My Freak Years
A post on the HLA forum asked what your favorite quote is regarding deafness or hearing loss. Mine follows:
I like this quote by Paul Saevig: One coping mechanism I see some hard of hearing people use is acting as if nothing's wrong. A couple of you who use this mechanism are reading this column right now. Nothing wrong, is there? It doesn't hurt? Doesn't bother you? You don't care? I nominate these brave souls for the John Wayne Blood n- Guts Award. They can put the trophy right next to their ulcer medicine.
As a teen, that was me, ol blood-n-guts, pretending and faking my emotions all through high school. My Mom was always worried about me, so I learned to hide my true feelings from her and everyone else. Only problem was, the frustrations of being isolated and missing out on a social life, it all builds up until ya have a mental blowup.
With regard to hearing loss, I only exposed my emotions to my parents one time.
I got my first hearing-aid when I was six. When I was 16 the Audiologist wanted me to wear not one, but two hearing-aids. We were all in her office when they told me. I screamed at 'em with tears streaking my cheeks, "I'm already a freak wearing one, now ya want me to wear two?"
Odd thing is, later on, Mom and Dad never commented on my outburst. I think they were shell-shocked.
And I only wore one hearing-aid, when I really needed two.
Ok, this weeks joke:
1+2=3
Until a child tells you what they are thinking, we can't begin to imagine how their mind is working....
Little Zachary was doing very badly in math. His parents had tried everything... tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers. In short, everything they could think of to help his math.
Finally, in a last ditch effort, they took Zachary down and enrolled him in the local Catholic school. After the first day, little Zachary came home with a very serious look on his face. He didn't even kiss his mother hello. Instead, he went straight to his room and started studying.
Books and papers were spread out all over the room and little Zachary was hard at work. His mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner.
To her shock, the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word, and in no time, he was back hitting the books as hard as before.
This went on for some time, day after day, while the mother tried to understand what made all the difference.
Finally, little Zachary brought home his Report Card. He quietly laid it on the table, went to his room and hit the books. With great trepidation, his Mom looked at it and to her great surprise, little Zachary got an 'A' in math.
She could no longer hold her curiosity. She went to his room and said, "Son, what was it? Was it the nuns?"
Little Zachary looked at her and shook his head, no. "Well, then," she replied, "Was it the books, the discipline, the structure, the uniforms? WHAT WAS IT?"
Little Zachary looked at her and said, "Well, on the first day of school when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren't fooling around."
