learned to guide me around them. The tunnels were pretty busy at times; it was one of those poorly kept secrets that college students love to share, even before the days of easy information sharing via texting and Facebook. On weekends, though, the tunnel was deserted, and I used it to exercise my dog. I would stand at one end and throw a SuperBall as hard as I could. The dog would chase it, and depending on how fast he was that day, he might catch it in flight or he might just have to run all the way to the other end. Sometimes there would be someone else coming along the tunnel from the other side, and the poor student would get caught in the crossfire and get a little miffed. But what’s a SuperBall-shaped bruise or two among friends?
    I bought my first car as an Irvine student—a ’64 Ford Mustang with a leaky transmission. Even driving became an adventure for me. I made friends with some of the campus police officers at University of California–Irvine, and they didn’t make much of a fuss about me occasionally driving around campus in the evenings. My dad had let me drive a few times at home, and when I was six or seven years old, a friendly mailman named Mr. Judd had let me help drive the mail truck every once in a while. I couldn’t make echolocation work for driving a car, so I had to have someone direct me. And I didn’t have a driver’s license, so that limited my driving options—usually I had someone else drive me while I directed from the front passenger seat. But I loved the Mustang, and sometimes we’d have a parade and drive around campus or drive in the parking lots and honk and wave at friends just to get a reaction.
    While getting around at Irvine wasn’t much of a challenge, the academics were. I had more competition from the other students, who worked at a higher level than I was used to; the teachers didn’t always describe what they were doing when they wrote on blackboards or overhead projectors; and sometimes I missed out on getting involved in discussion groups. Whether that was due to some shyness on my part or some uncomfortable feelings on the part of the other students, I’m not sure.
    But one wonderful thing about college is that I had access to most of the books in Braille or via recordings. The books and materials I couldn’t read were read to me by readers, typically other college students who became my eyes and read to me a few hours a week. I started to find my academic sweet spot, keeping up with a demanding