Tommy Walker hunches in his chair with one hand on his chin and an unruly forelock measuring his words. There is a resemblance to Rodin's The Thinker. But as he warms up, he talks faster, gesturing vigorously to emphasize certain points and grins at his own witticisms.

Walker and his wife, Margie, have been married 23 years and have two children. He works nights in a newspaper composing room while struggling to establish his own printing business during the day and is president of the Arkansas Association of the Deaf and a board member of the National Association of the Deaf.

He likes to act the part of a strict disciplinarian: "We have some fully rules in our house. One is that everyone must chew each bite of food five times. Now the girls are healthy and have beautiful teeth." (Smiles, pleased with himself.) But . . . "One thing I'll never understand. Why those women have to have six different kinds of shampoo. Six! I never had more than one--if I had any."

Do you mean . . .? How far back are you asking me to go? Do you want my prison record? (laughs). O.K., I ws born hearing . . . No, I'm not using my voice; I don't want to scare people out of the hotel (laughs). Anyway, I lost my hearing when I was 6 1/2 years old and from that age until, I guess, about eight, I didn't go to any school at all because no one was aware that they had schools for the deaf. I entered the Missouri School for the Deaf at Fulton in 1951 and graduated in 1959.

I wasn't planning to attend Gallaudet so I believed it was fate that in the summer after I graduated, I was in an automobile accident which put me on my back for two months. Crushed vertebrae. I had time to think about it and that led me to go to Gallaudet. I entered in the fall of 1959 and stayed there until 1961. I wasn't a career student, no; but I stayed there for three years.

After that, I ended up coming straight to Little Rock because I lived only four miles from the Arkansas border. Really, I was closer to the Arkansas School for the Deaf in mileage. Anyway, I went straight to Little Rock. I had already met Margie and maybe that's what led me here. So I came to Little Rock and applied for a job as a printer. I got the first job that I applied for and started working in the "salt mines" and I'm still there. That's The Arkansas Gazette. It's supposed to be the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It's family owned.

Along with my job, I grew up to be involved wiht the local deaf community. I became involved with the deaf community at Gallaudet, where I was president of my freshman class, so maybe the mold was cast at that time and I've continued to be involved wiht the deaf community ever since.

It took me a long time to be accepted by the natives. They weren't really that crazy about accepting a foreigner here. I'm sure you know from experience. But over time, it's been good. I'm stubborn. I think I won them over and came to be accepted. Now I feel more like a person from Arkansas than from Missouri.

Once you get involved in leadership, you may be there for life. It's not exactly easy to get out and that's pretty much where I stand right now. I've served in almost every office for the Little Rock Club for the Deaf and the Arkansas Association of the Deaf. The only office I've refused--I've refused over and over again--is the position of treasurer. In that position, you can't defend yourself. As president, I can stand my ground, I can defend my ideas, the concepts, the theories. But when it comes to money,nope. Let someone with more honest looks take that. I'll stay with the leadership position. As president, I try to have all our fiscal business done with all board members present and included in the minutes. I've seen it happen where some person gets blamed for a shortage or questionable expenditure and that follows him all his life and really does more harm than is fair. So, I decided a long time ago that the only money I would handle is my own and my family's. Other than that, thanks but no thanks.

The deaf world is changing very fast. To emphasize, damn fast, really. Technology is hurting some people in the hearing world, of course; but, Lord, for the deaf there are so many jobs that require training that the hearing people can get but not the deaf. Another thorn in our side is that so many deaf people live on SSI and SSDI. At first, I tried to be "Mr. Clean." I was opposed to everything like that that would degrade the deaf. I wouldn't even listen to discussions some deaf people had about having an extra income tax deduction like the blind. At first, some of our leadership was opposed to it and I was, too. Naturally, I felt like they did. I hadn't really developed my thinking at that time. But now I have mixed feelings, really. It's still not right that our pride, our feelings of self sufficiency, is being destroyed. Deaf people are starting to feel like I'm here with your support. I wish it wasn't that way, but times are changing.

Take my wife, for example. Margie worked for AT&T, the telephone company. In fact, she was working before I met her. When she had two children to raise, she stuck with her job. She loved her work. She worked with Southwest Bell until it was broken up and then she switched over to AT&T. In the summer of 1985, she got cut. Two-thirds of the Little Rock AT&T people were cut. Their argument was that the courts had decided "Ma Bell" had to be broken up, so employees had to move to where the work was, up in New Jersey or Kentucky or whatever, and that kind of crap. Well, maybe so, but all those layoffs...

She had been working there a long time and was making maybe $11-11.50 an hour. After the layoffs, when she applied for other jobs, they wanted her to start at the first step, perhaps $4-4.50 an hour. There were a few jobs open at $5; $6 if you were lucky. So, you don't argue with the plain reason: She can get more from unemployment compensation than she could from working. Yes, unemployment compensation is limited, true, but ater that she could switch over to SSDI, which is based on past earnings, and make more than she could working on another job.

