#15 - Stuttering (first published 11/1/20)

 I have studdered for as long as I can remember.   I know I studdered but now can't really recall any certain instances as a child or any specific incident of embarrassment though I'm quite sure there were many.  I did give a Bar Mitzvah Derasha, or at least a thank you speech,  so I must have had some ability to speak in public.  I also ran for a student body office during my senior year of high school. and won.  

Certain stories, or things, I do remember.  I remember have a small tape recorder and taping "Hello, who's calling?"  I did this as I had a terrible fear of answering the phone and getting "Hello" out.  The trouble was having the tape recorder ready and at land.  The phone is deadly for someone who studders.  All you have is your voice.  No one can see you and gestures won't work.  And the long "E" in "Hello" is a killer.  Another killer is your name.  That's because it is fixed and everyone knows, or should, easily know their own name when asked.  

I learned sometime in my late teens or early twenties that Gomer Pyle, aka. Jim Nabors, had a terrible studdering problem but when he sang, he did not studder at all.  After that, I learned to be a little more melodic in my speech.  

In 1970 or 1971  I went to Europe with two friends for nearly five months.  Somewhere during the trip, I was standing next to two women on a streetcar.  They were probably my age, around twenty, and as I recall they were from Southern California.  They asked what my favorite place had been in Europe or perhaps where my favorite place was in Switzerland.  I couldn't seem to get it started.  I went "En" and paused.  I went "En" again and paused.  I went "En" again with a more guttural and frightening sound, sort of like the voice in the Exorcist.    This went on for what to me seemed a dozen times or more, each time getting louder and more desperate-sounding, sort of the sound someone makes when they have an excruciating stomach cramp.   Finally, in total desperation, I grasped my shirt and with a violent hand motion ripped it open while yelling "Interlocken"  The women pushed the emergency rope on the streetcar and it came to an abrupt halt.  The women ran to the doors, pushed them open, and ran onto the busy pedestrian street disappearing into the crowd.  Now that is first studdering story I can really recall.  

Sometime in my late twenties or early thirties, I went to the speech lab at California State University Sacramento.  In the lab they had me work with a Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF). What happens is that you can not say the next word in a sentence until you hear the previous word played back in your ears.  In other words, they slow your speech way down and you must also concentrate on hearing the previous word instead of concentrating or anticipating the next word.  It also allows you to stretch out vowels.  This program clearly improved my fluency.  Perhaps it was this or different tools you learn with age.  One of my favorite stories from being in this group was from a military officer that was also in the group.  First, I must say, found it amazing that someone could make an officer rank with a studdering problem  This gave me more confidence in life just from that fact.  One day he came in with his hand bandaged.  Apparently, each time we answered the phone, Lieutenant Hunter, he threw up a pen or wade of paper to get it his name out.  I must say this approach seems less violent than ripping my shirt open to say "Interlocken".  One day, however, he was at this desk eating lunch and cutting an apple.  The phone rang, he threw up the knife, and down it came right into this hand. After that, he had no apples at lunch.  

At some point in my career, I got to the point of being able to speak in front of people and in fact large crowds.  I spoke before the California State Legislature on many occasions.  I always had prepared notes but not a specific speech to read from.  I wanted to be able to change words if the need were to arise.  

Was my stuttering more of a personal reflection of myself?  I do not know for sure.  Maybe the star baseball player who remembers me as a lefty says more about me than my studder after all.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A memory about pets (Published Sept 13, 2021)

 The first pet I was aware of was my parents dog Taffy, a Chihuahua. Taffy died when I was around six and my mom almost immediately went to the pound and got a dog named Jinxy, I'm not sure why the name and if we named her or if she came with that name. Jinxy was a white, with some brown, Fox Terrier mix. She was a great dog but had two problems. The first is that she always urinated when anyone pet her. And when the door bell rang and she ran to the door excited, there was always an accident including urinating on several guests shoes. Because of this, Jinxy was confined to the service porch with our washer and dryer or the backyard. This leads to the second issue - She loved breaking out of the yard and run (sort of like Almas). Not to long after we got Jinxy, my parents did get another Chihuahua, which they named Chico. Jinxy was "my dog" while Chico was my parents. The dogs got along well and I've got cute pictures of them laying together. However, Chico always ha...
Read more

THE PACKAGE

  THE PACKAGE One day this package just arrived on our doorstep.  It did not look like the customary Amazon package we get at our door many days each month.   It had no return address, and my name was typed on an address label with no logo.  There was no postage on the wrapping and no indication that it was from FedEx, UPS, or any of the other courier services.  Perhaps a neighbor dropped off a gift, but why then the formal typed label?    The package was rather large and rather heavy.  There was no noise from shaking it so it was wrapped rather tightly.  There clearly was a box inside the wrapping.  My first inclination was to open it immediately but then I decided to wait for Susan in case she knew what it was or ordered it.  Perhaps she had ordered it specifically for me or for some occasion?   Susan arrived back from the market.  She had no idea what it was.  She had not ordered anything. Susan laughed a...
Read more

The Summer after the Summer of Love, Part I (Published Augst 23, 2021)

It was the Summer after the Summer of Love, 1968, I was eighteen, and five of us jammed into my 1961 Chevy Corvair and headed to San Francisco, the then action spot of the world as far as the five of us teens were concerned. Interstate 5 was not yet open all the way to "SF" as we in Los Angeles called it. There were almost no has stations and the freeway would stop and start taking you onto the old California Highway 33. It was along one these stretches of Highway 33, reminiscent of a John Steinbeck novel, that the car ran out of gas. I remember that Louise, my high school prom date was already not in the best of moods and running out of call in the middle of nowhere land did not help. Besides, it was after dark and about 110 degrees outside, at least so it seemed. The cars in those days had no air conditioning, or at least my old Corvair did not. After taking the rath from everyone in the car for not filling it sooner, an old man in 1950's pickup came along and offered m...
Read more