I grew up in the Dark Ages for people with disabilities. We were often looked upon as second-class citizens, burdens to society. It’s hard to believe. Not so long ago, if families couldn’t cope or were ashamed to have a child with a disability, they could send that child away to an “institution.” It sounds preposterous now, but back in my day it happened.
The grade school I attended was thought of as a “handicapped school” or a “school for crippled children.” Nowadays, such terms are considered outdated, inappropriate, and patronizing. Back in the ‘60s, classrooms weren’t integrated in more ways than one. I attended a school that was accessible with ramps and with everything on one floor. Everywhere else, stairs were a major obstacle to overcome. When I was growing up much of the world was not accessible to someone with a disability. The one place where I had the freedom to be mobile was at school.
I rode to school each day by taxi with three other disabled kids in my area. There was Timmy, Donnie, and Sy. Each was a different age and faced different challenges. They were my best friends. An older, jovial guy with white hair named Joe drove the cab every day and kept us laughing. I hardly knew my grandparents, so Joe was like my surrogate grandfather. He helped me in and out of the cab every morning and afternoon. It was a big deal that I trusted him to lift me. Only Dad or Mom ever lifted me until Joe came along.
Our daily cab ride consisted of noisy trips full of stories and laughter, a time to bond with friends who could relate to what it was like to have a disability. We had the same classes and tried to do the same recreational things as other kids. We had arguments but never teased each other about our differences. We could verbally spar about various subjects but we never mentioned disability. We didn’t want others to judge us by the way we looked, so why should we judge each other?
Timmy was my closest friend. He was a little older than the rest of us and had an infectious laugh, which ticked off the others. Tim was always happy, remarkable for a kid with a double whammy of cerebral palsy and epilepsy. It was a challenge for him to walk, shuffling along, braces on his legs, in a slow but steady sideways gait. He suffered from unpredictable, violent seizures which could occur at any moment.
Donnie, on the other hand, was always sad, trying unsuccessfully to cope with his illness and annoyed by Tim’s perpetual joy. Donnie was hard to understand because of his speech impediment, which was the result of his muscular dystrophy.
Sy didn’t say much. The modern conception of autism didn’t exist back then. Instead, people referred to Sy as “slow.” It was terrible how we were labeled. To us, we weren’t different—the rest of the world was.
When he was angry (which was practically all the time), Donnie would pick a fight with someone in the cab, usually Sy. Timmy was there to break it up. They would argue about the stupidest things, like who was the better ball player, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays. Our “discussions” sometimes led to loud shouting or even threats. It was all talk. Joe, the ultimate boss, would tell everyone to “calm down or else you’ll have to walk to school!” (That wasn’t going to happen). And there was no ratting on each other once we got home. What happened in the cab, stayed in the cab. At home we were merely thought of as “handicapped kids.” In the cab, we were like everyone else.
My taxicab buddies ate lunch together. Lunch was a really big deal. Talking about what we had for lunch was almost as important as eating the actual food. If someone had carrot sticks or celery in their lunch, they were deemed the loser that day and were either made fun of or sympathized with, depending on our mood.
“Geez, applesauce again!” Timmy would lament, checking his lunchbox.
“What the heck is wrong with your mother?” Donnie would lecture. “I’ve got my mom trained. So does Smith. He never has applesauce.”
I had a Flintstone lunchbox and thermos. A peanut butter and jelly or baloney sandwich (with a dab of yellow mustard), a pickle on the side, a Tastykake for dessert (usually chocolate cupcakes), and a small bag of Fritos — that was my daily lunch. My mom knew better than to sneak a piece of fruit in my lunchbox, no matter how hard she tried.
It was a sign that someone had died when we wheeled into class and found flowers on a classmate’s desk. We were used to our friends dying young. Saying “so long” to my school friends overnight or a weekend wasn’t like saying “See you tomorrow” or “See you Monday,” because it was conceivable that we wouldn’t see each other ever again. Other than this occasional sad occurrence, my early school days were not much out of the ordinary, considering the circumstances.
I met hundreds of kids during my eight years attending school in person. There was one kid who stood out in my mind above all others. His name was Robert Garlick. I remember how he always wore suspenders, and he was purple.
I didn’t know what the term cyanosis meant back then. His skin was a dark shade of purple, as if his entire body — fingers, arms, face, neck — was badly bruised. He had red hair, which seemed brighter because of his purple skin. His eyes seemed to glow.
Robert was just like any other kid our age. Sadly, the color of his skin was like a bullseye. This was the ‘60s, when minorities, especially African Americans, were desperately fighting for their rights. We were aware of prejudice and being singled out for the color of your skin. But to be discriminated against because you had purple skin was a new one on all of us.
Funny, we all knew what it was like to be stared at, to be made fun of, to feel different. Yet, many of my disabled classmates shunned Robert merely because he looked so different. We knew the color of his skin was due to a physical disorder. We knew he couldn’t help being purple just like we couldn’t help being lame, blind, or deaf. But Robert had a tough time making friends.
Maybe it was the social worker in me, even way back then as an eight-year-old, but I hung with Robert a great deal. We ate lunch together, which was big for a kid with a disability. That socialization, being part of a group and accepted by your peers, was pivotal to our self-esteem. Later in life, I thought of Robert whenever I ate lunch alone at work just because no one wanted to share a table with me.
I remember the first day of school in fifth grade and the first time I saw Robert. When Miss Bunning asked the kids to introduce themselves in class, everyone stared at Robert, who sat in the back row. We kept staring, even after Robert spoke. We couldn’t believe it.
Instantly, even though I stared too, I felt bad. I didn’t like it when people stared at me in public. I could only imagine how Robert felt. I felt ashamed, like I should know better.
In the lunchroom, I saw Robert eating alone at the end of the table. My heart went out to him. He looked so lonely, so sad, silently eating a sandwich, eyes down.
“Where are you going, Smith?” Donnie asked.
“I’m going to invite him to eat lunch with us,” I replied, starting to wheel away.
“Oh, no … not the kid who looks like a plum!” Timmy said.
“It’s bad enough we have to look at him in class,” Donnie griped.
“Why don’t you stop,” I protested. “He can’t help it.”
“Maybe you can just stay down there with him,” Donnie suggested.
“Maybe I will!” I answered defiantly. That was bold on my part, because we always ate lunch together as a group, and, to be honest, I was afraid of Donnie, especially of his acid tongue.
I wheeled across the table from Robert, asking if I could eat lunch with him. I’ll always remember the surprised look on his face. He couldn’t say “yes” fast enough.
I was just as curious as anyone, so I couldn’t help but ask why he was purple.
“I’m not positive myself,” he said quietly. “They say it’s something to do with my blood not having enough oxygen. You’re awfully inquisitive. What are you, writing a book?”
Robert asked me this question in a sarcastic manner, but, as naïve as I was, I gave him a straight answer.
“Not just yet. I do want to be a writer someday.”
Robert let out a little chuckle, amused by my innocence. “Maybe you’ll write a story about me someday?” he joked. “What about you? Why are you in a chair?”
I told him about my bone problems. Our physical problems had nothing to do with our friendship. We never needed to talk about our afflictions again.
“You’re alright, know that?” he said, in between bites of his turkey sandwich, “My name is Robert. “
“Yeah, I know … from class,” I replied, introducing myself. I thought how terrible it was for my buddies to refer to this kid as “Plum.” He seemed like a good kid.
“I’m used to the names,” Robert said, like he was reading my mind. “I don’t mind. I’ve gotten used to the names and the stares.”
I noticed Robert admiring my Flintstones lunchbox and thermos. His sandwich was wrapped in wax paper, just like mine. But, instead of a lunchbox, he carried his food in a brown paper bag. I could tell he felt kind of bad about that.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”
For a kid my age, that was pretty profound, although I didn’t really think of it that way back then. It just came out that way.
