This week we continue reminiscing about my high school days and tell the story of a murder mystery I wrote for a creative writing assignment during my junior year.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 29 of Contemplating Life.

It’s been a busy week for me and I don’t have time to write a completely new episode from scratch. It’s already Friday and it takes me a day to record, edit, and upload everything by Sunday. But I do have a story to share that originally appeared in my blog and is relevant to our current series so I did a quick rewrite of that. I think you’ll enjoy it.

It was the second semester of my junior year at Northwest High School and my regular English teacher needed some time off for some reason. We had a substitute teacher named Mrs. Allen. When she wasn’t substitute teaching she was a professional writer. She claimed to have published several short stories and poetry.

I recall discussing with my friend Dennis what a wonderful teacher Mrs. Allen was. Several people had said they wish they could’ve had her full time but Dennis and I concluded that would be a shame because only one class at a time would have the benefit of her skills. By serving as a substitute, she could spread her joy around to more people.

Whenever Mrs. Allen came in for an extended period she would throw out the curriculum and give us a writing assignment.

This was the second time I had her as a substitute. In my sophomore year, my teacher got married and took a week off. That time we wrote her essays that were suggestions on married life. I wrote a humorous piece about how she should purchase fast food, take it out of the bags, put it on fancy plates, and serve it up as a gourmet meal. When she returned from her honeymoon and read the stories she had very nice things to say about my suggestions. She thought it was really funny.

I don’t recall why my teacher needed time off during my junior year. Our assignment this time was to write a short story. There’s an adage that says, “Write what you know.” So I decided to write a bit of science fiction. That was the majority of what I read those days and still is.

I stole the basic premise of the story. My dad had told me he had read a story or seen a movie somewhere where a guy got away with murder by stabbing someone with a sharpened icicle. The murder weapon had melted and evaporated leaving no trace of the weapon or fingerprints. I decided to steal that idea as the basis of my own little murder story.

Apparently, the idea is more common than I had thought it was in those days. I’ve done some Google searches today to attempt to identify the story my dad told me about all those years ago.

There is a murder mystery role-playing game called “The Icicle Twist” which I presume has something to do with stabbing someone with an icicle. IMDb has a keyword category of several films in which someone is stamped with an icicle but they are all more modern than what could have been the basis for my dad’s story. I’ve seen questions about a young adult novel from the 1980s which is obviously after I was in high school so that’s not the origin.

My best candidate is a 1925 story called “The Tea-Leaf” by Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustis. In that story, someone was stabbed with an icicle in a steam room. I seem to recall my dad telling me that in the story he read, the murderer was caught because they found traces of soot in the wound and somehow determined it had come from an icicle. That wasn’t the case in the Jepson/Eustis story.

I’ve linked that story and some other websites related to my research including some answers to Quora inquiries that suggest that it has actually happened. But then again, I’m not sure that someone replying to such a question is all that credible. There were no links to articles supporting the answer.

If anyone knows of similar stories either real or fiction, please send me a link. I’d like to know more about it.

After doing all this research, now I’m probably on someone’s watchlist for researching how to get away with the perfect murder. And so are you for listening to this podcast.

Much of my deep appreciation of the short story form comes from reading Edgar Allen Poe… Especially his classic short story “The Cask of Amontillado”. I’ve provided a link to the story in the description. The opening line is “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”

That’s the whole story in one sentence. Everything that follows is simply the details. It doesn’t explain who Fortunato was in any detail. It doesn’t say how he injured or insulted the narrator. It’s just the story of how he plotted and executed his revenge. He lured him into a basement wine cellar for a taste of Amontillado wine. Then he shoved him into an alcove, chained him to the wall, and sealed up the alcove with bricks burying him alive.

This shocking and brutal ending is what most people remember about the story. They even did a version of it in the classic horror soap opera Dark Shadows in episode 442 when Barnabas lures Reverend Trask into the basement and bricks him into an alcove. For me, the shocking ending wasn’t nearly as interesting as that opening sentence. To me, that’s the absolute essence and perfection of the short story form. You grab them with a catchy opening sentence and then end with a big surprise. That is what I wanted to go for.

So, back to my semi-plagiarized sci-fi murder mystery. We were going to commit the perfect murder by stabbing a guy with an icicle. This clearly had to be premeditated and well-planned in order to be a perfect murder. It’s not a crime of passion but rather a coldly calculated plot… emphasis on cold.

You have to get someone to a place where you have an icicle handy. You have to prepare it to a sharp point and keep it cold until you can do the deed.

While trying to craft my catchy opening sentence, I came up with the idea that committing the perfect murder was something that had been pursued ever since Cain slew Abel. Although I believe people are fundamentally good, there is always something inside us that tempts us to do violence against our perceived enemies. We’ve always been searching for the perfect murder. It’s one of those eternal quests like building a better mousetrap.

Wait a minute!

What did I just say?

My muse had spoken. I had my opening line. I had my hook that would tell the entire story in one sentence and draw you in to make you want to read more. I had my Amontillado-like opening line which would read as follows…

“Man has always had two great ambitions. To build a better mousetrap and to commit the perfect murder. I have accomplished the latter on the man who accomplished the former.”

That was my entire story in one sentence… well actually three… but certainly one short paragraph. Somebody will build the legendary better mousetrap. The only reason you would want to kill such a person is that somehow they cheated you out of the honor of building it yourself. So the perpetrator and victim were former business partners. The victim cheated his partner and that was the motive. The story is told in first-person by the murderer as a revenge story in the same way that Amontillado was told.

I already had my method to commit the perfect murder with the melting murder weapon. Now I had to build a better mousetrap. That’s where the science fiction elements come in. Our inventors used genetic engineering to create a virus that would be deadly to mice but harmless to any other species.

Apart from the big opening line, I also learned from Edgar Allen Poe the beauty and ingenuity of a plot twist. Something shocking at the end of the story that gives the reader something unexpected. You grab them in the beginning. You lead them on a journey. You have to end on a high note as well. I came up with that as well but I won’t spoil it.

