THE IRISH WELL WAS AN EARLY NINETIES ICON of bohemian extravagance and Irish culture situated in Saint Paul’s Midway area. It was a cultural center
indeed. Live music, storytelling, and poetry were wonderfully stirred,espoused, and served up by the faithful patrons. There were also games, a small pool table, and electronic dartboards.
Two dartboards had been placed in a half-circle room, attached to the
main dining room and entertainment area, under an amicable contract with a local vending company.
They were not used extensively, and the vending company removed
one of them, as two were not monetarily viable. A man with a large dolly
wheeled away one of the machines.
It was two weeks later when the man returned with his dolly and another machine. He smiled. “I will set this up for the Blind Dart League. They will be here on Tuesday evening.”
Blind people playing darts? It would be easy to conjure up major safety
concerns. The man was obviously joking. He had a spare machine and needed somewhere to keep it until it was needed elsewhere.
On the following Tuesday evening, a Metro Mobility bus showed up and
discharged ten guide dogs with blind human beings attached. I happened
to be in the entry passage and stared openmouthed at the canine-led invasion.
A man being pulled along by the leading dog sensed my presence and
asked in a loud voice, “Where’s the dartboard?”
This has to be a major practical joke, I thought, and it wasn’t the sort of
practical joke that would be beyond several of my current patrons.
I answered, “You, er, um, want to know where the dartboard is?”
“Yea, man, we are here to play darts.”
I led them through to the dartboards, visualizing a line of ambulances
outside ready to take a continual stream of customers to the hospital that
had been struck with wayward flying darts.
After indicating the location of the board, I watched as each of them
ran their hands over it, making approving noises, and then out of their
pockets they pulled boxes that contained darts. The dogs were obedient
when asked to settle on the long Naugahyde seat that ran under the
curved, mirrored wall. A guide dog was privileged, as being the only live
animal allowed entry to any pub and restaurant in the Twin Cities, if not in
the entire seven-state area.
The first dart was thrown. I had stood well back. I am a sighted person,
although I do have to wear spectacles, and I can throw a reasonably straight dart. However, my dart-playing skills were pretty miserable compared
to these players. That first dart went straight into double top, and I was shocked when the board itself announced the score, “Double Twenty.”
Was this a lucky throw? Certainly not. There were very few misses from
these players. It seemed that some bright individual had decided to invent
a talking dartboard just for blind people.
I had often heard good players over the years bragging, “Oh, I could play
that man blindfolded.”
Story: After years of adventures and collecting stories, JOHN DINGLEY has taken up writing between the many forays into executing his other trade, stonemasonry. He is well on his way into a series of at least five books for children, actually for all ages, called The Timeless Cavern. He will also be publishing shortly a nonfiction work, Hard Work in Paradise—When all Our Food and Lives Were Organic.
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