Seeing Home, page 5
Once we passed inspection, we would meet up with the girls and head next door to a small chapel in the home for the blind for morning church services before eating breakfast and starting classes at 8:00 a.m. Sister Gregory taught the seventh- and eighth-grade students, so I was with her all day. She covered every subject, from geography (we had a special globe that featured raised areas to indicate boundaries between countries and natural features) to typing (we actually learned on classic Underwood typewriters using the “QWERTY” system).
Those typing lessons proved helpful to me years later, and I became surprisingly proficient at it.
In math class, we were asked to use a strange board with holes and pegs designed to be a counting system for the blind. It’s hard to describe it, other than to say it was close to the weirdest abacus you’ll ever see. I never quite got the hang of that one, but I was good enough at math that I could just do the calculations and work out the problems easily in my head.
Sister Gregory saw that I wasn’t using the peg board, yet was still acing all of my exams, so she became suspicious. “Eddie Lucas, are you cheating and copying off of others?” she asked. “Sister,” I replied impertinently, “how could I copy from the person next to me? It’s not like I can peek at their papers or anything.”
Her curiosity grew as she continued to question me. “Then how in the world are you getting all of these answers right, Eddie?” When I explained that I was really good at math, Sister Gregory challenged me to stand up in front of the room as she rapidly fired off question after question. From multiplication to division, fractions, and beyond, I was able to answer them all without stumbling. It worked. I never used that crazy peg board again.
One subject that Sister Gregory definitely spent extra time on with me was Braille.
Since my accident occurred a little bit later into my childhood, I wasn’t as skilled at Braille as some of my classmates, who had been exposed to it since preschool. I always thought that learning Braille would be a difficult task given my age, until I discovered that its namesake and inventor, the young French boy Louis Braille, devised and learned his new system at just about the same age. The ironic part is that Louis Braille was accidentally blinded when he was struck in the eyes with an awl, the very same tool that he used to create his system of raised dots on heavy paper.
If he could do it, so could I. Sister Gregory assured me that I was up to the task.
I began simply, by punching out easy words like “cat,” “dog,” and “ball” on paper using a specially designed awl and stylus, until I became more comfortable with the system and its vocabulary. To save time, and paper, words weren’t always spelled out completely. You could even say that my friends and I were sending our versions of abbreviated text messages like “LOL,” “BTW,” and “TTYL” long before today’s teenagers caught on to it.
Each day, Sister Gregory gave me Braille homework. I got stronger at it, able to put together and read whole sentences. It was almost like a new language. Time and constant exposure to Braille as well as immersion in it gave me the ability to advance. I got so strong, in fact, that it was sometimes used in my discipline at the school.
The nuns were kind, but knew how to correct us firmly but lovingly when necessary, and they were pretty clever about it. They often did it in ways that aided our education. I found this out when I misbehaved in front of good old Sister Anthony Marie.
I wasn’t reaching out to feel the walls anymore; I’d grown too comfortable and confident for that. This time, it was the opposite action that got me in trouble. I was racing up the stairs at top speed without a care when I heard Sister Anthony Marie’s familiar voice call out: “Eddie Lucas, are we supposed to be running up and down the stairs in this school?” “No, Sister,” I replied sheepishly. “Then you know that you were breaking the rules. For your punishment, I want you to write I WILL NOT RUN UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS five hundred times in Braille. Have it to me by tomorrow morning.”
Facing an assignment like that is bad enough when you are sighted and are writing it out by hand, but when you have to meticulously punch those words out over and over again with a tiny awl, well, let’s just say that I didn’t get much sleep that night.
Dormitory life was fun. We had an interesting mix of students at Holy Family, every race, religion, and creed, not all of whom were from New Jersey. Rafael Redding, who was enrolled in the seventh- and eighth-grade classes with me, was from Mexico City. Like my friend Louis Schuman, Rafael was a great piano player. He also played the violin. Rafael spoke English, but we had students from Guatemala and Mexico who had to learn the language. Other kids at the school hailed from New York, the South, and the Midwest. The most interesting story was that of Billy Joe Carter, who’d been left on the steps of Holy Family as a baby. The Sisters of Saint Joseph of Peace raised him, and our dorm was the only home he’d ever known.
Billy Joe and the boys from far away had to live in the school for the entire week, but I was fortunate enough to be able to go home on Friday afternoon to be with my family for the weekend. My father was usually the one who came to pick me up on Fridays, and it was generally an easy process. It was on one of these afternoons that Sister Rose Magdalene taught Dad and me a lesson we’d never forget.
THERE HAPPENED TO be a big snowstorm on this particular January Friday, so my father brought along a pair of galoshes to make it a bit easier on me as we walked home. Snow is like fog to the blind. It covers and erases all natural landmarks, like curbs and steps, making it extremely difficult to get bearings. Dad saw how I was struggling to figure out the buckles on the boots, so he kneeled down to help, when—out of nowhere—Sister Rose Magdalene raced over and demanded to know what my father was doing. Dad cheerily replied, “Oh, good afternoon, Sister. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the weather, but there’s a lot of snow outside, so I’m putting these boots on Eddie.” She was having none of that. “Mister Lucas, your son is just blind; he’s not handicapped. He can put these boots on all by himself, and when he does, you can both leave.”
