In this week’s episode, I talk about the reaction to my article “The Reunion” and the awards that it won.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 23 of Contemplating Life.

Last week I read for you my award-winning article “The Reunion”. This week I’m going to talk about what happened afterward.

Somewhere along the way, I got in touch again with Rose and told her I had written a magazine article about the reunion that featured her prominently. After the magazine came out I talked to her by phone. She was extremely flattered by the things I said about her. I specifically remember she said, “Nobody ever described me that way.” That was a bit embarrassing for me to think I had perhaps been more flattering to her than her husband had ever been.

She said she wanted to keep in touch. She insisted we still could be good friends. I agreed to keep in contact but I knew that I wouldn’t. The reunion event had been very emotional for me. I wrote about it to get those emotions resolved and to put it all behind me. That was one of the reasons that I was reluctant to go to the trouble of trying to get it published. Now that it was published, again, I wanted to put everything behind me. I knew that if I stayed in contact with Rose it would just be another way to revisit things that I needed to leave behind.

That phone conversation we had after the magazine came out was the last I spoke with her. As I said two episodes ago, I later heard that she had a baby. And many years later, Google searches told me when she had died. I don’t think I left anything unsaid between us so although we didn’t exactly say goodbye forever, I’m at peace about it at least as much as possible.

Occasionally she appears in my dreams. In the dreams, I’m out somewhere shopping or something and run into her. Sometimes in the dreams, she has left her husband and I try to restart our relationship. But it never goes anywhere. Sometimes in the dreams, I see her in a crowd and try to get to talk to her but never get there. She slips away.

I got a note from the Gilson family. Their brother thanked me for remembering them so fondly. He said he didn’t recall the events described to me by my teacher Mr. Kohl about the events surrounding Leslie passing. As I said in the earlier episode, in some ways, it doesn’t matter if it was true or not. When the legend becomes fact… print the legend.

In the list of people who were not at the reunion, I mentioned the janitor John Sementa. I described him as “whereabouts unknown”. He called me to say, “I’m right here” and laughed a hearty laugh. He had been at the reunion and I didn’t see him.

Over the years I’ve tried Facebook searches and Google searches for other people from Roberts with whom I’ve lost touch. I found an obituary for my buddy Estel. Also found one for Carl Nash. He was the guy I mentioned that I had run into him several times over the years and he always asked, “Aren’t you dead yet?” That was his backhanded way of saying he was glad I was still alive and beat the odds. I think it is supremely ironic that I outlived him. He was married to a Roberts alum named Mary, I forget her main name now. They lived in the small town of Bargersville about 30 miles south of here. Rosie lived in the same duplex. Her husband was Carl’s nephew.

I mentioned a girl Cheryl Fayette whom I took to the senior prom. She will get an episode of her own soon.

Music and home economics teacher Betty Atkins wrote me to say how flattered she was by the article. She said something to the effect that she was surprised when any of her students remembered her at all. She had no idea the impact she had on me and was grateful to hear my story.

I heard from Mr. Kohl. We had a nice conversation and I mailed him the original unabridged version of the story. I think it was a bit shocking to him to see things that we discussed appear in print. Still, he was very gracious and grateful. Years later he was cleaning out some files and mailed me back that unabridged version of the story. It was a good thing he did because I’m not sure I have a copy of that version anymore. During this podcast, I went looking for it and other memorabilia such as a poem that Nancy Gilson had written. I still haven’t found either of them. If I ever do, I will post it on the website and make mention of it here.

A couple of issues after “The Reunion” appeared in Indianapolis Monthly Magazine they printed letters to the editor praising the article.

My friends and family of course were quite proud of me. I also heard from some people I hadn’t heard from in years. My former next-door neighbor Syd dropped by just to tell me how much he enjoyed the article. He said he felt privileged to know me.

A guy named Fred who was a good friend of my aunt and uncle was deeply affected by the story. Fred had suffered severe burns on the side of his face and head when he was young. You can still see scars on the side of his face and his ear. He always wore a toupee to cover the scars on his head. My aunt Jody told me after he read the article, they were on vacation together and while swimming he took off his toupee – something she had never seen him do before. She told me she thought that after reading my story he found the courage to show who he really was.

One of the reasons they were reluctant to publish my story was because they “never publish anything written in first person.” That’s not exactly true. Editor Deborah Paul wrote a first-person article about her life every month. That’s what made me think they would be open to what I wrote. She wrote over 400 such personal reflections every month until her retirement in 2017. Anyway, after my first-person article appeared, they continued to publish other first-person pieces although I suspect some of them may have been ghostwritten by staff members after interviewing the subject of the article.

A few months later I got a call from Ms. Paul telling me that we, emphasis on we, had won an award. An organization called the Community Service Council of Central Indiana annually presented its CASPER award. That is Community Appreciation in Public Enrichment and Relations. The CSC was an organization that did planning for social service activities in the city. They had a very prestigious Board of Directors consisting of politicians and business people who are the movers and shakers of the city.

