Since the inauguration of our new President there have been numerous stories about his long life of struggle and his many attempts to become President.
One aspect of his difficulties that is mentioned is his problem of stuttering.
I do not understand my own experience of stuttering, but I did share this both humiliating and repetitive experience that undermines every attempt to communicate.
My stuttering surfaced when I was about four years old.
I recall that I was certain that the stuttering was a sign that I also was like my two sisters who had Down Syndrome, "RETARDED."
That was the accepted term then-- better than Mongol or Idiot that people often hurled at them when we went out to play.
So when I started in Kindergarten at Prospect Street School I was extremely aware of my stuttering. I had to plan ahead what I was going to say. The M-sound was impossible. I could not say Ma or Mommy or Mother. So when I raised my hand to answer a question in class I had to find a way to answer without that dreaded M sound. I did not always succeed. and so the fact of my speaking disorder came to light. When that happened I was consigned to a Speech therapy group. And I do remember how shameful it felt to me that I had to stand and leave the class when those sessions were scheduled.
I did not like the fact that the group that I was assigned to had people in it that were slow learners and that had trouble speaking at all. Also I was in the same school as my older sister Janie. And she often raised a ruckus in the hallways there and I would be called out of class to calm her down. THAT was not easy.
I also dreaded the recess times when I often tried to defend Janie as she attempted to play with the girls in the school yard, She saw this as interference and told me to let her play, She did not mind that they were using her as a steady-ender when they jumped rope and she never had a turn, I minded that fact but she was just glad to be in the game.
All these situations made me long to be in another school. The final blow was the scene in my speech therapy. The man leading it kept on saying that I was not moving my tongue correctly. He put his fingers into my mouth and I could not tolerate it and bit down on his hand which I did not want in my mouth. He yelled at me and sent me to the principal's office.
It was a time of disgrace and mortification and I was crying when the principal came into the room. She admired my dress which my mother had made from a fabric that was a design of open and closed books, She asked how someone who could read and write so well was crying in her office, I told her and she said I would be excused from speech therapy in the future,
I was grateful, but I was determined to leave. I was at the same time receiving instruction in preparation for making my first communion in the next year.
I began talking about how much I loved the religious instruction and wished I could go to a Catholic School.
My mother agreed with me and encouraged me, and she talked my Baptist father into letting me leave the public school.
I started the Second grade at Saint Joseph's School, and my life was transformed.
