I have decided that some stories of my life are appropriate. You will see that I changed my header a little and you now will have to walk through the "facts" and sometime there will be a little fiction written in. It will be not just because I make stuff up or don't remember the truth but have filtered my memories through my perceptions. One Man's dream is another man's war story.
This picture was on a card my unnamed spouse got for an event this week. She said that it reminds her of me. I could fall asleep anywhere at a moments notice. (as could Dave) Flat out and then crash is the way she described it.
Put on your seat belt and hang on: here goes:
Denny was a blue-eyed blond haired kid that while he was a little cute as a small kid; he grew ordinary in a lot of ways. He didn't stand out as being so smart that he blinded you with his insight, but he wasn't so dumb that he could be easily taken advantage of. Many thought he was more active than the average kid and probably would have been evaluated for ADHD and given Ritalin if he were born a generation later.
Denny had blue eyes and a medium build. His blond hair soon turned brown and was unremarkable and the only distinguishing mark on his face was the man made dimple on his right cheek. Denny's uncle, Hazen Lee, had tossed a Lincoln Library volume at him and he ducked right into the path and one side of his face hit the floor the same time the book hit the other side. It chipped a bone and gave him a shiner. It also left a divot on the left side that could be confused as a dimple. Dennis had a pretty normal nose but his chin was a little crooked on one side. It seemed that about half way to growing pointed, one side stopped about a quarter of an inch before the other side.
So unremarkable in his younger years and yet he grew into a tall young man. At the beginning of the 7th grade, Denny and Robert Younkin were the shortest guys in the entire grade. By the end of the ninth grade Denny and Krostin were the tallest. At 6 foot one inch that was pretty tall but not so remarkable for today. He did grow a couple of inches later on.
Denny was taught to read by his older sisters before he went to school. In the first grade when everyone else was reading See Spot Run, Denny breezed through the book on the first day. He calmly asked if he could go to the library and get more books. From day one in school he read, read and read. Each year he would be given new textbooks and he would read them once and other than the math book never open them again. He used what he read from memory and got a lot of Ds in school. He would seldom re-read any book and schoolbooks were things he hated to read twice. During the classes, the teachers hated it when Denny would be reading a biography when everyone else was reading a history text. The teacher often stopped and asked Denny questions. A lot of the time he could answer the question and the teachers would finally leave him alone.
One pastime Denny was involved in was wrestling. It wasn't the fancy WWF or anything that involved tights, it was the honest to god get dirty and wrestle on the ground until someone said uncle. It was called fighting but seldom until much later was any real injury involved. Mostly it was just honest get dirty and roll on the ground grappling. I think that the fights were pretty much with Eugene and Ronny. He gave as well as he got.
About the beginning of the 5th grade, Denny's mother grew frustrated with the Ds and went to the school to see if she needed to consider Denny for some kind of a trade school. The principal pulled the records and told Denny's mother to sit down. It seemed that Denny tested in the top of his class in spite of the poor grades. In fact, Denny tested higher than his sisters did and they were on the honor roll, a lot. It wasn't intelligence, just a lack of motivation and organization. When he loved a subject he could make As without breaking a sweat. Most of the time he couldn't be bothered with the mundane when there was so much reading to do and so many books to do it with. The ADHD helped him to do the homework and promptly forget where he put it. I'm sure the desk monster ate a lot of hid homework.
Denny had a lot of good friends, as a kid but there was a problem when more than two of them would get together. There seemed to be an inability for the guys to get along with each other when there were three or more. I'm sure that a lot of the normal competition played in to the equation but there was still some unknown factor at play. Ronny and Denny could be together all day. Wayne and Denny could be together all day. Denny and Harvey or Denny and Eugene were a fine pair. Throw Wayne, Denny and Ronny together and there was a fight to be had.
Ronny's mother wanted to make sure that Ronny knew how to swim. She took him to one of the community pools and she always offered to take Denny. I wonder if it was to make sure that Denny bathed in the summer. The pools workers would make the kids shower before they could enter the pool. Denny had been going to the lake with his parents on vacation for years. He had also been going to swim in the Buffalo River in Arkansas and couldn't remember when he learned to swim, he just could. In fact he could swim better underwater than he could on top of the water. He could swim like he could read. He didn't remember when he learned he just could. My sisters didn't immerse me in the water like they did reading. I can thank them for that.
More next time of the life and times of Denny the wierd and his wonder dog Rex.---MUD
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