Positively changing people’s attitudes about blindness

As “A Cup Of Soup or Bowl” moved to Kooper’s North, Jessica Normington of Blind Industries and Services of Maryland joined Nestor to open his eyes to the many needs of the blind community and how every citizen could help empower the incredible humans who inspire us all on the streets of Baltimore and beyond. And, Maurice, if you’re still out there…

Nestor Aparicio interviews Jessica Normington, Director of Development and Communications at BISM (Blind Industries and Services of Maryland), which empowers the blind community. BISM employs and trains blind individuals in manufacturing office supplies, janitorial supplies, and military uniforms. They also teach non-visual skills, such as travel and independent living, to individuals of all ages, including those born blind and those who lost their sight later in life. Jessica shares her immersive experience learning Braille and navigating with a white cane. BISM is hosting an event on March 29 at Checkerspot Brewery to raise funds, featuring a special beer called Blind Spot.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

blind community, BISM empowerment, non-visual skills, independent living, Braille education, blind employment, travel skills, blind advocacy, National Federation, Super Bowl, blind experiences, blind training, blind independence, blind support, blind integration

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Jessica Normington

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 15 70,000 Baltimore. We’re Baltimore positive. We are not wrapping things up. We’re almost at halftime here. We’re on the final day of a cup of soup or bowl. It’s all brought to our friends at the Maryland lottery. Have the lucky magic eight ball. I had a $2 winner here a few minutes ago, Cooper’s north. We’re in May’s chapel. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. In conjunction with wise markets and wise conversations, we try to keep these things wise and learn things, lot of things in this segment, I begin with this. I was out on the oyster tour. I was at Riley’s oyster Hi, McComas, you should sponsor the show. Delicious bowl of clam chowder on like, day 10 or 12 of the oyster tour. And a very interesting young lady with purple hair came up to me and said, Hey, I hear you do these good do good things, and your Super Bowl week. And I got a story to tell you. And I think you’re like a listener to begin with. Jessica Normington is here. She is the Director of Development and communications for B I S M, and that’s empowering the blind community. B I S M stands for

Jessica Normington  01:12

blind industries and services of Maryland. There

Nestor Aparicio  01:15

you go. All right, so I, I’ll begin by saying this, I when I see blind people, there’s something about it that is so inspirational to me. Whenever I see blind people, especially in cities, in New York City, downtown Baltimore, I lived in Baltimore. I think all of us have touched something in an elevator or crossing the street, and we’ve all touched Braille things, and I’m missing a finger, not very few of it. Can you read Braille? I know the alphabet A little bit. Can you read your own card? I know what it says. Okay, right? I mean, but it just goes to show how difficult that would be and but no, I navigating the world. Being blind would be, especially given the current administration, they care about anybody and people in need and people who have inclusion issues that I might add. So there’s your eye, there is no eye and inclusion. What you do every day, tell me about the ISM but more than that, I know who blind people are, and I’m a radio guy that had blind listeners in the early 90s, because I was their form of entertainment to call into me. A man named Maurice was a blind caller, one of my first real fans. He called every night when nobody called and there was no nasty Nestor or any of that. And I remember the sound of his voice, and I remember him talking to me for three months, and then one day he said, I want to come to the studio and meet you. And I said, Sure, somebody wants to meet me. It was 1992 nobody wanted to meet me, especially not girls. But this was a dude who was a listener, and he came in the studio, and I opened the door at five light street up on the seventh floor, and he was blind, and he had been talking about the Yankees because he was a Yankees fan for three and a half four months on the radio. Was the first summer I was on. Summer I was on the air, and I’m like, holy, you know, like, just unbelievable. You know what I mean? Like, it was, that was 33 years ago that I had, I don’t know whatever happened to Maurice, if you’re still out there, God, I’d love to see you. He was a little older. I hope he’s still here. But my, one of my first listeners was a blind listener, because for radio. Am radio. It was their companion, right? Literally, don’t make me cry. I haven’t gone all week without crying, so I half cried an hour ago, but I’m not doing it this year. I got a funeral tonight. I’m gonna cry plenty. It’ll be plenty today. So I’m saving up for you, shilling your work. And you came up to me and said, We’re gonna do this. So I don’t know you’re like, listen to the show. Sometimes I think, I think, you know why? What do you do? So

