Let’s go back to the 1980’s and talk about me going to school. There are a few memories I have of going to school. I rode on the short bus. Everyone knows what the short bus is. You all probably know lots of jokes about this short bus. It’s not all that funny when you’re on it. It’s pretty much like the long bus, just shorter. I also remember having a lot of “resource classes”. You may not know what resource classes are, but in jokes it’s called the “special class”. Yes, I was a very “special” boy. I had a special chair, special teachers, a special room, and extra-special friends. Of course, in our culture everyone is special. Barney even says so in his song “You Are Special” …everyone in his or her own way, or so the song says.
Despite all of this “special-ness” someone eventually figured out that, for lack of better phrasing, my brain worked. I was in the “special” classes until the end of the 4th grade. Over that summer, I had to learn how to stop drooling and coerce with intelligent peers. I’ve always been a good speaker, or at least I have always had a big mouth and have been ready to use it whenever given the chance. At the end of the 4th grade, my teachers decided to give me a chance to use my brain, and I was an integrated student the rest of my primary school years, until I graduated high school in 1998.