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"JJ" Johnston, Deaflink Coord.at The League for the Blind & Disabled
Deaflink Coordinator with The League for the Blind and Disabled
I was born February 22nd 1964 with two brothers’ name Bob and Mitch. One of the popular TV shows during those days was “My Three Sons”, and Mom and Dad were very content with three boys. When I was about eighteen months old, my parents found out I was deaf. Prior to this my parents did notice something peculiar about me, but thought I was being a “hardhead” not realizing I was deaf.
One day Mom was driving and came up to a train stop with red lights flashing. My brother Mitch and I were standing on the front seat (child restraint laws being lax as it were). There were no cars ahead of us, so we were near the tracks. There were shrubs blocking our view so Mitch and I were intently looking waiting for the train to come from the right side. When the train arrived, it made a very loud whistle sound that scared the cahoots out of Mitch as it sounded right at the moment it approached from the left side of the tracks when we were expecting it from the right side. Mitch fell down on his seat scared half to death, whereas I had not heard it and was still intently focused on the right side of the tracks waiting patiently for the train. I then realized it had come from the left side as it came across the street, and thought wow! And I smiled to Mom and Mitch, noticing at this point he was sitting down. Mom knew then she needed to talk to my Dad and explain to him what had happened. If there were any doubts before, it was obvious now that I had a hearing disability.
They did some testing at home from behind me to prove my deafness, and went to see an Audiologist to have a formal hearing test. Before my second birthday, I was fitted with my first hearing aid, a body aid that was the most advanced aid of its kind for someone with such a hearing loss as I had. I was pronounced severe to profoundly deaf. That was changed to profoundly deaf by the time I was a teenager.
I was in preschool deaf class soon, and met my first deaf friend Kristie Wolf who at that time happened to be a slightly distant neighbor as well. Kristie also had two older siblings the same age as my brothers, sister Kandy and brother Kodie. We were in preschool the entire two years, and had other kids who came and went during that time. So I do not recall their names. To date, Kristie and I remain close dear friends, and she now lives in Kentucky.
When it came time for kindergarten, Kristie moved on to special classes for the deaf in Fort Wayne, while I remained in Huntington mainstreamed. Because of the my deafness I always sat in the front row in the middle or towards the left of the teacher since my hearing aid only went into my left ear. It is interesting to note since I had equal hearing loss in both ears why I didn’t have a mold in both ears simultaneously. Perhaps it was for cost reasons.
I made it through classes in kindergarten through third grade quite harmoniously. I remember I struggled reciting all the numbers in kindergarten in Mrs. Naab’s class, being stuck on “fifty-one”. While all the other children got all the way up to 100, I was the last one to make it to fifty. I just couldn’t continue on, and I was frustrated. It was brought to my attention I said the number fifty properly, but left the “t” sound out on fifty-one. Ohhh. I then was able to get “up to speed”.
In first grade, my teacher Mrs. Buzzard was also a member of the church I attended, and she was a good friend of my parents. All the better for me, as I continued to learn, and was one of the better students in the class. I recall learning to tell time and also learned about the calendar months and days.
In second grade, my teacher taught “proper” English, and absolutely abhorred the word “huh” and “ain’t”. Anyone caught saying “huh” or “ain’t” were told to walk to the back of the room and yell that word loudly out the open window. It was humorous, but it got the message across.
In third grade, I remember learning how to do a better job brushing our teeth, and how important it was do it three times a day. We learned the proper techniques in brushing. The only other thing I can recall was a cute girl by the name of Robin Alexander whom I had a crush on. I would walk her home from school taking a slightly different course than I normally did.
After third grade, my old school Riley Elementary was deemed too old and condemned. My last three years in elementary school was to be completed at Central School, and I had to ride the bus. Due to the way the bus routes were made, Robin went to a different school, and before long she moved away. I didn’t see her again until high school.
In fourth grade, things became really bad for me at school. I had a teacher who verbally abused me. She was going through some hard times, including a divorce again. I recall struggling in my classes, particularly Social Studies which was the only class where I got a D grade throughout my elementary years. Fortunately I had tutoring which helped me immensely as I was learning one-on-one with Mrs. Michael who helped me in areas where I had the most difficulty in. I remember my teacher going over questions in the back of a chapter, and I knew the answer to one of the questions. I raised my hand with a smile on my face, feeling proud that I knew the answer. But my teacher glared at me, told me to put my hand down, and called me “stupid!” I also recall spending a great deal of time out in the hall for doing things, and not knowing what I had done wrong. When that happened, I was embarrassed, and sometime I cried. One time the class was taking a test, and the girl behind me accidentally poked me with the corner of the text book. When I turned my head back, she apologized. I smiled, and went back to my test. My teacher walked in at the same time, caught me smiling assuming we were talking, yelled at me, and sent me once again out in the hall.
Another time my teacher allowed the classroom to say jokes to share with the rest of the class. If anyone had a joke, we would first raise our hand and say the joke out loud. The teacher had a few jokes to share with us too. One time, I raised my hand to say a joke, and at first she ignored me. When she could no longer avoid my hand, she glared at me hatefully until my hand came down. And then she turned her eyes away from me, and asked if anyone else had a joke.
One of the students in the classroom had had enough of this. His name was Phillip Chambers, a neighbor friend of mine who also went to my church. He told his mother, who in turn called my mother on the phone explaining that our teacher was abusing me, and explained some of the ways she was doing this. Mom came to the school, and saw how my teacher seemed a bit agitated. When she talked to the principal, before anything could be discussed about the situation, my teacher had a nervous breakdown. We had a substitute teacher for the remainder of the school year, and everything was much better from that point on. Whew!
Fifth grade and sixth grade at Central with Mrs. Zinsmeister and Mr. Juillerat were fantastic, and I had a different tutor by the name of Mrs. Rogers who really focused on me learning how to read on my own. We read several books including “Treasure Island” and “Gulliver’s Travels”. This was especially good for me in building up my reading ability and self-confidence after such a difficult school year in fourth grade. I also had really good grades too which boosted my spirits. My brothers both had Mr. Juillerat prior to me, and he went by Mr. J, which sounded the same as my name as Jaye. Mr. J and my dad were good friends as well, so all the better.
Prior to the end of my sixth grade class, my parents spend time with the school principal and superintendent who came to the conclusion even though I was doing well in school, I was still going to have problems in junior high school because of teachers who lecture in class. It would be difficult keeping up with taking my own notes.
So my mother and I had an orientation day in Fort Wayne at Shawnee Junior High School, now middle school. We went to Miss Clement’s class first, and she introduced me to everyone in the class who were all my age. After a little bit of getting to know each other, I received a test for me to take so the teacher would get an idea of where I was at academically. When I had finished, I proudly gave my teacher the test results, and resumed sitting with the rest of the class mates. When Mom came back shortly thereafter, Miss Clements approached her and said in a polite manner, “Mrs. Johnston, your son does not belong here.” She explained that my test results were too good, that I would not really learn anything in her classroom, and suggested I go to see Mrs. Green upstairs.
When we walked into that classroom, I noticed more deaf students all of whom were at least a couple of years older than me. Mrs. Green looked at the test results and appeared shocked as well. She said I didn’t belong in her class as well. They came to the conclusion that I would need to go to regular classrooms with all the hearing students. Mom told Mrs. Green that it would be hard for me to keep up teachers because of my deafness. So Mrs. Green came up with the idea of note-takers in my class room. She procured carbon paper that could be used by my note-taker, and arranged that after the end of class I would get the carbon copy of notes to compare with my own notes which often had omissions I had not heard. Mrs. Green was my liaison to all of my teachers, who were willing to bend over backwards to help me, and make sure they did not turn their backs on my while talking. This is easy to do while writing with chalk on the black board. During “study hall” instead of going to the library with other hearing students, I went to the class where the deaf students were where my teacher would ask questions about how I was doing.
One time during my study hall hour, Mrs. Green asked if I wanted to participate in a spelling test she was about to give to the rest of the students in her class, the older deafies in the classroom. I had not even seen the words, but Mrs. Green assured me she wouldn’t hold it against me, not to worry. So I thought “sure, why not?” So I took the test, and thought it was too easy, elementary to be exact as I remembered learning those words during my elementary school days.
During the last couple of years of elementary school, I played P.A.L. football for a team called the Bears. We had a really good team. My first year we lost only one game, and were league runner-up. In my second and last year, we were undefeated—and no one scored against us. Our defense was a staple, set the standard for the rest of the league. I remember Erik Ness and I found ourselves in the other team’s offensive backfield either sacking the quarterback or tackling the halfback for a loss or a fumble that either Erik caused and I recovered, or vice versa. Our worse game was 20-0 against the winless Steelers, and our best game was the final game against the previously undefeated Cowboys 38-0. That was the only game in which I scored a touchdown on offense scoring two in the second half as the left end catching a pass. I remember my grandfather Pop coming up to me after the game saying, “I’m proud of you, son.” From that moment, I totally loved football.
I came from a family of music, but being deaf my parents knew that I would struggle with hearing and keeping up. Since piano lessons were not free of cost, it didn’t seem practical for me to continue trying to learn something that would naturally be difficult for me. Since I enjoyed playing football, Mom allowed me to continue to play football even during junior high age. She contacted the commissioner of the ISHAA who happened to live in Huntington. The commissioner thought it was fine for me to go to school in Fort Wayne, ride the van back to Huntington but be dropped off at Crestview School to practice and play football for that school. Since there were no tournaments between the schools, between Allen and Huntington Counties, there was no conflict of interest.
When I finished the freshman year at Shawnee, I then was to go to Northrop High School. Unfortunately there was a conflict. I could not play football for Huntington North High because there was tournament following the season where the two schools could potentially meet. In fact, during the regular season, the two schools did meet. So I could not play football during my sophomore school year at Northrop. I resented that, hated school, and I believe to some extent I was a bit of a rebel. I still learned well, and kept my grades up. But I occasionally skipped class, and certainly showed some bitterness for not being able to play football. Before the end of the school year, my mother agreed to allow me to go to school at Huntington North if I could keep my grades up.
I struck a deal with my mother, talked to my teacher for the deaf class name Mrs. McCrory. She gave me a big handful of special notebooks with carbon paper. But it was left up to me to talk to all my teachers about my hearing loss, how I needed to sit in the front row which would help me to lip-read better. I also had a tutor whom my family knew as Kaye Johnson prior to her getting married, but I cannot recall her married name now. She married a man from Iran, so he had a foreign name that sounded Arabic. By this time, I had for the first time a hearing aid that went over my left ear, and no longer required a body aid which was more sightly, and therefore ghastly in my opinion. This hearing aid was more discreet, and my hairstyle was thick, and brushed neatly over my aid to make it difficult to notice.
So I confronted all my teachers on the first day of school my junior and senior year of high school, and had no problems with anyone except for my Trigonometry class teacher Mr. Betterly. There is no excuse as he attended the same church as me and my family, and he knew about my hearing loss. Due to his stubbornness, he insisted I sat in the assigned seats as the rest in my class in alphabetical order. So I ended up near the very back of the classroom and the teacher was on the right side of me, meaning he was on my deaf side since I did not have a hearing aid on my right ear. I started out ok starting with an A average which came down to a B, and then a C before my parents asked about what was going on, how or why I was struggling in this class. I talked to my tutor about this as well, and between my tutor and parents, the principal of HNHS was notified. He in turn contacted Mr. Betterly, and I was allowed to move to my desired location in front row just to the left of the teacher. Mr. Betterly did not specifically say to me he did not appreciate my going over his head and talking to his boss, the principal, (which I didn’t do), but I sincerely felt the tension between myself and him. However, I did okay in that class. During the latter half of the spring semester, we learned Calculus which I guess was an extension of Trigonometry. Calculus was difficult for me, and I struggled in that.
I played football at HNHS, but our teams were not very good. My senior year we only won one game that season, and we barely won that one. We had a lot of injuries, including myself, and a few quit the team as the season progressed.
While I was at HNHS, I really enjoyed school there. I had a high school sweetheart name Missy, and a friend with deaf parents name Wendy Huff. My self-esteem was pretty low, because I was deaf in a hearing world. I eventually did break up with Missy for that very reason as I was nervous trying to lip-read everyone, and struggling with that. I remember one guy my age saying I was “deaf and dumb” which upset me. I had the wherewithal to respond to him, and say that he was “only half right: I’m deaf, but you’re dumb!” He responded with a great laugh, and befriended from that point on. Cleverness perhaps I have, but feelings I also have. And he hurt my feelings, something that occasionally I felt whenever I felt irrelevant throughout high school simply because I was deaf, and struggled to understand people. Sometimes when I misunderstood something, I did not want to let on this fact since I didn’t at that time want anyone to think I was deaf, that I was perhaps “inferior”. Sometimes that got me in trouble when a teacher made a comment and asked if I understood, and I lied saying I did. When it came back that I did not do what the teacher had told me to do, I said “I didn’t know.” She responded, “but I asked you if you understood, and you said ‘yes’.”
So I needed to overcome my shyness, my insecurities, and my low self-esteem. I needed to accept myself for who I was that being deaf was okay. I found that people were willing to bend over backwards, willing to repeat themselves, and I began to feel more “relevant”.
In high school, Wendy was a Godsend. Her parents were deaf, and so she knew sign-language. Even better, she was in my homeroom class which every Tuesday morning met at first period. Huff was the first name in that classroom and Johnston was the last name. Meaning, during roll-call we sat in opposite corners of the room. After roll-call, we moved into empty seats and chatted in sign-language both to help her practice her signing and to give me someone to feel comfortable to talk to. Wendy’s family was broken apart earlier, and for quite some time she was living in a foster home. So she didn’t have anyone to sign to until we met in high school. During our senior year in high school, she asked me to be her escort in the homecoming parade. Since I was injured and could not play football, I was able to do so. Wendy and I had an absolute blast. Usually there are only three girls vying for homecoming queen, but due to a three-way tie for third, there were five girls instead. The five of us escorts had a really good time that evening.
Soon after, the five of us and about fifteen other guys and a couple of girls from HNHS and Huntington College got together on Halloween night, and teepeed several homes belonging to the high school principal, athletic director of HNHS, and several teachers from our school. During basketball season, I was a member of the cheer block for both the boys’ team and the girls’ team for which Wendy was on. Being a part of a group that got along well together did wonders to build up my self-esteem.
I graduated from Huntington North above average, and decided to go to Ball State University. My first choice was NTID in Rochester, NY, but Vocational Rehab would not pay for anything for tuition or services of any kind if I went to a different state. By going to Ball State, they would help a little by paying for all my school books and notetakers. I qualified for scholarships towards my tuition being deaf and getting decent grades.
My father was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph system during my freshman year in college, and I decided to move back to town following my spring semester. I was somewhat disenchanted with schooling, and didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I was contemplating changing majors, changing colleges, and agreed to help my dad get rid of all the outdoor animals including the horses and our doberman dog name Herc (short for Hercules).
Late in the summer of ‘83 we moved into town right off campus of Huntington College (now University). I then began to work at IMCO, Inc. where my dad also worked. He worked as a materials handling manager, while I worked as a press operator, stock cutter, metal prep, mill room operator, and fork lift driver. I really enjoyed working there, but it was a dirty job. Sometimes nowadays I feel like my lungs were permanently damaged because I did not wear a paper mask on my face. I worked there eleven years, and now I am prone to bronchitis annually.
