Al's favorite, and when a woman asked the price, he hesitated.
     "Very   expensive,"   he   said.
     "How  much?"   she persisted.
     "A thousand dollars,"  said Al.
The woman pulled out her check- book.  I couldn't believe it.
    

     By 1997 I was painting pro-fessionally.  I'd sold more than 400 watercolors by the year 2000.  For the past two years I've been painting in oils, graduating to large canvases with street scenes and images of people - details I'd never imagined I could create.
     I miss not being able to see.  I miss Al's face, the colors of a sun-set, reading a book.  That's not going to change.  I have changed.  For the better.  I would not be painting if my blindness hadn't happened.  Al found a way for me to accept my blindness - in art.
     My paintings are now hanging all over the United States, and in Europe and South America.  I still find it hard to believe everything that has happened since I started painting.  I do know how it all began.  My rock, my angel.  "Al'"  I say, "look what you started by getting mad at me that morning!"