When I originally wrote this up for my blog in November 2020, I couldn’t find my copy of the story, didn’t remember the name of it, and naturally did not remember the name of the teacher. You didn’t really think I could remember the name of a substitute teacher 50 years later, did you? Two months later, I found the original manuscript and posted that on my blog. I have linked a PDF copy of the scanned manuscript in my own handwriting complete with the teacher’s notes and all of her circling my spelling errors. You can also see it in the YouTube version of this podcast.

The version I present here is as it was written with the spelling and punctuation corrected.

I will now read you my short story which I wrote in my English VI class at Northwest High School, March 16, 1972. Then I’ll tell you about what happened afterward. This story is titled…

Man has always had two ambitions: to build a better mousetrap and to commit the perfect murder. I have done the latter to the man who did the former.

David Brown was my victim. He had been a friend and business partner for some time until he dumped me from the company two months ago. We were in the pesticide business and our main product was rat poison. Business had been slipping because of bad talk about pesticides polluting the environment. People would rather clean up the trash to get rid of the rats than buy our poison.

Then Dave came up with the answer. His formula affected only rats. It altered their chromosomes so that only male offspring were produced. In a generation, the rats would be extinct because there would be no females to reproduce. Dave put the product on the market the week after our partnership was legally dissolved. He had ruined me and I had to return the favor.

I once read a mystery story where a man was stabbed with a sharpened icicle. The 5urderer was never caught because no weapon was found; it melted away. The idea started out as just a wild notion, and I didn’t take myself seriously at first.

Then, just to pass time I started to work out details, but just to pass time. The longer I worked on my plan the more it appeared possible. Also as my plot started to gel; I grew more hateful each day toward my lost partner. I would look out my bedroom window and stare transfixed at the glistening spears growing downward from the eaves of my house.

Then I did it. On the night of December 30, I left my house and walked around the side, and carefully snapped off an icicle. As I walked towards my car, I chipped off pieces with my pocket knife till there was a clean sharp point. I left the heat off in my car so that the 10° weather would keep my weapon sharp. I knocked at the door with my icy weapon behind my back. Dave answered the door.

“Well, if it isn’t Bob Johnson my old partner. Come on in.”

I tried to stay calm, “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve decided I’ve been foolish about holding a grudge against you for putting me out of business.”

He smiled, “Well now, isn’t that sweet of you? Now, tell me why you’re really here.”

I slowly made my way over to him and patted him on the back. “Well, let me tell you about it.”

My arm swung around with every ounce of force in my body.

He dropped.

I pitched my icy weapon into the fireplace and left without closing the door. I drove down the street and went into a bar and got very drunk.

The police questioned me and never suspected me after I told them our partnership had been dissolved.

Three days later I attended the funeral. I was the last person to leave the church. As I walked out, I stopped on the top step to watch the hearse drive away. I reached back to pull my collar up to shield myself from the cold wind when a cold crystal clear icicle fell from the eaves of the church and slid down my back.

So there it is. My first great work of science fiction – written over 50 years ago. I hope you enjoyed it.

Mrs. Allen really liked the piece. She read several excerpts from some of the best stories in the class but she started with mine. She heaped praise upon the story especially focusing on the opening paragraph. She said to the class, “I’m going to read you this opening paragraph and I want you to guess which of your classmates wrote it.” She read the paragraph more than one of my classmates identified it as mine. I don’t know what it was about their opinion of me that led them to identify me but I couldn’t have been happier.

Then she pointed out that I had misspelled the word “always” with two Ls and looked at me and said, “You know better than that.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I really didn’t. As you may recall from previous episodes I’m a terrible speller.

She concluded her review of my work by saying, “Know when to quit.” She thought that the news item at the end was unnecessary. I guess I wasn’t confident that the reader would know that the guy who killed someone with an icicle was killed by an icicle. I’ve tried to apply that advice about knowing when to quit when I write other stories but I think in essence she was saying trust your audience to get your point. That was the real lesson.

At the end of the semester, they give you a folder with all your homework in it so you can review your grades, but they want you to turn it back in so you can’t sell your term paper to someone next year. I kept my copy of the story and turned back the folder with everything else in it.

As I was reviewing the story just now, I probably would have rewritten a couple of sentences and fixed some other grammatical issues suggested by Grammarly. The two-month timeline in the story doesn’t make much sense. There are some other things that need fixing. In retrospect, I probably should have switched from first-person to third-person when I’m describing the icicle falling off the church.

Overall I think it’s pretty damn good for a 15-year-old author. I’m still quite proud of it over 50 years later.

Mrs. Allen’s written notes included, “Very clever story – good use of words, good introduction.” The grade was “A-”.

On the last page, she wrote, “I like the ‘irony of fate’ ending.” Then she attached a handwritten note as follows…

This is a great story! You have a natural knack for telling a tale. This one is suspenseful and well organized. Your sentences and phrases are well formed.

The “better mouse trap” gimmick is worth repeating or at least mentioning, a second time.

About the title – Why not “A Partnership Dissolves”, using of course, a play on the word “dissolved.”

As for myself, I prefer the story to end with – “… our partnership had been dissolved.”

Knowing when to quit is a neat trick to learn.

Many thanks for sharing your story. You have the potential for a “selling” author.

Mrs. Allen

I remembered her saying to me in person that I could’ve shortened the ending and repeated the comment “know when to quit.” But I seem to recall in person she simply suggested leaving off the news article and ending it with the icicle down the back. But her notes say that it should end after the police questioned me. On the other hand, she liked the ironic ending so that speaks to leaving at least the irony and perhaps cutting the news article.

Mrs. Allen encouraged me to continue writing fiction but I never did until a few years ago. I’ve already talked about my successes writing nonfiction but for a variety of reasons, I didn’t think I could write fiction despite her encouragement. Let’s be honest… I stole the plot from something my dad told me about something he had read. Just because I know how to tell a story doesn’t mean I know how to make one up.

At some point in future episodes, I will talk about my next attempt to write fiction which didn’t begin until August 2020. The short version of that story is that I’ve written 10 pieces in the past three years and I’ve collected over 15 rejection emails from magazines and websites.

