From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: Bear's story
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 10:17:40 GMT

In article <204942@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, seawasp+@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
StM, who's been trying to stay out of this one, finally says "Well, since I
(Speaker-to-Minerals) am less than a year old, I'll yield the floor to Carl."

Carl J Lydick steps up, somewhat reluctantly, and says, "Well, a lot of the
stories in this thread seem familiar.  Let's see:
	Persecuted:	Yes
	Overweight:	Yes
	Nearsighted:	Yes
	Bright:		Yes
	Asthmatic:	Yes
	Clumsy:		Mostly, but not always
	Tall:		Not especially
"Five and a half out of seven ain't bad.  Let's see, now.  Relevent anecdotes:
	"I didn't know how to read when I entered first grade.  I knew the
alphabet, and was just starting to come to grips with using it to make words. 
My first-grade teacher tried to teach me to read using the then-in-vogue of
having me recognize printed words as a gestalt.  My mother, on the other hand,
who'd been taught to read using phonics, taught me that way.  My mother's way
was better.  By halfway through the first semester of first grade, I'd reached
the point where my reading vocabulary was pretty much identical to my speaking
and my listening vocabularies.  The rest of the kids at that point had reading
vocabularies of maybe 200 words.  Please note:  This was NOT my 1st-grade
teacher's fault.  The board of education (and you all know what Sam Clemens
said about such organizations*) had dictated the curriculum, and despite the
fact she knew that the policy was wrong, she had to adhere to it.
	"Between semesters, there was some sort of training session for
elementary school teachers.  The board of education asked each teacher to pick
one bright student from his or her class to attend the seminar so that those
teaching it could use them in demonstrations.  Mrs. Loughry (sorry, I might
have the spelling wrong there) took me along.  One part of the seminar was
designed to show that there are just some things that you can't teach someone
who isn't ready for them.  The people conducting the seminar decided, in
particular, to show that some things could be taught to most 6th-graders that
could be taught only to a small percentage of 4th-graders, and couldn't be
taught at all to 1st-graders.  You should've seen the smile on my teacher's
face when, in over 2/3 of the examples they used for demonstration, I caught on
faster than did the 6th-graders :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
At the end of the year, Mrs. Loughry gave me a present:  A book.  A REAL book. 
Not the sort of book they tried to make 1st- or 2nd-graders read.  A REAL book.
I read it before I started 2nd grade.  It was written by some fellow with a
funny name.  Dumas I think it was.

"Yup.  It was _The_Three_Musketeers_.  Now, I'll admit that I didn't catch most
of the innuendo, nor the political commentary;  but it was ONE HELL of an
action-adventure novel.  And it's what really firmed up my life-long love of
reading (not to mention planting the seeds for my skepticism, which didn't take
root until many years later [after reading of Richelieu, who could ever again
trust the church?]).

"OK, now we skip to the third grade.  The first time I ever got stoned.  Not
with marijuana; with real stones.  Fortunately, I was able to duck most of
them, and had sufficiently good hand/eye coordination that I was able to catch
a significant number of rocks an hurl them back at my tormenters (I told you I
was only more-or-less clumsy).  When it became obvious that my half-dozen or so
attackers were getting the short end of the deal, they departed.
	"I would, of course, be the last person chosen for any team at recess,
since I wasn't (for the most part) athletically inclined.  The sole exception
was football (U.S. version, NOT soccer).  There I had an advantage.  I was BIG,
and had an intuitive feel for how to use this advantage.  Two examples come to
mind.  The first was when I was on the defensive line, rushing.  Now, there was
no way in HELL I was ever going to reach the quarterback.  However, I COULD
punch a hole through the offensive line.  Once I did it so well that the
offensive lineman in my way was knocked back a good four feet.  His shoes
(loafers, I admit), stayed where they were.  The other time I was on the
defensive line, and the offensive lineman, knowing me, got a six-foot running
start.  After the impact, he picked himself up off the ground, and accused me
of having clotheslined him.  He really seemed to believe I'd done that.  My
sense of honor (or perhaps a certain mean streak in me) prompted me to make him
the following offer:  I'd stand there with my hands in my pockets, and he'd
throw his best block.  The fool accepted.  Since he took a much longer running
start for the rematch, he managed to knock the wind out of himself this time
when he hit me.  My hands were still in my pockets.  And I WAS valued as a
ball-carrier when the teacher got busy elsewhere and the touch football game
became tackle and were were in a fourth-and-short situation.  I could keep
moving forward until there were at least four tacklers hanging from me.
	"As to fistfights, I learned fairly early that there was a much better
strategy than either fighting back or running, most of the time.  I'd let the
other guy throw his best punch (the idiots would always go for the jaw), then
calmly stand there and ask `Is that the best you can do?' (it turns out that if
you're clumsy enough AND bright enough, you can apply your experience with
tripping and falling down to this sort of situation).  The fact I've got a high
tolerance for pain probably helped, too.
	"And when several people at once assaulted me, the first thing they'd
try was to knock me down and pile on top of me, figuring that once they had me
immobilized I'd be an easy target.  The fact I could stand up even with half a
dozen of them piled on top of me, then start tossing those closest to me far
enough away that they posed no immediate threat (I think I MAY have discovered
a few principles of judo in such situations :-) tended to discourage that after
a few attempts.
	"Now, I knew, in a number of situations described above, that I didn't
really have a chance.  If my assailants had been persistent, I'd've been in
SERIOUS trouble.  But THEY didn't know that.  I was just lucky enough to
stumble (I told you I was clumsy) over a set of solutions that worked.  I only
regret that a few other Callahanians weren't so fortunate.
	"Mike.  Drinks for all the others who had to endure the same sort of
shit that I did as a kid, and one for me."
	Carl walks to the line.  "To pink monkeys!" he shouts, downs his drink
and hurls the glass into the fireplace (underhanded;  you get both better
control and more velocity that way).  And a drink for the first person to cite
author, character, and story for that reference.  And an extra drink for the
first person to identify the character's daughter.