Step Out on Nothing

by Byron Pitts

  “I want to break you down,” is how Dr. Lewes described it. “It takes half the semester to break students down. They’re so stiff and proper, they’re not writing authentically. Just writing school shit and not writing real shit. There is absolutely nothing worse than school talk. Almost all the talk we talk is fake talk. There is nothing wrong with curse words. They’re only words. I want my students to write authentically. You can decide if it’s [profanity] not proper for the audience and change, but first it must be raw.”

  I remember the experience. It was both frightening and fun. I had never, not once, cursed intentionally in front of an adult. Dr. Lewes always seemed to value effort and authenticity; perhaps that’s why she questioned my occasional speech pattern. Thus far, I stuttered only when I was nervous, angry, or tired. I was never any of that around Dr. Lewes, but occasionally my enthusiasm would get the best of me, and I’d stutter, if only just a bit.

  “I thought you were faking some odd British accent or something,” Ülle would say many years later.

  I believe God equips us all with different gifts and just a select number of them. Ülle Lewes’s command of the written word would help shape and change my life. For stuttering, I had to go elsewhere. Fortunately for me, help with stuttering was actually in the next building. If Dr. Lewes was all things kind and encouraging, Dr. Ed Robinson was all things cranky and gruff. He was a professor in the understaffed, less-than-glamorous department of speech communications at Ohio Wesleyan. Simply put, it was a department few people on campus seemed to take seriously at the time. Dr. Robinson was a bear of a man. A few inches over six feet tall and with a thick Midwestern build, he was more old lion than cuddly teddy bear. His voice was just as loud and scratchy as the Harley-Davidson motorcycle he rode to campus. At a university where some professors rode bicycles, walked, or drove fuel-efficient cars, the sight of Dr. Robinson riding his Harley was often greeted with a turned-up nose or rolling of the eyes. Oddly enough, he always seemed to have a soft spot for the inner-city kid who, like him, didn’t seem to fit in at this small liberal arts college in Ohio.

  “I like you, Pitts,” he’d say. “You’re a tough kid.”

  Dr. Robinson noticed my problem with stuttering one day when he asked each student to declare what they wanted to do for a career after college. Many of my classmates were children of privilege or came from stable middle-class families. Their career plans seemed consistent with their upbringing. Some answered with ease and conviction. “I will be a teacher. . . . A lawyer. . . . I will work in my dad’s company. . . .” When it was my turn, I said, “I want to be a jour . . . jour . . . jour . . . journalist.” I could hear the whispered laughter around me. With a stone cold stare, Dr. Robinson looked at me and said, “See me after class.”

  Expecting harsh advice from yet another unyielding professor, I braced myself for Dr. Robinson’s comments. “How long have you stuttered?” he asked.

  “Sir?” I answered.

  “You heard me—how long have you stuttered?” Dr. Robinson wasn’t into pleasantries or repeating himself. “I think I can help you.” That’s all he ever said. It was a quick glimpse of kindness he would never betray again. I wish now that I had been looking directly in his eyes because perhaps they would have revealed more. Except for those six words “I think I can help you,” I had all but missed a precious moment with a man who had joined the list of those who would change my life.

  For the next year or so, Dr. Robinson, with the help of a colleague of his from Ohio State, worked with me patiently. He would force me to sit in a booth at the radio station for thirty minutes at a time and record my voice. The recording was easy. Speaking with pencils in my mouth was the challenge. There was no money in his budget to teach speech pathology, and I did not have the money or the means to drive to Ohio State University in Columbus, which had the resources I needed. So, with Dr. Robinson’s help, we improvised. He would have me read Shakespeare or the sports page forward and backward. He insisted I take a theater course called The Actor’s Voice. He also encouraged me to take on a hosting job at the radio station. Odd choice for a stutterer, but he believed in confronting the problem. And it worked. I never stuttered on the air. I used a technique of singing my sentences. It helped me transition between the words without taking a breath. I likened it to church, where the minister sometimes sings the words in a sermon. I did the same thing with my scripts. (It was a habit I had to break years later as a professional journalist.)

  “You gotta keep working, keep practicing,” he insisted. “You can lick this if you work at it,” he’d say more as an order than as words of encouragement. I would often greet his directives with a smile. If I closed my eyes, ignored the smell of his cologne and the scratchy bass in his voice, he too sounded like my mother. Often my smile would turn into a brief and quiet laugh.

  “Concentrate! Slow down! Breathe!” That was as detailed as his coaching ever was. I suspect he had little or no training as a speech pathologist. In the same way, he was not a trained motorcycle mechanic, but he tinkered and cursed over his Harley-Davidson and kept it on the road. Much the same way, he kept me on the path God was paving for me. Through the years I have talked with skilled speech pathologists who talk about the dark ages of working with people who stutter. Many of the things Dr. Robinson had me do were long ago cast aside as outdated. Today, there are a number of institutions across the country that work faithfully and skillfully with people of all ages who stutter. There are even associations for people who stutter. I have done a few news stories on stuttering but have never sought specialized training. I could certainly still use it. There are words with which I still struggle. Phrases I avoid. It has forced me, as best I can, to think before I speak. It has left me vulnerable in verbal confrontations. But the practice of pausing and gathering my thoughts before speaking has served me well as a journalist.

