What was your experience in Elementary School

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4^th, 5^th, and 6^th Grades  

The most notable was my art sculpture.  

We were in Art classes, and what ended up happening is I made a cardboard project;

“It was a Good Project”, as someone would say.  

I was proud, again, but it was not with cooperation.

Cooperation, as in working together with other students.  I was scared of those able bodied white kids.  That is the new norm.

I remember the bus rides in the little yellow van, that was really not handicapped accessible.  I remember the fast rides, and the hitting of my head on the top of the van when we hit a bump.  Bang.  I remember driving and reporting to the driver another driver was in a car with a gun, and the police pulled that car over.  

I remember looking from the other side of the gates;  the kids were playing, my school mates. They had activities outside, but not so for us.  We had adaptive games and things of that sort.  But, when it came to activities outside, on or near school grounds, in community parks, those activities did not follow up. So, I felt left out.  

Jr. High School, I think, or Elementary

I tell this story to my kinds.  I had a girlfriend in elementary school.  My first girlfriend was a red head with blue or hazel eyes, I do not remember.  It was in Jr. High school or 5^th or 6^th grade wherein I had another girlfriend.  

She was Elizabeth.  She looked like as if she was of Jewish heritage.  Dark black hair and black eyes, she was white too.  

What ended up was either someone was making fun of me for “going out with her” so to speak, and, made fun of my disability.  What happened was I held on to a desk, and swung my first like a sledge hammer like Thor, and bang, he went down.  Never again did I have a problem.  

I lost the support of COH, committee on the handicapped after UCP.  That did not help in the upper grades.  I fashioned and fancied surgeries and going to the hospital.  With each surgery, I hoped to walk and be like everyone else.  However, I was the Indian guinea pig at Mary Immaculate Hospital, in Queens NY.  I was presented in rooms of over 60 people, doctors, whom deliberated on what they would do to the science project.  It was human experimentation for them, and for me it was each opportunity to become whole.  But, each surgery to “fix” one thing caused massive problems else where.  That unfortunately reality I learned later on in life.  Once I learned, I became allergic to doctors and the medical profession.  No more surgeries for me after 18 years of age.  I now for for my annual physical every three years.  

I barely knew how to write because I missed some many classes due to surgeries and medical complications.  A complication like in 1977 going back to PR and catching an infection because we were out in a river out there, and doing things and being in places we were not supposed to be, because, mom and Jorge were on vacation, and the cripple kid was an anchor and hinderence to their meeting people and in the finest of Puerto Rican traditions drinking home made moon shine and other fancied Puerto Rican traditions. Mom used the machete to cut the children head.  So, I faced retention, but someone stopped the special ed student from being left back.  So, I learned to write in college.  

Hence, when I was recently criticized by the pastoral “crew” for my writing, immediately were the memories of that low in my life.  I strived for being whole with surgeries but the sacrifice was learning what an adverb and adjective was, etc.  That was my reflection recently when the assistant pastor of Hepzibah said, just look at the way you write.  Whom, Black Klansman seems to be your favorite, I do not have David Duke as my friend on FB like you do [figure/literal?].

Goosh  I did not have the resources to complete projects.  PS 213, plays, etc.  The Tinman I was, but no one was in the audience for me.  I am glad I did not pee on myself while on stage.  There were good times, and there were bad, but the most important thing is my kids have more than I did.

My dad was not in the audience.  They get the supplies they need and everything for school.  God is good.  No drivers ed for me in those days.