PLEASE DO TOUCH THE DAISIES
(AND SMELL THEM AS WELL)

More and more state parks, museums and park districts are providing special facilities to enable the handicapped, the young and the public in general to use all their senses—not just sight alone—to experience the places and things they visit.

Two-year-old Bobbie Atwood feels moose antlers at the state museum in Springfield as his father William Atwood holds him high.

By Joan Muraro

"Don't walk on the grass"; "Don't touch the flowers"; "Don't do this and that" are beginning, none too soon, to join the "Shhhh, this is a library" concept of behavior in public places.

At the Illinois State Museum a new room dedicated a few months ago is built on the concept of learning by touching—everything from fossils, artifacts and microscopes to living things like snakes and insects (the latter under supervision by staff, of course, for the safety of everybody involved).

That program, though launched primarily to catch the interest of youngsters, proved to have an unexpected side benefit: many adults have discovered "The Place For Discovery" and its attractions, particularly the microscopes, and spend hours peering through equipment they grew up being allowed to see, but not touch.

In the Illinois state parks and sites managed by the Illinois Department of Conservation, a different kind of "Please Touch" approach has been developing in recent years, this one geared to those who were banned in the past from these outdoor sites by conditions over which they had no control —persons in wheelchairs or on walkers; or those who lack sight.

Simple enough in essence, the program has taken some time to become widely visible in the state-operated sites around Illinois, and because of current economic conditions, it may soon become somewhat less visible.

Six years ago the conservation department created a special post of coordinator of services for the handicapped, and hired Dr. Silas Singh to take over the duties of making the state's parks accessible to the handicapped, while creating a program to actively recruit participation by the handicapped in the public facilities' programs.

Dr. Singh, who had previously served on the Governor's Task Force on the Handicapped, was an apparent natural for the job; he himself is confined to a wheelchair as the result of a childhood bout with polio.

A school girl touches a skull of a prehistoric animal in "The Discovery Room" of the state museum.

During the years since, the accessibility program has grown until many of its facilities are so common in the parks today the park visitor tends to take them for granted, without even noticing they are there.

Extra wide picnic tables permit the family member in a wheelchair to join the rest of the group at the table; his wheelchair slides right under.

He can get to the picnic table—and the nearby specially designed privies with their wider stalls and lowered basins and towels—with little trouble; thought has gone into the selection of surface materials on the paths, and they will be faced with materials which will not impede a chair, or a cane or a crutch.

If the handicapped visitor shares a love of fishing with his less-handicapped brothers, he isn't automatically left on the sidelines. At 17 parks around the state, there are special fishing piers with features which suit them for the not-quite-so-agile fisherman. The piers have retaining boards around the ends to keep wheelchairs in place. They have special shelves at the proper height to hold tackle box or soft drink or a book for the times when the fish just aren't biting.

The piers are approached by ramps designed for easy accessibility; nearby are special drinking fountains and rest room facilities for the handicapped; there may also be picnic facilities nearby.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 34 May/June 1984

For those whose handicaps are less visible, special care has also gone into the accessibility program.

At Giant City state park, for instance, a heavy, specially knotted rope is the guide for a unique trail for the blind which allows the unsighted to make walking tours of the park.

A similar trail at the Chain O'Lakes state park in northeastern Illinois utilizes planks set into the ground as guides, instead of the ropes.

At Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, a braille plaque was dedicated recently in the Tomb rotunda. It bears embossed pictures of the tomb's interior and exterior and braille explanations of the site.

When blind visitors come to the Tomb, members of the interpretive staff make the tour with them, encouraging them to touch the small replicas of famous Lincoln sculptures which are placed in niches throughout the site, and the visitors are allowed inside the ropes which keep other visitors at a distance from the burial site itself.

Instead of being kept back, sight-impaired visitors are allowed to "see" with their hands the marble tomb which marks the site where Lincoln's body is buried under concrete and steel beneath the Tomb floor, where it was placed for security after several attempts were made to steal the body.

Like staffs at a number of public facilities, the Lincoln Tomb interpretive staff have a mixed role when it comes to "hands on" sightseeing, however.

Carol Andrews, the site superintendent, says the staff tries to discourage sighted visitors from touching the small statuary replicas which grace the curving corridors inside the Tomb.

"We just recently had all of them (the replicas) refinished," she said, "and oil from people's hands takes all the patina off, so we ask them not to do it."

The staff has agreed, however, not to fight the inevitable when it comes to touching the more-than-life size bust of Lincoln located just outside the main entrance to the Tomb.

For years, schoolchildren—and other visitors—paid homage to a belief that rubbing the nose of that Gutzon Borglum head brought good luck; as a result, Lincoln usually looked as if he were suffering from a bad cold with his nose rubbed shiny.

Under an earlier administration, the bust was finally placed on a pedestal which effectively raised it above normal touching height. A flood of complaints to conservation officials, the tomb custodians and even "Letters to the Editor" of the Springfield papers followed, topped by a poignant—and probably parent-assisted—plea from a small child bewailing the fact her whole visit to the tomb had been ruined because she had been denied this great experience.

So, the pedestal went, the bust was lowered, and having Lincoln's nose refurbished from time to time is now seen as just a routine part of the Tomb's running expenses.

A step at the entrance which in the past caused problems for those needing assistance of canes or crutches in walking, or those in chairs, has been removed, easily accessible at last to visitors, many of whom hail from other states and foreign countries.

Now, however, many of these programs may be the last of their kind, at least for a while.

Dr. Singh is no longer with the Conservation Department, one of nearly 60 full time job holders whose posts have been eliminated by budgetary cut-

(Continued on p. 46)

Scent Garden An Attraction For Blind And The Handicapped

A small fountain catches the attention of a blind person and his companions at the Scent Garden in Washington Park in Springfield.

Established two years ago in Washington Park, Springfield Park District's "Scent Garden" gives blind and handicapped persons an opportunity to experience the wonders of nature by touching and smelling. The garden is an educational attraction also for youngsters and persons of all ages.

A donation of the Federated Junior Women's Club of Springfield, the garden consists of nearly 30 different species of plants that originated in several countries, including Japan, China, Europe, and North America. Local botanists helped select plants on the basis of fragranceand texture of the flowers and stems.

A circular plot of about 175 feet in diameter, the garden features walkways to 28 stations where the visitor may touch and smell the plants. A braille plaque at each station describes the plant. The information is repeated for the sighted.

Among the plants in the Scent Garden are Bayberry, Winged Euo-nymus. Fragrant Viburnum, Sweet Shrub, Japanese Quince, Clematis, Saucer Magnolia, Sargent's Crab Apple, Paperback Maple, Mock Orange, Pussy Willow, Staghorn Sumac, and several herbs.

Illinois Parks and Recreation May/June 1984 35

PLEASE DO TOUCH THE DAISIES (Cont. from p. 35)

backs in the Division of Lands and Historic Sites alone.

The chair will remain unfilled, at least for the time being, a DOC official said, though adding, "We will still build piers for the handicapped; the special privies are part of our regular inventory; it only takes an additional board on a picnic table to make it usable by a person in a wheelchair.

"We'll keep doing what we can," the spokesman said, "but right now a lot of programs are going to depend on donations for any completely new facilities for the handicapped."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joan Muraro is a reporter for Copley News Service working out of the wire service's bureau in the Capitol Press Room in Springfield. Her job there involves covering the activities of a number of state agencies, among them the Conservation Department and the State Museum.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 46 May/June 1984