  Life is always about choices. The choices we make for ourselves and the choices people make for us. Dr. Robinson and I lost contact. He left Ohio Wesleyan not long after I graduated. Some people saw him as bitter and outdated. His old school ways and unpolished manner suited me perfectly. I believe we are all instruments of God. There aren’t many uses in life for an old rusty hacksaw, except when only an old rusty hacksaw will do.

  Dr. Lewes and I continued our tutoring sessions for well over a year, but by the end of my sophomore year, most of my visits to Dr. Lewes’s office were more social than academic. I’d go by her office for lunch, and we would shoot the breeze, sometimes talking about her life and not my academics at all. By now she was becoming my friend. She had helped me unlock Dr. Lucas’s system, and she’d taught me to do two things that applied to every class: meet the instructor’s expectations and do my best. Before college, my teachers and tutors and counselors had always come to my level to figure out my problems. What Ülle taught me was that now I had to meet the professors at their level. I had to learn to interpret what each professor needed and to deliver it, not always plead with them to help me understand or give it to me in smaller bits so I could digest it.

  I began to select classes based not just on the credits I needed but on professors to whose style I could adapt. I even avoided the professors who had a reputation for easier courses because I recognized the need to challenge myself in as broad a way as possible. I had a philosophy professor my sophomore and junior years who loved his students to be engaged in class, challenging him in the discussion. So I would prepare for his class by having mock discussions in my dorm room, sometimes alone, sometimes with Pete. Spelling was a challenge, too. In the journalism department, one professor would give a red F for misspelling someone’s name, lowering your grade by a full letter. Two red Fs and you could easily fail the class. Before Ülle, that kind of standard would have intimidated me, but after Ülle’s counsel, I embraced it. Once I understood his standard, I worked harder to achieve it. Steadily my grades in all my classes began to improve.

  With an unbreakable bond and affection, Dr. Üll
e Lewes quickly became a permanent part of my family. She wept with my mother at my graduation and years later attended my wedding as a member of my family. The weekend my wife and I got married we threw two parties: a reception for family and friends and a luncheon for just family. Ülle showed up at both. My aunts and uncles loved her light Estonian accent. After the wedding, she danced and laughed with my mother and grandmother. Ülle Lewes taught me English in college, but she taught and still teaches me so much more. Perhaps more than an English professor, she is a life coach. I asked her once about her teaching philosophy, and after a long silence she said, “Challenge them [students] to be better than they think they can be.”

  Leaving the nurturing tutelage of Ülle at Ohio Wesleyan reminded me of what it felt like to break that childhood connection to my mother. Clarice had molded me and guided me, been there to fight my battles and level her expectations. I still carried a lot of baggage, emotional and otherwise, but we had gotten me this far by faith. But now I was heading into adulthood. Clearly not ready to stand all alone, I would need the counsel and support and mentorship of countless friends and colleagues. Many of them shared those characteristics of passion, toughness, and commitment that my mother and Ülle had. They all would have a pivotal role in shaping my future. But I was no longer simply a student of those around me; it was time to venture out. Apply the lessons learned. Fall and get up again on my own. Though fear and anger were still vital, a spiritual strength and optimism were growing inside me.

  EIGHT

  Never Say I’ll Try, Say I Will

  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

  —John 14:27

  Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is peace; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is love.

  —Stephen R. Adams

  EVEN WHILE I WAS knee-deep in my struggles with college academics and working to overcome my stuttering, my mind and heart were growing in focus on a career in broadcast journalism. And why not? My love for words was a result of my struggles with literacy. I believed some good, a new strength, would also come from my difficulties with speech. Much more than belief in my own abilities, it was a belief in God’s power. Thus, despite my shortcomings, I never doubted my chosen path. My faith teaches me that there are no obstacles, that all stumbling blocks are merely stepping stones and part of God’s plan. It was my responsibility to remain faithful and see what God had in store on the other side of my difficulties.

  When I left high school, having moved from functional illiteracy to a solid transcript, I approached college with relative confidence and the assumption that I was prepared for whatever might come my way. The first year of college was like a blast of frigid air to my psyche. If there had been a basement class, at least one professor we know would have put me there. I was at the bottom looking up again.

  Could read but couldn’t read fast enough or smart enough.

  Could write but my thoughts were a jumbled mess.

  Could speak but couldn’t speak clearly under pressure.

  Knew words but didn’t have a wide enough vocabulary.

  Yet I was not the same kid I had been at age thirteen. That young Byron was frightened, ashamed, and angry. The older Byron was still angry but beginning to realize that there would always be hurdles. There might always be a period of starting over. I just needed to be patient and faithful and tough enough to work my way to the other side. Admit what I didn’t know and ask for help when I needed it, but mostly roll up my sleeves and outwork those around me.