I recall my mother and I attended one of their meetings as part of our disability advocacy work. I don’t think she ever served on the Council itself. My friend Muriel Lee, mother of Christopher Lee who I spoke about a few episodes ago in my Tech Expo presentation had received a CASPER award.

Anyway, the CSC found five articles in Indianapolis Monthly Magazine that they thought were worthy of their prestigious CASPER award. Although they gave out 2 or 3 such awards each year, they didn’t want to give 5 of them to one publication. They concluded that it was Ms. Paul’s leadership as Editor that produced these works so they gave her the award. In some ways, it was shared between me, another freelance writer, and a couple of staff members for recognition of our work but in the end, the single award ended up hanging in Ms. Paul’s office.

I was invited to the luncheon where the award was presented. Photos were taken. Applause given. It was a really nice affair and my mom and I really enjoyed it because we knew many of the people involved in social service activities.

A short time later, I got a call that I had won an award. Emphasis on “I”, not we.

“The Reunion” had been awarded first place as Best Magazine Feature by the Society of Professional Journalists – Sigma Delta Chi. This award was going to me for my article. Naturally, the magazine was proud but this one was mine and mine alone.

There was a fancy reception at the downtown Indianapolis Athletic Club. Cocktails were served. The room was packed full of journalists. I dressed up in my only suit and tie. Mom and Dad accompanied me dressed in their best.

Ms. Paul and other people from the Magazine were there. I asked one of them, “Are the people in this room the ones who voted for me?”

“Many of the members of the Journalist Society are here and it’s their award but technically no… They didn’t vote. So that there is no conflict of interest, we trade with other states. We send them our nominations and they pick the winners. We get their nominated stories and we vote on them. I think this year we traded with Iowa.”

The guest speaker for the evening was independent presidential candidate Lenora Fulani of the New Alliance Party. Her 1988 presidential campaign made her the first woman and first African-American woman to appear on the ballot in all 50 states. She earned approximately 0.2% of the national vote.

After her stump speech, they opened the floor to questions. After 3 or 4 questions were asked by journalists in the audience, I decided to ask her one. After all, in a few minutes, I would be an award-winning journalist. That year, Reverend Jesse Jackson was running for the Democratic Nomination and although no one thought he had much of a chance, the field was still wide open after the Gary Hart scandal. Jackson certainly had a better chance than this independent candidate that few people ever heard of. I don’t recall if I had Mom or Dad raise their hand on my behalf or had them raise my hand but at any rate, I got called on. I asked her, “If Rev. Jackson would receive the Democratic Party Nomination, would you consider accepting an invitation from him to be his vice presidential running mate.” I thought it was a brilliant question and it may have been by imagination but I thought I saw smiles from some of the journalists on the dais.

In typical political form, she sort of dodged the question saying that she was focusing on her campaign yet wished Reverend Jackson well.

In addition to magazine awards, I believe there were also newspaper and TV/radio awards given. In my category, there were first, second, and third-place awards of which I got first. I beat out a couple of pretty big stories. The presenter, I don’t recall who it was, gave a two or three-sentence description of the winning stories.

One of the stories I beat was a feature about Ryan White. He was an Indiana high school student who came to national attention in his struggle to continue to attend school after he contracted AIDS. He had hemophilia and had contracted the disease through blood transfusions. He was a real celebrity who attracted the attention of other celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Elton John. His story was one of the biggest stories in the state that year and attracted much national attention.

The other story was about a military plane that crashed into a Ramada Inn hotel near the Indianapolis airport. That was also a major national news story.

I never had the opportunity to read the other two award-winning feature stories. However, given the enormity and emotional impact those stories must’ve had, I’m amazed and flattered that my simple memoir of a class reunion came out on top.

I took home a very nice engraved brass plaque that has been on my wall for years. Well, actually I took it down the last time we painted a few years ago and I haven’t had a chance to put it back up again. But I very much treasure it. You can see a photo of the award in the YouTube version of this podcast. I took some photos the day of the award that I will also include but for some reason, they turned out very fuzzy. I think they needed flash and the exposure was too long.

The magazine published a sidebar piece about me and about Muscular Dystrophy. At the time, I had not yet been diagnosed as having SMA. The piece quotes local MD researcher Dr. Charles Bonsett but much of what he says, while accurate about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, doesn’t apply to me because that’s not what I have.

While “The Reunion” contains some outdated language such as using “handicap” instead of “disability”, the sidebar written by a magazine staff writer is full of language that today would be considered blatantly ablest.

The title of the piece is “Life Sentence” with the subtitle, “Muscular dystrophy’s slow, steady progression disables the body but not the mind.” The opening paragraph is…

“For lifelong neuromuscular disease sufferer Chris Young, muscular dystrophy is a silent predator. ‘Your muscles are its prey,’ he says, ‘You feel weak, but you learn to cope. Then one day something sudden happens that you can’t move anymore. MD is a terrible disease because you can’t fight it, you just have to adjust.’”

By today’s standards, that is wall-to-wall cringe-worthy. I don’t doubt that they quoted me accurately but I would not describe my condition that way today even though technically it is accurate. The piece is ripe with other terrible language such as “Young suffers from…” And “MD plagues approximately 1000 Hoosiers…”

I should note that the entire tone of my article is much more melancholy than I am today. Recall that the article started out as an extension of my personal journal. It was only reluctantly that I shared it with a few online friends in an obscure section of CompuServe and even more reluctantly that I allowed it to be published at all. Writing it was a catharsis that let me put much of that melancholy and negativity behind me.

A few years ago I posted that sidebar on my blog and I’ve included a link in the description here.

Speaking of archaic language… I described a meeting we had in Mrs. Atkins’ room as a “rap session”. That doesn’t mean we were spittin’ rhymes to a beat. In those days a rap session was just a gathering where people would sit around and talk. As I said in an early episode of this podcast, language evolves and depends on context and consensus. The phrase “rap session” has a vastly different meaning now than it did in the 1980s.

As I reread the piece for the first time in years, I realized they had cut (or I had cut) one of my favorite passages and definitely my mom’s favorite passage. The article said that some people saw my mother as the woman who thought Roberts School wasn’t good enough for her son. I believe I followed that up with the story where one of the teachers had admitted that my mom was right all along and that mainstreaming was a better way to implement special education. I concluded that story with a one-sentence paragraph that simply stated…

“Mom had a good time at the reunion too.”

Her reaction when she read that sentence was to laugh out loud and say, “Hell yes I did!”

That sort of one-sentence blunt understatement such as, “Mom had a good time at the reunion too” is a recurring feature of my writing style. I can’t believe I never noticed it was cut. I really need to find that unabridged version of the story. That sentence became a kind of Tamarian shorthand between my mom and me for any gross understatement.

I made reference in the story to various “super-cripple” people such as FDR, Stevie Wonder, and “that girl from ‘The Other Side of the Mountain’” That is a reference to the 1975 film of that name about Olympic hopeful skier Jill Kinmont who had a spinal cord injury just before the 1956 Olympics. It left her paralyzed from the shoulders down.

By the way, my favorite scene from the film was when she was visited by a former boyfriend and she was celebrating a great accomplishment in her recovery. She tries to pick up a potato chip out of a bowl of chips. She manages to get one trapped between her thumb and palm but spilled about half the bowl in the process. She was so happy she could do it. He looked at her like, “What the fuck? I thought you were getting better.” If I recall the story correctly, he dumped her after that. She goes on to find happiness with another man.

Anyway, that wraps up all of the historical references you might not have gotten.

The article concludes with the idea that I miss being a “pioneer” like Northwest High School’s mascot the Space Pioneer. I enumerated three things that I intended to do. First I was going to continue to do computer programming, especially in applications for disabled people. I didn’t do much of that for the next several decades but in the last decade or so I have heavily focused my efforts in assistive technology.

Second I said I was going to continue to keep my options open regarding relationships with women and not presume that parts of my life are closed. Although I never did find that one special someone with whom I could spend the rest of my life, I did have some very fulfilling relationships with women including finally losing my virginity at age 35 in an intense friends-with-benefits relationship. Not being a kiss-and-tell person, I can’t say for sure how much of that story you’ll get to hear in future episodes.

Third, I said that the reaction to my article made me believe I had talent as a writer. I implied that I was going to write my autobiography. I did write a book a few years later but it was a computer programming book about an open-source computer graphics rendering project I worked on. I’ve done extensive blogging over the years and have gotten very positive feedback about that.

However, the closest thing I’ve written to an autobiography is this podcast. Let’s be honest here. I call this podcast “Contemplating Life” and I try to keep it as generic as possible but in fact, it’s really “Contemplating My Life”. If I called it, “The Autobiography of Chris Young” even fewer people would listen or watch. And it’s not exclusively my biography. I wanted the freedom to go off on other tangents such as my Oscar movie reviews. At some point I will dig into politics or whatever other topics move me.

I could’ve turned these reflections into a book and even self-published if I had to. Being a writer is arrogant. You believe you have something worthwhile to say and that people will enjoy reading it. I just wasn’t convinced that as my entire life story, it was worth the pain and effort to write the whole thing. But I do believe I have some interesting stories to tell and that’s why I do the podcast. To tell these stories about my life and talk about other things besides my own life when I feel like doing so. So it isn’t exclusively contemplating my life even though that’s a big part of it as you’ve already seen.

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I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe