From the Gadsden Times in Alabama:Take your car to the shop, and the mechanic likely will say, “Let me take a look at it.”
Ollis Winfrey (pictured) will say, “Let me take a listen.”
Winfrey, an avid car enthusiast, says he can sit in a car, listen to it run and determine what’s wrong.
It’s not because he knows every knock of an engine or grind of a gear.
It’s because he is blind.
Hearing is what makes Winfrey, 65, good at what he does.
As a young, seeing child, Winfrey’s passion was cars.
“I got an itch for working on cars when I was a young boy,” he said. “I would sit around the old men under the hood of old cars, and listen to (them) and watch every move they made.”
Winfrey started to go blind in 1970 while living in Chicago, when he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. His two brothers also have the illness and also are blind.
However, Winfrey said during an active childhood and early adulthood, he saw everything he needed to live his life thus far.
That includes working on cars.
“Just because I am blind doesn’t mean that I can’t fix cars,” he said. “A mechanic can’t see 85 percent of the car’s components anyway. It takes correct maneuvering and precise measurements to fix cars.”
And he added, with a trace of sarcasm, “A good mechanic could do his job with his eyes closed.”An array of vintage cars Winfrey has repaired lines his backyard, and he remembers exactly what type of work was done on each.
A 1957 Chevrolet Birmingham police car is one he has in-depth knowledge of, as he has had to change the motor and several other things to get the car running.
Friends and family say Winfrey is a blind man who does everything a seeing person can do, maybe even better.
He said people sometimes don’t believe he is blind because he lives his life similar to a sighted person.
“Sometimes my own wife forgets that I can’t see,” Winfrey said. “She would leave and come back in a rush saying, ‘I completely forgot that I needed to be here to help you do certain things.’ But I tell her that I am fine and that I can get around OK by myself.”
Now that Winfrey is blind, he has noticed that his other senses have heightened.
“I can hear a lot better as well as smell better,” he said. “My wife says that I smell more things than a little bit.”
Winfrey keeps busy with his many hobbies, which include snow skiing, bodybuilding and karaoke.
“I have to keep myself busy to make keep my mind off of my handicap,” Winfrey said. “I find myself laughing and making jokes to help keep my mind off of it, because if I don’t I just may go crazy — and that’s why I have so many hobbies.”
Accolades Winfrey has won as a result of his hobbies adorn the mantel and tables all around his house. Each has its own special story.
He is especially proud of a first-place and two second-place trophies he won for snow skiing.
“I got into snow skiing with my brother, who is also blind,” Winfrey said. “When we were young, I was always the most athletic one and he thought he could beat me in snow skiing. But he couldn’t.”
Being an athlete was something Winfrey took pride in as a youngster.
He brags of competing in worldwide bodybuilding contest with big names in the sport, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Lou “The Hulk” Ferrigno, and showcases a major national magazine where he is featured as proof of his endeavors.
One of his closest friends, Dennis Nunnely, describes Winfrey’s love for karaoke.
“We sit in his back room for hours sometimes, just singing away,” Nunnely said.
He said it is amazing Winfrey can remember an entire album of songs without being able to see the screen where the lyrics are.
“Once it is in my mind, it’s there,” Winfrey said.
“I may be blind physically, but I am not blind mentally,” he continued.
Winfrey says he concentrates more now that he cannot see.
“I can’t help but to concentrate on things more often now, He said.
“If you close your eyes, you can picture it — your mind will put a picture there,” he said.
He said being blind has given him faith.
“You know that faith is something that you can’t see. Being blind has given me faith to know that even though I can’t see it, it is there,” he said.
Nunnely says Winfrey is an inspiration to him.
“Ollis is someone I admire, because he never lets his handicap stop him from doing anything. He is the biggest advocate for ‘I can do it’ I know.”
Winfrey said he is a first cousin of media personality Oprah Winfrey, that their fathers were brothers.
Winfrey currently is a student at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Talladega, where he has learned Braille.