An hour and a half later, we left.
I DIDN’T GO home every weekend. There were occasional special events where the nuns asked us to stay over for field trips and parties.
Generally, our daily entertainment at the school was limited to the television room on the second floor or listening to the radio on the fourth floor after our classes were over at three in the afternoon and we had our daily snack. Some nights the older kids were invited next door to the home for the blind to watch a movie with the residents or to see an entertainer or celebrity who dropped by to visit. But the weekend excursions were something different.
Groups like the Lions Club and the Holy Name Society would sponsor trips for us to visit places like Palisades Park, the popular theme park that sat on the New Jersey Palisades cliffs on the Hudson River, which overlooked New York City. The tiny amusement area was later immortalized in a 1962 rock and roll song called “Palisades Park,” by Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon.
Many of us had never been to an amusement park like this before. It was quite a thrill to be able to ride the carousel, Ferris wheel, and roller coaster without a care, just like all of the other kids. It was the perfect way to relax, and it seemed like the sisters were having just as much fun as we were. There was one ride that I wasn’t particularly fond of, however.
The Hurricane ride was set up like a series of bobsleds all connected in a row. It spun round and round at various speeds and sometimes even backward. I wasn’t a fan of spinning, but Rafael and the other boys convinced me to go on with them. The ride was disorienting enough, but what made the experience even worse for me was the ride operator, who kept shouting into the microphone, “One more time and even faster for all the kids from the school for the blind!”
My stomach still hasn’t recovered.
One of the biggest supporters of Holy Family was a fellow named Charlie Summers. He was a vice president with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controlled the airports. Mr. Summers was close friends with the legendary World War I flying ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who owned Eastern Airlines. Summers spoke to Rickenbacker about the school and, in a wonderful act of generosity, the world-famous captain arranged a special flight in one of his planes for all of the students and the nuns.
Many of us had never been on an airplane before, and some wouldn’t ever be again. This was a rare chance for us to experience the feeling of liftoff and soaring thousands of feet in the air. The plane left Newark Airport and circled the skies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for an hour as the crew described what we were flying over. Unlike the Hurricane, this was one ride that I did want to experience again and again.
Perhaps the most special trip for me in the two years I was at Holy Family was an overnight camping trip with the Scouts. The reason it meant so much was that I was the one who brought scouting to the school for the first time. Before my accident, I’d been active in the Cub Scouts and really enjoyed it. I missed that feeling, so I made inquiries with my old scoutmasters, Joe Flanagan and Arthur Whalen. They got the approval for me to establish Scout Troop Number 78, the first troop for blind children in the state of New Jersey. It got a lot of attention, and even made the newspapers.
As an added bonus, the article was read by my old friend Louis Schuman’s father. Mr. Schuman got in touch with me and asked if Louis could join our troop even though he didn’t go to Holy Family. Sister Gregory agreed, and Louis became a member of Troop 78. His dad was thrilled when Louis got to march in a big parade with us, something he thought his boy would never be able to do.
We got a lot of cheers from the people of Jersey City when we marched through the streets in the parade, but that wasn’t surprising. The community always showed a lot of support for the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Peace and for Holy Family. My mother talked about the school with everyone she met. Duke Reagan, whose daughter worked with Mom at the A&P, was especially interested. Mr. Reagan offered to go around to all of the saloons, restaurants, and pubs in the twelve towns in Hudson County and put collection boxes for the school in them.
Once a month, on a Saturday when I was home from school, I would visit each and every one of these locations with Mr. Reagan and my mom to pick up the boxes full of money. Not only was it a way to gain exposure and raise thousands of dollars for my school, it was also a way for me to get to know people and places in the New York metro area, well beyond the few blocks I was used to traveling at the time.
This familiarity would come in handy later on in my life.
IN JUNE 1954, my time at Holy Family School for the Blind was drawing to a close. I’d completed all of the required seventh- and eighth-grade courses and was ready to enter high school. My initial choice was Saint Peter’s Preparatory in downtown Jersey City, which is still one of the most prestigious private schools in the United States. I aced the entrance exam and would have had no problem with the academic levels required.
Sister Gregory was proud of me for being capable enough to make the cut at Saint Peter’s, but was still worried about my mastery of Braille. Two years of working hard at it had made me more confident and fluent than I was before I got to Holy Family, but not quite to the point where I’d be able to enter classes and keep up with sighted students. For my own good, Sister suggested that my parents enroll me at the New York Institute for the Blind in the Bronx, which was the best high school in the area designed for nonsighted students. I was disappointed at not being able to attend St. Peter’s but understood the reasoning.
There was still one last big milestone to go: graduation.
