42Spread LoveKaleb Fillenworth
A Walk with JimGable MeadeI pull on my gloves. Sitting in the passenger seat of the Iowa BrailleSchool company car, the heat from the vents in front of me goes from invitingto uncomfortable. My gloved hands are just a little too warm, but it won'tbe like that for long. It's under twenty degrees, with barely any wind, but thatdoesn’t really matter. A winter’s day in Iowa is frigid as can be.I can't see my gloves, but I know what they look like. They are goldmicrofiber gloves. They are the nice kind, the ones you can use your phonewith. I suppose they would be worth something like $30, maybe, but the Kohawklogo on the backs of the hands would've boosted the price up to maybe$45-50 in the Coe College Bookstore. Fortunately, I got them at a Crimson &Gold Visit Day, absolutely free.I don’t like wearing gloves. They dampen my sense of touch. I can'tfeel anything, except for the soft fibers inside the gloves, over the pads of myfingers. Real physical details, any grooves or crevices or other small texturesof an object, are lost to me, which puts me in a state of mild it’s-okay-but-it’s-not anxiety. Even running my covered fingers over the smooth glass of myphone, what they were designed to do, feels uncomfortable, unnatural. I findI’d rather just take one off to use the touchscreen. The good thing aboutthem, though, is that they’re thin, so if I really need to, I can pick up on sometexture. The bad thing about them, though, is that they’re thin. The wind cutsright through them, biting into my fingers, making them grow cold and numbin the January air. They offer me little protection, if any.Fumbling with my gloved fingers, I grasp hold of the zipper of mypullover, and I draw it up mid-chest to collarbone. Then I zip up my wintercoat, followed by doing the same to my slick overcoat. My phone, wallet, andanything else important is hidden in the pockets of my second layer of protectionagainst the cold. In the pockets of my overcoat, I fish out a stockingcap that I put on before pulling up my hood. Finally, I take only one of twoheavier gloves, the kind where you can barely move your fingers, and slide itover my right hand. I don’t like the impaired movement of my fingers, andwhatever muffled sense of feeling I had before is now nonexistent, but Iknow I just have to deal with it. I’ll be holding my cane with this hand, whichmeans I can’t hide it in my pocket to elude frostbite.I’ve only taken a few seconds for myself. Jim left me alone in the car a43