Jessica Normington  03:45

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blind industries is a local nonprofit. We employ and train and educate blind individuals. So on one side of our business, we’re the largest employer of blind individuals in the state, and we manufacture office supplies, janitorial supplies and military uniforms, and employ those blind individuals doing that, those jobs. And then on the other side, we train blind individuals from any age. Our youngest is probably five years old, and believe or not, we have 105 year old senior in our program, and we teach them what we call non visual skills so that they can learn to

Nestor Aparicio  04:21

these are people who have seen in their life, yes, up, yes and no, okay. Some have, I cannot imagine what it would be like to have never seen and we have perceived the world or to have my vision taken away.

Jessica Normington  04:33

So we have a varying degree of that. We have students of ours who were born blind and want to go to college or be employed, and so they come to us, and we give them the skills, because maybe they were mainstreamed, and mom and dad held their hand and guided them, but they want to go on a college campus and be independent. So we provide those we teach those skills, so travel skills, independent living skills, financing, both. Budgeting, cooking, spend five

Nestor Aparicio  05:01

minutes with anybody who is blind, and you will be you won’t think your life so bad. You won’t think you won’t think that you can’t do something or can’t figure something out. You

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Jessica Normington  05:11

know, I work with blind individuals on a daily basis, crazy, inspirational, and nine times out of 10 at this point, I forget they’re blind, they’re just you and I right? And the only difference is they can’t see so you just have to. When you walk into a room, you introduce

Nestor Aparicio  05:27

the first thing people should know, let’s start with that, see somebody blind. They can’t see you. They don’t might not know you’re there unless you make a sound. And you can come up to someone who’s blind and say hello and Hello, introduce yourself, because they cannot see you. And they, you know, if you don’t go up to them, they’re not going to come up to you because they need something, right? Yes,

Jessica Normington  05:45

and ask them if they need assistance. Don’t assume they need assistance.

Nestor Aparicio  05:50

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Hey, how you doing? Can I help you with anything? Yep, like I did the little lady who was here, pushing the walker through here, trying to navigate, getting out that door about an hour ago. Because I had good parents. You know, thanks to my parents, I think about these things, and I try to promote these things on more than one occasion. But I your job every day is training folks to get out into the workforce, really. I mean, that’s not my job, but, but my organization, your organization, that is, though, that’s a pretty good Guiding Light, right? That’s a pretty good place to start. Who employs people who can’t see? Well,

Jessica Normington  06:25

I know we do, yeah, but I don’t you know there’s, we have a board member who is a chemistry professor at CCBC. Okay, there’s other they do accessibility training. So what is Braille

Nestor Aparicio  06:39

enabled? I mean, I’m thinking in my life, you know, elevators, I’m just thinking of things that I see that are overtly when you’re in hotels. Floors. I spend a lot of time in hotels, at least I used to before the Ravens threw me out. But I travel a lot. I’m trying to think of places where Braille is ubiquitous, and places where it’s really troublesome when people come and they can’t, like, just ramps for folks with mobility issues. We never had those. We had curbs, right? So we sort of worked around that. What would be more helpful in the real world for blind people to have Braille or have museums?

Jessica Normington  07:18

Would be amazing. Okay? And I think we’re working towards towards that having more Braille in museums that are visual, right?

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Nestor Aparicio  07:26

Having Braille people. I think if I was blind, I would gravitate more toward audio things, yes,

Jessica Normington  07:32

and museums these days, you can have the audio recorders, the headsets, and walk around to describe the paintings and the exhibit, okay, but you know, this is my first experience in the disabilities arena. How

Nestor Aparicio  07:44

long have you been working at BIS? Three years. Okay, so Wow. You have that thing I have right now, which is the wow factor of the minute you started working there. So what have you learned in your last three years? Jessica Normington, please tell me. Well, I’ll

Jessica Normington  07:57

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tell you. When I started part of my onboarding was for three weeks. Our students all wear sleep shades so they see complete darkness, because blindness is a spectrum, and so part of my onboarding was becoming immersed in the with the students and wearing those sleep shades for three weeks. And that’s where I learned basic Braille. I learned to walk with a white cane and travel. I’m scared to admit this, but I went on a public transportation, on a bus for the first time in my life, blind.

