[Extra]Ordinary People

Lima resident Edna Brown, like all peoole born blind, experienced things in her mind not through a visual image, but through the other four senses which combine to form an uncanny sixth sense of reality. Edna loved attending plays at Faurot Opera House in Lima, Ohio. She loved The Wright Players, her favorite actress being Geraldine Browning. Edna’s cousin Hazel Brown took her to rehersals, where she was permitted to sit just off stage on the floor which enhanced her physical experience of the action. Edna attended one of those rehearsals in 1927 of Wright Players with Mrs. Browning the female lead, in play entitled “The Gorilla.” In a scene where the gorilla was to threaten Browning’s character, Alice Denby, Edna began to feel uneasy as the man in gorilla suit did not seem right to her. Gorilla man’s walk by Edna was not his usual stride, longer steps with heavier tread! His body odor was very different from other rehearsals! Then it was the uncharacteristic teeth grinding beneath the mask, which made Edna, as the gorilla lounged toward Mrs Browning, TO SCREAM OUT! The gorilla man surprised all by fleeing the stage, grabbed by a policeman as he ran cursing and howling from the theatre’s side door. It turns out the actor who normally played the gorilla was found tied up back stage. The imposter was an insane man obsessed with Mrs. Browning who confessed he HAD MEANT TO DO HER HARM! Edna the blind wóman was only one in the theatre who “saw” what was really going on!