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In the package the Seeing Eye sent Pete thirty-five years ago, there was a pamphlet with the title A Career That Counts. As Pete recalls the moment of receiving the piece, he chokes up. He coughs and covers his face with his hands. "I had no idea I was going to react to the memory of that pamphlet like this," he apologizes, "but I am so incredibly lucky to have found my entire life on my first try." Pete is a gentle, shy man. "My mother was very supportive but my father was astonished. 'Four years of business administration and you want to be a . . .' He couldn't say it, Andy, 'a . . . dog trainer?' " Pete laughs. "With the pamphlet, the Seeing Eye sent an application, and now I felt I was at the beginning of a mission to do good work. I knew I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything."

We go out into the streets again, this time with Tobias, and follow a trainer with a young dog on Maple, then a blind person from the current class doing her solo on the Elm Street route. "When I was Christian's age," Pete says, "one of my favorite books was Albert Schweitzer's Reverence for Life. It helped me realize that my own life didn't need to be about dollars and cents. I knew that everything was going right when I first walked into the vice president's office for my interview and spotted a bust of Schweitzer on the bookcase. That did it," he says.

Tobias is always happy but, as we walk, his tail is wagging more than usual. I am wondering how much of this place and these routes he remembers from his training. Often, when we pass a place we have visited even once, he will pause, look back at me to check — yes? no? you're the boss! — then, with no sign from me, he goes on. He does that now at the entrance of a coffee shop he hadn't visited for over a year.

"In Vermont, Tobias and I rarely see this much traffic."

"Great!" Pete says enthusiastically. "I'll supervise you on the High School route."

As a rule, I'm a self-conscious walker, too aware of how I think I'm seen. Blindness has contributed to my shyness and reclusiveness, a timidity of unnecessary contact. I often want only to blend into the landscape, embarrassed by the conspicuousness of blindness. Though there are those who avoid a blind person like the plague, I have been told that generally most people smile at Tobias and me. I believe that the sight of man and beast at work together makes more than a few people feel good, seeing this amazing partnership of inventiveness, synergy and love.

Now, as we charge toward the center of town, I feel particularly sure of myself and my dog, relishing the specialness of this occasion, being observed by the best of the trainers and by Loie. She sees me work my dog all the time, but here, in these circumstances, it seems like an intimate viewing, like sitting in on instructions given to novitiates of a secret order. Tobias and I are flying now, stopping inches from each curb, crossing at busy intersections, threading our way through crowds. For the two of them, I feel I am performing my best tricks, figure eights, loop-the-loops, belly rolls.

Now, at one crossing, Pete warns me that he wants to test my dog's ability to disobey and as traffic speeds left and right in front of us, he taps my shoulder. "Tobias, forward," I command and, remembering his lessons well, he does not budge.

"I don't think I can watch," Loie says. "Can I meet you in the coffee shop?"

Pete turns to her and laughs. "Andy's been doing it for years, and Tobias is doing great work."

"Okay, Andy, now," Pete says and again Tobias holds his ground. When the cross-traffic stops I tell him "forward" for the third time. He steps out into the street cautiously, and we cross safely. I choke up with pride and remember the first time I stood at a corner and was about to cross when Kris, my first trainer, said, "Today we are going to test Dash's ability to disobey."

"We are?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

"I'm going to ask you to give Dash the 'forward' command right into traffic," she said.

"This can't be true."

"If he does well, he will either not budge or he'll go only as far as the moving car and stop."

"And if he doesn't do well?" No response. "How many people die doing this?" I was pleading now.

"All right, Mr. Potok," she said, tapping my shoulder. "Now!"

Somehow we did it, everyone in our class did it, and, after that day in the streets, we sat around exchanging stories of our exploits like crusty old veterans of foreign wars.

Now, as Tobias and I continue on our route, one of the Seeing Eye commandos in his van nearly runs us over, his tires glancing the edge of the sidewalk. Tobias, hero for the day, yanks me back, but an ambulance full of young emergency workers pulls up beside me, outraged. "That drunk drove up on the sidewalk," one of them tells me. "I can't believe what he just did. We're going after the son of a bitch!"

"That's very nice of you, but he's one of us."

"One of you? But . . . but . . . Are you sure?" They need to be sure but they don't want to believe it. We all smile happily at them and finally they drive off, more than a little disappointed.

Pete has arranged with the cowboy driver of the van to make a turn toward us in the middle of our next crossing and, even though Tobias has stopped to let him by, the man reaches a hand out of the car window and smacks my perfect shepherd lightly on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Tobias jerks us back, yelping as if he has been stung by bees. I know that he is insulted by the impudence, for he must know that his street behavior had been exemplary.

"I can't believe he did that to our dog," Loie says, a bit shaken.

"It was a useful lesson," Pete assures her. "It'll serve as a reminder for Tobias," he says as I console my dog. "He'll keep an even safer distance from moving cars."

We drive back to the lovely rolling hills outside of town where the main Seeing Eye buildings are located. We talk for a while in Pete's office as we await the call for lunch. "When I first got here thirty-five years ago," Pete says, "they were just breaking ground for the construction of these buildings. It was beyond my wildest dreams that I could be a part of all this. Everything about it appealed to me. I knew I could handle this job and at the end of that day, they offered it to me. I took it in a flash. Let me tell you, I could have flown home without an airplane. I graduated on June 7, 1964, and began work at the Seeing Eye June 8."

Copyright © 2002 by Andrew Potok. Excerpted by permission of Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Tags: Personal Growth