Nestor Aparicio  08:27

I’ve been on a lot of busses, so I’m good with busses, but, yeah, that is a place that I’ll be honest as a boy, I rode busses everywhere in my life, but it’s that’s a place I saw blind people. Yeah, I saw blind people get on busses because they that’s all they had,

Jessica Normington  08:40

I mean, but it’s empowering, because these people, if they have lost their vision later in life, they’re taking the next step to making empowering themselves. So they’re not sitting home depressed that they lost their vision. How’d the bus ride go? Luckily, I was with other students. If I was by myself, I think I would have freaked out more.

Nestor Aparicio  08:59

So blind leading the people that could see. No, you weren’t blind. Blind, leading the vision. No, no, we were all

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Jessica Normington  09:06

blind. So all our instructors are, but you’re not

Nestor Aparicio  09:08

blind. But I would blind leading you

Jessica Normington  09:12

is what it was. It was so wasn’t the blind lead. It was a fun experience, because temporarily blind, yeah, I guess, I mean, it was a kind of a fun experience, because I’ve never really been on Baltimore. It’s

Nestor Aparicio  09:22

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fun for you, because you’re gonna get your vision back in an hour, and they weren’t, and you were gonna appreciate it a whole lot

Jessica Normington  09:27

more. But it was right. It’s you’re understanding what they’re going through. And, you know, people grabbing you, thinking you need help. That’s why I say Always ask if they need help, right? Because they don’t. I don’t want to be grabbed. Well, I’m

Nestor Aparicio  09:39

a man, an empath, right? Just in a general sense. So I don’t mind helping. And if people ask for help, and if somebody’s older, elderly, that’s my role. You know, can I help you? Can I get you? Can I get you? But there are, there are more elderly people I encounter every day than blind people, so I can’t say that. I have a lot of I told you my Maurice story, I’m sure I’ve had. A lot of other blind people in my life. I had another listener who was blind that I remember, that I don’t remember his name, but on a daily I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation with someone who’s blind. You know, other than NFL officials, I’m just making that up. It’s just my little kick for today. Had to throw that in. Today, our friends at bis M are here locally. Jessica Normington is the Director of Development and communications empowering the blind community. You can reach them at B, i, s, m.org, you’re on the west side of town, Washington Boulevard,

Jessica Normington  10:29

yep, about a mile

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Nestor Aparicio  10:32

away from get us. Now, people, when I drive through the tunnel, I see the blind. What is that? That’s the National Federation of the Blind. Now, there was a gentleman that was always on the television commercials, that was always a part for many, many, many years, who ran that Federation when they were spending money and like, on TV, and you drive by and you see it, that’s it. That’s a big thing, right? The National federate. Give me what they do or the so

Jessica Normington  10:55

they’re rolling all of that. So they’re there. They’re national headquarters. Are here in Baltimore. There’s a thing, yep. Yep. They are. They’re an advocacy organization, policy driven, working with DC and lawmaking, trying to change laws around blindness. So what

Nestor Aparicio  11:11

does that mean? What, because I like fighting the power they haven’t heard or haven’t read. So what? What would be an advocacy issue that they would fight for that needs to be done in regard to include So some states

Jessica Normington  11:26

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don’t allow blind individuals to raise their children. So changing the law because they find them in a inadequate to raise children. So changing the law that, let me guess they’re red. I honestly don’t know what state, but I learned this over the summer, and I was, like, blown away by it. You know, with the electric cars, you can’t hear them. Oh so legislative around car manufacturing and making some kind of sound. So they know that, because that’s how they navigate traffic is listening.