As I’ve explained before, I’m currently enrolled in a writing seminar and I’ve written another story that grew out of that class. Again it is a somewhat science-fiction murder mystery. It doesn’t have quite as catchy an opening paragraph as “Cold Chills” but I still like it. It’s a much longer piece at just under 10,000. After I get some more feedback from friends and family I’ll start submitting it and hopefully, I can put an end to this streak of rejection letters. If not, I’ll simply have to wait for my muse to inspire me again. Until then, I’ll keep writing biographical nonfiction and other commentary.

Next week, I’ll discuss more events of my senior year. As I teased at the end of the previous episode upcoming topics include: the senior prom, another town hall meeting, and more stories about my mentor Mr. Irwin. I will go on actual dates with (spoiler redaction). And I’ll relive the joys and fears of graduation.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and any other benefits I might come up with down the road. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my Patreon supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend. But mostly I appreciate it because it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

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If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

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

This week we continue reminiscing about my high school days traveling back and forth between a special education school and my regular neighborhood high school. I tell the tale of my friendship with a girl in my senior year.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 28 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue reminiscing about my high school experiences attending a special education school and my neighborhood regular school Northwest High School. We are going to start off with a story from my senior year.

During my sophomore and junior years, I attended RobertsSchool for the Handicapped in the mornings and Northwest High School in the afternoon. However, this being my senior year, there were things that went on during the homeroom period that were important for seniors. There would be information about senior photos, class rings, renting your cap and gown, and other important information. The homeroom period was a short 15-minute period wedged between the third and fourth periods. Freshman through junior classes were assigned homeroom in various classrooms but for seniors, we all gathered in the cafeteria so they could make the same announcements to all of us.

So we reversed the schedule. I would take physics with Mr. Irwin during the first two periods with a lab during the second period every other day. I would then do English during third period followed by homeroom. Then my mom would pick me up and take me to Roberts for lunch, social studies, calculus, and typing. Then I would ride the bus home from Roberts at the end of the day.

I would arrive each morning at Northwest about 20-25 minutes before my first class. Students arriving early were not allowed to wander the halls. We were supposed to gather in the main lobby until a bell rang 10 minutes before the first class. Only then were you allowed to go to your locker or go upstairs. I never had a locker assigned to me at Northwest. I just carried my books in a bag on the back of my wheelchair. I wouldn’t have been able to operate the locker and I didn’t need it. I could also hang my coat on the back of my chair.

The bus would drop me off outside the music wing and I would proceed straight to the lobby. While there, waiting on classes to begin, I met a girl.

I was going to tell you the story of my friendship with her but I’ve already written that story three times as an assignment for the online writing seminar I’ve been attending for nearly a year. That program is presented by Hugo and Nebula award-winning author David Gerrold. He got his start as a science fiction writer when he wrote the script for the famous Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”. He also worked on the television series “Land of the Lost”, and the first season of “Star Trek: Next Generation”.

One of our writing assignments for David’s program was to write a scene or a small story using three different tenses. I begin by writing the story of my friendship with that girl in first person past tense. That’s the form I find most natural as a blogger, podcaster, and author of autobiographical magazine articles. In first person past tense, I’m telling you the story of something that happened in the past. That’s what I’ve been doing throughout this podcast. David noted that writing in the second person present tense is very rare for most fiction. However, it is the way you write a script or a screenplay. You are describing the action as it’s happening. I’d never attempted to write a script or screenplay so I decided to give that a try as part two of the assignment. For part three, I wrote third person past tense as if an omniscient outside observer is telling the story . The problem with that when telling a two-story (or let’s say mostly true) is that you have to figure out what the other person was thinking or feeling. In this instance, I didn’t have any idea how she experienced the events.

I’m going to read you the first person present tense version of the story. It’s my account of the story and although I have somewhat dramatized it, the basic facts are true. On my webpage for this podcast, I will include the second person script as well as the third person account. The third person version is highly fictionalized because I’m speculating about her thoughts, motives, and feelings.

So without further ado, here is my 99% true story that I call “A Hunting Melody”.

According to the song by Irving Berlin, “A pretty girl is like a melody that haunts you night and day.” In this case, the inverse was not true. No boy in the high school would’ve described Melody as a pretty girl. Still, the memory of my brief friendship with her haunts me 50 years later.

It was early in my senior year of high school when I met her. The wheelchair bus from the special education school dropped me off at the regular neighborhood high school each morning about 20 minutes before my first class. Students arriving early were sequestered in the main lobby until the bell rang five minutes before the first class. Only then could you proceed through the rest of the building to go to your locker or your first-period classroom.

I would park my motorized wheelchair with my back to the wall of the lobby out of the way of the traffic of students gathering there. Most days I would blankly stare into space trying to wake up or I would engage in some girl-watching.

One day I noticed a young girl sitting on the steps across from me waiting for the bell to ring. We made brief eye contact and then both quickly turned away, each hoping that the other did not notice that we were looking. Peripheral vision is not very good at a distance of about 40 feet so the only way to see what the other person was doing was to look directly at them.

After several failed attempts to not catch each other looking, she stood up and started walking across the lobby toward me. Oh shit! She’s coming over to talk to me. What the fuck do I do now?

Her face featured bushy unkept eyebrows and lacked any positive features such as dimples or freckles that might have made the word “cute” applicable. She wore no makeup or jewelry. She had frizzy, shoulder-length, deep brown, naturally wavy hair pulled back from her face by a pink plastic headband. Her fuzzy pink sweater had barely perceptible curves where her breasts were. A plaid wool skirt that ended just above her knobby knees somehow managed to stay up despite the lack of any apparent curvature of her hips. Her white bobby socks and penny loafers did nothing to enhance the appearance of her legs.

With the hindsight of 50 years of perspective, I could accurately characterize her as exceedingly plain and homely. To my much less generous 17-year-old eyes she was just plain ugly.

I was anticipating the usual litany of questions about why I was in a wheelchair. I’ve always tried to be generous with my explanations. Many of my disabled friends responded to such queries with sarcasm and a huge chip on their shoulder. I always felt that attitude widened the gap between us and the larger community which was often ill-equipped to know what to think about us. People are genuinely curious even though they often express such curiosity with cringe-worthy condescension. Why confirm their fears with a snarky attitude?

“Do you need any help getting to your first class?” she inquired in a genuine tone of concern and helpfulness. It lacked the typical tone that implied, “You poor helpless thing… what can I do to ease your suffering in your horrible condition?”

Less than a second after she offered to help, the bell rang. I quickly responded, “No, I can get around on my own thanks.” I sped off in my power chair to my physics class, thereby escaping in a demonstration of my mobility. My only thought was how literally the phrase, “Saved by the bell” applied to the incident.

As I feared, the next day I was not so fortunate. Immediately upon my arrival, she crossed the lobby from her usual position sitting on the stairs and began engaging in small talk.

I learned her name was Melody. She was a 14-year-old freshman. I never knew if my status as a 17-year-old senior was a plus or minus in her calculations.

“What class do you have first period?” she asked.

“Senior physics,” I replied.

“Ewe… science is my worst subject. I just can’t get interested in it.”

Well, cross that off as a possible common interest. I could tutor her but if she doesn’t care about science I’m not wasting my time on her.

Sensing the kind and sincere person she was I suggested, “Yesterday, you asked if I needed help getting to class. I do have one thing you could do. I need help getting my coat off.” She accepted immediately and followed my directions carefully on how to extract me from my coat.

Having survived our second encounter without too much awkwardness, I didn’t approach the next day with the same level of dread. This time upon seeing me enter the lobby, she sprinted across the room sporting a broad smile expressing an eagerness to see me. She quickly proceeded to help me with my coat and exuded great joy at the accomplishment.

Holy shit this ugly freshman chick has a crush on me!

Careful not to give her any encouragement, I continued to engage in small talk. She complimented me on how smart I must be to take calculus and physics. Other than that and her daily enthusiasm to see me, I didn’t sense any more worrisome infatuation.

A few weeks into the relationship, I don’t recall if we were talking about Halloween or Thanksgiving when she explained her family doesn’t celebrate any holidays because they are Jehovah’s Witnesses. This includes not celebrating religious holidays such as Christmas or Easter as well as birthdays and other anniversaries. When I said I was Roman Catholic she didn’t say much but the expression on her face spoke, “Well… Nobody’s perfect.”

The religious revelation began to put pieces of the puzzle together. Her timidity, lack of self-confidence, and absence of fashion sense, makeup, or jewelry took on new meaning in the light of her restrictive, conservative religious upbringing.

I was already struggling with doubts as to why I continued to participate in the Catholic Church which seemed to lack relevance in my life. I was beginning to think that any faith was at odds with my rational, scientific mind. Being only marginally tolerant of my own religious traditions I found it hard to be sympathetic towards her faith that I felt to be so repressive of self.

I eventually found the courage to tell my disabled friends about Melody.

Because the high school had no elevator, it was impossible for me to take math or social studies classes upstairs. Each day at noon, my mother drove me across town to the special education high school where I would take classes that were inaccessible to me in the neighborhood high school. The wheelchair bus then brought me home each afternoon.

My friends at the special education school looked up to me in the same way small-town folks admire someone who escaped the tedium of a dead-end existence. Having no idea what it was like to attend pep rallies, homecoming festivities, and other extracurricular activities some of my buddies lived vicariously through the details I brought them.

When I revealed that a freshman girl seemed to be infatuated with me, they immediately asked, “Is she hot?”

“Unfortunately no. Quite the opposite.”

“How bad can it be?”

When I described her to them, they sought to help me salvage the situation with the advice, “Maybe she’s got good-looking friends she can introduce you to.” Another friend noted, “Yeah… The hot chicks sometimes hang out with the ugly ones so they look even better by comparison.”

I’m embarrassed to admit, that I took their advice and asked one of her better-looking friends for a phone number. Worst of all, I did so in front of Melody. I struck out multiple times.

Gradually, I began to enjoy the simple pleasure of my daily conversations with Melody. Just as I was beginning to appreciate her friendship, fate (or was it karma?) removed her from my life. When the spring semester began, our class schedules changed. She didn’t have a first-period class and so she could stay home an extra hour. She explained it didn’t make sense to come in early just to sit in the study hall.

I suggested perhaps we could meet at a school event. I knew better than to think her parents would let her go on a date with me or meet me at a school dance. Perhaps she could come to a basketball game and we could sit together. She said her parents would never allow her to go alone and definitely not with a boy. We had already established the fact that phone calls were out of the question.

Throughout the remainder of my final semester, I would occasionally see her between classes and we would smile and wave but we didn’t have time to talk as we rushed between classes.

At age 17, hormones, social conditioning, and a dogged determination not to lower my expectations in the face of my disability all conspired to blind me to the unimportance of physical appearance in a meaningful relationship. In the decades since then, I’ve beat myself up considerably for my selfish, cavalier, and disrespectful attitude toward her. I still carry her photo in my wallet lest I forget the lessons learned.

Multiple Google searches and Facebook searches have turned up many Melodys with her last name but none were her. Should such searches someday yield results, all I want to do is apologize for how poorly I treated her. At age 68, that apology occupies a prominent position on my bucket list.

Irving Berlin concludes his song with the words, “She will leave you and then come back again, A pretty girl is just like a pretty tune.” However apparently, when you fail to recognize her beauty, fate conspires that she doesn’t return. But the memories and the regrets linger forever.

So, that’s the story of what a jerk I was when I was 17 years old. I described it as 99% true. I think in real life, she didn’t take off my coat until about the third or fourth day. Also, I’m not really as haunted by the story as I let on. I do regret how I behaved and I would apologize to her should I ever see her again. But, I would hardly call it a bucket list item. Attempts to locate her on Facebook have been unsuccessful.

As I mentioned in the introduction, the screenplay version and the third person version are much more fictionalized by their very nature. I’m not going to read those here but you can find them on the Contemplating Life website.

