DECATUR - Silas Martin is used to answering questions about his cane. The 10-year-old Harris School student is visually impaired due to brain tumors that affected his optic nerve, and he uses a white cane to help navigate the world around him.

Since 1964, a national, unofficial holiday has been raising awareness of the significance of the white cane for those who are blind or visually impaired. Every Oct. 15, Jill Hackman, the teacher for the visually impaired at Silas' school, observes White Cane Safety Day with her students.

"What do you use your white cane for?" Hackman asked her group.

"To help me walk," one voice piped up.

Another student added that the cane serves as a symbol to let others know that the person using it is blind or visually impaired and where he or she is going.

"So basically, your job as a student with a visual impairment is just to remind everybody what the white cane is for," Hackman told her students of their participation in the holiday.

This year, President Bush issued a proclamation on the White House Web site. When the announcement comes out each year, Hackman often converts it into Braille and sends it home with her students.

The other day, a child asked Silas what he used his cane for, his mom, Gloria Martin, said.

"I said, 'Say you can't see or your eyes are closed,' " Silas recalled telling the youngster. "'Then this will help you feel around.'"

In addition to being a tool that the blind and visually impaired can use to achieve more freedom in going about their daily activities, white canes serve as a symbol of independence. Silas gets two canes each year through the school district. He got his first one two years ago in third grade.

As he walks, Silas taps the cane to the left and right in front of him to seek out obstacles in his path.

"It might sense something that something's in my way or bumps," he said, demonstrating proper use of the tool in the entryway of his family's home.

Silas' cane is especially important in helping him make up for a lack of depth perception when going over gaps in the sidewalk and up and down stairs. He works with a mobility instructor who taught him how to use it by going on trips to various places in the community.

Because Silas has partial vision in one eye, learning how to rely on the cane is a continuing process, his mom said. And he still takes an occasional spill on the sidewalk.

"People have been rude because they don't understand what that white cane is," Martin said of outings into crowded places where Silas has inadvertently bumped into people.

She said she hopes White Cane Safety Day will raise awareness in the community about what her son uses his cane for.

"The problem is when you're around people that don't know what it's for," she said.

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