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Embarrassing Moments, Such A Radiant Smile
Folder:
Children EMBARRASSING OR OTHERWISE PAINFUL MOMENTS
First grade: We were all asked one at a time to say aloud our address.
I was embarrassed that many of my peers had sophisticated 3 digit addresses...there were only 2 numbers in my street address....
the teacher had to ask me several times to speak louder until finally the others could hear my obfuscating mumbling.
That afternoon... we were asked also our birthdays. When I gave mine, a boy classmate said 'there's no such month".
Several years later, in grade school in sheer fright about a compulsory part in a school play, I wet my pants on stage...and never turned
around on stage.
High school... my father was terminally ill... my mother was working 16 hours a day to keep our family together. After school, I went to work in a potato chip factory..4 to midnight. One of my jobs was to stand as the potato chips paraded by at a very fast speed on the conveyor belt... and to pluck out the brown chips. It paid a
dollar an hour. The experience that the time of some is worth so little and that others take all the profits as they take advantage of need made me a socialist. After 1 semester, my mother said she would rather go without the money than see me exhausted. The schedule she kept for 20 years I managed for 4 months.
The first tv show I did as an adult, my knees knocked and teeth chattered. Time passed on and I was able to do a radio show. Friends who listened said I said "um" too often.
I write this to remind myself that we never know what is in the mind of an untalkative child.
SUCH A RADIANT SMILE
She complimented the 4 year old boy
on his coloring skill..
so radiant was his smile
she was repaid one thousand fold
by his joy
-saiom shriver-
