If you ever feel as if you can't do anything right, think of Billy Edings. Edings, 29, of Joiner, is a student at Arkansas Northeastern College who was born blind.
After completing one degree in management information systems, Edings wasn't able to find a job. Rather, he found plenty of jobs that he could do, but no one would hire him.
"They couldn't get past the blind thing," Edings said.
Now, Edings is working on a degree in computer information systems at ANC, where he gets more hands-on work, he said.
Other than having a tutor to help him, Edings is just like any other student in Robin Singleton's computer repair class.
Edings' tutor, Carol Walls, has taken the classes herself, "so she knows what to expect," Edings said. Walls does not do things for Edings, unless it's something that any other student would need.
For the most part, Edings does all the work himself, by feel or by listening.
"I like to try to figure out things for myself," he said. "I love a challenge." Only if he fails repeatedly and becomes overly frustrated does he ask for help.
Asked how he achieved his attitude, Edings attributes it to "a good set of parents and grandparents."
"They never told me I couldn't do something. They may have said 'I don't know how you're gonna do this, but you'll figure it out.'
"They never made excuses for me," even when he tried to use his blindness to "get out of the regular chores like everyone else," he said.
Edings attempts to do anything that needs to be done, but admits he's not "up to my grandmother's standards on laundry or loading the dishwasher."
His attitude about his blindness is refreshing, seeing the humor in situations that could be used as excuses for not trying.
"I run him into poles, walls, desks, all the time," Walls said. "He just laughs."
"You have to be able to laugh at yourself, no matter who you are," Edings advises.
Edings lives his life just as anyone else does. He met his wife, Beth, while he was a student at UALR, and they've been married for three years. They have a 2-year old daughter, Gloria, and Edings helps with her as much as any other father would do, except playing outside in the yard. "I can't run around in the yard with her because I run into stuff," he said, laughing.
One of Gloria's favorite things is to ride on the tractors on her great-grandpa's farm.
Edings said when Gloria was very young, she had colic, and one of the few things that would soothe her was the noise of a tractor's engine. Edings said Beth often found the two of them asleep in the cab of a tractor.
Just like all the other students in the class, Edings uses sight-referenced words, such as "let me see it," or "show it to me." To him, it makes no difference that he can't actually "see" it.
Instead, Edings relies on his hands, nose and ears to help him "see" the components. His keen sense of hearing and smell help him in everyday life, as well. He can identify all his classmates by their voices, or even the scent of cologne or shampoo, he said.
"He uses things like that all the time," Walls explains. "He can tell who someone is by their footsteps, the way their keys jingle, all kinds of things."
Computers and cars are two of Edings' passions, he said, and his blindness doesn't change that.
"I knew I either wanted to work on cars or computers when I was growing up," he said.
He learned a great deal about cars from his grandfather. "I grew up watching my grandpa work on the farm," he said. "I asked questions and he would tell me what he was doing."
In addition to computers, Edings likes to work on vehicles as a hobby. One of his classmates once mentioned a funny noise in her vehicle. Edings listened to it, opened the hood and "jiggled something" and the noise went away, the classmate said.
Edings hopes to one day support his family by making computer repairs. "I would love to work for a school district or even for ANC," he said. So far, the technical staff at ANC has been very helpful to him, he said.
In fact, Edings had nothing but praise for ANC, its staff, and students. "Everybody here has always treated me well, just like any other student," he said.
dhilton@blythevillecourier.com