For someone who majored in television in college so he could become a cameraman, who loved taking photographs, and later worked in the camera department of two major retailers—occupations or pastimes that are bound with seeing—you would figure that Charles D. would be embittered after losing his eyesight. But Charles, or Chuck, as most of his friends call him, always has a smile on his face. “The alternative is to be down,” he says. “I don’t want to be that way.”
Like his two brothers, Chuck was born with choroideremia, a genetic eye disease that slowly degrades one’s vision over time. Growing up in Southern California, he says he was introverted until he was 25, when he enrolled in a radio broadcast school. “I took diction classes and learned how to talk on the radio as if I’m having a conversation with someone. That school turned around my personality.”
Chuck worked for a year and a half at a radio station in Palm Springs and then as assistant music director and DJ at a station in Monterey. “I loved it,” he says. “From my studio apartment, I could hear the California sea lions.” But the station had financial difficulties, and after seven months, Chuck gave up his career in radio and moved back to Southern California.
It was around 2002, when he was 43, that he first connected with Braille Institute. “My vision was still pretty good, but I needed some accommodations,” Chuck says. “They tested me and found that my field of view was so limited that I qualified for mobility training. After that, I didn’t need to go back until 2015, after I bought a smart phone and needed help getting that set up.”
Chuck was working for the Ricoh copier company then, where he was employed for 18 years processing orders. Toward the end of his time there, his vision degraded significantly, until he finally had to retire in 2021, when he was 61. He returned right away to Braille Institute, joining a men’s support group, taking a keyboarding class, learning the popular screen reading software known as JAWS, and studying braille.
“I’ve enjoyed the people I’ve met at Braille Institute,” Chuck says. “The instructors are great. The volunteers are great. It’s a place to learn.” The men’s group can feel especially familiar, as his brother Mark is one of the moderators and his brother Tim attends and sometimes moderates. “Sometimes we talk about issues that someone is dealing with or about technology. After we talk, we walk to a local restaurant and have lunch. There’s camaraderie in walking together and it keeps our mobility skills up.”
In 2017, after his husband passed away, Chuck took up outrigger canoe paddling with his brother Mark through the Makapo Aquatics Project, which provides opportunities for people who are visually impaired or have other challenges to train and compete in outrigger paddling. They’ve become dedicated paddlers, training three days a week. “I have competed in several races in Southern California and Hawaii during my time with Makapo,” Chuck says. “I love the camaraderie and being with my teammates.”
In recent years, he has traveled with a friend on cruises to the Panama Canal and Vancouver. On a trip to Hawaii, he tried zip lining. “Hanging on and imagining what I’m flying over was amazing,” Chuck says. I’m not really afraid of anything. Experiencing and getting out is a big part of what I like to do.
Chuck’s current goal is to be employed again. “It doesn’t make a difference what it is,” he says, noting that he has recently started to volunteer at Braille Institute, assisting in a beginning braille class. “I would like to work with people. I don’t need the money. I just want the experience and to help others.”
