Think ability when visiting Vince Silas, owner and manager of Capitol Gifts.
Silas, 42, has been blind for most of his life due to retrolental fibroplasia (RLF). As a baby in the '50s, he was premature and placed in an incubator as some premature infants are today.However, he said, "They (hospitals) did not know how to regulate the oxygen. So, a lot of children back in the '40s and '50s got oxygen burns, and it ruined the tissues in their eyes, the retinas. I was fortunate that I wasn't totally burned. A lot of friends I went to school with, that is what happened to them."
He was born in California, lived in Nevada and came to Utah in the 1960s to attend school at the Utah School for the Blind. There wasn't a school in Nevada.
"There I learned about the things I can do and worked on that rather than the worrying about the things I can't do," he said. "Through family and school I've learned to be independent and learned to do things on my own. If I don't know how to do it. I find out how."
Despite his disability, Silas hasn't let much slow him down. For more than four years, he has run Capitol Gifts at the State Capitol. The shop is underneath the north stairs leading to the Capitol Rotunda and offices of the governor and lieutenant governor.
Silas received his bachelor's degree from then Weber State College in communication/pub-lic relations and an associate degree in retail sales and marketing.
Prior to running the Capitol Gift shop, he ran the cafeteria for the Utah Department of Human Services, He decided he didn't like that very much, so he moved on to the Capitol when the opening came available.
As the owner and manager, he said he gets to order in merchandise, pay the bills and taxes and do inventory twice a year. He also likes to make certain tourists have what they need.
Capitol Gifts has much to offer the souvenir-hunting tourist or curious Utahn. Everything from postcards of Salt Lake City and information on LDS Church members to Centennial Plates and 2002 Olympic paraphernalia is found. Children can even stretch a few of their parents' hard-earned pennies in the shop's penny-stretching apparatus.
"I am enjoying the Olympic stuff coming in. It's selling well. People are excited to see it. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to get it," Silas said.
Employee Dolores Fay says usually the postcards and state magnets are the best sellers. Grandparents like to buy the magnets and U.S. maps for their grandchildren.
Besides tourists, Silas has met a number of famous people such as Ab Jenkins, driver of the Mormon Meteor III, and Mayor Deedee Corradini. Probably the most famous person he met was basketball player Blue Edwards before he left the Utah Jazz.
"He bought some gum and came back to buy some more. I didn't realize it was him until the second time. I forgot to ask him for his autograph," he said.
"I haven't met the governor yet. He doesn't come by. I wish he would! He sends his aides down to buy stuff. I wish he would come by sometime. I'd like to meet him."