I was riding home from work on the metro, trying to chase away all work-related thoughts by reading my current novel-of-choice, The Corrections. For some reason, I looked up at one point and saw a black guy sitting across me, waving a paper that had obviously been crumbled and uncrumbled many times.
I took the paper and read it. It went something like, I am deaf, and I’m trying to get money for my mother who’s very sick, and I need to get her something, a gift that will make her Christmas much better, God bless or something like that. I didn’t read it too carefully. I handed back the paper and started signing to him.
In one of those giving moods, I told him I didn’t have any bills, but would change be okay? He said sure, so I handed them over, and we started chatting away. In the short ride between Metro Center and Potomac Avenue, I learned a little about him.
He was born in D.C. Graduated from MSSD. Never went to college. Moved up to Baltimore at one point, and maybe NYC. Returned to DC just recently, citing “fate” being the reason he was back. His mother, in her 60s, is apparently very ill and won’t live to see next summer. His family, however, tends to stretch out their life spans into the 90s and 100s. He has two sons, 17 and 13, and one daughter who passed away at one point. Both sons live in Baltimore. He’s never held a job, and is waiting on three years’ SSI pay. SSI apparently mixed up him with his deceased father, who shared the same name. He has two missing front upper teeth. He thinks Potomac Avenue is a great place to collect money, since the people who live there are military types and always give to deaf people. He says it’s hard doing the panhandling thing but he’s doing it for his mother, since he’s the only one left taking care of her. He hopes to go to NTID at one point.
When I asked what he was planning to use the money for, he said he wanted to help her buy a house. Having just acquired a place myself, I know he wasn’t getting anywhere close with that odd pocket change I gave him. But who knows?
As we parted ways above ground, I could only wonder, what the hell happened to him? He’s a MSSD graduate. What happened? How did one man’s path diverge so contrary to some of his graduating classmates who went on to four-year colleges? And what could we do about it? Then … or now?
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Adam,
hate to disapoint you, but deaf people are not the only ones who chose a less desirable path in life even though they have been through a great school. Some people are not college material or do not have the drive it takes to go college. Others should go to a technical college. Case in point–I rented from a blind lawer when I went to college. He was blind by accident in grade school and went through all kinds off hell to get his law degree. He was also the ga. state champ in high school wrestling which he learned while blind. Oh, yes, he did this back in the 40’s and 50’s when society was a lot more hostile to people with disabilites. That gentleman was taking the path of least resistance to get money or maybe that was truely all he was capable of doing. One thing that really rings my bell is that we are taught that every one needs a college education to be successful. wrong. We need to find out what we enjoy doing earlier in life and then persue our dream in that field. Besides, in the right location beggars make darn good money.
Mark
dear adam,
i am writing to you from iran, in middle east.i do’nt believe that what that black man was doing was the result of his deafness.it is true that deafness is one of the most disastrous disabilities,but still you see lots of people with hearing impairment who are able to stand on their own, and support their families.i belive that what we need to do,is to teach parents with disabled children how to rear
their children,how to help them develop individual and social life skills in themselves.
it would be such a great challenge!
Dear Adam,
I agree with Soheila. It depend on the the parents on how they raised their children.That black man is making good money panhandeling.But he is either too lazy to get out and work or he doesn’t have enough confidence in himself to get out there and work like the rest of us.My parents taught us that we can do anything that we put our mind to it. My sister and I are both deaf and we are both working.We need to teach some parents out there to teach their handicap child and prepare them for the world instead of enabling them.
Thanks for posting this story; it is interesting. And, if it’s OK to ask, how did you connect with about.com to make your story more widely known?
Hmmm… Non-profit organization need to step in and help them out!!
I’ve seen something like that few times and it is usually fraud when they tried to use one of the organization without their permit.
Sad.