Next week, I’ll discuss more events of my senior year. As I teased at the end of the previous episode upcoming topics include: the senior prom, another town hall meeting, and more stories about my mentor Mr. Irwin. I will go on actual dates with (spoiler redaction). And I’ll relive the joys and fears of graduation.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and any other benefits I might come up with down the road. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my Patreon supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend. But mostly I appreciate it because it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience.

If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

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

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.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and any other benefits I might come up with down the road. I don’t do the podcast for money but my finances are pretty tight. I’m not desperate but a little extra income sure could help.

Many thanks to my Patreon supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express. It’s not so much the money as it is that you care enough about what I’m doing to support it.

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

In this week’s episode I will read my award-winning biographical feature “The Reunion” which appeared in the September 1987 issue of Indianapolis Monthly Magazine.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 22 of Contemplating Life.

This episode is going to be quite a departure from our usual episode. As you know if you’ve been following along, in 1986 I wrote an article that was published in the September 1987 issue of Indianapolis Monthly Magazine. Last week I told the story of how I wrote it and how it got published. This week I’m going to read the article for you.

The article titled “The Reunion” is a memoir of my days in a special education school that was inspired by attending an all-school reunion.

The YouTube version will contain video that I shot the day as well as an occasional related photo. So for your listening pleasure… Here is…

The Reunion by Chris Young

It began just over one year ago with an invitation in a small hand-addressed envelope. The end result has been a serious re-evaluation of my life goals.

Although it can be an emotionally risky exercise, often a person needs to take a look back at his life in broad terms to remember where he has been, how he has changed or failed to change and how he can proceed with his life with some sense of purpose. I’ve just been through such an exercise.

Inside that little envelope was an embossed card which read, “You are invited to an Open House at James E. Roberts Public School #97 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on May 18, 1986 commemorating 50 years of educating handicapped students in Indianapolis. And on the occasion of the closing of James E. Roberts School.”

The school where I spent 13 years of my life and where I had not visited in 13 years, was being closed. I looked forward to the opportunity to visit the school one last time. I needed to say a fond farewell to a building full of wonderful memories of the early years and to forgive and forget the memories of the later years.

I was born July 12, 1955, with a hereditary form of muscular dystrophy. [NOTE: At the time this article was written I did not know the exact name of my disease. I was later diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2] Ironically, that summer an event occurred which began to make the Roberts school obsolete. Jonas Salk began widespread use of his polio vaccine and the disease promptly disappeared. Indianapolis Public Schools built the school in 1935 to educate the large number of children who struggled with the effects of polio, rheumatic fever and other diseases. It became a showplace for special education.

I was enrolled at Roberts School’s kindergarten at age 5 and continued there through high school. The building is part of who I am and why I think, feel and act the way I do.

It was with great anticipation that I awaited the reunion with old friends and teachers. I especially looked forward to seeing my old girlfriend, Rose Ellen Shewman — the first true love of my life. From my crush on her in seventh grade, through the “puppy love” and heartbreak of eighth grade and the true friendship that developed in high school, Rosie always has been my fondest memory.

For the first few years after graduation, we kept in touch by phone, but I lost track of her from about 1975-1983. A few years ago I found out where she lived and gave her a call. At that time she was still single and lived alone in an apartment in Greenwood. It was good to hear her voice again, but our mutual promises to get together “soon” never were fulfilled.

If Rosie was as lonely as I, perhaps, as we had done in high school, we could find comfort together. The gathering at our alma mater might at least be the reopening of our old friendship if not the rekindling of our old romance. I called her a few days prior to the reunion.

Her new husband answered the phone.

When the day arrived for the open house at Roberts School, I gathered up my video camera mounted on my motorized wheelchair to record sights and faces of my past. I rolled into the school auditorium and fought through a crowd of alumni, staff, teachers and family rushing to and fro as we all spotted old friends across the room.

Some of the teachers are not as enthusiastic about the closing as I. One retired teacher voiced her concerns to me over the closing of Roberts. “I’m not so sure this ‘mainstreaming’ is such a good idea,” she said.

“As one who has seen both sides,” I replied, “I have faith it can and does work.” My last three years of high school were spent going half day to Northwest High School in my neighborhood and half day to Roberts.

She feels that I’m an exception. “You were always such a bright boy,” she would say. It’s true that the typical Roberts student of recent years probably has varying degrees of mental handicaps along with the physical problems. However, the students with mental handicaps benefit from having their special classes housed in a building with regular students. Communities that had no special education programs were forced by a 1969 law to establish them. Most of them have chosen mainstreaming and it works. With Roberts closed, mainstreaming will happen more and more in Indianapolis, too.

I have intimate connections to Roberts School, but they are pale in comparison to Clara Rose Holmes, my third grade teacher. The 60-year-old teacher has been at Roberts for nearly its entire history. She attended Roberts in grades five through eight because her left leg and right arm were weakened by polio. She then attended Shortridge High School and Butler University. She returned to student teach at Roberts and has taught there ever since. Nobody was surprised that she was taking this opportunity to retire. “It just wouldn’t be the same elsewhere,” she recently told a friend.

Miss Holmes was a great influence on me in both positive and negative ways. She recognized my potential as an academically gifted student and allowed me to progress rapidly with two other students. In third grade we were doing long division before the slower kids were finished learning multiplication. She encouraged me to work hard and to feed my curiosity. She instilled in me a love for reading. These gifts have been a source of strength for me over the years.

In recognizing that I had academic potential, she assumed that “busy-work” was a waste of my time and talents. I was exempt from the tedium of some math and spelling drills. I concentrated on more interesting concepts such as compound sentence structure, geometry, logic and science. The end result is that I can turn very clever phrases, understand mathematical abstractions and am a computer programmer of great skill. On the other hand I cannot accurately add a column of numbers or spell worth a damn.

One thing Miss Holmes and others at Roberts taught me is that having a handicap does not hinder one from doing one’s part in contributing to a group. Nor does a handicap exempt one from those responsibilities. We all shared responsibilities in her class. The more able-bodied students pushed wheelchairs. The smarter ones tutored. This emphasis on ability not disability has been an important part of my own dealing with my handicap. She fears that in a regular school such lessons will be lost.

