This week we continue with stories from my senior year at Northwest High School and Roberts Handicapped School. It includes my first date with a girl, my first kiss, and the senior prom.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 31 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue with stories from my senior year at Northwest High School and Roberts Handicapped School.

Throughout all four years of high school, I continue to have strong feelings for Rosie Shewman. I’ve already described how she turned me down when I fell in love with her at first sight at age 12. How we briefly were a couple in eighth grade at age 13 and heartbreak when she dumped me just a few weeks later.

As I gradually matured over the next few years, some things occurred to me that I’d not seriously considered before that. What if things had been different? What if she did have the same feelings for me that I had for her? What would our future look like?

Although she couldn’t walk, she could stand briefly if holding onto something sturdy. She was able to get in and out of her wheelchair on her own. She was completely capable of living independently with minimal outside assistance. In fact, a few years after graduation her mother passed away and she did live on her own. Friends and family helped her with housework and grocery shopping but in all other respects, she was capable of self-care.

On the other hand, I never have been able to live independently even though I had much more ability all the way into my early 20s than what I have now. I could not get in and out of my wheelchair, dress, or go to the bathroom by myself. Rosie barely had sufficient capability of taking care of herself and it suddenly dawned on me that she would not be able to do everything I would need to live independently with her.

That would give us two options if we ever got married: Move in with my parents and let them continue to be my caregivers or hire caregivers to take care of me. Such hired help would probably have to be live-in. They would have to be there in the morning to get me ready for work and possibly transport me there. They would need to be available when I got home and throughout the night. While some of the expense for such help would be covered by allowing them to live rent-free, it would still be an expensive proposition.

I had no doubt that we could make a physical relationship work. Without going into any details, any woman I was with would be on top and have to do most of the work. I’m confident she was capable physically to make that work. Regardless of which living arrangement I chose, my parents or hired help, there wouldn’t be much privacy for a young married couple.

I began to realize that no matter how persuasive I could be with Rosie, no matter how cool I was, no matter how kind or supportive or chivalrous I was towards her, it simply wasn’t going to work. I described it like riding a roller coaster (something I’ve never done) enjoying the ups and downs, the thrills of twists and turns of a relationship, cresting the biggest hill, speeding down the far side, and running smack into a brick wall.

If she had loved me the way I loved her. We would’ve crashed into that wall together and suffered terrible heartbreak. I simply could no longer envision living happily ever after with Rosie or any other woman with a severe disability.

I often wondered, if perhaps she had realized that much earlier than I did. Although we did talk about our relationship in phone calls years later after graduation, that’s one thing I never got around to asking her. We heard of other disabled couples who lived with the parents of one or the other of them and it never worked out. That doesn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t work out but it was a data point suggesting my fears about the situation were founded.

Throughout my senior year, Rosie and I continued to have opportunities for heart-to-heart talks in which we commiserated about living with a disability through our teenage years. At one point, as we were both discussing our loneliness, she suggested we could spend time together outside of school on a date of sorts as long as I understood it was just a couple of friends having a good time and she was not open to a romantic relationship.

Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. The logistics of driving all the way to the East side to pick her up, and go somewhere for dinner and/or a movie didn’t exactly sound like it was worth the effort. It had to be something bigger than that. At age 17, this was going to be my first date with a girl ever.

There was going to be a program at Northwest one Friday evening where a group of touring college performers were going to put on a show. It was similar to a famous group called “Up with People” who would go around performing musical numbers and spreading the message of self-empowerment, peace, love, and understanding. I forget the name of the group. Rosie agreed to go with me. My mom or dad would drive me to her house on Bosart Avenue not far from Roberts School, pick her up in my van, drive us to Northwest for the performance, and then drive her home again afterward.

Unfortunately, fate conspired to make it something less than I had hoped. The teachers’ union went on strike against Indianapolis Public Schools. One of the top officials in the teachers’ union was not other than my science mentor Mr. Stan Irwin. There is a photo of him in my senior yearbook walking a picket line.

My dad was a union sheet metal worker and I grew up appreciating that much of my lifestyle and health insurance was provided by the benefit of a union so I was very pro-union.

Even though the musical program was being presented on a Friday evening and not during school hours, in the middle of the strike kids weren’t very interested in doing anything at school. There wasn’t any opportunity to promote the program very well. The plan was that the teachers would give it a lot of hype but that never happened because of the strike. Rosie and I showed up at Northwest’s Auditorium with about 30 other people. It would probably hold several hundred people.