Nestor Aparicio  11:58

They’re kind of like owls, right? Yeah, cars, they’re flightless or soundless, right? So the

Jessica Normington  12:03

little bit. But they also have training centers like ours across the country that train non visual skills. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  12:11

I guess if you know, you spend five minutes blind, you start to figure out what your needs would be. You know, what’s missing in navigating things. But I’m always inspired, you know, by by all of it, and I’m glad you came up. I am really sorry about Tuesday. I’m gonna apologize. You’re the first person have to apologize. No worries. Tell me where you were Tuesday, where you’re supposed to be, and what I did. And by the way, tell me about your partner that was gonna come. They couldn’t make it. I want to give a shout out, because I screwed that up. And I’m gonna tell you the

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Jessica Normington  12:38

whole story. No worries. Dr Goss, Michael Goss, our president, CEO, was going to join me on well, can

Nestor Aparicio  12:43

he come next time? Definitely. I’m sorry, Doc,

Jessica Normington  12:48

it’s fine. He’s good.

Nestor Aparicio  12:50

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I needed a doctor on Tuesday, let me tell you that. So he’s a doctor of

Jessica Normington  12:54

engineering. I’m a Doctor of computer science or something like that. Well, what

Nestor Aparicio  12:58

happened? What what happened was, I did the show Monday at Costas. I can’t believe I’m gonna admit this to you, because I feel I haven’t admitted this out loud, because it’s so stupid that I don’t want to. You’re already laughing, so I’m already headed I can’t wait I went to Costas on Monday night. I came home, I have a backpack with this computer and the stuff that I need to get the videos and audios to all of the social media and Baltimore positive and YouTube and the radio and all the places that I that all 10 of you follow me. So I came a month a little fatigued, came in the door, put my bag down, did my thing. Tuesday was the one day this year that my wife had to go to Silver Spring for her all in Verizon executive meeting with her new VPs and like all that. So she had to do her hair up, look nice, pretty. She’s always pretty hair, like all that. And it was the one day she needed a car to go to silver spring. We’re one car family, because we live downtown. We don’t We both work from home, right? So put everything down, packed everything up, went to bed, get up three in the morning like I always do, do what I do. My son was off Tuesday. He was gonna drive me. Were to be boys day, you know, we’re gonna have fun fatally, and he’s gonna pick me up. 1015 we’re gonna get downtown. 1045 have a crab cake and wait for nice people like you and host a cup of soup or bowl, shower, shave, get out of bed, put my belt buckle on radio station, everything, 1015, I reached into my bag and I went, put my laptop back in my bag. I put this headset that was in that bag. I’m like, I want to take this headset and put it in my bigger bag. And I said, pack the bag. And I got my lottery tickets here, and I put them in the bag. I know where this is going to look down, and if I have it underneath, I would show it to you, but I have a big briefcase that all this equipment sits in, and I have a big duffel bag, and both of those things were in the trunk of the car, which would be fine if the trunk of the car was in Towson, but the trunk of the car was in silver. Spring, yep, at an executive meeting. And I realized this at 10:18am, when I was literally last step, getting my wallet, putting like my kid was at the house. We’re ready to go. He literally just walked in the door. I’m like, Dude, we’re not going anywhere. So what do you mean like this? Just not good. Let me give me a minute to text fadelies. Jessica Mike, everybody that was the guest. You’re the first. You’re the only one that made it this week. So American Cancer Society and Hope Lodge. I love you, Jessica, or excuse me, Megan first, and then Jessica. Megan was my guest from Enoch Pratt library in live, Baltimore. She’ll come. Make a McCorkle, so I rebooked all of you. None of you were mad at me. I even my two police officers from preparing youth for tomorrow. They’re gonna come back out two weeks from now. Do you know what a jerk I felt like at 1030 you know, like I’m texting all of you, and it’s like it was like the plane left and I wasn’t on it, and it and it was nothing I could do about it. And it just, if you stand in there and you’re like, well, the show’s not gonna happen today. And I said, Well, let’s pretend it snowed, or let’s pretend there was a water main break, or, like, brain fart, you know, I don’t know, you know, but I locked my equipment in the car, and I don’t know what else to say, so I apologize. So I’m gonna buy you a beer here. Make it right at Cooper’s. All right. Well,

