When my daughter was in elementary school, she was a straight-A student. Later, with the reading requirements of junior high, her grades began to fall.

"Maybe she has a learning disability," I remember suggesting. Each teacher dismissed the idea. My child was "much too bright," they said.

When she tested into an honors program in high school, she surprised teachers by struggling for mostly mediocre grades.

Then one weekend, I wanted to share a book with her that I'd just read. My copy was one of the "talking books" recorded by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

My daughter began listening to it and barely came out of her room again, so smitten was she with hearing rather than reading a book. So it came as no surprise when, at age 18, she was diagnosed with a significant reading disability.

With that diagnosis, she became eligible for her own talking book machine - a specially designed cassette player for listening to the four-track, slow-speed recordings.

Thousands of Tristaters have talking book machines given to them free because they are blind or otherwise unable to read print. In Hamilton and Clermont counties alone, 2,100 patrons depend on the machines - machines that Judy Bow, head of the Talking Book Program at the State Library in Columbus, says were once "literally piled up to the ceiling, waiting for repair."

Thirteen years ago, the Cincinnati Association for the Blind (CAB), the agency responsible for distributing the machines in Cincinnati, formed a remarkable partnership with the GE Senior Elfun Society. The machines have never piled up again.

Retired GE Aircraft Engine volunteers have repaired some 35,000 talking book machines. Last week, the Mutual of America Foundation recognized the partnership between the CAB and the Senior Elfuns at an awards luncheon at the Montgomery Inn Banquet Center.

Ruth Jameson's story is a familiar one to those who work in the talking book program.

"The year was 1985," recalls the retired teacher, "and I realized that I had not been reading recreationally, or for my own enrichment, for years. A friend told me about talking books ... and a whole new world started to open. ... Without talking books, my life would be bleak indeed, reduced to CNN and sitcoms."

Today, my daughter is again an honors student. She is on her fourth or fifth talking book machine.

As for me, I can't even count the number of machines I have used in 30 years - but I do remember a time when there wasn't a replacement machine readily available.

Mutual of America executives congratulated Bernie Burdick and Dick Meyer, co-leaders of the Senior Elfun Talking Book Project, but even they are not completely aware of the pleasure these dedicated volunteers have given.

For eligibility information on the National Library Service Talking Book program, contact the Cincinnati Association for the Blind, 221-8558, or the Cincinnati Library for the Blind, 369-6999.

Contact Deborah Kendrick by phone: 673-4474; fax: 321-6430; e-mail: dkkendrick@earthlink.net.