I guess we all have challenges and weaknesses that we need to over come during our lifetime. One of my brothers had to wear corrective shoes with braces like Forrest Gump. If the movie would have been made earlier we could have chased him with our car yelling – run Jeffrey run! Another brother weighted less than a hundred pounds in high school, now for a girl that would be a dream come true, but its hard to play football when the equipment weights more than you do. He was as a great athlete but was cut from the basketball team because the wrestling coach needed someone to wrestle 95 lbs – he was devastated.
I won’t go into all of my brothers and sisters problems – it would take too long! I had my fair share, for that matter you always think you have more than your share, its called self-pity. I was a terrible speller and a slow reader, for that matter I was on the far end of the learning curve. I went to the Ebonics learning center for special classes. This cost precious money that was in short supply with such a large family. None of the other kids would have liked to trade me places – but they would have liked to have the extra money.
In order to find out what was wrong I was even sent to a physiologist for evaluation. I don’t remember lying down on a coach or anything – but he must have found out enough that the whole family had to come back for a group visit. I don’t know what happened in there because I had to stay out in the hall. Now I don’t know how you would like the whole family behind closed doors talking about your problems. According to one of my brothers dad was so mad at what took place, I never had to go back to that guy.
The one thing that didn’t change is that I’ve tried to be the center of attention ever since. Part of the problem is that I had a speech impediment – now I probably would have been made fun of at school but I was bigger than all the other kids and they were afraid I would thump them. But as a young boy it was as awkward as Jeff’s leg braces.
The elementary school I attended was only a couple of blocks from the local university – I remember right after school I would walk up the hill to go to special classes at the speech pathology building. They were mostly one-on-one sessions and they also had a couple of students come down to work with me at the elementary school as well. I guess I was their challenge or test case – cure this kid and you get to graduate.
I wish I had the records from the school or university telling everyone what was wrong with me. Oh well, if I did life might be harder as I may start believing it. I do remember I said curtain words wrong. As a young boy I was motivated by a couple of things food and money – for that matter I think those things motivate every little kid. In order to help me correct the problem I was given a golf counter that I wore on my wrist – every time I said a word incorrectly I would push the counter. Two of my friends were asked to wear them as well and if they heard a word used incorrectly they would keep track. Now I don’t remember all the details but if they caught me saying thing so many times they got a cash prize – if not I got it.
There were other incentives – one week it was tickets to a university basketball game. The university had just built a new arena and it was nice. The tickets were in the student section, which is first come first seated. My friends and I were some of the first ones there and we ended up on the second row. The game we attended happen to be nationally televised, as both teams were in the top twenty.
This was the same year the NCAA came up with what they thought was a wonderful idea – make the slam dunk against the rules. What a wild game – it ended up in overtimes and there were a lot of fights on and off the court, one of our team member even got his jaw broken. During the game, according to my fan club, they showed me on camera a number of times and made a comment that this has to be one of the youngest students they had ever seen.
They probably thought I was one of those genius kids that skipped multiple grades to get into college – that’s not a common mistake made about me! Because the teams were so mad and the game was so intense, one of our players (one of the only ones that eventually had a great pro career) stole the ball and went to the other end and slammed it home. This was like pouring fuel on the fire the crowd went bazerk.
The national television audience took in the action as they showed the youngest student ever - full scream yelling jood joob – jood joob, pushing his golf counter. I don’t know if it was the students that helped me or if it was the fact that I’ve never stopped talking – but eventually I over came my problem and can now carry on a normal conversation. I’ve given hundreds of speeches or discourses since that time and every once in a while I still have problems saying curtain words or phrases - like yes you can buy that or sure you can go out with that loser!
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