THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602070103
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KERNELS, SPECIAL TO REAL LIFE
LENGTH: Long : 226 lines
Ain't nothin' I can doo, I only want to be with yoouu . . . bzzzz . . . Sunday, partly cloudy with a chance of late afternoon showers . . . bzzzz . Clinton announced today . . .
The portable headphones dangle from David Ridgley's neck as a thumb slowly moves the dial in microcosmic increments. David doesn't want to miss a station.
It is not because he can't find one he likes. He's changing them because he likes them all.
Classical. Classic rock. Alternative. News. Weather. Sports. David and his headphones are inseparable, and his speech a match of the radiospeak carried through their speakers.
``What is an envelope?'' he is asked.
``Where you stuff papers,'' David answers, ``and send a self-addressed, stamped envelope for tickets to `The Price is Right,' CBS Television City, 7800 Beverly Blvd., Hollywood, California 90036.''
``What are ears for?''
``Listening to business radio 1580 in Washington, D.C.''
``Where,'' he is asked, ``do you buy groceries?''
``Food Lion and extra-low prices,'' he says, adding: ``Be sure to check out our Gold Lion guarantee!''
Xavier Jones heard stories about David's abilities before meeting him four years ago. He found them hard to believe. ``(He) started quoting call signs locally. Then he quoted call signs in other states. Then in states he's never been to,'' Jones says.
``It's one of God's gifts.''
It is one of many of David Ridgley's curious gifts - gifts that, at first inspection, seem overpowered by the challenges he faces.
Taped to a wall just inside his dorm room at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Hampton is an 8-by-14-inch sheet of paper, topped in bold, black ink: ``Communication Alert.''
It is a resume, of sorts. ``MOBILITY,'' it reads. ``Walks with cane. DRESSING: Start and he will finish. PERSONAL HYGIENE: Will respond, but needs help. BATHING: Needs constant prompting.''
Finally: ``RESPONSE TO CHANGE: Does not like change.''
He cannot tie a shoelace without help. Or button. Or bathe.
He has trouble shaving. Eating, too, because he can't fully grip utensils. And sometimes, though he works hard at it, hanging a jacket.
He is programmed to go to the bathroom at certain times and places. If there's the slightest change in routine, he'll wet his pants. If he's not told to pick up his tray in the cafeteria, he won't go through the line.
At school, his clothes are laid out for him. He's told to put one thing on at a time. Otherwise, he'll simply sit there.
His is a rare combination of disorders.
His sight was robbed by a condition called DeMorsier's syndrome, or septo-optic dysplasia, discovered in the 1950s and affecting only 600 children in 1975, the year he was born. In addition to blindness, the condition left David retarded.
He is also autistic, meaning that he grapples with a spectrum of disorders affecting roughly one in every 10,000 births, and centering on the ability to communicate and relate to others.
``The fact that he can't see makes him that much less connected to the outside world,'' says Dr. Steven K. Snyder, a Norfolk-based pediatric ophthalmologist familiar with David's case.
But this wispy-thin man sitting, seemingly entranced, in his dorm room - his home every Monday through Thursday - has wondrous talents that do not stop at his near-total recall of what he hears on the radio.
He also has perfect pitch, meaning that he can hear any sound and perfectly reproduce it, vocally or musically, much like a human tape recorder.
It could be a commercial jingle. A video game. A song.
He shares his gift every Monday night with crowds at a shopping mall's karaoke show, and as a musician with Hampton's All-City Jazz Band.
David's mother, Rose, first worried about his health about three months after his March 1975 birth. ``He seemed to have this lost look on his face,'' she says. ``He smiled and laughed when you tickled him but when you got close to him, he would be trying to look at you but couldn't.''
Eventually, she took him to see an optometrist, who halted his examination at one point, took out a handkerchief and wiped his glasses.
``Is everything, OK?'' she asked.
``Everything's fine,'' the doctor replied.
He continued the examination, but stopped again seconds later.
``Does he need glasses?'' Rose asked. ``He does need glasses, doesn't he?''
No, the doctor said. David wouldn't be needing glasses.
That was the first of many painful discoveries. On top of his blindness, doctors told her, it was doubtful that he would walk. His autism kept him distant, unemotional.
Those difficulties were compounded by Rose's circumstances. A 19-year-old college student when she became a mother, she divorced David's father after a short, abusive marriage, dropped out of college and scrambled for work.
Other bad relationships followed. David lived briefly in a foster home at one point. Rose attempted suicide.
But as the years passed, there were glimmers of hope. He walked. He began to imitate the sounds around him, such as creaking doors. And at age 2, he sat down at a piano and banged out ``Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.''
``He's like a person that came out of a very, very deep sleep,'' she said, ``gradually formed a personality, and became a human being.''
In rare moments, David might lightly embrace her, or reach for her, his hand probing the air to squeeze her hand.
There were two other, at times shocking, developments. First, There was a time when it was impossible to predict when these moments would happen. When they did, they could be as fleeting as frames in a film.
But those around him recognized a pattern: If you mixed David with one element in his surroundings, he'd open up.
The element was music.
Ginny Spaulding, a regular at the Patrick Henry Mall's weekly ``Kamikaze Karaoke'' show, remembers the night about two years ago that she saw a young, blind boy awkwardly work his way through his first karaoke number.
