Guest Commentaries, Writings and Memorials:
CHRISTAL HOPKINS
Draft: Chapter 2 (draft) of my book:
School Days
By Christal Hopkins
While I wasn’t segregated at home, it was another
matter when it came time for me to go to school. Mom and Dad
discovered Sunshine when I was still a baby and starting when I was a few
months old, they took me there for physical therapy.
Back in the sixties, special education was not as advanced as it is today.
My lack of education experience lacked a certain amount of substance, but
it never seemed that important to me at the time. Kids who had any
kind of physical disabilities attended the little community school.
From kindergarten through the 12th grade, the teachers at Sunshine covered
it all. My years there were carefree and fun, mainly because we knew
the teachers loved each and every one of us.
Growing in a segregated school system afforded me a certain type of
comfort, but perhaps, naïveté as well. I was one of six African
Americans who attended Sunshine. Were there any problems as it
relates to race? I really couldn’t say. As I have grown up
and thought back to those days I can imagine that maybe some teacher might
have made judgments about us based on race, but I can truthfully say that
it never showed in the way we were treated.
Just like all other children we had our share of fights, squabbles,
attractions and crushes. I can almost see myself back in Miss.
Peabodys’ first grade class waiting for the cute little blonde hair boy
to come share his milk and gram crackers with me.
In the early years, taxis cabs would come to our house and take me to
school every day, it wasn’t until the second grade that we started to go
to school by bus. Back in the sixties those little yellow school
buses did not have wheel chair lefts. I can remember so clearly
going to school and seeing wheel chairs lined up waiting for the busses to
bring those children who could not walk to school. When we arrived
the bus driver had to pick up each child who couldn’t walk and place him
or her in the waiting chair that would take them through the day.
The early 70s were the beginning of the disability rights movement.
Mainstreaming became the buzz for people with disabilities, and for some
students at Sunshine school we were about to get our first taste of
independence. Miss. Johnson was one of the teachers at Sunshine who
taught the older children. She was a very strict teacher, but she
got the job done. It was Miss. Johnson who got the ball rolling in
trying to get us into a regular school setting. I think her dream of
mainstreaming a group of children into high school had been a long and
hard fight.
We were to be the first in our school district to try this brave new
experiment called mainstreaming. We lived in California, and the
disability rights movement had begun to take root at least four or five
years before a national law that focused on educating children with
disabilities was passed. It was a small group of students that was
about to jump in feet first into the disability rights movement.
Nothing much happened during the first few months that would indicate a
change was about to happen to us. We went through the normal routine
of the school year, and the students never suspected that plans were in
the works to select a group of students to mainstream us at the local
junior high schools.
Towards the end of the school year, we were told that some of the students
would be going to Fort Miller Junior High. I remember my parents
going to a couple meetings to discuss the matter.
We waited for weeks to find out who was going and who was staying.
Some of us were a bit more socially and academically ready than others.
I remember the day we got the word that we were actually transferring over
to Fort Miller. We were sitting around waiting for word to come down
from the school board, when one of my friends turned to me and said in an
oh so kind manner “You know, Christal, not all of us will be going.”
There was this phony grin on her face.
That was really the first time that I recognized someone was
underestimating me. Oh I admit that I wasn’t the smartest student,
but I always have known, even back then, that I had much more potential
then anyone actually knew. So when the word came down with who was
actually going, it was no surprise to hear that my name was on the list.
But just to make sure that I heard right, of course I did, and to make
sure that my friend heard right, and of course she did. I asked Miss
Johnson if she was sure that it was my name that she had called? She
said she was sure.
The first year at Fort Miller was not the best year that I ever
spent in school. Over the summer I had built up expectations of what
it was going to be like to be with other kids who were so called
“normal.” Given that I had been in an environment that was
rather sheltered, those first few months were a real eye opener for me.
As it was at Sunshine, Fort Miller offered no real challenge. I was
fifteen and older then most of the students, while at the same time I was
academically and socially so far behind my peers that I knew that I would
never catch up.
The two and a half years at Fort Miller were not the best time in my life.
It was at this point that I realized that dating and boyfriends would not
be a central part of my life.
Things at home were beginning to change as well. From the time that
he had accepted Christ my dad had been known as Deacon Hopkins. Dad
had been a Christian for the major part of his adult life. Because
he was also a building contractor by trade, he build several churches
throughout the state. The year that I was born he built and founded
Pilgrim Church of God in Christ.
At that time Dad was still a Deacon and had no intensions of pasturing or
becoming a minister. He was lead to build the church for people who
wanted to come and worship. Sometimes we would not have a pastor, so
my father (who never took the pulpit, but was a very good Bible teacher)
taught from the floor of our church.
When we did get a pastor they usually lived out of town and would come in
every other Sunday for service. My dad was a man far ahead of his
time where women’s role in the church was concerned. He not only
believed that a woman could preach just as God called a man to carry the
gospel, but that He had also called women to carry the same gospel.
During those times that we didn’t have a pastor, women preachers were
welcome to come to our little church and worship in the freedom God gave
them, and they were also welcome to take the pulpit and go fourth as God
lead them. In 1970 Dad answered his own calling to the ministry.
Dad was sixty years old.
My dad had always been a big robust man, and I can’t even remember him
every being sick. The summer of 1973 he was in the middle of
building my grandparents a brand new house. The summer heat in
Fresno can be quite harsh. Dad had climbed on the roof for some
reason, and while he was up there he began to feel dizzy. He kept
his wits about him long enough to get down, but just as his feet hit the
ground, he experienced his first blackout.
