Our State/March 2000/Tar Heel People

By Ralph Grizzle

Walk in the front door of Woodcraft in Highlands, North Carolina, and you'll receive a warm welcome from Sylvia Sammons. She will invite you to come in and look at her wares, all handmade by Sylvia herself. On the shelves and tables, you'll find small cedar boxes, clocks, toys, candlesticks, even a dulcimer that she made. Her works represent a remarkable feat for any woodworker, not to mention a blind one.

"I have a huge credibility gap," Sylvia says. "When I tell people I'm a woodworker, they want to count my fingers."

Rest assured that her digits are all in place. It's a good thing, too, because she needs them to play the guitar. You see, Sylvia's not just a woodworker and shopkeeper but also an accomplished musician. Having composed more than 100 contemporary folk songs, she has been the featured entertainer at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Gatlinburg's Festival of the Smokies and the South Carolina Folk Festival.

How has she accomplished so much despite her handicap? She ahs the right attitude. It doesn't take long with Sylvia before you recognize this. "We are the captains of our own ships," she says. "We control our destinies."

So rather than let blindness stifle her, Sylvia has embraced it. That's not to say that she wouldn't want to have her sight. She would. "But I think we have more choice than we think we do in our lives. We can choose to be happy or unhappy. It comes to me quite naturally to look on the sunny side of things. I've chosen to be happy."

Sylvia was only 6 years old when her vision surrendered itself to darkness. Childhood glaucoma, a disease that occurs in 1 of every 10,000 births in this country, assaulted the young girl's blue eyes. Had she been born three or four decades later, her disease would have been treatable through medicine and surgery. Sylvia could have seen her store, her friend Valinda or her seeing-eye dog, Jake.

Instead, the disease shifted the course of Sylvia's life and altered her world view. Rather than entering public school, she attended the School of the Blind in her native Greeneville, South Carolina.

There, she learned what would become an important goal for her: to draw as little attention as possible to her handicap. Thus, she functions without the rocking motion of Stevie Wonder or the swaying of Ray Charles. And although her eyes are typically closed when she speaks, she looks directly toward you. She feels those mannerisms are essential for conversing with others who are sighted.

"I fear that blind kids who are getting mainstreamed into public schools today do not have special ed teachers who have the sensitivity or the moxie to say, ‘Johnny hold your head up when you're talking. Do you want to look like a blind person for the rest of your life?' "

At the School of the Blind, Sylvia learned how to cope in a sighted world. After eight years there, she tested all that she had learned by entering public school. She did well in high school, graduating fourth in a class of nearly 2000. She also did well at Furman University, where she majored in Political Science and English and minored in Music Theory. Sylvia graduated with honors.

She began to seek work. But although she could type 90 words per minute and answer the phone "in a mellifluous voice," she says jokingly, no one would hire her, not even as a clerical worker. "I was very discouraged," she says. "I felt there was discrimination, but it did not bow me down. It made me more determined that I would not have a boss."

She began to play music for a living. Specializing in Appalachian folk and Celtic music, she accompanied herself on guitar, harmonica, soprano and alto recorder, French horn, piano, Autoharp and lute. She entertained in coffeehouses up and down the East Coast and in college auditoriums.

She sang few political protest songs, preferring instead to unite her audiences. "I had my own views but I chose not to express them on stage," she says. "I don't think it's fair for an audience. They come to be entertained, not to be made angry."

After a decade of performing, Sylvia tired of the constant traveling to and from concerts. She decided to put down roots in one of the last places she remembered seeing: Highlands.

The 6-year-old girl had been on vacation with her parents when she saw the mountain sunset that has remained forever imprinted in her mind. "I remember thinking how beautiful it was," she says, "and knowing from that time on there was no doubt that I wanted to live there."

In 1982, with the money she saved from performing, Sylvia set up shop on a vacant downtown lot known locally as "on the hill." With the help of a builder, she constructed the two-story building that serves as her home, shop and store. Sylvia drew out the plan with strings and thumbtacks; the builder swung the hammer. She included in the plans a place to perform her music for the public, which she does from her balcony, Friday nights June through October. The performance is presented free of charge.

The settled life presented new challenges for Sylvia. She learned, for example, that as a shop-keeper, judging others is necessary. "To say ‘Judge not so ye be not judged,' I've always taken issue with that," she says. "We're given the ability to make judgments, and for that I'm grateful. Having a shop here and dealing with the public day in and day out, of course I have to make judgments."

Perhaps because she is willing to judge, in her two decades of doing business, she has been taken advantage of only three times. Once, a woman paid in food stamps, which Sylvia says aren't distinguishable from dollars.

Next, a boy told Sylvia that the five one-dollar bills he was handing her was $41, enough to pay for an item he had purchased. She was suspicious of the boy. After he left the store, she ran out to the street and hailed down the first passerby to ask how much money she had in her hands. Luckily, Sylvia had obtained the name of the boy's father, who made restitution.

The third time, a toddler walked out with a toy cow. An accident, to be sure, as the mother mailed Sylvia $5 and a note of apology.

Only two swindles in 20 years. Not bad, she says. Her stories of shop-keeping are more often humorous than tragic. Next door to her shop is a furniture store. Once, a lady went in and said to owner: "Don't need any furniture today. I just need to see your blind person." The woman wanted some window treatment.

The owner told her: "Ma' am you're in the wrong store. You need to go out, turn to the left and go in the next door."

The lady walked into Sylvia's store and said, "Hello honey, are you the blind person?"

"Yes I am," Sylvia replied.

"Well, show me what you got," said the lady.

Sylvia prefers the term blind instead of "visually impaired," "sightless" or other euphemisms. "I do think words are powerful and it matters how we use them, but I get awfully tired of political correctness," she says. "I think it's a form of dishonesty. It deters communication rather than promotes it. If you're waltzing around all day trying to think of the word that least offends people, you may not ever get your point across."

In a strange sort of twist, being blind has made Sylvia see things more clearly. "One reason I'm able to do woodwork or write a song or play music is because I first conceive of the idea and create it in my head," she says. "How could Beethoven ever have composed music when he was totally deaf? He wrote it in his head first. And that's what I do. Maybe if I got my sight back it would be a horrendous disappointment."

She pauses and adds with a sly smile: "But I'd like to take my chances on that."

Of course, Sylvia Sammons would prefer having her sight back. "I've read these articles of people regaining their sight after 40 years and how they want to go back to total darkness, because there's such huge stimulation all around them. They just want to go back to being unaffected by it all.

"But I don't know," she adds with a giggle. "I think I could adjust."

BOX: Want to see more of Sylvia Sammons? Click here where you can download taped portions of the interview.