The performers invited everyone to come down front to make it a slightly more intimate setting. But a group like that depends on getting an audience fired up, clapping their hands, singing along, and sharing in the joyous atmosphere. It just wasn’t the kind of event it was supposed to be. Rosie and I sat side-by-side in the aisle near the front and enjoyed the show as best we could.

That wasn’t the only event in Northwest’s auditorium that I attended. Each year, Northwest’s drama department would put on a play or a musical. Maybe it was two per year. One time they did the musical “South Pacific”. I was already familiar with the music because my mom was a big fan of Broadway musicals, especially Rogers and Hammerstein.

They did a production of a play called “The Man Who Came To Dinner”. I seriously considered trying out for that when I heard that it was about a guy who is a guest for dinner, slips and falls on the front porch, moves into the house in a wheelchair, and demands that the occupants wait on him. The fall occurs offstage so I thought perhaps I could play the part. Spoiler alert… He recovers quickly and fakes it. There is a scene where he is alone in the room, gets up out of the wheelchair, and dances around. So much for my opportunity to become a famous thespian.

A production of “Arsenic and Old Lace” caused a bit of controversy. The closing line is, “I’m not a Brewster… I’m a bastard.” Some of the teachers wanted to change it to “I’m illegitimate.” I think the students convince them to let them deliver it as written.

I went to all of these performances alone. Some of my friends were in the productions. They put on pretty good shows. Although we did have music programs at Christmas at Roberts, the kids there never had the opportunity to see their friends perform in a play or musical as I did. That’s just another thing they missed out on by going to a real school.

The gang at Roberts had the opportunity to see a musical as well. Arsenal Technical High School is just down the street from Roberts. Technically when you graduate from Roberts your degree says Arsenal Technical. It’s like they were a branch. They did a production of “Music Man” and we got to go over there one afternoon and see the dress rehearsal. We had to leave about two-thirds of the way through because the buses had to leave to take us home but we still had fun.

Anyway… Back at Northwest, our spring musical during my senior year was “Guys and Dolls”. Rosie agreed to go with me again. This time the house was packed. We tried to sit in the center aisle where we had been the last time. The teachers didn’t go for it. It really would have been a hazard to block the aisle. They suggested we could sit one in front of the other. I rejected that idea immediately. Even if it was “just friends” this was a date. I wasn’t going to not sit next to my companion. They suggested we move off to one side on a side aisle. We were very near the front and the floor was not as sloped as it was where we would have been before so that was okay.

At least until the play director saw us sitting there. At some point after the Havana Cuba scene, a bunch of extras were going to run down off the stage and out the side door of the auditorium. They asked if I would move over to sit single file just for that part of the show so I agreed.

We both really enjoyed the show. Even though I know a lot of Broadway music I was mostly familiar with the works of Rogers and Hammerstein but I was unfamiliar with this show by Loesse, Burrow, and Swerling. Years later I really enjoyed seeing the movie version with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. It’s now one of my favorite musicals.

During both dates with Rosie, I parked my wheelchair as close to her as I could. I kept hoping she would put her arm on the armrest and we could at least hold hands but she leaned over the opposite side of her wheelchair on both occasions. I told my friends she gave me such a cold shoulder I had icicles hanging off of my elbow.

Somewhere along the way, I took the PSAT and SAT tests. I don’t recall my PSAT score but I found my SAT results and I got xxxx. It was good enough to get me accepted to IUPUI working towards a degree in Computer Science right behind my friend Dennis.

The motorized wheelchair I had been driving since fifth grade belonged to the school. I was going to need a new wheelchair. Somewhere around the middle of the year, I got a new chair paid for by Dad’s insurance. This one had a proportional control joystick with a kind of “fly-by-wire” circuitry in it. If you’re going down a hill, it would automatically control the speed for you. It had 20-inch bicycle tires that were about 2 inches wide. It was impossible to get it to slide around the corners going down the big ramp but overall it was a much better wheelchair and I enjoyed the upgrade. That chair lasted throughout college, my two years working after college, and probably another 10 years after that. At Roberts, they reassigned my power chair to a guy in junior high named Kelly Garrison who had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We mentioned him briefly in episode 20.

As the year wound down to a close, the excitement of anticipating graduation became palpable. I purchased a class ring. Filled out forms to rent a cap and gown. We planned a big party to celebrate.