My graduating class was small, just me and Rafael, but the nuns made a big deal out of our final day. In addition to the traditional cap and gown, we marched down the aisle to Sir Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” and even had a choir made up of our fellow students. Rafael’s parents couldn’t come from Mexico, so my mother and father stood in for them. Diplomas were given to us, both in print and in Braille. Sister Gregory and the rest of the nuns included a pair of rosary beads, a Braille Bible, and other small gifts as a nice surprise. It was quite a day.
As it came to a close and we were getting ready to leave, my parents stood outside chatting with the local pastor, who had come over for the ceremony. I started making my way down the stairs one last time, when I felt compelled to do something.
I couldn’t exit without touching the building that had been my home, as a way of saying good-bye. Call it sentimental or superstitious, but I just had to reach out and feel it, so that I’d have that sense memory forever. The moment my fingers glanced the wall, I heard the footsteps of Sister Anthony Marie right behind me.
I was embarrassed. I immediately turned around to offer my apologies for breaking the rule that she had given me on my very first day, when Sister Anthony Marie interrupted me, quietly saying “Don’t worry about that, Eddie.” I could hear her voice breaking as she continued, “We’re going to miss you around here, young man. You are very special indeed.”
I started crying. As she put her hand on my shoulder, she said, “From now on, don’t worry about walls. If you have any in front of you, just knock them down. Whatever you want to do or accomplish, you can, Eddie Lucas, don’t let anyone or anything ever stand in your way!”
I was stunned by her kindness, and mumbled a thank-you. She gave me a quick hug and said, “God bless you, Eddie, please don’t forget us.”
With that, she was off to attend to the other students, and I made my way to my parents.
Thanks to the dedication, kindness, patience, persistence, generosity, and—yes—even tough love of Sister Anthony Marie, Sister Gregory, and all of the other teachers at Holy Family, I was ready to move on to a life less scary than I’d imagined just a few years before, and to a dream that now seemed quite possible to reach.
4
* * *
Baseball Took My Sight and Gave Me My Life
Just after my accident, as I recovered from the surgery in my hospital bed, my mother sat next to me listening to the 1951 World Series on the radio, when a thought struck her.
I was still very depressed, which caused me to zone in and out on the play by play. My mother noticed, however, that I perked up whenever my favorite Giants players like Bobby Thomson, Willie Mays, Alvin Dark, or Monte Irvin came to bat. The gloom that hovered over me when I thought about my future as a blind person seemed to lift when baseball was the focus. The nurses told my mother that it was a shame that the games couldn’t last all year.
My mother agreed, and then she was inspired.
If the players could no longer come to me, via radio or television, since the season was ending, why not bring me to the players? Mom started a letter-writing campaign to the stars, coaches, and broadcasters from all three local New York baseball clubs, the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants. She would tell them about my accident, explain how passionate I was about the game, and ask if they could somehow find time to meet with me, perhaps to offer a few words of encouragement.
Mom was a habitual letter writer. Her penmanship was impeccable, the result of years of Palmer Method training in grammar school and high school. I’d often find her on quiet mornings sitting at the kitchen table practicing the loops and swirls required for cursive writing as she sipped her coffee. My mother understood the power that letters can hold, especially notes written from the heart. Many of our family members still have letters from her that they’ve kept and cherished.
I had no idea that she was writing these letters to the ballplayers, nor did my father, so it was a great surprise when we began hearing back from some of my idols.
The first was Giants broadcaster Ernie Harwell. Later known for his forty-year Hall of Fame announcing stint with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell began his career in New York. His was the voice I imitated as a boy when I narrated sandlot games for my friends. Within days of receiving Mom’s letter, Harwell was on the phone with her. Since the baseball season was over, he would be heading home to Georgia for the winter, but made arrangements for my mother to bring me to the broadcast booth during the 1952 season to sit in on a game with him.
Shortly after that exciting call, Mom got a letter from the Brooklyn Dodgers. They extended a very gracious invitation for me and my family to come to their home park, Ebbets Field, in the spring to be the personal guests of Happy Felton, the popular host of the Dodgers pregame show called The Knot Hole Gang.
Even though I was a Giants fan, I loved tuning into WOR, Channel 9 on TV, to watch the Dodgers pregame with Happy Felton. The format was simple. Three youngsters from the New York/New Jersey area would be chosen by Felton for each game and they would be given a mock tryout for the team. A Dodger player would be their instructor, selecting a winner at the conclusion of each of the live half-hour telecasts. The lucky kid would get a certificate, a signed Dodger cap, and box seats to a future game. Because of my disability, I couldn’t be one of the three contestants on The Knot Hole Gang, but the Dodgers wanted me to spend time with Felton and the players anyway.
But the most amazing reply came from Giants manager Leo Durocher. Known to many as “Leo the Lip,” Durocher had a fiery temper and was considered a gruff hothead by players, fans, and reporters alike. Underneath all of that bluster, though, Leo Durocher had quite a heart of gold. Leo’s volcanic personality stemmed from his intense love for and devotion to the game of baseball. It helped to drive him to great heights. After reading my mother’s letter, Leo sensed that same kind of passion in me.
