AN EXTRAORDINARY FRIENDSHIP

“God’s got my back,” Richard stated with confidence and determination as we sat down in the restaurant on a warm and sunny August 15, 2020. We were at one of Richard's favorite restaurants i “I can’t believe it has been forty years! You and I have gone through a lot since,” Richard said, shaking his head in disbelief. There it was again, his mischievousness coming out. Most people who do not know him as well as I do consider Richard naïve or even simple. Few have had the opportunity to experience his quirky, funny, and playful nature. An East Lansing psychologist who had examined Richard in 1980, said “Richard is an example of the severe consequences of labeling people. He doesn’t have (sophisticated) language skills; he doesn't have (sophisticated) social skills. But beneath the surface, there is considerable intelligence. He obviously has the ability to reason and think abstractly. I would assume he always had it. His intelligence seems far greater than the category they put him in. He has a tremendous ability to adapt, reason, and adjust. If intelligence isn’t the ability to adapt, reason, and adjust, what is it?” I’m not sure what cemented our friendship. It just seemed natural for him to come by and for us to spend time together. We enjoyed each other’s company, and I liked answering his questions. It made me feel good to be able to help him. Throughout our friendship I worried about when would I allow him to make mistakes? The world is a complex place. Imagine what it’s like maneuvering day-to-day life when you have no previous experience in the outside world or can’t read or write? It hurt me to see him make some unwise or impulsive decisions, especially when it came to expenditures once he got his house in 1998. We were on our way on I-80 toward Washington D.C. because the next morning, July 26, 1990, Richard was going to attend a White House ceremony where President George H. W. Bush would proclaim the 1990’s the Decade of Disabilities Driving along, he told me about the great ideas he wanted to share with the President. “I’m going to shake his hand and then ask if I can sit at his desk like I’ve done with the governor.” The question paled me, realizing how little he understood about the security structure he was about to face. “You know you can’t just shake the president’s hand, don’t you?” I asked. “Why not? I shake the governor’s hand all the time,” Richard replied. Anyone who has ever gone through the process of buying a home knows banks do not provide mortgages without established credit and verifiable income. Richard had been working for the state for several years, but he had no credit. As a matter of fact, his credit history was very poor…. After showing me the house, the realtor asked whether I would be willing to cosign on the loan. Despite some hesitation, I agreed to cosign a loan for $68,000, clearing the way for him to get the mortgage. Happy to help him. Looking back on it, I made the mistake of not discussing this action with my wife I knew she would probably not agree. Richard was one of over 3,000 boys, girls, men, and women who had been in Coldwater while he was there, from age seven to 22. There were individuals whose intellectual ability ranged from severe or profound retardation to the mildly impaired, like Richard. Unfortunately, it took the institution over a decade to realize this in Richard's case. “It has been a long time since the first day you walked into John Schneider’s office, hasn’t it?” I replied. That day in 1980, when Richard dropped off his massive stack of papers on John Schneider’s desk, he already knew what his mission in life would be. It was not, as one would have assumed, to make a pleasant life for himself as far away from the institution and the system that held him captive and tormented him for most of his young life. No, Richard would not stop at the Lansing State Journal or John Schneider. He went on to see Governor William G. Milliken to explain his story “to the man running the state of Michigan .” Richard knew that society had little understanding of people with mental disabilities. Stigma was the great iniquity that perpetuated places like Coldwater. He realized that the only way to overcome the stigma associated with mental illness and intellectual disabilities was to educate the next generation, specifically school children and, hopefully, their parents. Tatzmann and Prangley came up with a plan to build a traveling exhibit, forming a nonprofit corporation. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in the next few years, my life would become a whirlwind process of making the mental health exhibit come to fruition. I’ve had many challenges throughout my career, yet none have equaled this time in my life. Richard had difficulty understanding the politics within the legislature, state agencies, and even advocates themselves. To him, it should be evident that people in power have a duty to help those less fortunate. “What’s the problem? The governor wants this project,” was his mindset One day he had found a colorful brochure on his front steps describing a series of six religious-oriented lectures. By now he had enough religious education that while he could not read the information, the graphics, a picture of Jesus among others, clearly intrigued him. He called the number on the brochure and thus began his current 11-year relationship with the Seventh-day Adventist church… “I retired from the state in January 2010, and the mental disabilities chapter in my life ended. But my role as an advocate continued and is even stronger. It was the beginning of his newfound dedication to spreading the word of the Second Coming of Jesus. As with all his projects over the years, I wanted to help him achieve his goal.