His awkwardness didn't last. In his Monday performances in the mall's food court or as a pianist with the Hampton All-City Jazz Band, the often-remote David is engaged. He can handle any musical style, vocal or orchestral, and cranks it out with rapturous abandon.
Inside his head is a library of stored musical data. In speech, this information can sometimes get a little scrambled, with people, places and things switched with TV or radio affiliates in their area.
A place in Virginia Beach might be: ``The Pavilion in WKOC, The Coast land.'' When he meant to say ``Norfolk,'' he might say, ``WHRV in Norfolk.''
His sense of geography is fluid. The New York Yankees in Davidspeak might be Queens Yankees, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, Lexington Fried Chicken.
Likewise, his musical delivery sometimes incorporates errant bits, not unlike a rapper's use of digital samples. He might be grooving, really getting into a cover of James Brown's ``I Feel Good'' and then segue, seamlessly, into a Jimmy Kline Chevrolet commercial - faithful in every detail, including Kline's accent.
Or he might be in the midst of a Mozart piece, when suddenly his audience hears the lyrics of ``The Addams Family'' theme song, following the tempo and melody of the classical piece but nonetheless out of place.
Audiences rarely catch it, and those who do are usually amazed. ``He sees the fun in everything,'' says Spaulding, 70, who has an autistic grandson.
``And you can tell he thoroughly loves to sing. I think he's just got music in him.''
``You've got to see him for yourself,'' says Valerie Fitchett, 40, a dorm parent at David's school. ``He's so in tune with what he's doing.
``He really shows his emotions when he performs - you can't help but clap.''
His fast switches terrorize his music teachers, Patricia Nixon and Sam Armstrong, who only wonder what he's going to pull next.
``I look for it so I can grab the mike,'' Nixon says.
``David,'' says his mother, ``is the square peg that won't fit in the round hole.''
More challenges await. He'll soon be 21, too old to be a student. And developmentally, David has gone as far as his abilities and knowledge will take him, say his mother and some teachers.
Can he live independently? David has carved a life out of exceeding expectations. His story has been scripted many times by others - sociologists, psychologists, physical therapists - only for him to rewrite the final scene.
David today is a quantum leap from the 5-year old whom doctors and his mother thought was hopeless. That David had no bladder control, banged his head for pleasure and used to refer to himself in the third person.
``To see him today, from where he began,'' Rose said ``is another person altogether. It was one David inward and what I have now is totally outward.''
Thomas Zins, the school's director of student life, views him as no different from anyone else. ``None of us are perfect in every way,'' says Zins, who oversees David's extracurricular development of street smarts. ``Every one of us has our own disabilities.
``David is a little different.''
Indeed, most of David's routines are not unlike those of many Americans.
On Mondays, without fail, he eats Pop-Tarts, on Fridays, pizza. At 11 a.m., he watches ``The Price is Right,'' and from 7 to 8 p.m., ``Wheel of Fortune'' and ``Jeopardy.''
His schoolwork falls between a second- and third-grade level, though his spelling surpasses a high school senior's.
He is very careful about what he eats and touches. Rough textures make him uneasy.
``He's always going to have to have a guardian who can give him some minor assistance,'' says dorm parent Ober ``Obe'' Neal. But, he adds: ``David can do.''
Whatever happens, music will be at the heart of his life, those around him predict. ``He eats, breathes and sleeps music,'' says Armstrong, who teaches David jazz. ``He's got excellent rhythm. His hand coordination is unreal.
``And because he has such a big musical storehouse, he can learn and play a new song very quickly.''
Nixon says she easily envisions the day David is holding down a job as a musician. ``Once he learns the techniques and sticks with them, I believe he can do unlimited stuff.''
Says Zins: ``David has a lot to offer. He's not going to be rich, he's not going to enrich our tax coffers - but he enriches us.
``David is a piece of beautiful artwork. He's a cultural treasure. He can bring happiness to people. You can't put a monetary value on something like that.''
It is bedtime in David's dorm room.
Weak light spills in from the hallway. David is barely visible, lying on his back, propping up a dark object on his stomach. His eyes are wide open.
The scratchy murmur of a radio creeps out of the room in faint bits and pieces.
It cannot be coming from his headphones. They're on his head.
Light glints off the object on his stomach. An antenna. Attached to a portable radio.
The Admirals snapped a four-game losing streak tonight . . . MEMO: Peggy Earle contributed to this story. ILLUSTRATION: BILL TIERNAN COLOR PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot
David Ridgley plays piano to taped jazz at the Virginia School for
the Deaf and Blind. Teacher Patricia Nixon, right, says David has a
chance for a career in music.
David and his mother, Rosemary Ridgley-Sanders, share a meal in the
food court of Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News. He was waiting to
go on stage and sing during karaoke night.
BILL TIERNAN PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot
David walks with his mother, Rosemary, near their home in Virginia
Beach. David spends weekends with his mother, brother Scott, 9, and
stepfather, Richard Sanders.
David belts out Michael Jackson's ``Pretty Young Thing'' on stage at
karaoke night at Patrick Henry Mall. He can handle any musical
style, and cranks it out with reckless abandon.
ABOVE: Rosemary Ridgley-Sanders pays an unexpected visit to David at
school. She learned to touch his hand, she said, ``to see if he
could recognize my touch.'' He did.
RIGHT: David listens to the radio at home over his headphones. Ahead
lie more challenges. He'll soon be 21, too old to be a student. Can
he live independently?
by CNB