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Long before the internet of today, it was changing the lives of a special group of people within the state of North Carolina who we called the
Nandonites. These were a group of people with one thing in common, disabilities of various types, some debilitating while others fatal.
Jeannie Darquenne was the unofficial den mother, if you will, within our little chat room of the Nando.net service. Jeannie called us email

junkies because we day or so we would send emails through the shell net service. If someone did not come around for a few days, somebody always had Nando staff make a courteous call to ensure our friends were okay. Usually, it turned out to be nothing more than a a cold, the flu, or
pneumonia but on a few instances, the person missing from the list passed away. This is what became of Jeannie in 1997. She died from
complications resulting from the many disabilities and debilitating problems she faced every day.

Jeannie understood the dangers of depression that exits among the disabled that cannot leave home because of the inability to drive, no public transportation, so special transportation for those permanently in wheelchairs, speech machines, and oxygen. Others required service dogs to find our way around if we went anywhere together. The largest hurdle was distance since many of the members lived scattered from one end of the state to another.

If anyone wishes to know how the internet improved lives, it is here in Jeannie's own words prior to her death at the age of 57 years old:

"It (internet/shell-net) is a way to communicate, a way to read the newspaper and books, a way to wander the world and make wonderful new
friends. Worlds that we thought were closed to us forever will be opened. It will be like a fantastic dream come true...This is a great example of
the "Information Superhighway" Vice President Gore and Governor Hunt keep referring to, and it shows that people with disabilities can be viable members of the "virtual" community. When a person with a disability is at a computer, using email, chatting or playing in a MUD
[multi-user domain], their disability has no effect on communications. The barriers are broken down and we are equal to our computer
counterparts, and that is wonderful!"

I often wonder if Jeannie knew how true her words were before her death. In the years to follow, I witnessed many people with disabilities, me
included; many continue to find jobs available over the internet where one could work from home without the need for transportation.

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