From then on Robert was like a big brother to me at school. I never forgot his kindness and how happy he always was. He never complained or moaned “why me?” He was bigger than most kids in our class. Since I was the smallest, that arrangement seemed to work out fine. I was teased by Donnie every cab ride home from school about having lunch with “Plum” as he continued to call Robert. Man, if I didn’t have brittle bones and could reach into the backseat, I would’ve punched him in the face, disability or no disability. But there had to be a reason why Donnie was always cruel to others; the poor kid just couldn’t cope with his own sadness, so we cut him some slack.
Robert moved closer to my desk in class after Susie Turnbull, the girl who always wore butterscotch plaid skirts, complained that Donnie was cheating one day when we were taking a test. Susie was smart, and Donnie admitted in the cab that he was looking at her answers. So, Robert moved up closer to the blackboard while Susie moved to the back row, away from Donnie.
Sometimes, Robert would be on my kickball team during recess, but lunch was our time to talk. We never bought the food in the cafeteria. I tried it once, and the rice pudding made me throw up at the table. Robert always referred to the creamed chipped beef as “shoe leather,” equivalent to dreaded hospital food, another topic we could both relate to.
I recall how happy I was when my parents met Robert, the friend I was always talking about at home. They had attended a Christmas pageant we held at school. I did a duet with Robert, performing a medley of “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Up on The Rooftop.” We weren’t bad. I remember the audience in our auditorium gave us a nice ovation. Robert sang his part like Elvis, snarling lips, swiveling hips, and all.
Robert wasn’t in school the week before Christmas. I thought nothing of it. We missed school all the time for one ailment or another. Donnie noticed me alone at the end of the table that week, but he never asked me to join them. I felt funny about returning to their lunch group. Looking back on it, I couldn’t understand why I allowed such petty, stupid stuff to bother me. I just told myself that I would hold down the fort, or the end of the table, until Robert returned.
Christmas break always went too fast. Soon, we were back at school, dragging ourselves out of the cab after a fun ride talking about what we got for Christmas. When I rolled into class that January morning, all chipper and happy and saw the dreaded bouquet of flowers on Robert’s desk, I cried, right there in class.
Grade school taught me much more than arithmetic or spelling, it was my first experience with other children with disabilities outside of the hospital. It was my first experience making friends, a lasting example of some sort of normalcy in my life. Among hundreds of other kids with special needs, I didn’t feel out of place. We weren’t judged by our limitations; we were praised for our abilities. This felt “normal” to me, even among children who were deemed by society to be “crippled.”
Life in school was structured with outsiders who felt much like family. They were children and teachers who could relate, not only to the daily challenges we shared, but to the triumphs and joys of childhood. It struck me as ironic: we were thought of as “different” by the rest of the world, yet we thought of the rest of the world outside of school as “different.”
Those early years in school were also my first experiences with death. It never got any easier after that. Knowing a classmate passed away, someone like Robert, someone we saw every day and got to know, someone we cared about, became almost casual because it happened so frequently. In time, that particular kid was usually forgotten. But because death did touch our class so often during grade school, it did mature us beyond our tender years. It could easily happen to any one of us. In that way, dying wasn’t as frightening or mysterious to us. Knowing death so well made us appreciate life even more.
That first day back, Timmy asked if I wanted to join their group at lunch again. No hard feelings. Life was too short to hold a grudge. Even Donnie had a kind word. I opened my lunchbox and took out the thermos. I found chocolate milk, like usual, a baloney sandwich with extra yellow mustard and the crust cut off the bread, just as I liked it, a separately wrapped dill pickle, a pack of chocolate cupcakes, and a small bag of Fritos.
Then I noticed another item under a stray napkin. I picked up the napkin and noticed the surprise: it was the most perfectly round and juicy purple plum I had ever seen.
“Fruit?” Donnie yelled. “Boy, your mother messed up again! You never bring fruit for lunch.”
“Thank you, Robert,” I whispered under my breath, my eyes moist with tears. ”I won’t forget you either.”