Jessica Normington  16:23

thank you. We’re all human. It happens if I really screwed you and I really felt

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Nestor Aparicio  16:27

bad, I buy you some gumbo, but that’s so good, you can buy it yourself. Jessica Norman did is here. She was supposed to be my Tuesday guest, and she keeps stepping out of my shot, and that’s all right. They watch for my hair. B, i, s, m empowering the blind community. Her card is, is Braille. It has, like,

Jessica Normington  16:46

it’s raised dots, yeah. And I, I,

Nestor Aparicio  16:52

I have been inebriated enough on the road in hotel rooms to try to play with it a little bit, and, like, when I’m in the elevator and just try to like, I wonder what it would be like close my eyes and say, could I find my floor, and would I know my floor if I was on it, and if I landed on the eighth floor, the ninth floor just to touch the gnome on the right floor that I’m not trying to break into somebody’s room in 812 instead of 1012 because I’m freaking blind, and I won’t be able to see and I don’t know how to read Braille. So feeling like, at some point this moment of reading braille might be just a good idea to learn how to do it.

Jessica Normington  17:25

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So it’s a sequence of six dots, so it’s not even close to English. So it’s, it’s the most challenging.

Nestor Aparicio  17:34

Well, the other part is ways they are and yeah,

Jessica Normington  17:38

the feel the sensitivity on your fingers. So I

Nestor Aparicio  17:40

would tell you, like my buddy Paul LaMantia, who was the guitar player my band and and my fantastic hair stylist at gentleman’s gentleman he his fingers have Cal, you know, from playing the guitar like and we’ve talked long and hard about how I’m tender footed to play the guitar, that I would bleed before I could learn how to play. I just think all of that callous, this different things that would, yeah, just be, won’t be so hard to be blind, you know, like, it’s not that hard. Well, God bless them all. Let’s bring them all along. Let’s, well, I mean, you watch them every day, right? I do so, you know, it’s, you know, it’s possible. Oh, it’s 100,000% were you the way I was before you worked there? Not necessarily.

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Jessica Normington  18:20

I just didn’t know I wasn’t educated, and that’s

Nestor Aparicio  18:23

why wasn’t so Morris walked into my radio station when I was 23 years old. I’m like, wow, that’s why I’m here my listeners, wow, right?

Jessica Normington  18:30

Because the misperceptions out there is, you know, blind people can’t do anything, yet. They can do everything, everything. They could do everything. It’s just they do it differently, all

Nestor Aparicio  18:40

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right. Well, I have a blind listener out there who wants to go to rock and roll show with me. So Mark, I’m looking for you. Even though you can’t see me, you can hear me. He’ll laugh at that. So Mark, Don he’s my dude, so I’m gonna work him. All right. Well, you know Mark. I do know Mark.

Jessica Normington  18:55

I know Mark. I see him every day.

Nestor Aparicio  18:58

I feel Can you apologize to mark for me not going to Iron Maiden with him, sure, because he wanted me to go to maiden with him and I didn’t have the Mojo that night. I will let him know I’m gonna take Monday. I email him all the time, and we’re gonna do a show. I know his brother, Glenn, he did my kitchen years ago. So I do know someone blind. I’m an idiot. Mark, sorry. So he works in our custody. Well, you inspire me, but you know that, so how about that? Is that good? Awesome? Well, there’s a guy with a hell of sense of humor mark on you. You know, I’ve known him a minute. Tell him sorry about the Ravens too. I will. Yeah, is your hair purple for the Ravens? Yep.

Jessica Normington  19:35

Well, it started that way. Now it’s just part of my calling card. So when we first the year we won the first Super Bowl. Do you have purple hair for 12 years? I’ve had it for 12 years.

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Nestor Aparicio  19:43

Well, I should give you a copy purple ring too for that, right? I mean, if nothing else, my kid go and his wife, um, they have their you folks, the people that do the hair, and people come with my like, what color is your son’s hair? And I was with him, I think it’s pink right now, but it. Was orange before. It’s definitely been blue. Hadn’t been purple in a while, since Chad Steele threw me out. He’s not like being purple.

Jessica Normington  20:08

I always have some purple. I put some green in for Eagles this weekend because my husband’s an Eagles fan, so I had to support him a little bit. He’s

Nestor Aparicio  20:17

not gonna be all greasy climbing a pole or anything Sunday, I

Jessica Normington  20:19

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sure hope. All right, all right, he’ll be sitting on the couch in our family room screaming at the TV. Are

Nestor Aparicio  20:25

you rooting for him or again? I guess you’re trying to help him out. You don’t care at this point. I

Jessica Normington  20:29

honestly don’t care. But of course, I have to root for the Eagles. He’s my husband. Happy wife, happy life, happy house. What

Nestor Aparicio  20:35

if they’re playing each other? I

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Jessica Normington  20:36

would root for the Ravens. It would be a very divided house.

Nestor Aparicio  20:42

Well, he’s an Eagles fan. There’s no halfway, but

Jessica Normington  20:44

he would, you know, he’s lived here 24, five years. So he’s as much as a Ravens fan as he one of my favorite be happy either way about

Nestor Aparicio  20:53

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Billick being my business partner. Back in the day was we would go out and do these speeches with corporate. You know, we come down to the ISM and speak people’s Brian like doing that kind of thing. And Brian would come in, and he’d get everybody together, and he say, how many people got here? Redskin fan, how many people here? Steeler, you know, talk to you later, you know, whatever. And he say, how many Eagle fans you got here? He goes. He said, I want to show you something you’ve never seen before that, you know, he would hold his ring out. They can’t do that anymore. I already admitted the young lady here, Kate from Reed’s rescue, the dog rescue. She’s an Eagles fan. She’s from Allentown. That’s where my husband’s from, yeah, well, I admitted to her, you know, like, and I was at the team party, eagles party in 17, and that was a night. I mean, that was a kicker. I didn’t go to the Ravens party when Beyonce played in 13. I went to the Eagles party. I don’t, they didn’t have any enter the entertainment was Jason Kelsey, I think, that night, but with the night the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I was at their team party, and it was on, like, Donkey Kong. It was fun. Oh, they party. It was good times. I mean, I had more fun at your party than I had at the Eagles party than I had at the Ravens party. I’ll tell you that. Yeah, I really did. I mean, and I didn’t have a dog in the hunt, and I didn’t really like the Eagles, but I had like 10 friends working for the Eagles. Then I think seven or eight players I knew on that team. Corey Graham was on that team, Tory Smith was on that team, Timmy Jernigan was on a lot of Raven players on that team, Jimmy Schwartz, Joe Douglas down the line. I’ve

Jessica Normington  22:18

always been a Ravens fan. I was an intern the summer that the stadium. I’m not

Nestor Aparicio  22:23

borrowing the Eagles for a Sunday, even though I love Buddy Ryan, I’m not so I don’t care who wins. The Ravens didn’t win. I kind of wish buffalo would have won, just to get it out of there, you know, just get it done. Just get that done for the buffalo. I’m never going to want the Washington team to win. And now they’re trouble. They’re going to be a problem for a

Jessica Normington  22:41

little while. They’re a great story. For whom them?

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Nestor Aparicio  22:46

You know what I’ve been telling everybody is, if they win, I’m going to call imma, call them the Maryland commanders. I’m going to claim them, not 30 of me. God, I feel I’m editing that. I didn’t really say that Jessica Normanton is here. Her card is in Braille because she works at B I S M empowering the blind community. I didn’t know you. You know what marks emails always come in bis I sort of knew he worked there. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Why don’t we bring him today or see where are you here?

Jessica Normington  23:15

He didn’t know I was coming today. I’ll rub it in his face on Monday. I think I already

Nestor Aparicio  23:18

took a picture with you. We’ll do that. All right. The magic eight ball is here. You get one number 98 there’s Timmy jernigans Number. There you go. He was he 97 That’s Tony Sarah. Go sit there. 99 is that good? Sure. Anthony Weaver, 98 trying to get all the 98 out of the way. Here works for me. All right. The magic eight balls are out. We’re here at Cooper’s north. Please support our friends at BIS. And what can people do to help you?

Jessica Normington  23:39

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They can support us through donating. We have an event coming up on March 29 at checker spot brewery. They can come drink some beer. Support us, beer, beer. We collaborated with good beer. We collaborated and brewed a beer with them called Blind Spot.