  By my senior year at Ohio Wesleyan I was on pretty solid academic ground. I had decided to major in journalism and speech communications, with a minor in political science. Active in sports and school organizations, I had a column for the school newspaper, was news director for the school’s cable television news show, co-hosted a nighttime radio show, and worked as a freelance reporter for the local area radio station. It was a big deal for me when I made the regional Associated Press with a story I wrote on a local city council meeting. I stayed up half the night to see my byline cross the wire. I was named one of the top three students in the journalism department based on academic achievement and contributions to the department. We all dreamed of big careers in newspapers or television, becoming the next Bob Woodward or Walter Cronkite. My hero was Ed Bradley. I knew his level of coolness would always elude me, but just maybe his caliber of work might someday be achievable. It was another Pitts family philosophy. Never say you’ll try. Say you will. I was raised to believe that if you speak your dreams long enough and loud enough, eventually others will dream and speak with you.

  My inspiration to pursue journalism had deep roots. First, there were my struggles with literacy and speech. I took those as signs from God that communication would play a major part in my life. I had convinced myself through Scriptures like Romans 12:21, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good,” that all the bad things in life had some good purpose if only I searched long enough. So I concluded that journalism was my purpose. In addition to commanding respect, journalists have a significant and valid place in our democracy. As a child, I attended any number of rallies related to social justice and civil rights or big events at my church. I always sat in amazement when the media would show up. The police would behave one way when cameras and reporters were present, often less aggressively. Journalists held the authorities accountable, and that appealed to me. In the days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, there were riots in cities across the country, including Baltimore. On our street, looters vandalized cars that failed to have a black cloth tied to the antenna. Police took that same black cloth as a sign the car belonged to some kind of troublemaker. My father and brother stayed up most of the night, running back and forth to the car to put up or pull down the black cloth, depending on whether there were police or looters on our block. The police were not as violent but they were certainly as aggressive as the looters. One evening, as the police made their way through our neighborhood (there was a police station just a few blocks away), pushing and shoving men and women on the street, a local television crew pulled up. Suddenly, the nightsticks were not being used as aggressively. That moment left an indelible impression on me. Journalists, simply by their presence, could keep the police honest. I wasn’t so much bitten by the bug as saw that the bug had teeth.

  Why would someone with a history of stuttering choose a career in television? Why not become a print journalist? There were a number of factors. I was a television junkie, having spent hours and hours watching television as a child, especially when the tension in my house was at its highest. Television also kept me company when I was home by myself. Much of what I knew about the world, I learned from television. When it came to gathering news, I was much more comfortable speaking to someone in person as part of a television crew rather than on the telephone, where my stuttering problems might be more apparent. Face-to-face, I could smile or even use my hands for emphasis. I was also a great listener. One of the things I learned in broadcast journalism was to allow the interview subject to fill the silence. That part was easy for me. But I knew I would need practice to overcome my lingering communication issues. I still spoke slowly and deliberately, using the sing-song style I had learned from Dr. Robinson. So I practiced being a television reporter in my dormitory bathroom with a glass and my toothbrush. The top of a glass is about the size of a television camera lens. A toothbrush doesn’t resemble a microphone at all, but it’s what I had. With a Magic Marker, I traced the edge of the glass on the bathroom mirror, and every morning before class and every night before bed I put on my own mini-newscast. Silly, I know, but since my early struggles with literacy and speech, repetition and routine are things I rely on. The bathroom routine was about practicing the mechanics of television news.

  My decision to pursue a career in journalism was solidified after hearing the stories of the guest lecturers who appeared on campus during my time at OWU, such as investigative reporter Jack Ande
rson and network television correspondent Emery King. In the 1980s, King was one of a handful of African-American television network news correspondents. He served NBC News as its White House correspondent covering the Reagan administration, and later spent nineteen years as an anchor in Detroit. During my senior year King spoke at OWU as part of a university lecture series. He spoke of the highs and lows of broadcast journalism as well as his travels around the globe. I had the honor of picking him up at the airport with a few of my classmates. As was my pattern back then, I was still very shy about speaking in unfamiliar settings, without the opportunity to rehearse and with people who might sense my limitations and dismiss me. So I said very little in his presence. Too nervous, anxious about my stutter, and, frankly, convinced I had nothing worth saying, I certainly made no impression on the man.

  But a notable thing happened after his lecture as we were walking him back to the car. One of my female classmates stopped him on the stairwell and said, “Mr. King, thank you for talking to us. We will always remember what you said.”

  Now here’s the line that made Emery King stop in his tracks. “But I want you to remember one name,” she said. “Byron Pitts. He will be at the network someday.”

  King seemed surprised by my classmate’s bold prediction. I was stunned. Perhaps I had spoken my ambitious plan aloud so often people around me were beginning to believe it. My friend’s words were powerful because it was the first time I had heard anyone, not even my mother to this point, affirm out loud what my career goals were. It was like a needle full of adrenaline in the heart. For years I had quietly claimed my future career as a network journalist, and now others were claiming it with me. Emery King politely smiled and got in his car. Years later I met him on assignment. He didn’t recall the moment, nor did he have any real reason to. But I will always remember it. I have never stopped affirming (or claiming) what I want, and I have always found support from those who join me. It is amazing how you can transform a dream into a reality by saying it until you believe it and others believe it with you. It can become a call to arms. You say it. You believe it. You then devote your dreams and your sweat to it.