What a month

 Everyone knows that we celebrate New Year's Day on January 1.  At least on some calendars.  But I was surprised to learn that January has many month-long celebrations. January is National Bath Safety Month (I'm sure you'll agree that's important), National Blood Donor Month (I must make an appointment), National Hobby Month, Braille Literacy Month, Hot Tea Month (I do like hot tea), National Oatmeal Month (my FF makes really delicious oatmeal) and, last but not least, National Soup Month.  All this rolled into one month, but today I'll focus on two events involving Braille writing that puzzled me. First let me make it clear that I have tremendous admiration for anyone who reads braille and I am by no means making fun of blind people.  My first encounter with Braille that made me wonder was some years ago when they built a new parking garage in downtown Fort Wayne.  The first time I parked in it and rode the elevator, I notice that the floor level numbers were also written in Braille, which made me wonder how many blind drivers had been parking there,  The second, somewhat similar incident happened when I was on a flight with friends in a private plane and we stopped at a small airport to refuel.  While we waited, my girlfriend and I wandered around the small building and were surprised to find that the chart room, where pilots could look at maps and plan the next leg of their flight, had the identifying sign posted on the door in regular print and in Braille.  I don't know if any of the charts were in Braille, but I suspect that a blind pilot would do better than a blind street driver.