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By ANNE KAROLYI; Times Leader Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 18, 1995 Page: 1C
Suddenly, the words blurred.
Letters collapsed into a haze of black and white. The bible in Rupert
Ziegler’s hands shook as he strained to focus through the fog.
His wife, Margaurite, cried.
She knew her husband would never see clearly again.
“But I’m not so special,” says Ziegler, 73, nine months later. “I’m just
getting along.”
He is also making a plea for the Greater Wilkes-Barre Association for the
Blind. “They’ve been so helpful,” Ziegler says. “Go to them if you need help,
support them if you can. They do a lot for people like me, and people a lot
worse off, too.”
The association this week begins its third annual fund-raising and
publicity campaign. A modest group, run with volunteers, donations and
occasional state grants, the association has not set a dollar figure on the
money it hopes to raise. (Although executive director Ronald Petrilla
acknowledges the association is $20,000 short of balancing its $200,000 budget
this year. “That’s not a goal, however,” Petrilla says.)
The money is needed, but the association wants just as much for people to
know it exists, to come for assistance when vision falters. For although some
of their clients are born blind, a majority of them lose sight through
accident, injury or — perhaps most of all — old age.
About 600 active clients from toddlers to senior citizens use association
services, including home visits, lessons in socialization skills, vision
screening and braille instruction and transcription. Petrilla estimates about
15,000 people listen to a daily radio program, broadcast from 10 a.m. to noon
on WRKC, 88.5 FM.
“We’re living longer,” Petrilla says. “Vision problems and blindness are
something we all can look forward to, if we live long enough.”
Not so long ago, Ziegler would not have believed it.
A Luzerne County native, he worked as a high school teacher and guidance
counselor in Jacksonville, Fla., then retired to a home in the woods of
Hunlock Creek.
About 10 years ago, Ziegler noticed he could not see well in dim light.
“I’d just flick on the light, and I’d be fine,” he says.
His central vision gradually blurred, until one day, about five years ago,
Ziegler realized he could barely see out of his right eye.
Doctors diagnosed degeneration of the macula, or center of the retina.
“Basically, my eyes are falling apart,” Ziegler says. “But at first, I didn’t
think much about it.”
Then, last December, as he and his wife read Scripture, Ziegler’s vision
blurred, his left eye gone.
Life changed. Ziegler could no longer drive, or find his way around
unfamiliar places. He tried to keep reading, a favorite pastime, but even the
strongest of magnifying lenses barely helped.
Some of Ziegler’s peripheral vision remains — on a highway, he will see a
car coming, then see blurriness, then catch a glimpse of the car again — but
his central vision will never return.
“Sometimes, I still can’t believe it’s like this,” Ziegler says. “We’re
praying really hard it doesn’t get worse.”
Ziegler also is a regular at a blind association support group; he listens
to newspapers and magazines on tape, provided by the association, and attends
group outings, like one this summer to a Red Barons game.
“He’s got a great attitude,” his wife says. “I think the association helped
him keep it.”