by Yvonne Mason

Chapter One

 The Beginning

Every life has a beginning. Some are more famous than others. Some end before they have really begun. This beginning was neither. It was a normal middle class beginning in a middle-class neighborhood on a quiet street where children could play without being hurt or bothered. All the people who lived there had moved in about the same time. The house was a three-bedroom ranch that was new when the Robinson family moved in it in 1951.

There was no air conditioning and the heat was a floor furnace. Daddy worked about 16 hours a day installing heating and air conditioning. The average weekly salary for that time was about $50.00 bring home. Gas was purchased by gallons; milk was about .25 per gallon and still delivered to the door. Bread was a nickel and the mortgage on the house was $7000.00.

 Mother bought about $20.00 worth of groceries and it feed us for a week. Even though things were inexpensive, times were still hard. The country had just come out of two wars, a recession was on and work was not easy to come by.

Mother did not work; she stayed home and took care of the house and me, until Stan arrived. The second child of Clinton Leonard and Doris Robinson Stan was born on July 13, 1952. This as a time when “handicapped people” were as out of place as frost in July. As a general rule those handicapped (the title given to the disadvantaged at the time and will be used here until later), were frequently placed in institutions, left in a back room and rarely seen or mentioned. Mostly they were forgotten human beings. It was something one didn’t mention. It was considered a “bad thing” to admit one had a child or other family member who was “handicapped.” Mother’s prayer was that with God’s help Stan would be socially accepted.

Stan’s birth was not historic, nor was it difficult. He was carried to term and he had me, Yvonne, an older sister already at home. There was no reason for this child not to be “normal”. God’s plan, however, was not our plan.

Stanley had purpose.

As I look back on this purpose now, it becomes clear as crystal (and at times as a glass darkly)!!! At times I see the results of his reason for being handicapped and at other times I wonder what he could have done had he not been handicapped. He is so driven in his goals; I wonder if maybe he would have been a greater force to be reckoned with. I wonder if maybe he might have been a successful businessman or the owner of a ball team. But, when I look again, I see his influence on others, his popularity and his drive

to be the best he can be with the talents that he has. I have to ask myself does he already have the greater gifts and talents. Would not being handicapped have made him a better man or would it have been a curse?

When Stan arrived, he arrived with a vengeance. Mother was in labor with him for only two hours. The nurses held her legs together until she got to the delivery room. They refused to allow him to emerge until they had her in a sterile environment.

 He weighed in at 7 lbs and 3 ounces and was named Stanley Clinton Robinson. Mother felt as if something was not quite right from the beginning. Stan cried all the time, not just the normal cry of a newborn wanting to be fed, changed or suffering with colic. His cry was one of undetermined origin. She would talk to the doctors about it and they told her it was nothing. But she knew.

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