PREPARATIONS … The prerequisite to performance on the clarinet is the assembly of the instrument, something for which Bailey has down cold. (PHOTO BY TIMOTHY KAYS, STAFF)
(Story originally appeared October 10th, 2018)
By: Timothy Kays
So, you’re sitting in the stands at a Montpelier football game, and you notice something unusual when the Locomotive Marching Band takes the field. There seems to be a close-knit pair marching across the gridiron…one playing and the other one not. You’ve just spotted sophomore clarinetist Bailey Dohm.
Bailey is the sixteen-year old daughter of Jeremy and Brady Dohm, the sister of Brant and Skylar…and there’s one other little detail: Bailey is blind. Before you go thinking that this is a debilitating handicap, you need to look again to the band marching in precise cadence across the field.
What you see as a handicap or impediment, Bailey sees as a challenge. To sit down and talk with her is an insight into your own soul. Just because she is blind doesn’t mean that Bailey doesn’t have extraordinary vision.
“I was born in 2002, and I’ve been blind since birth,” Bailey said. “I got diagnosed with septo-optic dysplasia when I was really teeny tiny. I was probably just born when they diagnosed me.” Does this blindness keep her down? Hardly. “I don’t take my blindness very seriously,” she said, “…because I’m so immune to it and so used to it that I don’t think much of it. I never…I NEVER let challenges stop me. Even if it’s in the marching band. I never, ever, EVER want to let my blindness stop me.”
It is common for the remaining four physical senses to become enhanced when sight is lost. Such is the case with Bailey, who explained, “I know I can’t see with my eyes. However I can see with my hands. I can hear whispers; I can hear things that people can’t hear.”
“Like if someone’s whispering, I can hear that. I can hear that really good. I can even sometimes hear mumbling if they say something mumbled. I can hear them clearly.”
“And I can also smell what people don’t smell. Not to brag, but I can probably taste better than most people’s tastings. Sugar and spicy, sour, salty stuff, I can probably taste it better than other people.”
“I only have four senses instead of five.” She actually has a well refined sixth sense…her sense of humor. “I’m blind,” she explained. “I pull jokes on people saying ‘Oh, I can see that,’ and then I prop my glasses up.”
Bailey is into music on a big scale, both performing and listening. “I play piano sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes I sing and play the piano. I won the high school talent show because I sang and played the piano, and it got me first place. I played a song by Rihanna called ‘Stay’. I play piano. I sing. I play clarinet. I have my own little Piccolo at home; I’m learning how to play that.”
Sitting and playing is a far cry from the choreographed motion while playing that is a marching band. Still, in keeping with never letting a challenge stop her, Bailey does indeed take the field with the Montpelier High School Marching Band. She does so by sheer determination, the coaching of her band director, and the guidance from her secret weapon, “My friend, Kaylynn Warner.”
“We have been friends since second grade, and she is one that I look up to. She inspires me so much. I think we technically call each other sisters at heart now, because we grew up together and we are somewhat alike in every way. We like try to inspire each other as best we can, and technically we’ve kind of morphed into each other.”
“She grabs me by the shoulder and guides me while we’re marching. In other words…she’s my ‘band aid’.” Behold the sense of humor, again.
“Ever since I started high school,” she said, “…I wanted to play in the band. I know I’m playing in the marching band now, but I didn’t last year. I’m hoping to go out to Four County next year, but if I have to stay here, I’m planning on being in the marching band again.” If she does get to transfer to Four County, she wants to focus on Medical Office Technologies.
“It is an option out at Four County. I went to explore that last year, and it was actually pretty cool. You get to work with computers. You get to work in the health and technology field. I want to work in the pediatric department, because I love working with kids. They’re just so cute and smiley and happy. And I like their voices, their little tiny voices.”
“They just make me smile. They make me want to cry…like happy crying. Tears of joy. I’ve made a baby bust out laughing before by tickling him, and it made it made me laugh too. I laugh when stuff goes on like laughing babies. I mean, it’s so funny to watch and to listen to. Of course, you know I can’t watch because I’m blind, but I still CAN watch.”
A songwriter needs to be able to see the music with their ears. Bailey has this concept down cold. “I probably could because I don’t have eyes to see. All I have are these eyes that blink and move, but of course I can hear the music and see the music with my ears, my touch, and my emotions.”
“I love music. I love how you can get the feel of it. I love how you can get the emotion from it. I love how upbeat it can get; I love how slow it can get.”
“I just like music in general. I listen to music all the time. Music is my life. I would not give up band. I would not give up choir I would not give up a any type of musical career. So my band director, Mrs. Laura Zumbaugh, she helps me by making these recordings for me, so I can take it home and practice.”
“She’s always positive,” Mrs. Zumbaugh said of her unique student. “I never hear her talk negatively. It’s nice to have a student who’s always in a good mood. She’s always setting a good example for others. She’s always positive, and I think that helps other students that she’s able to do this.”
“When she first played for me, it was four years ago when I first came here and she was in seventh grade. I wasn’t sure as to how much she could play not being able to see the music, but she just listens to what the other students play, and just plays along.”
“I can sing something to her and she’ll just play it, or I’ll say, ‘It’s C-E-G’. I give her note names, and she knows where they are so she can just pick it up and play. It’s really cool to have a student who can play by ear. She’ll listen and play, or sometimes she’ll make up her own harmonies that sound good. She’s just a nice, positive change in the day.
Bailey is indeed blind in every physical sense of the word, but in that blindness she has a better and purer perspective of the world than many of those who have 20-20 vision. Yes, her remaining senses are all sharpened to compensate for the lack of physical vision, but she possesses a form of vision that cannot be corrupted by being sighted. Back in 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in Washington D.C., a Baptist minister by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
55 years later, in a small town called, Montpelier, Ohio, a 16-year old Christian high school sophomore by the name of Bailey Dohm said, “I don’t like being judgmental. I don’t like being judged. I don’t like being racist. I think that all people are equal…I KNOW all people are equal. It pretty much starts to make me think that there basically is no such thing as a quote, race, unquote.”
Imagine what the world would be like if we the sighted, could see our fellow man in the same way that Bailey does. While we may have the sight, she has the vision…a vision uncorrupted by physical sight, and gauged not by the eyes, but by the heart. Perhaps we could all do well by learning to rely less upon what we see, and more upon that which Bailey sees without the use of her eyes.
Bailey Dohm just might be on to something here…and keeping perfect step and pitch in 4/4 time is just the start of it.
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