It goes bak to so much time. I believe they figure from the last three or five years of your earnings and average that out. So, if you take a job that pays chicken feed and later you got laid off again, your average for the disability payment will be based on that chicken feed part. If you stay there long enough, you really hurt yourself. It doesn't make it right, but that's a fact of life.

Right here in Little Rock I could name two or three college graduates who don't have jobs. I know one who has lived off SSDI for ages and refuses to work because he can't get a job that will pay equal to his SSDI. With his family--wife, children, dog, cat, chickens--all that, you know it takes a lot of money. That's the name of the game today. I think that the deaf are becoming wards of the state without realizing it. When we do realize it, it's not going to be easy to say, "Hey, give us our rights." We will reap what we sow.

The laws are made by Congress and I think really follow what people want. We'll always have social programs but maybe sometime in the future, deafness itself won't automatically be included. Today, it's almost automatic: You say you're deaf. Boom, they give it to you. I'm not saying it's right, it's the system.

I see this everywhere. Many of the deaf who come out of the residential schools--and just as many from the mainstream programs--a lot of them are hooked on SSI and SSDI. They are afraid to take a job.

I'm not exactly picking on the deaf world because the blind and others, you know, they do exactly the same thing. Once you get a taste of something that's good and easy, it's just like building a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door.

I have no big objection to mainstreaming when it's handled properly. In fact, for some kids, I think it's better. But if you want my guess on what percentage, I would give you a conservative guess at 25%. Really, I think it's more like 10 or 15%. What some of our do-gooder friends who support mainstreaming forget is that mainstream education is more than books, it involves the theater, it involves social life, it involves sports, it involves bull sessions.

What I mean is that mainstreaming isn't for many deaf people because they feel lost, they feel left out. I'm prejudiced, honest I am, and I think Ihave good reason to be. I've lived more or less in both worlds. Right now, I have no problem functioning in the hearing world. I'd estimate 80 to 90% of hearing people can understand my speech without too much difficulty. I could leave the deaf world; I'd be lonesome but it wouldn't be a problem for me. Most deaf people can't do that. And, also, with the deaf you need role models. To me, that's crucial. If you don't have that you don't really have the heartbeat; you don't have the real consciousness of deafness. I feel that mainstreaming is proper for the right kind of deaf person in the right setting, but it shouldn't be forced. and I don't think it will last.

I was in a workshop on parliamentary procedures in leadership. Almost all of the people were from mainstream programs. They really didn't have the language tofunction in high tech jobs. Their language wasno better than that of graduates of residential schools for the deaf.

I think the whole thing about closing residential schools is a farce. You can look at Nebraska, where they had a homosexual occurrence, and the parents got so scared they took their children out. But I grew up in a residential school. They've always been talking about that crap. It's everywhere. You read about it happening in private, church run schools. I remember in the past when I was in this school in Missouri, we had one really, maybe one known gay person. Now they come up with all these laws and you see gays on almost every street corner.

We're being used and making the mistake of not using our powers in an organization to fight back. Maybe that's part of our problem with SSDI, and with the schools, with the state, with the counties, with all these things. (Gestures to emphasize the point.) Rehab, it's looking after us. If it's not rehab, it's something else. We've become too satisfied with our lives. We know what to fight for, but it's often too late. It's a lot easier to build properly than to remodel.

The interpreters are great, but it takes away. I get mad when I go to a lot of meetings where the interpreters can't keep pace and by the time I raise my hand, they've already changed the subject. they're not really trying to accommodate the deaf. I don't think they mean it on purpose; it's ignorance.

Deaf people may be very good at hands-on work, or have good memories or good mechanical comprehension, but today so many jobs require language comprehension. If you don't have the communications, you're doomed to menial jobs.

If a smart young deaf man came to me today and asked me what he should take up in college, I'd recommend psychology or counseling because there'll be a lot of mental cases in the future with all the frustrations in mainstreaming. Some of these kids don't know if they're coming or going. There'll be more suicides. But the hearing experts say, "Oh, no. We're trying to help you become like hearing people. That'll be the key to your survival.

As for deaf organizations, I think we will always have them. Most of our people come from residential schools for the deaf and since the advent of mainstreaming, we really don't have the same strong, easy partnerships. But a bunch from the mainstream programs really relate to the deaf community; they feel more comfortable with us deaf people than in the hearing world. The do-gooders are trying to make them something they're not. Some love it but some don't. Most eventually join the deaf world.

In all honesty, I see dark clouds for the National Associaiton of the Deaf. The only way that I think the NAD will survive--it's sad to say--is with Federal financial support. When the book sales bonanza burst, it became harder to finance public relations. Grant money, you really can't make a profit from that. Yes, we've been good at squeezing blood from turnips but people expect us to be a consumer organization that has people who have time to fight. We need to have money and I feel, honestly, that in the future we will need Federal subsidies. Of course, if we got a one-year grant for one million dollars, we could really do things. Gallaudet and theNTID seem to have tons of money to pump into public relations but they are concerned mostly with education. The NAD isn't in their league.

Gail Hyde
Project Coordinator, Web Design