When people find out that I have been totally blind since birth, they often ask what color means to me.
In junior high school, I read in a braille copy of “Boys’ Life” about how a group of scouts taught a blind kid about color by linking it with taste: red tastes like cherries; yellow tastes like squash; and orange tastes like, well, oranges. While I found this silly, it sounded impressive to others, and allowed the conversation to veer into topics I could talk about more intelligently: sports, music, school stupidity, adult cluelessness, girls, and sex.
In high school physics class, I learned about the color spectrum with the acronym ROYGBIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. From this, I learned that colors next to each other on the spectrum — a reddish, orange sky; a yellowish, green banana; and “Blue Indigo” (an iconic Duke Ellington tune) — blended better than colors on opposite ends of the spectrum. Later, as I became more psychologically aware, I told people that color is a concept lodged in my brain that only indirectly connects with feelings based on the comments of light-dependent people around me.
More recently, I share the following story:
In the 1990s, my job required me to fly independently to various places throughout the United States. Often, my luggage needed to be checked because it was too big to fit into the airplane’s overhead compartment.
When the plane touched down, an airport employee assisted my guide dog and me to the luggage carousel where I handed him my luggage tag.
“What color is your luggage?” he asked.
“Blue,” I said, for my mom had told me so.
“Sir, I have your luggage,” the airport employee announced. “But it isn’t blue; it’s brown.”
“Sir, what color is your suitcase?” an airport employee in a different city asked as I handed him my luggage tag.
“My mom says it’s blue, and one of your colleagues said it’s brown,” I told him.
“Got the luggage,” he said several minutes later as my chocolate Lab guide dog shook herself loudly, “but it’s not blue or brown; it’s beige.”
“Sir,” an employee at another airport told me earnestly, “that luggage isn’t blue, brown, or beige; it’s tan.”
“Well, it’s really none of those colors,” an employee from yet another airport told me. “The best way to describe it is dark blue.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” Mom harumphed after I shared this story, and wound a large hunk of yarn around the luggage handle.
“What color is the yarn?” I asked.
She sighed loudly. “Just tell them it’s a large piece of brightly-colored yarn.”
I followed her advice, and future airport employees never complained about me misleading them about my suitcase’s color.
“It’s all about the placement of rods and cones in the eye,” my twenty-one-year-old stepson declared after I shared this story with him.
“I’m sure cultural differences play a part as well,” I said as he began wrestling with my black Lab guide dog.
So if anyone really wants to know what color means to me, I believe that color is a mysteriously arcane classification system.
“So what is your favorite color?” light-dependent people occasionally ask me.
To which I respond with either “fuchsia” or “mauve.”
Of course, I know nothing about either color, but my answer sounds impressive.
13 Responses to What Color Is Your Suitcase?
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Breaking Barriers - Working and Loving While Blind
Jim
July 30, 2019 at 2:27 amAnd yet you ask me each month to bring you really GREEN bananas, Interesting.
peteraltschul
July 30, 2019 at 6:01 pmYou’re right. I have learned that sighted people respond better to color (green) instead of (unripe) bananas.
David
July 30, 2019 at 2:39 amAn interesting item. William Henry Perkin made a fortune in the Victorian era by developing a synthetic mauve dye from coal tar.
You might also add the rather unusual color chartreuse, a greenish yellow, to your list of the unusual color replies you have offered people.
Lastly, as someone who once saw, I miss colors enormously and regret sincerely not having had the opportunity to observe the great artistic achievements of the Impressionists, Cubists, Fauvists, Old Masters, and even the moderns.
peteraltschul
July 30, 2019 at 5:51 pmThanks for your comment. I’m sure I’d miss music if I suddenly went deaf — not to mention the whole range of sounds
Gary Wunder
July 30, 2019 at 2:44 amhaving been totally blind since birth, color means nothing to me, and I’m even embarrassed by the fact that it doesn’t easily lodge in my mind. I can remember other words, so why not color?
I too tie things on my suitcase. Usually it is a Mismatched sock of which there are so many. this is strange because I either tie my socks together or use sockholders.
I guess the truth is that I think I have no more chance of grasping color than a deaf man has of grasping music. You can define it, but if you’ve never heard the melody of accord or the discordant sound that playing notes which are consecutive can make, how can you understand music? What color is my suitcase? It’s the one that didn’t show up, undoubtedly.
peteraltschul
July 30, 2019 at 5:53 pmTouche
Allon Shevat
July 30, 2019 at 3:56 pmHi Peter
I never put by address on my luggage because I am scatter brained and generally forget to do so.
When I arrived (in Japan) I forgot what baggage I had taken. And, there were many pieces that looked the same.
Not serious however…only after 19 hours of flying. I was not tired, or aggravated.
🙂
allon
peteraltschul
July 30, 2019 at 5:54 pmAsk Gloria for guidance, unless she’s color blind.
Michael Byington
July 31, 2019 at 6:08 pmHi Peter, interesting blog post. My wife is totally blind from birth and has said a lot of the same things about color and its associations as you mention. Quite a number of years ago, however, she had an experience where a taxi let her out at the wrong house late at night. I was out of town at the time, but when she told me about it upon my return, I commented that all of the houses in our older residential neighborhood were painted either white or light tan. I said that the next time our home needed to be painted I was going to paint it purple so it would be easily recognized. About a year later, we decided that our paint was looking shabby, so indeed, we painted our home a very bright purple. The cabs never let her out at the wrong house again. She always gives our address and then mentions that the house is purple. We made this color adaptation in 1991. By 2005, the paint was looking shabby again, and we decided to have new siding put on. We could not get the siding in bright purple, but my wife said that she had grown quite used to living in a purple house, and did not want this to change. We found one company that could get the kind of siding we wanted in pastel purple, and we spent several thousand dollars more to got with this company instead of the low bidder because the purple color was important to us. I am legally blind, and testing has shown me that my acuity vision and contrast sensitivity are both quite low. My color perception, however, test out to be better than that of the average fully sighted person. Color is thus very important to me because it is the one aspect of vision that I have with is not just normal, but better than normal. Lastly, about the identification of luggage, the American Council of the Blind online store sells some bright, red, white, and blue luggage tags. I try to use these whenever I remember to do so because it makes spotting luggage at an airport much easier. When we first painted our home purple, we also bought purple suitcases to match. Back in 2005, very few people had purple luggage, so this helped in airport baggage claim sections. Now, however, purple has become quite a popular color for luggage, so the red, white and blue luggage tags, much like your brightly colored yarn, really help.
peteraltschul
August 1, 2019 at 3:23 amFasinating — and thanks! I wonder if purple was Prince’s favorite color.
Michael Byington
August 2, 2019 at 3:05 pmHe usually wore purple, so I think it is a color he really liked. Also, purple is associated with royalty, so it went well with the handle of “Prince.”
Bruce Atchison
July 31, 2019 at 10:01 pmI enjoyed Peter’s post. I have my luggage plastered with stickers. One has the logo of a local radio station. Another suitcase, which is now too worn out to use, has Pink Floyd stickers from the “Wish You Were Here” album. I have Canadian flags on another piece of luggage which reminds me of Kraft caramels. Recently, I bought a huge and bright red suitcase. I also put lime green paw print stickers on it. No airport employee could mistake that for anybody Else’s case. So the secret is to get a suitcase which looks so tacky and outrageous, then personalize it to look even worse. Sight-dependent folks will excuse you because you’re blind and couldn’t possible realize how disgusting it looks.
peteraltschul
August 1, 2019 at 3:20 amAwesome!