Grade School

St Mary’s was the local parish, where I was baptized, my father was baptized, and his father was baptized. They also had a grade school that covered grades 1 -> 8. I went there for three. All my elder sibs went the whole 8 years. I, however, had a speech impediment.

I lisped. And your mind works in funny ways. I never thought I lisped, and was never self-conscious about it at all. I can remember talking once with my buddy Rick Hauch (my best friend) and remarking that there are two kinds of thick. Thick like a tree that is very big around. And thick like when you don’t feel well. It was all very logical to me. He didn’t correct me or seem to think it was odd in any way. Another time, I was watching TV with my two older sisters. An ad came on TV for a new Chevy SS. They asked me what car that was, and I replied “It’s an SS” Which I imagine came out as “Eth eth”. They chuckled, and asked me to say it again. I said, “It’s an SS!” they asked me a third time. And I got annoyed at the repetition, but I still didn’t think I was being mocked. “IT’S AN SS” I shouted. Man, I thought they must be slow.

So I was back to Jefferson, the same school where I went to kindergarten, for the fourth grade. And speech class. There were a couple of us in speech class, and I LOVED my speech teacher. They took us out of regular class for a couple of hours a week. I don’t really remember exactly what I did, but I remember a couple of very specific things.

The first is that I swallowed wrong. Ha! I’ll be you didn’t know there was a right and wrong way to swallow, but evidently there is. Can you swallow with your mouth open? That is the right way to swallow (with your tongue) If you need to close your mouth (press your lips together)  to swallow, you are doing it wrong. So I had to learn how to swallow right.

The second thing I learned was that I have a very long tongue. (maybe from not using it to swallow when I was younger?) I know this because the school system brought me, and my folks over to Morgan, which is where the (what we call now) “special needs” kids when to school. But it was also where anything exceptional (like long tongues) were discussed.

I don’t know everything that was discussed in that meeting – I think I was kicked out for a while, but I have a distinct memory of the administrator telling my folks that my tongue was too long, and they recommended surgery to make it shorter. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and no tongue cutting happened. At least that I recall.

The speech therapy stopped at the end of fifth grade – not sure if I would have just grown out of it, but there you have it.

Sixth grade was a big transition grade for me. I started the year as a mostly happy-go-lucky kid. My mother died in January of that year, and I ended the year (and Jefferson) rather introverted.