Nature makes trees put down deep roots before having them bear fruit.
Vincent de Paul
Part of my new job at College of the Sequoias (COS) was to help the faculty accept the presence of interpreters for the deaf students in their classrooms. Most faculty were receptive, but a few resisted. They thought the interpreters would be a distraction, even though the hearing students quickly tired of watching the interpreters. Part of the issue, I suspect, was that some professors just didn’t want to share their stage.
My biggest ally and model for the other faculty in this effort was a popular physical education professor and swim coach. Daniel Anderson was enthusiastic about the idea of having deaf students on campus, so I asked him to share his enthusiasm with other faculty, which he was happy to do. Although Daniel was a great role model for the faculty, I still had to educate them at times. I once visited a vocational class and noticed a poster on the wall that portrayed a deaf, blonde girl in a scene similar to the style of a Playboy pinup. It said she would not hear what her husband said or tell what he did—she was the “perfect wife.” It was an insulting, sexist message. Without making it into a confrontation, I brought the poster to the instructor’s attention. He apologized and agreed to take it down. Although I suggested we keep the matter between us, I found out the next day that the instructor was apologizing about the poster to everyone on campus. As I’d seen often in my life, a few quiet words presented in a friendly manner had again had a big impact.
One winter day after I’d been on the job a few months, Daniel came into the disabilities office with tears streaming down his face. He’d just come from the hospital. His two-year-old son, Gary, had spinal meningitis and had permanently lost his hearing. Daniel was devastated.
I mostly listened to Daniel that day, though I did tell him that his son could still have a good life. In the ensuing weeks, I tried to help and encourage Daniel and his family. I was surprised when he told me that they had enrolled Dale in my old school, Central Institute for the Deaf, in St. Louis. I wished they had talked with me about it first. Daniel was confident that his son would receive a fine education based on the fact that I’d attended CID, but he would be a long way from home. Daniel’s wife moved to St. Louis and lived with Dale until he was old enough to stay in the dorms, which undoubtedly eased his transition. I’ve stayed in touch with Dale and am happy to report that he has indeed had a good life, which includes a wife and family of his own.
It wasn’t long after Daniel’s family crisis that Anne and I faced a different kind of crisis. We were in Fresno running some errands in our two-door, yellow Capri. I was driving on Blackstone Avenue, a busy street in a business area, when I saw a flashing light from what I thought must have been a police car. I stopped the car and got out. I was used to standing up and talking with police officers since Anne had accumulated several speeding tickets in the short time we’d been together. To my surprise, however, I didn’t see a uniformed police officer behind me. Instead, I saw two sedans with four men in business attire jumping out of them. They each had guns drawn—pointed at me!
We must be in the middle of a shootout! Where are the cops? I thought I was about to die.
I put my hands up. The men were yelling something. Anne got out of the car. She was yelling back at the men. While my heart beat double time, one of the men finally pulled out a police badge and showed it to me. Now I understood—they were plainclothes policemen.
“I’m not moving!” I said. “I don’t want to make a mistake. Come to me.” I was afraid that they would tell me to move or sit, I wouldn’t see the message, and they would think I was resisting.
The police officers made both Anne and me place our hands on top of the car. I was a nervous wreck, but Anne was in control. “Paul is deaf,” she told the policemen. “I am hard of hearing. Look me in the face when you talk to me.” After a minute, one of the officers said, “Everything is fine.” Apparently, a yellow Capri like ours had just been involved in a robbery and the officers thought we were the robbers.
“You can’t point guns at me like that,” I said. “My life flashed before my eyes.”
“We’re sorry,” the officer said. “We can’t take a chance.”
A minute later, the policemen left. Anne had been firm and confident throughout the incident, but now that the officers were gone, she began shaking and crying. “Paul, they could have shot you!” she said. Anne didn’t sleep well that night because she kept thinking about what could have happened. It was a frightening experience.
Fortunately, my job at COS was not too stressful. I liked the work but found it left little time for working on my dissertation. One year stretched into another. I eventually finished a first draft—more than three hundred pages of text, tables, and research data—and sent it to Stephen Quigley. Not surprisingly, he recommended changes. We dialoged by letter until he was satisfied. Finally, in March 1979, I was ready to fly to Illinois to defend my dissertation before a five-member committee. I thought I’d already taken care of the hard part—I’d analyzed the data and written my conclusions. I was wrong.
The first problem occurred when employees at United Airlines went on strike, grounding my flight. After several phone calls, Anne and I found we could arrive in Illinois in time for my Monday meeting with the committee by taking six flights, but the timing was so tight that I felt we were sure to miss a connection. Instead, I asked Quigley to delay the meeting until Tuesday and took a flight that would put Anne and me in Chicago on Sunday night.
We arrived at midnight, nearly five hours late because of a flight delay. The temperature was zero degrees. We planned to stay with Anne’s brother in Chicago, but our rental car broke down a half mile from the airport. It began to snow. I said to Anne, “I guess I’m not going to get my PhD.”
“No, no,” she said. “We’re going to keep pushing through.”
We waved down a driver who took us back to the airport. In our second rental car, we attempted to locate Anne’s brother’s place, but in the snow and darkness, we couldn’t find it. Finally, at 1:30 in the morning, we came across a man shoveling snow who knew where the housing development was. After a short night’s sleep there, we left for Urbana, arriving on the Illinois campus in the afternoon. I immediately tracked down Stephen Quigley.
“I’m here!” I said. “The meeting is tomorrow, right?”
“Paul,” he said, “I have bad news for you. I couldn’t get the committee to agree to tomorrow. They can meet in two weeks.”
Two weeks! At that point, I was ready to give up. Yet I needed the committee’s approval and I needed that PhD—not just for my personal satisfaction or to enhance my resume but also because my next job depended on it.
I hadn’t been looking for another position; it had found me. Several months earlier, I’d run into an actor who performed with the California Shakespeare Festival, which was based in Visalia and performed at our campus theater. During our conversation, I suggested that the festival invite the acclaimed National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) to perform on campus. My new friend thought it was a great idea. Both the festival members and college staff also embraced the notion. We were all thrilled when NTD accepted the invitation. I was soon involved in promoting the event, which included conducting interviews for television and newspapers. NTD’s performance at COS in October 1978 was sold out and attracted people from throughout the region. It was a sensation among both the deaf and the hearing attendees.
One of the people who saw my promotional media appearances was Karen Jensen, a professor of deaf education at Fresno State University who was trying to raise the profile of her program. She came to some of my lectures on campus and talked to me about the idea of joining the faculty at Fresno. I enjoyed my duties at COS, but I missed working at the university level. I was also excited about the idea of becoming a fulltime teacher. I eventually interviewed at Fresno State and was offered a position—contingent on completing my PhD.
I feared my plans were falling apart. I didn’t have the money to fly to California and come back again in two weeks. Anne and I decided I had no choice but to stay in Illinois. I spent the time sightseeing and visiting with friends while I waited for the next meeting. I also had to make the difficult phone call to my boss to explain that not only was I not coming back for two weeks, but I also was leaving the college for another position.
By the time the two weeks had passed and I finally appeared before the dissertation committee, my anxiety level was through the roof and I was exhausted from lack of sleep. After two hours of presentation and discussion, however, they all agreed to pass me once one question about my data was resolved—one of the committee members wanted to see the source analysis.
I mailed that source material to the professor right away. I should have realized by that point that getting final approval would not be a simple matter. I waited four weeks without hearing anything and then called the professor’s office. His secretary said, “Oh, actually, he’s out of town. His mother is sick. He won’t be back for another one or two months.”
I wanted to tear my hair out, but Anne remained patient and optimistic. “Just wait it out,” she said. Sure enough, two months later I did hear from the professor and was told everything was fine. I was given permission to publish my dissertation. It was a big relief. The whole experience had been an ordeal, but at last I had my PhD in educational psychology. A dream had been fulfilled.
I felt a different kind of fulfillment in June at the COS graduation ceremony. Our first deaf student walked onto the stage and received his diploma. He was a role model. He showed that anyone who was persistent, motivated, and had the right support could earn a community college degree. I was proud of him.
My work at COS was done. Starting in the fall of 1979, I would be a professor in the deaf education program at Fresno State University. I didn’t know it then, but I had found the answer to the last of my big questions. I was about to put down some very deep roots.