And it was time for the senior prom at Roberts school. Almost as a joke, because I knew she would say no, I asked LeaRea Herron, sister of my buddy Mark Herron, if she would go to the prom with me. It wasn’t very romantic of a proposal. I kinda shouted to her as Mark was getting off the bus one day. “Hey, LeaRea… One to go to prom with me?” She shouted back a very disgusted “No way.”

I had planned to go by myself again. My buddy Wayman Glass was going to go stag as well and needed a ride. At one point, a cute freshman girl in a wheelchair at Roberts named Cheryl (not the one from kindergarten with no arms) let it be known through the grapevine that she was looking for a date to the prom and would be open to an invitation from me. Cheryl had a cute smile, long black hair, and a very ample chest that according to legend had been thoroughly explored by Alan Whitney one day in the art supply room. While I always thought of Rosie as being sophisticated-looking, Cheryl was wonderfully cute. By some standards, she was better looking than Rosie.

I up to her in the hallway one day and said, “The word is you’re looking for a date for the prom.”

“Yes I am”, she replied.

“Would you like to be my date?”

“Yes absolutely.”

“Okay, it’s a date. Uhhh… There is one problem though…” I told her the story about getting my photo taken with Rosie at the junior prom and the photo got lost. I asked her if it was okay if I did a reshoot with Rosie. She must’ve been desperate for a date because she agreed. So I ended up getting my picture taken with two different girls at the senior prom. You can see the photos on the website or on the YouTube version of the podcast.

That was it. I had a real date for the senior prom with a really cute girl.

I rented a tuxedo. Bought her a corsage. This was going to be a real prom.

We determined that we could get me, her, and my buddy Wayman all three in my van. Wayman lived on the west side just west of White River off 10th St. Cheryl lived on the east side somewhere. My mom drove.

Rather than wasting money on some cheesy garage band like they did my junior year, they recruited the Tech High School swing orchestra to provide live music. Teachers, parents, and some of the walkers actually danced at the event. It was still a pretty lame event but it was more fun than my junior year and I had a good-looking girl for a date.

After the prom, there was a party at Rosie’s house. All of the kids sat in the living room and ate snacks. The adults, including my mom, sat in the dining room and drank wine. We all had a much better time at the after-party than at the actual prom. The only problem was it was crowded in the living room and somehow Cheryl ended up across the room from me instead of beside me. On the plus side, I got to look at her all evening.

The party broke up at about 1 AM. As we left the house, I realized I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to get a good night kiss. Wayman came up with a plan. He was going to be my ultimate wingman. He deliberately left his jacket in Rosie’s house. As we were about to load the wheelchairs into my van, he said, “Mrs. Young… I left my jacket in the house. Could you get it please?” I was worried someone else would volunteer to go get it but the trick worked. My mom went back into the house. Wayman turned his back and I pulled up close to Cheryl, leaned over, and asked her for a kiss.

She agreed. We did it.

It occurred to me later that all over the city of Indianapolis… hell all over the country… every weekend in late May there were probably people who were losing their virginity after the senior prom. I was getting my first kiss after the prom at the ripe old age of 17 almost 18. At least it was progress.

I was always very grateful to Wayman for being such a great wingman that night.

We took Cheryl home and then went to drop off Wayman. It was about 2 AM when we got to his house. He lived in a very rough neighborhood and my mom banged on the door to try to wake up his brother. She couldn’t get anyone to answer the door. She said it was a bit scary being out there alone banging on some strange door at 2 AM. Fortunately, his brother eventually woke up.

Naturally, at school on Monday following that I was sure to tell all the guys about the kiss and how Wayman helped me out. When Rosie heard about it she said to me, “I heard you kissed Cheryl outside my house.” She said it with a tone of surprise and had a strange look on her face.

“Yeah, so what of it? Don’t look at me like that”, I said. “You look jealous.”

Her face kind of turned red and she giggled.

I continued, “You don’t get to be jealous. You had multiple opportunities at this”, I pointed to myself, “and you turned them down.” We both laughed hard. She neither confirmed nor denied she was jealous.

Next week, I’ll conclude this series on my history at Roberts Handicapped School and Northwest High School which we began way back in Episode 15. We will talk about the Roberts class picnic, the graduation ceremony, and some sad goodbyes to people who had been my friends for years.

After next week’s episode, I’m going to take a couple of weeks’ vacation from the podcast. I will probably begin writing the next series but I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to be about. We might go back to religion and my faith journey or we might go right into my college days. But I need to write a few scripts to get ahead of the schedule so I’m not always rushing to produce them at the last minute.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast.

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