My mother got the call from her mother telling her that they had to take
Daddy to the hospital. It was a late summer morning and I had
decided to sleep in. When I got up, I discovered that no one was
home except my brother Oswald and myself.
I was completely oblivious to what had happened to my father until he came
home at one o’clock in the afternoon and went right to bed. It was
then that my mother told me what had happened.
I was mad. I felt that they kept my father’s illness from me
because they thought I couldn't handle it, but if he had died it
would have been far worse on me than just knowing that he was in the
hospital.
It was in the early seventies that California added new laws that ensured
that the disabled could achieve some level of independence. My
dad’s heart problem was growing worse. After the first blackout,
Dad was never able to rally. For the first time, my family had to go
on government assistance.
My father had made his own way in life since the age of twelve, after
having lost his parents. It’s very odd for me to think of my dad
as a little boy, since he had never talked about his parents. It was
not until I was an adult, and years after my dad had died, that I realized
that he never said one word about his mom and dad, good or bad.
I think because life was so hard on my father, that he wanted to make sure
that his kids had a much easier life. I know that both my parents
worried about all four of their children.
As children of the sixties, none of my siblings escaped the drug scene and
all that went with it. My parents were dealing with children who
were rebelling against the social norms of society, and also striving to
deal with the issues of raising a disabled child.
After my dad became ill, there was no other way except public assistance.
This might not have been the ideal solution, but I think it was a real
comfort to both my parents that there was a system in place that would
take care of me if anything happened to them.
My father put in for his retirement when he was no longer able to work.
He and mother had planned to do many things in their golden years, but now
that was not to be.
It was over a year before my dad’s first retirement check came in the
mail. By then, his heart was worn out. The first check,
including back payments, arrived the day before he passed away. His
first and last retirement check was used to help paid for his funeral.
But, I think my father would still be grateful to know that I have been
the beneficiary of his retirement fund.
My dad always tried to look ahead to the time when he would no longer be
around for me. He had asked my brother to look after me when he and my
mother were gone. The promise was made when both my brother and I
were very young.
I do not think my father could have imagined that I would ever be capable
of taking care of myself. He probably thought that I would end up
living with Oswald. But no one asked what I wanted to do.
Perhaps he thought that the subject would upset me, so he chose not to
deal with it at all, at least not with me.
Nobody bothered to talk to me about MY FURTURE. Oswald and I have talked
about me moving to Arizona. As I get older, I realize that there
might come a time when I will have to stay with family. However,
until that time comes, I am going to fight with everything in me to keep
independent
I had always been close to my father. The undeniable truth was that
my he spoiled me, not to the point of rotten, but to the point that my
family was concerned that if anything happened to him that I would simply
fall apart.
At some point I knew that he was dying. No one said it out loud but
I think we all knew what was happening. It’s for sure my dad knew
that his life was coming to an end.
Knowing my father, the concern for his family was at the forefront as he
came to terms with his fate. I remember watching him at times when
he didn’t know that I was around. I would often catch him looking
into the distance and I wondered just what he was thinking at this time in
his life.
As I think back on my dad’s life, I realized there is a lot that is
still a mystery to me. I can’t remember him ever talking about his
parents. I know that he lost them when he was quite young. I
knew that he had twelve brothers and sisters. I only knew one aunt
and one uncle.
As a couple, my parents were very close, and in all that time I never
heard them argue. That’s not to say that they agreed on
everything, but my father was the kind of husband that if his wife did not
agree with him, it was all right. He lived at a time where women
were expected to be agreeable with what their husbands said, but one of
the great things about my dad was that he liked strong women. At the
time of his death my parents were a few months shy of celebrating their
thirtieth anniversary.
May 15, 1974, I woke to the sound of the phone ringing. I heard Mom
talking. A few minutes later I heard my sister scream out from the
back bedroom and I knew what was coming next.
When I was young I use to lie in bed and wonder what life would be like if
one of my parents were suddenly gone. I can remember being quite
fearful of being left alone. I think all children have a fear of
being abandoned, and while I’m sure that my father never entertain the
thought of leaving his family, still the unfounded thoughts of a child can
often seem quite crazy.
Waiting for Mom to come in to tell me that Daddy was dead had to have been
the longest wait of my life. Now the day had come that I had long
feared.
I can still remember almost everything that happened that day.
It’s a day that is seared into my memory. I remember our house
being filled with people from our church and from the neighborhood.
I can still see my grandparents walking up the driveway, my grandmother
crying, and the look of shook on my granddad’s face.
I remember the look on my older brother’s face, as he walked thought our
dinning room after being told of our father’s death. Out of all of
his children the death of my father hit my older brother the hardest, and
the affects of Dad’s death stayed with him throughout his life.
As for me, at times it became a chore to remember that he was really gone.
Five o’clock in the evening was the worst time of the day.
It would be the time that Daddy would normally be coming home. There
were times that I would actually forget for a brief moment, caching myself
looking out the dinning room window hoping to see his gray panel truck.
I left Fort Miller a month after my father’s death. I was
seventeen and at that time school didn’t interest me at all. For
the next four years my life consisted of staying in my room and watching
T.V.
The four to six years following Daddy‘s death was time spent doing what
I wanted to do, so I thought. Those years were wasted doing the
thing that my father did not want me do to. I stayed at home and
created my own little world. I don’t think my family noticed the
self-exile that I had put myself into, but for them it seemed quite normal
for me to be in the back room watching soaps. Those years of
self-exile were lonely years for me, but it was the only way I knew to
work through the heartbreak of my father’s death.
Copyright 2007 - Christal Hopkins