The Problem Child

I was, as a child, what you might call...hyper. Of course, you might also be understating the case should you use that particular word. I don't suppose I was what you might call a “ bad child.” At least not most of the time. My problem was, I just couldn't sit still!

I was always into something. Or going somewhere. Or saying something. Or, accidentally, breaking something. Or doing something. Even when I was a sleep, I fidgeted.

My dad beat me, when I needed it. Sometimes when I probably didn't need it, but that was extremely rare. You can just chalk the latter up to the times he missed that I actually did need it. I think he occasionally got tired of whipping me. I sure got tired of being whipped.

On at least one occasion, my dad, being a bus driver and, therefore, already present at school, would be called upon by at least one of my teachers for a little observation of his youngest son. He'd take dad to the classroom I was in where they'd peer through the door window. Dad would watch me sit and squirm, get up, walk to the trash can, sit back down, get up, walk to the window, look out, go sit back down, get up, walk to the pencil-sharpener, sharpen and sharpen and sharpen my pencil, go sit back down and, then, pretty much start the entire process over again. I can only imagine dad dropping his head in frustration as the teacher said to him, “See what I have to deal with every day?”

No, I didn't start fights or destroy property, (other than by accident, or perhaps on purpose under the rarest of circumstances,) but I was a handful. I was always talking and doing and thinking and...whatever!

I occasionally see my some of my old teachers. I apologize to them profusely and repeatedly, but they always say I was a good student. Interestingly and saliently, they never deny that I was the bothersome child that I remember myself being.

You might say that I was incorrigible. You might and that might be correct. You might blame it on being the baby of my family and being a momma's boy to boot.

Still, you might take into account that I was a precocious child. I read far in advance of my grade and years. I always read voraciously at that! I was energetic and imaginative. I loved to draw and would often be off in a world of my own creation, sometimes rendered on paper. I would also frustrate my teachers endlessly by, when they thought I was paying the least attention, they'd call on me to answer a question that I'd readily answer. All to their continual consternation.

Yes, I feel quite sure that today, I'd be diagnosed with some “disease” that involves a lot of letters arranged in insipid acronyms that would result in my being prescribed mood-altering drugs and the school receiving more state and federal money because of me. (Not that my father would have stood for any of that.) No doubt they would have found some way to rein me in and settle me down. Even if that literally involved turning me into another person.

Fortunately, or not so fortunately, I am the person I am. Some would still describe me as hyper or even, perhaps, overly energetic. Though I feel I'm more disciplined than then. (At my age, I should be!) In my opinion, I've slowed down immeasurably over the decades. Which, of course, to me, begs the question: where is all that energy today?