Nestor Aparicio  23:53

What kind of

Jessica Normington  23:54

beer is it? Honey? Kosh,

Nestor Aparicio  23:56

I’ll drink it. Oh, I love honey. Kosh, yeah, I thought you say it’s a hazy IPA, it’s

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Jessica Normington  24:02

a honey Kosh. And the the beer cans are brailled.

Nestor Aparicio  24:06

IPA, I puke something I don’t, I don’t like IPA. It’s not my thing. It’s a very drinkable. I’m stouty, I’m lagery, I’m pilsnery, a little bit. I’m cold, definitely coal.

Jessica Normington  24:16

She Yeah. I mean, really nice. You’re in Germany. No,

Nestor Aparicio  24:19

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so, man who saved my wife’s life from Germany. He lives near Gelson, kierchin and Dortmund up in the northwestern corner, but he’s close to Cologne. Hour from cologne. Cologne is like one of the great places ever. Cologne is the place with all the beer halls. When you go in and they bring the beer in, the in the milk crates, and they cut, they cut the suds off the top, and you get them in these little glasses, little there’s like Richie Cunningham, little eight ounce glasses. And this stays colder longer that way, and it’s kolch all kolsh. My favorite culture in the world is zuner kolsh, and I’ve been trying to get Furman to get that down at Max’s on tap for me. Then. They don’t have it. They have everything else. Oktoberfest. They get it every like other year, and the year he gets it. I’m just going to be down there. I mean, like a kegger, kegger, yeah, old school, man. Old school, all right, bi SM, my thanks to, uh, hi Mark, come do the show. And I don’t know, we’ll go see priest or something, right? He’s a metal head.

Jessica Normington  25:20

I don’t honestly know, but sure, I’ll take your word for it. He’s a music guy,

Nestor Aparicio  25:24

yeah, classic rock guy. So she’s the Director of Development communications, and I screwed up on Tuesday and it’s Friday. So the good news is, I’ll have you back to fatales for a crab cake, you and the doctor. And the really good news is, you get gumbo that’s better than the gumbo in New Orleans here. So even if the Ravens would have won, you’d be purple hair, and then you and your husband would have like this. But we will get better gumbo here. Sounds like, I mean that we’re Cooper’s north. See a couple Super Bowl. We have bags of stuff. Lots of folks have brought things here. One brought wise markets banks. I’m appreciative of that, because wise markets is our sponsor, putting us out on the road doing this, it is the final day when I reconvene. I have letter raskins coming by. Greg Landry, who did my documentary last year, is coming by its first time he’s been on the show since the documentary. Terry Beck is here. He’s the general manager of Coopers North. He is a two time cancer survivor lymphoma, so we’re gonna talk to him about that. And this is sort of like when art Donovan would show up at Channel 13 with John burin, the great Luke Jones is gonna be here my Kimo Sabe and partner from Shrewsbury across the border. He’s like, it’s Timonium. I wouldn’t come to Essex for you. So he’ll be here today. We’re gonna break bread and have some fun and have some fun and probably talk some baseball as well as other things. So a couple Super Bowl is here. It’s all about charity. It’s all about the Maryland Food Bank. We have donations coming in. My friend at the Chesapeake Emergency Assistance Center, Caitlin Kirby, yesterday, I’m gonna give her a whole bunch of bags of stuff. Today, I’m driving over there giving it all out. So a lot of it’s gonna wind up in Catonsville, on behalf of the Maryland food bank. So my thanks for that. Plenty of activities here, plenty things for you to find out at Baltimore positive as well as we’re now, I think you’re my 24th piece this week. My goal was so humbly about 30 or 40. I’m going to get the 30 before the week is over, and I have other people from Tuesday that I’m going to have back. We’re going to be at fates on the 18th. We’re going to be on Wednesday at libs grill in Bel Air with Nick and we have Harford County Executive Bob Cassidy coming on on Wednesday as well. From noon till five, will be at libs grill in Bel Air. I am Nestor. We are wnst Aim 1570 Towson, Baltimore, back for more from Coopers on a cup of Super Bowl. Stay with us. You.