What the fool believes

You know, I am really not that dumb. As dumb as I think that is. It's just an insecurity that was laid on me when I was a dreamy little kid. Hell, I was pretty much born knowing everything or at least with a good idea of how things worked and I maintained this knowledge on my very own until I got to first grade where, since I could already read, there wasn't much for me to do. In grade school, you were not allowed to just pull out a book , you had to wait on your class mates to "get it" and rather than getting down to "getting it" there was a lot of useless drawing and pasting and blunt scissor work. I hated that stuff; Had no background or talent for it. I had a library of music and books at the house and that was what I played with. I clearly remember working away at some boring project coloring bananas yellow at Table 2 in Miss Raines' First Grade class and some punk kid telling me I was no good because my colors went outside the lines. Oddly enough I believed him and from that time until I was tossed out of high school during my senior year, for having hair that was too long and then drafted into the army before I could get to a barber, I did not learn a damn thing in any class. I either learned it outside on my own or if it did not interest me, I didn't. Later on when I grew up, I would go to college, take courses and always get high marks, because I saw it as a job of work. You showed up, did the work and got payed after a fashion.

Still after all this time, I believe that I'm not smart because I did not do the education thing in the proper order. Plus, I do not have a network of college chums to help me out by suggesting me for various plum jobs in the government. All I had to do was stand up to that little fucker in the first grade and say "That's the way I color, you worry about your own work" or better yet, just hit him in the stomach. How about grabbing him by the throat and trying to strangle him? Bashing him in the head with a lunch box? Perhaps I should have killed him. That certainly would have caused a stir, and I'm sure that my education would have been carefully monitored from that point forward, and then they would have seen me for the genius I truly am.

This is not to say I haven't had some success, because I have had bright moments I would not trade for all the common glory there is. I only regret that I was unable to assert myself and do something noticeable back in grade school before I was placed by proxy into the group who either gets chosen last when teams are picked , or worse, has to be placed by the teacher or worse than that, they make up a position like "kick ball umpire" and it's you forever. I wonder why the teachers never let the "runts of the pack" choose sides? I mean say "Texino and the kid with the leg braces" you pick the teams. Might have saved some lives later on. And check this out you bone heads like Ronald Lindsy, and John Sullivan. I went home every day and practiced catching a ball, well first my grandmother showed me how, but then I would toss it up against the wall of the brick house accross the side yard from us until it got too dark and I got so good that I was like a net for fly balls and no grounder or line drive could get by me; "The Iron Curtain" That was my nick name (my secret nickname) I used to day dream that I was the mystery short stop for the Washington Senators filling in for Eddie Yost now and again and if those fools in my grade school classes would have given me a chance- Oh well, I was pretty good, but once again I just trudged out to deep "whatever field no one could hit to".

You know the fool now believes that you really have to make things work out for yourself. Getting good in secret isn't going to help. The infield warms up between innings and all the "Iron Curtain" had to do was stop on his way to oblivion and just snatch a ball out of the air and smoke it back to where it came from. I guess I'm not stupid per se. I'm just a slow learner in some areas. I doubt it any grade school kids read the blog, but by chance if you know a youngster who seems a little dazed by life in general be sure to let him or her understand the importance of letting people know who you are before they come up with their own ideas on the subject and put you down a psychological hole for 50 odd years.

OK? Fine.