Crybaby
The distance created by the passage of time and existential change allows me to say, with practically no ego involvement, that I was a golden child. There are a number of photographs of me in my early years, and I was so cute that it is almost Hitler-Jungen creepy: fair-skinned, hair so light that it typically earned the southernism "cotton-top," bright, attentive eyes and a winning smile. In one photo of my second grade class, even the unprejudiced eye is immediately drawn to the image of the towheaded kid with the ear-to-ear grin.
There aren't any photos of me crying, but I did cry a lot as a child. One telling tale is the one my mother tells of me learning to walk. I would crawl over to the screen door that led outside, pull myself up via the cross slats in the door, turn, take a step or two, fall down and then cry for a minute. Then I would crawl over to the door and begin again. My mom says that I did this for hours.
So we see the early origins of the sort of whiney obsessiveness that has served me so well over all these years.
"High strung" is the phrase that is used for such emotionality, at least in the case of a golden child, for whom everyone makes excuses. My family was tolerant, as were many other adults. My friends were somewhat less forgiving, for the obvious, (and I concede entirely) good reasons. Nevertheless, I got away with it for much longer than would ordinarily be the case in the social system in which I grew up, i.e. the mid-South in the 1950s.
The same can be said of my precocious intelligence. There are some sub-cultures and ethnic groups in these United States where intellect is rev (...)
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