THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411240272
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 162 lines
BLINDNESS, DIABETES, the wait for a kidney transplant. These can be more than enough to keep you cornered, to keep you in daily self-pity.
Charles Slaughter Jr. feels that at times, but those are rare moments.
The cherished moments are musical.
At home, he listens. At church, he gathers the music, trains the voices, directs the concerts, conducts the workshops.
The 25-year-old Suffolk resident is the soft-spoken, easygoing minister of music at Mount Zion Interdenominational Community Church on Indian River Road in Norfolk.
His blindness poses no problems in his work, and the choir loves him, the Rev. Willy MacNair says.
``He's a tremendous inspiration to us. If we feel things are going to fall apart, he gets us pumped up,'' the pastor says. ``He will tell us, `Look at me. Suppose I felt down when things went wrong.'
``Charles gives us a new mental attitude. Sometimes it's hard to believe he's blind. Sometimes he'll compliment somebody on a suit or tie. He listens. He hears someone else and picks it up.''
Slaughter's mother brings him to church, getting him there Sunday mornings at 7 to preside, musically, over the two services. The pastor brings him back home.
An old Norfolk State University buddy, Vincent Harris, also helps with a ride.
``Charles is a good friend. We share a lot,'' says Harris, minister of music and associate pastor at Little Bethel Baptist Church in Suffolk's Chuckatuck section.
``I like Charles. He's friendly and down-to-earth - always cheerful. He doesn't seem to know he has a handicap.''
Which is why he gets a tad impatient sometimes.
``Sometimes the pastor tells me to take it easy. He thinks, at times, I'm unable to do something. I ask, `Why not?' ''
Dependence, Slaughter says, is his pet peeve: ``I hate that with a passion. I've always been independent.''
Although he acknowledges the limits.
``I have to depend on others to get around. I'll be glad when they invent a car for blind people.''
But Slaughter appears to be about an independent as a sightless man can be.
``I don't look at myself as being handicapped. My talents come naturally.''
He has many talents. In addition to the complexities of his full-time church work, he plays piano, organ, baritone sax and trumpet.
Music, and friends, keep him upbeat.
The downbeat is loneliness: loneliness, diabetes and the need for a kidney transplant.
``Many diabetics have kidney failure,'' says Slaughter, who was struck with the disease when he was 5.
He is on dialysis three times a week - 3 1/2 hours each time.
``Many's the time I've been tempted to take my own life, but I never would,'' he says. ``I know God wouldn't forgive me. Without belief in God, I wouldn't have gotten through.''
He got through college, graduating in 1991 with a bachelor's in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in music.
Slaughter concentrates on his music - at work and at the Bullock Street home where he lives with his parents, Lois and Charles Slaughter.
``Most blind people don't have a good outlook on life because of non-supportive families,'' he says. ``The families sit them down in a corner or ship them away to school.''
Slaughter vowed he would do neither.
``I'm totally blind. I've been legally blind since the 10th grade, diabetes plus glaucoma. My retina has been detached twice. When I first went blind, the Department of Visually Handicapped wanted to send me to the Virginia State School for the Deaf and Blind.
``I didn't want to go. Places like that are for people who are different. I didn't think I was different.''
He proved that while a student at John F. Kennedy High School.
``I dreamt of marching with the band. And I did,'' he said. He and his baritone sax were part of the Marching Wolverines. A buddy guided by the elbow.
Slaughter was also a member of the Wind Ensemble, the school's concert band.
At Norfolk State he played for the gospel choir, sang with the concert choir and served as minister of music at First Baptist Church, Pleasant Hill, in Suffolk.
``Music is my life'' may be a cliche, but it fits Slaughter exactly.
``Most of the time I stay home by myself and listen to music - gospel, of course. I also prepare for choir rehearsals.''
He can never prepare for a vacation ``because it's so hard to schedule dialysis in another place. And I'm on a strict diet. There's so much I'm not supposed to eat. I watch my food intake. I watch my weight.''
Blindness, diabetes, the need for a liver transplant, loneliness . . .
``Sometimes I get off by myself and think about how life would be if I was in good health. `Why did this happen to me?' There are times I want to have a pity party. I do have them at times. They last about a day.''
Thanks to music and mom, they rarely last longer.
``I sing, or I listen to music. Music ministers to me. Mom's always there, but she lets me have my party. Anyway, if I'm around a lot of people, there's no time for pity. I'm busy and happy.''
At times he does pity-party with Joann Bethea, the church secretary, who is also blind.
``Sometimes we get together for those pity parties,'' Bethea says. Yet, she adds, ``Most of the time we're not pitying our disabilities, we're pitying those who limit us because of our disabilities.''
``Most of the time I'm up mentally,'' Slaughter says. ``A lot of people encourage me to keep going.
``I know I have a lot to live for.'' MEMO: Ups and downs a natural progression for someone on a health roller
coaster
THIS WRITER has known Charles Slaughter Jr. since 1980, when he was
11 and had very limited vision in his right eye.
At that time - with heavy glasses and a magnifying glass, special
materials and special teachers - he could do a little reading.
He envisioned himself as a doctor, but he realized he could not go in
that direction.
``I wanted to find a cure for diabetes,'' Slaughter said at the time.
``But I don't think I can.''
Even then there were periods of self-pity. Mom was there to help.
``She told me this isn't my fault, and I'd snap out of it.''
In 1982, I decided to write about his association with John F.
Kennedy High School's marching band.
In that story, he explained why he wanted to join:
``Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be in the JFK Band. I liked
the way they did everything - the music and the marching. I used to like
to see them marching.''
The third Charles Slaughter Jr. story, written in 1985, is the only
one that hasn't made the cover of The Sun.
He and another blind Kennedy student, Velma Westbrook, enjoyed a
Busch Gardens outing, accompanied by another student, Dawn Holland, and
a former teacher, Lisa Auwarter.
Slaughter's condition came in handy. The theme park offered him and
the others no-waiting access areas to all the rides.
``Remember that, next time you visit Busch,'' he said. ``Bring me
along.''
Slaughter was a roller coaster enthusiast and hit 'em all,
commenting, tongue-in-cheek, that the Big Bad Wolf and the Loch Ness
Monster ``could have been more exciting.''
The rides put him on an equal footing with others, the young man
observed.
``A lot of people ride with their eyes closed anyway.''
- Frank Roberts
ILLUSTRATION: THE COVER
The cover [color] photo was taken by staff photographer Bill
Tiernan.
Staff photo by BILL TIERNAN
Charles Slaughter conducts a rehearsal of the choir from the organ
at Mount Zion Interdenominational Community Church.
During choir rehearsal, Lisa Rodgers of Norfolk, left, Marshallia
Miller, foreground, and Linda Shoulders, at right, both of Virginia
Beach, catch the joyful spirit of their director, Charles Slaughter,
who is blind. ``He's a tremendous inspiration to us. If we feel
things are going to fall apart, he gets us pumped up,'' says the
pastor, the Rev. Willy MacNair.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB