by Michael Byington
As an older geezer now in my 70s, there are a great many people for whom I have, as your editor puts it, an attitude of gratitude. I cannot narrow it down to one or two, but will mention a few for whom I am very thankful.
My mother, Bonnie Byington, tops the list. As a low-vision child, I count myself extremely fortunate to have had an even lower vision mother. She had done 12 years in a residential school for the blind, and although she benefitted educationally, was successful in college, and had some professional successes, she did not want her son to have to be away from the family for more than half of each year. She knew what would be required both of the local public school, and of me, to be successful in an integrated learning setting. She not only advocated successfully with the school system to get me into public school, but she also taught me to take over the advocacy duties for myself as I matriculated through the 12-year public school processes.
Throughout elementary school, I also enjoyed the skills of an inspirational teacher of the visually impaired (TVI), Gladys Foss. She made it clear from the first days we worked together that she had decided that I would be college material, and that she would accept no less from me. When I started to falter academically and socially during what is now called the middle school years, I saw her rather seldom, but when I did meet with her, I knew that I had better shape up. I am sure I was still on her caseload when in high school, but I do not recall ever having her visit me at my high school. She had given me sufficient background in order to advocate adequately for myself, and set myself up for higher education.
During my high school years, I decided that I wanted to be in some kind of profession that allowed me to work in both drama and the helping professions. I thus started college with a declared double major in speech/theatre and psychology. I started at a small teacher’s college in 1972 and found that the professors in theatre there had no idea about using theatre for anything past entertainment. They did not really welcome a legally blind student into the fold, and I was told that my congenital legal blindness, and the resultant appearance of my eyes, would make it next to impossible for me to assume a character, or move in a fashion other than my natural mannerisms. I was told that I could never count on more than a C in any of my classes, no matter what I did. It was suggested that I should change my major.
I would like to imply that I was so mature and brilliant that I carefully researched the professors at colleges I could afford and made the selection of a different school out of sound judgment. That would be a profound exaggeration, however. I transferred to Kansas State University because there was a girl there whom I wanted to date, and who implied that she wanted to date me. The relationship with the girl only lasted about six weeks, but I got lucky with regard to the professors. I also eventually did meet the girl I married at that university, but that is another story for another time. For the first semester at the new school, January 1974, I decided to enroll in no theatre courses except playwriting. I figured that there surely would be no discrimination in a course such as that. I could then take my time in evaluating the department and deciding whether it was really necessary to give up my dreams and drop the theatre major.
The first day of the playwriting class, Professor Joel Climenhaga entered the class a few minutes late. His first words were, “So you want to be playwrights. I have one word of advice for you. QUIT! I also know that if you really want to be playwrights, you will pay no attention to that advice.” He then gazed down at me through what I later learned were very thick glasses, and said, “Say, those glasses are thicker than mine. You must really have messed up vision. That’s good, gives you interesting perspective.” I decided at that point that I would not be considered the department weirdo at that University. They already had one, and he was tenured.
Through the rest of my undergraduate degree and graduate school, I took a lot of courses from this man, who demanded just to be called “Joel.” He was a brilliant lecturer, who rather quickly told me, “I believe that theatre is a field of a thousand wildflowers. Some of the stranger ones are the ones who thrive and bloom.” I told him of my interest in combining theatre with the helping professions and he said, “You need to go see Doc Fedder about that. That should require an entirely new focus to be done right. Personally, I find that tenure makes me a little lazy. I do not want to work that hard, but tenure has made Doc just more laid back while still being interested in new approaches.” The next semester, I also made sure to be taking a course from Dr. Norman Fedder, who insisted on just being called “Doc.” I told Doc about my personal goals, and they seemed to set him on fire. He developed a whole new course titled “Theatre for Special Populations,” and this, along with a lot of personal input and study with me, turned into an entirely new program division, drama therapy, which continues to be available today at Kansas State, under a couple of generations of professors past the work Doc and I did to get the program started, with my being its first graduate at the master’s level.
Eventually, a startling thing happened. I graduated with my master’s in theatre, with an emphasis in drama therapy. I then had to go find a job instead of continuing to live on my graduate teaching assistant appointment. Drama therapy academic programs had also developed on both coasts by that time, as well as the new one in Kansas, but jobs having that term in their titles were rather non-existent in the heartlands. There were possibilities on both coasts, but by that time I was engaged to my now wife of 46 years, and she did not want to leave Kansas. I thus accepted a job as an administrative assistant for a commission relating to civil rights for people with disabilities in Wichita, Kansas. I did this work for a year, but then my wife was offered a job in Topeka, about 160 miles up the turnpike. I thus resigned and moved to my current home town of Topeka in 1980 so my wife could accept the position she was being offered. I bounced around with several short-term positions for a while, but was eventually hired by Mitch Cooper at the center for independent living serving Topeka. I had applied there for a recreation therapy position which I thought would allow me to use my training, but Mitch was interested also in the advocacy skills I had developed in my recent jobs. He hired me for an advocacy position, but agreed that I could also start a drama group to develop and do performances of disability-related pieces featuring disabled performers from the area. Had it not been for Mitch, I would not have had the opportunity to pursue one of my life goals. When Mitch left his position seven years later, the center for independent living became less eclectic in its approaches and discontinued its support of the drama group and the time I was spending on it, but the group refused to die. Instead it voted to become The Uncivil Liberation Players and go out on its own. We continued to develop and perform disability advocacy pieces for over an additional year.
My life, throughout subsequent years, has been divided between disability rights advocacy and entertainment. At some times it has leaned more toward one area, and at other times, it has been the other. When in my 50s, I also returned to graduate school to do a credential, and sit for certification as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist (COMS). I grew into helping other blind and low vision peers figure out how to get around gradually, and I feel this interest grew out of my interests in the full participation in life. The imitation of life, and thereby the integration into a full life, is a basic tenet of drama therapy, and has been a common factor in my 50-year professional life so far.
One of the things that Professor Joel used to occasionally opine is that given all of the decisions in life that one must make, and all of the things with each decision that could have changed what we are doing and where we are at any time, everything we end up doing and any place we end up going, constitutes an absolute miracle. It is important to realize that we are constantly living from one miracle to the next. Bonnie, Gladys, Joel, Doc, and Mitch are just a few of the folks whom I must thank for my personal set of miracles.