0:00:00-0:00:37 Tom Bickford: The state of California at the time—and I was in touch with Rehabilitation—the state of California had a program where they would pay people to read textbooks to blind students. Now I had to get my own readers, but I could fill out a form and send it to California, up to Berkeley where the school for the blind was. That's where the program was administered. And…so, I could get people to read my textbooks to me.

0:00:38-0:00:42 Ed Morman: Mhmm. And you proceeded through four years of college in that way?

0:00:42-0:01:25 Tom Bickford: Yes…there is a hitch. I've never been all the way through one whole school program in the regular way. But I started off as a music major, and I didn't have the dedication to really stay with it. And after three years, I changed to sociology, and it took me two more years to finish college. So, I do hold a Bachelor of Arts degree, but it was with the…with a major as sociology. So, it actually took me five years.

0:01:25-0:01:28 Ed Morman: Did you learn Braille while you were in college?

0:01:28-0:03:30 Tom Bickford: After my freshman year, I realized that I just did have to learn how to read and write. Now, the…the man who was the director of the School for the Blind was also the one who administered these readers for blind students. And one time he told me, “Look, you just got to be able to read and write for yourself.” Well, I realized that.

So, this is one good thing that the Braille Institute did for me, that first summer after my first year of college, I called and said, “I need a Braille teacher.” So, they sent one; a woman over to my home, and I started learning Braille. And we finished grade two during the fall semester. She'd come over to the college campus, and we worked there.

I have never become a fast Braille reader. The people who read fast…who read their Braille fast are people who have learned from early childhood. There are very few people who start at age 20, as I did, who learn to read fast. I can read slower than I talk, but functionally. And there are some things I just definitely keep in Braille. And I have this, well, a fanny pack, as we call it here. I have a small slate and stylus, and I write on three by five inch file cards, and I keep my telephone and address files in that, and I write things in Braille.

0:03:30-0:03:37 Ed Morman: Were you taking notes in Braille after you learned to read and write?

0:03:37-0:04:45 Tom Bickford: I did some. The second year, I don't remember who it was, someone that I had known got me in touch with, I think it was the Lions Club, who promoted a little machine called the Banks Pocket Braille Writer. It's six or eight inches front to back, and maybe five or six inches wide, and an inch and a half thick. And it wrote on a tape, a continuous tape, like adding machine tape or cash register tape. And it was narrow enough just for one line of dots. And there were seven keys in front, the six Braille dots and a spacebar. And so, I wrote on that, and I could take notes in class with that machine. It wasn't very efficient.

0:04:45-0:04:47 Ed Morman: But it was faster than a slate and stylus.

0:04:47-0:04:52 Tom Bickford: Oh, yes. Yes. I did get a slate and stylus and used it some.

0:04:52-0:05:00 Ed Morman: I think I've seen those Banks machines, and I didn't realize that they were designed for that purpose…to take notes.

0:05:00-0:05:03 Tom Bickford: Well, that's what I used it for.

0:05:03-0:05:15 Ed Morman: Well, no, it makes…it makes sense. Because…because you…it's a continuous tape, you don't have to worry about feeding…uh…feeding paper in. And, uh…um…well, that's...that’s…

0:05:015-0:06:27 Tom Bickford: No. Later on, in later years, I went to lots of different schools and different subjects. I started using my board slate, 40 cells across and four lines on a clipboard. A lot of people, a lot of blind people, are acquainted with a board slate. That's when I learned to get fast writing in Braille. There's a particular sound that a fast Braille-wright, person writing Braille, makes. And that is, one click as the stylus goes down and hits the bottom of the dent for the dot, and then you tend to hit the side of that cell when you go over to the next cell. So, it's a double click for each Braille dot. And I got up to that speed when I was writing, years later, when I got to Georgetown.

0:06:27-0:06:33 Ed Morman: Um, let's see. What year did you graduate from college?

0:06:33-0:06:34 Tom Bickford: ’56.

0:06:34-0:06:38 Ed Morman: And, um, at which time you were 23?

0:06:38-0:06:41 Tom Bickford: That'd be right.