It is difficult to explain how emasculated I felt when my body began to rebel at the hours on a ladder and working on ceilings. I was papering in a home damaged by the close swipe of a tornado that had destroyed several homes nearby. My first incredibly tedious assignment was papering a downstairs hallway, staircase, landing and upstairs hallway in a continuous floral vine pattern that went onto ceilings as well as walls. Next I patched the badly cracked plaster on the ceiling of a large upstairs bedroom and recommended using vinyl wall covering as reinforcement.
I was on the second strip when the ax fell. It absolutely must not be overlapped. (I had overlapped mine on twelve-foot ceilings in order to use vinyl, which would be impossible to butt while working over your head from a scaffold. Mine, done in early ‘70’s, is still looking good.) When the kind lady who had hired me left to ask the advice of her best friend, I actually went so far as attaching the rope to her staircase by which I would hang myself.
I am sure she never realized that my family had to do without some essentials because she did not pay me for the plastering I had already done as the vinyl I had precut could not be returned and another paperhanger would not use the vinyl. When I fled from there, I could never get myself to go back, even to get my ladders.
Soon I developed an ever-present limp and a “dread cloud” that enveloped me and nearly wiped out the personality of the man that I had been. I didn’t know that, like two of my brothers, I had inherited my mother’s “melancholy.” My next job was papering for a neighbor who has enriched my life in many ways. Rosalie Richardson sensed I was in trouble and wrapped me in a warm cocoon. When I arrived to work, there was an opera playing on the stereo. She provided soft drinks and free access to the refrigerator. But mostly she gave me work and privacy. When a call came to ask me to return to the farmhouse, she claimed to be ignorant of my whereabouts. I could return the call if I wished. I did not. I could not.
* * *
I desperately needed to find work in my field. Perhaps if I substituted for the Indiana School for the Deaf and learned sign language, they would hire me for the next year. I was in the downstairs bathroom shaving and preparing to drop in at the “Deaf School” without an appointment. I prayed a lot during this time in my life, but I didn’t expect answers or realize that God’s hand can be in the crises too. Suddenly, the phone rang and a voice said, "Hello. May I speak to John Rhoades, please."
"This is John Rhoades."
"Is this the John Rhoades who is looking for a teaching position?" a serious, deep voice asked.
"Yes, sir," I answered without the slightest hesitation.
"Do you think five miles south of Shelbyville is too far to drive every day?"
"No, sir, that wouldn’t be a problem."
"When can you start?"
I’m sure the man on the other end of the line did not comprehend that my pause was because I knew, absolutely knew, that I had not achieved this on my own. With only a slight pause, I said hoarsely, "I could be there for an interview as soon an hour from now."
"How about noon then?"
And that was it. I was once again an employed schoolteacher. And I was as grateful as ever a man could be.