I understand Miss Holmes’ concerns. But I’d rather see the same lessons she taught me presented in a regular school so that handicapped and non-handicapped students can experience together the sense of responsibility toward one another that was a tradition at Roberts.

There was an article about her in the newspaper soon after the reunion. The headline read “I.P.S. closing its haven for handicapped, but teacher won’t forget.” We won’t forget you either, Miss Holmes.

As I entered high school, it became apparent that the program at Roberts was substandard. Mom arranged a deal where I could attend Northwest High School for a half day and take classes on the first floor. The other half of the day I attended Roberts and took whatever classes were upstairs and inaccessible at Northwest. The school system provided transportation on a wheelchair bus in the morning and afternoon, but the midday ride between Roberts and Northwest was provided by Mom. Every day for my last three years of high school, she drove seven miles across town and seven miles back just so l could get a quality education. She did this through a problem pregnancy, a lung disorder and other hardships.

My mom is remembered by some as he lady who thought Roberts wasn’t good enough for her son. The truth was that none of us belonged there.

Beatrice Rogers remembers me well. She was my fifth grade teacher when I got my first motorized wheelchair. She remembers that I’d had it less than an hour when I ran over her foot. Mrs. Rogers was a wonderful teacher who made her classroom interesting by always having projects going on. I had a nice chat with her at the reunion and it brought back memories.

The most important event that fifth grade year was that I got my first motorized wheelchair. The PTA supplied manual wheelchairs for all the kids to use at school and I had one of own for use at home. But in January 1965, Mrs. Vern Hollingsworth donated a motorized wheelchair to the school in memory of her husband who was the chair’s previous owner. I was chosen as a student who could benefit from its use. I never met Mrs. Hollingsorth or knew anything about her except that she had donated the chair and put a small brass plaque on it advertising the fact. Having to answer a hundred times, “Who’s Vern Hollingsworth?” was a small price to pay for the fantastic freedom the chair provided.

My most memorable experience of the chair was the first day I drove up and down “The Big Ramp.” Roberts School was designed from the beginning as a school for the handicapped. Why they made it multilevel and two story is a mystery to me. There were small ramps between various ground levels and they were quite tame. My motorized wonder easily climbed them. Going down them I always made sure the way was clear and then I would let it fly downhill. But I didn’t discover that my wheelchair behaved differently on ramps until I tackled The Big Ramp.

Grades six through high school as well as the therapy departments were on the second floor and accessed by either elevator or ramp. One day soon after I got my new chair, I had to go upstairs to practice for a music program with the upper grades. Rather than wait on the elevator with the other fifth graders, I ventured up the big ramp alone.

I was a little scared on the trip up, but the trip down later that day was really terrifying. The first segment isn’t too steep but is longer than the little ramps I was used to. As I started down, everything was OK until I began drifting to the right. I tried turning left but the chair steers by speeding up one motor and slowing the other. My attempts to turn were barely successful and it caused me to go too fast. The length of the ramp let me go faster still. As I approached the level 180-degree left turn I recalled my training-“When in trouble, let go.” I let go of the joystick and kept going anyway! I crashed into the curved brick wall and slid half way around it. My right footrest was bent inward and my foot was twisted but not hurt.

With my reputation at stake, I had to go on. Carefully, I drove around the curved landing and stared down the most terrifying hall in the building. The longest, steepest section of ramp lay before me and I didn’t yet know what had gone wrong on the last section. Unlike the sturdy brick wall I’d just hit, below me was a banked curve protected by a railing that looked much weaker than when I’d seen it before.

Aiming as carefully as I could, I started down — going much too fast for safety. Again I drifted to the right. My attempts to correct the drifting were in vain, and 15 feet from the curve I glanced off the right side wall and let go of the controls again. The slide along the rail slowed me somewhat, but I still hit the balcony railing. I was thrown against my safety belt and slumped forward over it. The rail held strong and my other footrest bent to absorb the impact. I yelled for help and someone ran up the ramp to rescue me.

I later learned that you can coast down the ramp without applying any power and still go quite fast. To stop, you don’t let go. You pull back on the joystick and apply reverse power. By the time I reached sixth grade I was Hell on wheels. I’d take most sections of the ramp under full power. To turn, I’d lock one wheel in full reverse while giving full forward power to the other wheel. The narrow hard rubber tires would slide on the smooth floor and I’d whip around the turns in a four-wheel drift like a sprint car on a dirt track.

But that was years ago and I’ve just settled into my third motorized wheelchair. My last trip down the big ramp was 13 years ago on the last day of school. Part of my nostalgic return to Roberts had to include one more trip up and down The Big Ramp. My video camera recorded the trips but there was no way to recreate the speed or the sliding turns.

Thirteen more years of muscular dystrophy have taken their toll on me. I barely have the strength in my right arm to push the control joystick while riding on smooth level ground. Sharp turns even on level ground are difficult. Gone are the split second timing and delicate dexterity that are required to navigate the wheelchair equivalent of Pike’s Peak.

Of all the teachers I hoped to see that day, Ron Kohl was at the top of my list. I wasn’t disappointed. Mr. Kohl really enjoyed the challenge of an intelligent, lazy student like me. The reason I’d hoped to see him was to confess how I’d cheated on an I.Q. test. One summer, Mr. Kohl called and said that as a class assignment for a master’s degree course, he had to give a student an I.Q. test and analyze the results. I agreed to be his subject.

He came to my house for two days and gave me a battery of standard achievement tests. During the tests we sat in the same room across a desk from each other and he never left the room. Yet, by my superior intelligence and dumb luck, I discovered a flaw in the test design and cheated right before his eyes. Somehow I got the nerve to tell him after all these years.

As in most tests, you were required to fill in the multiple choice answers with a No. 2 pencil. The entire first half of the test I took legitimately. For part two you flip the page over and mark the other side. The lazy designer used the same key for the front and back. As you looked through the paper, the black marks lined up! Furthermore, you flipped the page top to bottom. The easy questions at the top of side one are opposite the difficult questions on side two. That means that the harder the question on side two is, the more reliable your information from the other side becomes.

