Dexter Finally Getting His Due

            All those years that James Dexter set up the Old Rochester Regional High School’s seating for graduation, the irony was not lost on the would-be Class of 1964 member.

            Challenged by dyslexia in an era long before solutions overtook segregation, the 77-year-old Mattapoisett native grew up in a marginalized society that he laughs about today. But it wasn’t always as funny as the relentless string of jokes he makes while working 19 hours a week keeping the Rochester Senior Center and its grounds beautiful.

            “They advertised slim and smart and good looking, so I applied for it,” he said, facetiously detailing the job listing in The Wanderer as Rochester Council on Aging Chairman Mike Cambra shook his head with a grin.

            For over three years, Dexter has been a fixture at the Rochester COA. During that time, the town’s facilities manager, Andrew Daniel, became aware of the former’s incredible story of improvisation.

            Until retiring in 2014, Dexter had worked as a custodian at ORR for 47 years. He had seen many classes come and go and even felt that he had the pulse of the campus, especially with special needs students. But every June, it was the same story, just as it had been when he was a child and his older sister Mary moved onto the next grade, but he did not.

            “It really bothered him,” said Daniel, who secretly sought out ORR Superintendent of Schools Mike Nelson to figure out if it was possible to get Dexter his high school diploma.

            Adding to his tenure of ORR firsts, Nelson did some research on how to award an honorary diploma, part of which was asking Daniel to put his request in writing for Nelson’s presentation to the ORR School Committee. “After Andrew wrote a very thoughtful letter,” … Nelson brought it to the ORR School Committee, and it supported the request.

            The next step was to consult with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to get help on completing the process.

            Thanks to their efforts, but especially the way Dexter’s story resonated through his advocates’ testimonies, an honorary high school diploma will be presented to Dexter on Thursday, August 26, as the highlight of a noon luncheon to be held at the Senior Center.

            “I thought it can’t be done, you know? So you let it slide,” said Dexter, who had a heart-to-heart discussion with Daniel, unaware that his coworker would scheme on his behalf. “I thought that was the end of it.”

            “All this happened because people care about Jim. You deserve it because you work very hard here; everybody loves you,” said Cambra, turning to Dexter. “We can take or leave your jokes, Jim, but you really do a fantastic job, and everybody is very happy that this is happening.”

            Comedy is widely considered a survival skill, and when it came to survival, Dexter wrote the book he would struggle to read.

            Dyslexia set him back three years at the start of schooling, and he recalled a special room built downstairs at Center School in Mattapoisett for the ‘special’ students. The memory of basement-level windows shielded with metal fencing makes Dexter laugh to this day.

            Even though he worked in the kitchen, the looks and whispers took their toll until a summer job gave him the out he needed to avoid going back to school. As a kid, Dexter got a job in the toy factory that once called Rochester home. Later he got into construction with the Moran company. “They taught me what life is,” he said. “I could do the work. I was strong, and it was a good gang to work for. This is my life, I guess.”

            His parents had spent money on tutors, but Dexter did not achieve significant progress until he was assisted by a Marion-based special needs teacher he knew as Mrs. Minter, who diagnosed him and prescribed a pathway that led to a learner’s permit on the second try and then a driver’s license.

            “She had a book, and she explained the problem and said, ‘You have (dyslexia), and it’s going to be with you,'” recalled Dexter, who could master a four-speed tractor but not the operator’s manual that comes with it. Excited at the development, he bought a truck at Sutter Ford in Wareham before getting his license at age 23.

            “There were 50 questions; I got three wrong,” said Dexter, who then embarked on the driving portion of the test that the instructor would deem “perfect.”

            Dexter’s generation was in the crosshairs of the draft for the Vietnam War, but he was rejected on the basis that he would be vulnerable since he was unable to swiftly decipher written information, especially as it would apply to weapons.

            “I didn’t make it in because wasn’t quick enough … I didn’t read quick enough,” he said. “I felt bad because I couldn’t go in the service.”

            Even in the era of protests, serving in the military was a right of passage that dominated American culture in the wake of the country’s greatest generation.

            When the boys would compare notes on their successes, Dexter learned to steer his way around such conversations. As a student, he had developed skills to cover up his reading difficulties. For example, he would present a teacher a paper form that needed filling out, making up excuses like “I broke my pen,” or whatever he could think up on the spot to mask his disability.

            “I had to do some lying, to be honest with you,” he said.

            Anything to get by, but Dexter’s heart of gold was evident, and while the education system of the day hadn’t made the progress that would be able to mainstream lives like his, he was surrounded by anonymous angels.

            “God was looking after me,” he said.

            Dexter goes about town nowadays and often runs into people that remember him from school.

            “I went out to eat at the (Mattapoisett) Inn, and they paid for it. I didn’t know until after they left. I was going to pay, ‘Hey Jim, it’s all taken care of.’ People remember me,” he said.

            Concerned that he might need to return to the classroom and take some sort of test to receive his diploma, Nelson assured him, “You don’t have to go back; you worked hard enough for it.”

            On the job a year and a half that has been dominated by “pandemic talk,” Nelson was thrilled to start the 2021-22 school year by recognizing Dexter as an ORR graduate. “I believe this may be the first time an honorary high school diploma has been awarded in ORR history,” said Nelson, who called it “a great reminder of how important local schools are in supporting their local people.”