More Background

So to understand where someone is going you have to know something about where they have been. I was born they third of four children of a middle class family in Oregon. My family always says I was the perfect child. I never cried as a baby and as a toddler I would stay where I was put. Because I was so easy, I became the child my dad like to spend time with. My older brother and sister were a little on the defiant side so I just stayed out of the way and tried to stay out of trouble. I started first grade with the hopes of any child, but it didn't take long for me to realize I didn't fit the public school box. I had a hard time learning to read and write. Math was also a problem for me, but the thing that surprise me the most was that I was always getting into trouble. When I didn't understand what the teacher was trying to teach I would ask a neighbor. That would result in me being moved to the hall to work on the assignment I didn't understand. When the teacher wanted to see how much work I had gotten done, she would get more frustrated because I hadn't done anything. Now I would spend my lunch trying to do an assignment that I didn't understand. Of course they blamed me for not understanding. The old saying, "If you would pay attention, you would know what to do" became the mantra of my first grade teacher. Other students seemed to know things I could not grasp. The harder I tried the future I seemed to get behind. I felt like I was trying to swim upstream. I could never catch up. When I look back at my memories of first grade I don't remember the name of my teacher or what she looked like, but I do remember how disappointed she was in me.