Behind the curtain’s mystic fold, the glowing future lies unrolled.
Bret Harte
When I sat down to consider my future after high school, the obvious choice was college. By this time, I valued education as much as my family did. But where would I go to school?
I asked Dunbar which colleges he thought I should consider. He told me to take a close look at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. That was all the advice I got from him. This was amazing! Antioch was the same college that Ellen, the student teacher at Central Institute for the Deaf, had recommended to me so long before. Dunbar was impressed with the Antioch graduates he’d met at the University of California, Berkeley. Among liberal arts colleges, Antioch ranked at the top for undergraduates who eventually completed their doctorates. A doctorate was not even on my mind at the time, but Dunbar was already thinking of the possibility. Antioch was also close to where my grandmother lived. Ellen, who had gone back to finish her degree, was there too.
I was impressed with the cooperative work and study plan at Antioch College. Antioch students alternated between study and temporary jobs for five years before they graduated. The work experiences would broaden my world and help me find out what kind of work I’d like to do after college.
Jonathan, on the other hand, encouraged me to go to Gallaudet, the only liberal arts college for deaf and hard of hearing students in the nation. I decided to visit a few friends there and see the Washington, DC, campus for myself. Everybody there signed. For me, it was like going to a deaf country where the native language was American Sign Language. All the classes were signed. I didn’t know American Sign Language, but I managed to communicate with other deaf students and to have a blast with everyone at some of their parties.
I flew back home confident that I had arrived at the right decision—to look closely at both Earlham College, a Quaker school in Indiana, and Antioch. I had done volunteer work with the Quakers and enjoyed them very much. I visited both colleges and finally decided to go to Antioch, which seemed the most challenging. I enthusiastically embraced the idea of having work experience in the United States and possibly overseas through Antioch’s work-study program. If it wasn’t a good match, I could easily transfer to Earlham or Gallaudet. I sent in my application for early decision during the second semester of my junior year.
We were supposed to be notified of the college’s decision within two weeks. When that period passed without a letter, my anxiety skyrocketed.
“The letter didn’t come today?” I asked my mother. “It’s supposed to be here. I can’t wait. I have to know. I have to plan the rest of my life right now!”
My mother injected a dose of calm into my increasingly frazzled state. “Paul, it’s all right,” she said. “Just wait. The letter will come. God knows what to do.”
A couple of days later, I arrived home from school and found in the hallway a folding chair with a card in it. The card had an arrow pointing to the left and the words, “Go this way.” I obeyed the instructions and came to another chair with another arrow and the directions, “Now go this way.”
Three more chairs followed. Finally, with my patience nearing its end, I walked into the family room and discovered yet another chair, only this one contained a letter. My mother was there too. Her face did not display a hint of anxiety. Rather, her expression seemed to say, “Okay, let’s just see what it says.”
Although my father had taught me to open envelopes carefully with a letter opener, this time I grabbed the letter and ripped it open with my fingers. It was from Antioch. I’d been accepted for enrollment after my high school graduation.
Now, at the end of my senior year, it was again time to look ahead. I had done it! I’d made it through the grueling four-year test and was ready for the next step. All that remained was the Stonewall Jackson graduation ceremony, in which I was to participate as valedictorian. I was proud of Carlos, who was my co-valedictorian and had been accepted to Harvard with a full-ride scholarship. I felt as though all of us had come to the end of a long chapter.
Just before graduation, the local newspaper had written a story about my achievements. I’d wanted to make a good impression on the reporter, so I emphasized the fact that a deaf person could mainstream at a public high school and succeed. During that interview, I felt a strong responsibility toward other deaf students with the opportunity still in front of them. I wanted my story to encourage deaf students who might want to go to a public high school somewhere. That article went straight to the hearts of many people in Charleston, though I didn’t know it then.
A huge crowd turned out for the graduation ceremony. Five hundred students were graduating, and their families and friends were there to celebrate. The guest speaker was a congressman who gave a boring speech. Normally, the class valedictorian would make the speech, but I was graduating at the height of the Vietnam conflict. Student speeches had been forbidden, apparently to guard against the possibility that one of us would express antigovernment sentiments and incite a riot. We were sentenced to an uninspiring, seemingly endless monologue.
I couldn’t wait to get the diploma and be with my family and friends at the graduation party planned for later at my house. I felt like a racehorse trapped at the starting gate. Finally, the time came for me to go up to the platform to receive my diploma. It was a long walk through the crowd, up the steps, and across the stage. There I shook hands with different school officials and the congressman, received my diploma, and finally returned to the steps and then my seat.
It wasn’t until twelve years later that my mother finally told me about the standing ovation I received when I went up to the stage to get my diploma. I had been oblivious to the display of appreciation.
“Why, the whole crowd rose up,” she said. “A lot of people were crying.” I guess I was so busy concentrating on getting to the platform and receiving the diploma that I didn’t know it was happening. I didn’t feel it, I didn’t see it, and of course I didn’t hear it. When I got back to my seat, everyone was sitting quietly. What irony—while the crowd applauded me for succeeding despite the obstacles erected by my deafness, that very deafness kept me completely unaware of the applause.
Yet this image is a perfect symbol of all I had learned from my mainstream experience. I am deaf. I have always been deaf and will be my whole life. Deafness sets me apart in some ways and affects every area of my life, yet I can use my eyes, my brain, and the rest of my senses to take in all I need to know. It’s true that I missed some of what was going on that long-ago graduation day. It’s because I was looking ahead. I am looking forward still, using all that I am to take in this amazing adventure we call life.