Oh, the things Herb Middendorff has seen. He has seen Tanzania's famous Ngorongoro Crater, a vast bowl 12 miles across, formed when a volcano collapsed 2 million years ago.

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        Herb has ventured into the crater and seen its wildlife: elephants and rhinos, lions and zebras. The wildlife co-exist with people, members of the Masai tribe. Herb has seen them, too.

        The 75-year-old Sycamore Township resident has seen a lot in several visits to Africa. Sometimes he traveled with Cincinnati Zoo groups (he is a former member of its board), sometimes on his own.

        He flew into Kenya in 1973, and from his passenger seat window, he saw elephants scatter on the grass airfield below.

        He has seen the sun, a glowing orange orb, rise on Africa's Serengeti plains. “It was so dramatic and so wonderful,” he says.

        And on those same plains, he saw wildebeest migrating north. “Thousands and thousands of them,” he says. “Nothing like it anyplace on the face of the Earth.”

        His twin grandsons, then 13, were with him on a 1993 trip, which made it even more special. They floated over the plains in a hot-air balloon, watching ostriches and elephants below. They saw a pride of lions devour a wildebeest. And in the distance, they saw the snow-covered peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro.

        Herb Middendorff made a nice living in real estate, which allowed him the financial freedom to make trips to Africa. And elsewhere.

        He has seen the Seychelles, an archipelago of more than a hundred islands in the Indian Ocean. Some people liken them to paradise on Earth. Pristine beaches, palm trees, coconuts the size of small cocktail tables. Herb has seen that.

        He has seen the Swiss Alps. And the former Soviet Union.

        In the mid-'70s, he accompanied the U.S. Olympic boxing team on a tour of what was then the U.S.S.R. In Mongolia, he met a former Soviet heavyweight boxing champion. Knocked him out, Herb did, in what what he calls “one of the greatest moments in my life.”

        After eight pony glasses of vodka, downed in quick succession, Herb was still standing. But not the champ.

        “Bang, down he went,” Herb says.

        “I can still see it,” and he's talking about everything: the boxing champ, the African sunrise, the Seychelles. “I can still remember it, visually remember it.”

        A year and a half ago, he renewed his driver's license. He passed the eye exam, no problem. Soon after, his vision began to fade. Rapidly.

        Macular degeneration.

        He can't read anymore. He has difficulty watching television, even a big screen. He can see better peripherally than straight ahead.

        Doctors at Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic told him not to expect improvement.

        “Foggy,” he says, describing his vision. “It's not distorted. I can still go to the shopping center. I go out to dinner. I have drivers who will take me here and there.”

        At 75, he has friends who have health concerns such as diabetes and heart disease. “You never think you're going to go blind,” he says. “I think I'm handling it pretty good.”

        He has been to some marvelous places. Seen some magnificent things.

        “I don't really feel. ...” He pauses.

        “Let me see how to say this. I'm not depressed because of my eyesight, because I've been fortunate to see so many things.

        “I love people. I just absolutely love people. I get a lot of calls, guys come and we go out to lunch, go to the clubs downtown, Queen City or the Bankers Club.

        “You can have terrible things happen to you physically. But I think it's what you make of it. You can't sit around and cry. That's just the way I face life.

        “I'm happy. How can you go blind and be happy? I don't know. But I am.”

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