Most multiple choice questions have five choices. Two of them are obviously wrong, one is probably wrong and the thing that separates the men from the boys is discerning between the last two. Whenever one of them matched a mark from the other side, I picked it. The test went faster, I answered more questions and was less likely to be hurt by guessing.

“I’ve rationalized it all,” I told him, “by saying that if you’re smart enough to cheat and get away with it, then you deserve the extra points.”

He laughed and agreed, adding that it was no wonder he had such a rough time analyzing it. He then said I only ended up with a 115-120 I.Q. I always figured I had 110-115 anyway.

Later that afternoon while touring the rooms upstairs, I ran into Ron Kohl in his former classroom. There was a photo album belonging to Miss Holmes on display. Together, Mr. Kohl and I looked through the old photos and exchanged stories about my former classmates.

One special memory came to mind when he stumbled across photos of Leslie and Nancy Gilson. They were the only other students with motorized wheelchairs and Nancy gave me driving tips after my bad trip down the ramp. Nancy was two years ahead of me and her sister, Leslie, was perhaps three to four years older. They both were very bright and extremely frail from the effects of neuromuscular disease. I would race down the halls clutching my joystick like a Hearst four-speed, but these innocent little girls would daintily grasp their joysticks and could outrun me any day.

Their disease was far worse than mine. Leslie died in her senior year but was awarded a diploma anyway. I asked Mr. Kohl if Nancy was gone yet. “Yes,” he answered, “she died several years ago.”

“I doubted she was around,” I said, knowing that virtually all my friends with MD are dead by now.

He then related the story of the day Leslie died. Nancy was in school and knew her sister was in poor shape. Word spread among the staff that Leslie had died and the family asked that Nancy not be told until she arrived home that afternoon. When they told her that Leslie had died, she very calmly began giving orders, “She wants to be buried in her blue dress, the bearers should be these people, the eulogy should be by … etc.” The sisters had prepared for this day for a long time. Late at night in bed they would talk and make plans for the day when there would be only one Gilson sister.

I miss Nancy. She was a dedicated student and I looked up to her. I’m sorry she’s gone. But I’m happy she is reunited with Leslie in a place where all curbs have ramps, all ramps are shallow and motorized wheelchairs all run the same speed.

When Rose’s husband answered the phone, I suppressed my disappointment and asked to talk to her. She told me she met her husband two years ago, which was about the last I’d talked to her. They were married the following November.

She said they were planning to attend the reunion and I’d see her then. Although we had talked several times over the years, I’d not seen her since graduation day. I know that Friedereich’s ataxia is a degenerative neurological disease and I could tell that her speech was beginning to slur. I didn’t know what other effects 13 years of the disease might have had.

Rose was not only any first true love in junior high, she was my first true friend in high school. At 17, she had a tall thin Figure, great legs, sandy blond hair and blue eyes. Rose’s most distinctive feature has always been her very angular sculptured face with high cheekbones and a broad smile that creates wonderful dimples.

As I toured the school auditorium talking to friends, someone said, “Rose is over there.” I turned around to see her a few feet away talking to a teacher. Her husband was standing behind her leaning on her wheelchair. I approached, aimed my video camera carefully and turned it on.

She looked great to me. Her figure is the same and she had her hair cut slightly shorter than it usually had been. She was wearing large, designer glasses rather than her ’70s wire rims. The main change was the wonderful air of maturity she had acquired. This was not the cute 17 year old I’d said goodbye to 13 years ago. This was a distinguished, mature, 30-year-old woman who still had the same broad smile and blue eyes.

Although she was somewhat shakier than before, I’d prepared myself for the effects of her handicap to be much worse than they were.

With my video camera running I waited a few seconds until she finished her conversation, and then I said, “Hi Rose.”

She turned and looked right at me and smiled, then introduced me to her husband. “This is Chris, he’s the guy who called last week.” I said some complimentary things to him about his great catch and congratulated them. I told her she was looking good and I was happy to see her. We chatted about various teachers we’d run into. I noticed she had a photo album, so I asked about it. It contained her wedding pictures. I suffered through looking at those, but I already knew what she looked like in a wedding dress. I’d seen it in my dreams for at least 10 years.

I’m glad I saw Rosie again. I’m happy that she is happy, and I am not jealous that her husband married her. I had 13 years when I could have chased her and didn’t. I’m jealous that she now has someone with whom she can share her joy and sadness, her highs and lows her pleasure and her pain.

I had myself a good, hard cry all the way home.

They called it a high school but it wasn’t.

It was 30 students, two teachers, two classrooms, 12 periods a day each 30 minutes long, no labs, no equipment, little opportunity to grow socially from ages 14-18. It wasn’t a high school. If you took the maximum five subjects and had lunch one period, that filled six of your 12 periods. The other three hours a day were “study hall.” Most of the time we tried to study in the same room while other classes met. There was a balcony porch near the high school rooms and we eventually got permission to study outside when the weather permitted. On rainy days we’d sit in the doorway and watch it rain and wonder why we ever gave a damn about anything. We’d talk about opportunities closed to us, sexual experiences we’d dreamed of and uncertain plans for our future. Depression ran rampant through us and we’d ask ourselves and each other, “Why try?”

I toured the high school rooms that day at the reunion and they were almost empty. One looked like it was used as a storeroom and mimeograph room. I tried the doors to the porch. It was locked but I could see that the tables were gone. Appropriately enough, it was raining.

I pressed close to the window and ran my camera to record that view. I need to remember always the depression of those days. I need to remember them vividly, so I’ll never be tempted to withdraw back into that state.

In addition to the two full-time high school teachers, we shared two part-time teachers with the junior high for shop, home economics and music. Betty Atkins was one of them. I saw her at the reunion and smiled broadly at her saying how good it was to see her. She smiled back and was happy to see me too. We didn’t really talk much but those exchanged smiles were important. We both remember a time when I wouldn’t smile at gunpoint.

