Artie’s Story

“Artie was born premature, and kept in an incubator for two months. When he came home they told us he was blind in one eye. Later they told us he was completely blind. It was the oxygen in the incubator.

My mother always wanted Artie to be as normal as he could be. He went to Fernald as a day student when he was seven or eight. It was horrible because he was blind and retarded and they put him in a big room with retarded sighted people of all different ages. He’d come home with bites on him. A person without sight can’t defend themselves. After six months we took him out. He got into Perkins and was there until the third grade. He learned Braille but they wouldn’t keep him because he was too slow.

We have a big family and growing up Artie was with us a lot. When Artie was six or seven I had a girlfriend who knew the captain of the Nantasket Boat. Every Sunday in the summer we’d take Artie on the streetcar to Rowe’s Wharf and go on the Nantasket Boat. Artie still talks about those trips.

When Artie turned 18 my parents decided that it would be good for him to live in a group home, because if anything happened to them, what would happen to him? MAB’s been a wonderful home for him, a wonderful group of people. I feel so happy bringing him there, so fortunate. You don’t have that angst, “Oh, I’m leaving him, and I feel bad that I’m leaving him.” In the residence he used to make salad with Inman. He’d set the table. When they went grocery shopping he’d go with them. Helping out made him feel good.

He always loved to work, and was always one of the best workers. One time we went into Boston and they gave him an award. Artie always tried so hard. It didn’t matter to him what the job was; he just liked the recognition. He liked that he could do it and have someone say, “you’re doing a good job.” That made him proud.

Artie loved earning the money too. He’d go to the Cape every summer to my cousins’ place and he would treat everybody for ice cream and dinner. For Christmas he would take his money out and buy gifts for the grandkids. That made him feel good; just the idea that he was capable of doing something.

We have Christmas at my daughter’s house now and they have a tradition of playing kazoos. He loves that. He’s the one who knows how to do it best; he’ll play the kazoo to each Christmas carol they pick out. He likes to harmonize. I have a cousin who used to take him to karaoke on the Cape, at a Mexican place. Artie loves to sing. When she comes down, she sings with him, Patty Paige “Old Cape Cod” or the Everly Brothers “Just a Dream”, and they harmonize together.

He always comes home on weekends, and enjoys staying in his room, playing his tapes and walking. He has over 400 tapes, bags and bags of them, a lot of 60s music, Beach Boys, Elvis. He has a tape recorder and likes to record people when they come over on the holidays. He just turns the tape recorder on and lets it go. Later he’ll play it back and listen to everybody wishing him a Merry Christmas. He’ll say, “I’ll remember Mom when she’s dead, because I have her voice on tape. And I’ll say, “You will. You’ll remember all of us.”

Based on an interview with Artie’s sister, Judy. Artie, a MAB resident since 1978, lives in Watertown.