Blind Saw


               I had an interesting experience concerning my wife recently,
          though it really has little, if anything, to do with blindness.

               Our home was built  in 1952 and the door knobs  in the house
          are  probably older  than I am.   Over  the years, they  have all
          broken, one by one, but when they break, because of their design,
          the part of the door knob that sticks into the door frame to keep
          the door closed breaks in such a way that the door locks shut.

               The first  time this happened it  was to me.   I was  in the
          bathroom, my  wife was leaving  for work, and she  yelled through
          the  door to say she  was leaving.  I tried  opening the door and
          discovered I was locked in.  I had her get my uncle, he was about
          82 years old  at the time  and living with  us, and he came,  but
          neither one of us could get the door opened from either side.  He
          dragged the ladder around  to the side of the house,  and since I
          was much skinnier  back in those days, I was barely able to climb
          through the  bathroom window and drop down to  the top of the six
          foot  step ladder  nearly five feet  below the window  frame.  We
          eventually got the door  opened and replaced the door knob.  this
          has happened  to a  couple of  the other  doors in  the house  in
          recent times.

               Recently, Sandy finished  typing for the hospital  and tried
          opening the  bedroom door.   The  knob broke.   I  pried off  the
          molding on  the side of the door with the knob so I could slide a
          hack saw blade, not the hack saw itself, but just the blade, that
          tiny thin  blade, between the  door frame and  the door.  I sawed
          away for about an hour until my fingers almost fell off trying to
          hold that thin blade.  Finally, about that time, my son came home
          from work and he  could see through the crack and  reported I was
          almost  all the  way sawed  through  the metal  holding the  door
          jammed shut.   He used a thin bladed screw driver and a hammer to
          break it the rest of the way off and free my wife.  Now, you say.
          Why didn't you pull the pins on the hinges?  First, they  were on
          my wife's side of the door and second, they were not the type you
          can  just pull the  pins but would  have to have been  cut off or
          drilled off.  I said the house was  old.  Anyhow, my wife is free
          now.

               Again, this could have happened to anyone but somehow, being
          blind, makes it funnier to me.

          Phil Scovell