I guess I should start at the beginning.
I was born January 4, 1966 in Columbus, Ohio. I cannot remember a time when I could not read. It wasn’t something I consciously tried to learn to do. The ability was just there.
I did not see anything unusual about that. I was the youngest of five children, with a 10-year gap between number four and me. I was never around anyone my own age until I went to school, so I had no reference point for my abilities. What do you mean, most 3-year-olds can’t read? Like, it’s hard?
I think I started to sense that there was something unusual about me by the way my family treated me. My older brothers would bring their friends over to the house and have me read books to them. These books would be far beyond my reading level (if there is a reading level at age three)—more on the order of my sister’s college textbooks than Dr. Seuss. I didn’t necessarily understand what all the words meant, but I could read them.
When I started going to school, I was tested and found to be reading at a fifth grade level. The original plan was to put me in kindergarten in the morning and first grade in the afternoon. This did not work. I came out of kindergarten with the idea that school was a place for play, and, so, I had no interest in listening to anything I heard in first grade. After a few weeks, I was given an IQ test for placement in a learning disability class, and…surprise! The new plan: let me finish the year in kindergarten and put me in second grade the next year.
Being skipped a grade in school defined me for many years afterward. Even in high school, I was known as “the kid who skipped a grade” (even though I went to school with at least two others who had also skipped grades). I suppose it was necessary, but there was also a down side to it. As an adult, one year more or less doesn’t make much difference, but it means everything when you’re young.
I remember it being especially hard to adjust to middle school. Elementary school was a breeze—the teachers were happy if I showed up. Middle school was a completely different game. What is this “homework” of which you speak? Looking back, I understand why middle school was so hard for me. When I started sixth grade, I was only 10. Most of the eighth graders in the school were 13. There’s a big gulf between the two. 13-year-old boys coat themselves in Axe Body Spray and try to impress girls. 10-year-old boys bathe once a week and can’t say “Uranus” without laughing.
High school was better in some respects, but still had its challenges. Imagine how it feels when all your friends are learning to drive and you can’t. And dating? Aside from the prom, forget about it.
My main consolation was living in my own world. Give me a pen and paper and I could build you a city or start my own baseball team. Give me some records and I could be a DJ. Give me a Racing Form and I had my own racetrack. And when I figured out where my brother hid his copies of Penthouse, dating became less urgent…or maybe more?
At the same time, I was not completely oblivious to my surroundings. I actually yearned to be popular. As a child, I loved Archie Comics and all that franchise’s associated cartoons. I looked forward to high school because I thought I would be Archie someday. I didn’t understand that I had as much chance of being Archie as I did of flying like Superman.
I thought I had arrived when I somehow managed to be elected president of the freshman class, but all that did was paint a big target on my back. Kids would make ridiculous demands (Throw the class a party! Take the whole class to Kings Island!) that I couldn’t possibly meet, because the position had no real power. (You don’t think high schools really want the students to run anything, do you?) But the kids still blamed me when they didn’t get what they wanted, so it didn’t take long for me to go from hero to zero. I’ve often wondered if my election might have actually been an elaborate prank my classmates played on me. Or maybe I’ve seen Carrie too many times. I’m not sure.
After incidents like that, and the inevitable bullying that you’re bound to read about if I can stand to write about it, I hoped that I would have my revenge in college.
If only.
But that’s a rant for another time.