I had a problem working with one guy name Leroy, and I found that my dad got the promotion that Leroy thought his uncle was deserving. And since I got the job working at IMCO because of connections with my dad, Leroy made my life working a nightmare whenever he could. I recall once finding a dead mouse under the saran wrap covering my dinner I brought to work. Another time both of my shoes in my locker were filled with Mountain Dew. So I had to put a lock on my locker. Unfortunately I couldn’t prove Leroy did those things, so nothing was done to alleviate my stress working with him.
I returned to college attending Huntington College working full time and carrying a part time load. There were times when I took a break, especially after my dad passed away in September of ‘88, and did poorly in my studies that semester. There were a couple of classes I had to retake due to poor grades.
I eventually graduated from H.C. in ‘95, and immediately following graduation, I was a store manager for Homier Distributing. This was a good experience for me with customer interaction, and learning the ropes in sales. However, I had no benefits whatsoever, and working 80-plus hours for a base salary pay of $350 weekly meant I was not getting my due. After working at the Indiana State Fair in August of ‘95, I was given the opportunity, the only opportunity, to go on a road crew selling Homier products. I did this for a little while, but found I had to pay for my own meals as usual and for such low pay it wasn’t worth it.
I found a job working for Fort Wayne Foundry Corporation where my brother Mitch worked as a computer programmer. I was supposed to work for Machining Division, but started at Lima Rd Div until the employees on strike came back to work. Then I went to Machining Div where I worked for eleven years as well.
I was a leadperson for most of the last nine years I was there. My responsibilities consisted of getting machines set up for production prior to start of shift, taking care of robots through programming if they crashed, training operators working on the machines, maintenance on all the machines when needed, and paper work relating to inventory and production for the day. I absolutely loved my job.
One drawback from this job was there was a coolant mist in the air that came from the machines used to keep the aluminum manifold parts cool while being machined down by tool cutters. Breathing this mist also was damaging to my lungs as once again I did not always wear paper masks which were available.
The job at FWF was challenging mentally, and I really loved it. I also enjoyed working with the people I worked with as I got along with everyone. We had a new supervisor who was writing bogus “fact finders” against me, and wanted me to step down as a leadperson. I didn’t think that was going to prevent me from losing my job as he could have continued to write me up to get me fired. So I ended up fired from my job. Unfortunately the union did not take time to get my job back as they were negotiating for a new contract with the corporation. So my situation was put on back-burner for a while until a new contract was ratified.
I contacted an attorney who reviewed my case, and deemed that FWF was wrong but legal. Since I could not prove that they violated me through discrimination due to my disability, there was nothing they or I could do. Soon my supervisor was fired due to fraudulent fact-finders written on another employee. The union eventually notified that I could get my job back if I would re-apply for my job, and then after the probation period they would fight for my seniority. They notified me that FWF was hiring again and suggested I fill out an application for employment all over again. So I went to FWF, and they said they were no longer hiring. So I quit.
With my connections to the deaf community who knew about my predicament, it came to my attention that an opening for a position came at the League for the Blind and Disabled as a DeafLink case coordinator. The previous coordinator was considering starting a family with her husband, and she did not want the stress associated with DeafLink. I was hired here this past March, and I absolutely love it. I feel like I’ve found my calling.
Deaf people in general struggle with the English language, and do not have good skills in writing proper grammar or correct spelling. English is one of my major strong points. In fact, reading is one of my hobbies, and I have my own personal library at my home. Oftentimes I buy a new book, and after reading it I put the book up on the shelf. So I have a collection of books.
At DeafLink, I have many duties including brushing resumes for deaf consumers looking for a job, explaining information about a letter received in the mail, or perhaps explaining how to best present oneself while making a phone call. Sometimes I help them budget their finances. I advocate for the deaf whose rights for an interpreter are violated as explained by the Americans with Disabilities Act (A.D.A.). Sometimes a consumer needs a new adaptive equipment for the deaf like an alarm clock, door bell flasher, etc. My goal for each consumer is to help them become more able to lead an independent life on their own. In doing all these things, I feel good helping others feel good about themselves because they are able to lead independent successful lives.