I recall one day she called me aside and lectured me for being unfriendly and rude. “When?” I asked.

“Nearly always,” she said. “I pass you in the hall and smile at you or say ‘Hi!’ and you mostly ignore me or just grunt. Smile once in awhile or people will think you’re being rude.”

I explained to her that while I wasn’t trying to be rude or offensive, often I didn’t have anything to smile about.

I’m not sure if that conversation had anything to do with it, but several weeks later they called all 30 of us together in Mrs. Atkins’ room for a “rap session” to talk out our problems. It seemed to do us little good at the time, but I now consider it a turning point for me. During the rap session that day I made a big speech.

[NOTE written in 2018: It occurred to me that a present-day reader might not know what I meant by “rap session” in the early 1970s. It had nothing at all to do with rap music which I suspect had not yet been invented. A rap session was just to sit down and talk and air out your feelings.]

“You hear all these stories about the ‘Super-Cripple’ types who make it in the world and are successful and are supposed to be our role models,” I said. “But I’m not FDR or Stevie Wonder or that girl from ‘The Other Side of the Mountain.’ Where did they get that strength? How did they overcome their handicaps? What do I do to tap into their magic that lets them cope or achieve or be somebody?”

Nobody could tell me.

And I then realized that nothing magic was going to happen. The way to do it was to just do it. Just be. There’s no magic. Perhaps it was indirectly, but Betty Atkins helped me realize all of that. You either do something in your life, or sit and do nothing. I’m a “do something” person.

So that day at the reunion, I smiled at Betty Atkins.

Here’s a litany of people I miss s dearly who weren’t at the reunion. I’ve included my relationship with them and why they weren’t there.

Terry Johnson, best friend, died at 18 of muscular dystrophy and pneumonia.

Calvin Brandon. buddy died at 24 of muscular dystrophy and pneumonia.

Wayman Glass, buddy, died at 24 of muscular dystrophy and pneumonia.

Gene Storms, class nerd, died at 16 of muscular dystrophy and pneumonia.

Mark Heron, neighbor and best friend, died at 25 of muscular dystrophy and pneumonia.

Tim Monasmith, classmate, died at 21 of complications of his handicap.

Dan Moran, classmate with whom I argued a lot but never had the chance to apologize, died at 17 of complications of his handicap.

Carl Nash, buddy who I’ve seen several times over the years, who always greets me by saying disgustedly, “Aren’t you dead yet? I thought all you dystrophy assholes were dead by now. Hurry up and conform!” That’s Nash’s way of saying, “I’m glad that at age 31 you’ve beaten the odds.” Nash is living in southern Indiana with his wife, Mary, also a Roberts alum.

James Allen Whitney, a. k.a. “JAW,” class clown, alive and still clowning somewhere.

Estel Troxel, best friend, moved to Kentucky at age 16. I haven’t heard from him since.

Cheryl Abney, girlfriend in kindergarten, married and employed as a secretary despite the fact that she was born with no arms.

Lilly Ottinger, girlfriend in fourth and fifth grade, transferred to regular school and whereabouts unknown.

Cheryl Fayette, my date at the senior prom, married and living somewhere.

Mr. Batt, shop teacher who didn’t send us to the principal the day we stole Cheryl Fayette’s purse and hung it out the boy’s restroom window and dared Cheryl to come in and get it, his whereabouts unknown.

Mrs. Ashabrener, principal (a.k.a. Mrs. Trash Burner), died of cancer.

John Sementa, janitor who told us jokes all the time, whereabouts unknown.

When Roberts School opened it was a pioneer. A pioneer named Salk robbed Roberts of its primary source of students. Many people, including my mother, who have worked hard for mainstreaming of handicapped kids, were pioneers. My heroes in junior high were pioneers like Neil Armstrong. The teams at my part-time high school Northwest are known as “The Space Pioneers.: I was the first wheelchair-bound student to attend that school and that was a type of pioneering itself. Some of the consulting I’ve done has been to apply computer technology to help handicapped people. I see pioneering in other aspects of my work too.

But that’s history. Roberts School became an anachronism in a modern world of mainstreamed special education. Salk has become disillusioned with the institute that bears his name and has left to work on an autobiography. The advocacy groups that fought for mainstreaming are dying out. Northwest High School was recently one of several considered for possible conversion to junior high by the school board. Although spectacular progress has been made to mainstream severely retarded students at Northwest, no efforts have been made to make the school accessible so other physically handicapped students can follow me there.

I have no control over those who are swallowed up by progress-with one exception. I control myself.

Have I become stagnant and lost my “pioneer spirit” while friends got married and raised children? Roberts School failed to stay at the forefront of special education. Have I likewise rested on my early accomplishments?

My business survives but it doesn’t really prosper. I’ve reestablished my relationship with God and the Church but it’s now an ongoing gradual spiritual growth rather than the spectacular leaps of faith and understanding of times past. I’m pleased with the work I do, but it is sometimes tedious and lackluster. I’ve not totally given up on the idea of sharing my life with someone, but my prospects are poor.

Given all of the above, I think I’m keeping up OK. I’m not being left behind in the waves of progress.

But I’m no longer a pioneer . . . and I miss it.

After careful reflection on my life since the reunion last year. I’ve decided to do the following . ..

1) I’m going to continue to focus my computer programming skills in creative ways, especially applications of computers for handicapped users.

2) I’ll continue to keep options open in my relationships with women and not presume that parts of my life are closed.

3) I’m taking seriously the words of my friends who have read my journals and reflections such as this. I’m going to believe them when they say I’ve made them laugh, cry, think, feel and remember. A few years ago, a special friend told me I should write an autobiography. She has offered to advise me on getting it published and to correct my spelling. Others have encouraged me and made similar offers.

I can’t say “no” anymore. I’m going to explore and expand my experiences like the pioneer I once was.

So that’s it. My greatest success as an author. In next week’s episode, I will talk about what happened after the article was published and then we will continue with more stories about my high school days and I eventually transferred to attending a regular high school part-time.

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