Plagiarism (Part II)

The new school year began with me in seventh grade which, in our district, meant I was now in junior high school. 

Just before the end of sixth grade I had been diagnosed with dyslexia, and over the summer, was enrolled in an experimental class out of SMU.  I went from a reading comprehension and vocabulary of a third-grader to the reading comprehension and vocabulary of a post-graduate level college student in three months.  My body, however, was not keeping up.

I was one of the smallest kids in the school. That summer, a kid picked a fight with me, and (to my shame) I walked away. I had never done that before, and I hated myself for it. My ego was shot before that happened, but I was so surprised by my own reaction, and the fear I felt when challenged— not to mention the awareness that everyone but me seemed to be growing-- that I dreaded starting school that year. I was certain that I would be picked-on, and humiliated on a daily basis.

It was not that way at all. But I did suffer a tremendous set back right at the start. I was heavier than I had ever been—and I have never been overweight. All my weight was in my arm and shoulder, because I spent all summer riding my bicycle and swimming.

I had a ten speed, but did not know anything about cadence. I kept my bike in too low a gear, and pushed hard against the pedals. I had no idea that this mistake in form had built up bulk in my legs—I thought my leg were getting fat. On the other hand, I swam using fast twitch muscle tissue, and so instead of bulk, my arms were conditioned and quick, but with relatively little muscle mass except for the shoulders. Being so short for my age, I must have looked rather lopsided.

As a result, I could press over 750 lbs with my legs, but not even my own weight with my arms.  Worse, it would turn out to be, that I had no leg speed. Because of my leg speed, I could not compete with my now lankier friends, and did not make the football team with them. I was crushed. That devastated me, because I had looked forward to junior high mostly because of my expectation of playing the national sport of Texas.

I was certain that I would be unpopular and have a miserable three years in the new school. Ah, but then there were dances! And my distancing from my family had resulted in a sort of Lone Ranger attitude. I didn’t have anyone to back me up, but I had somehow become extroverted. While the other, much older looking, guys grouped together I was out finding girls who wanted to dance.

Way back in first grade, about the second week of school, my naivete became a joke-- for about one hour. The kids in the class-- all of them strangers to me-- were talking about "cooties." I had never heard the word, and they teased me for not knowing anything about girls and cooties. As they explained it to me, I sat there at my desk, becoming increasingly certain that everyone of them was crazy.

But at recess! 

At recess, all of the guys were outside the fenced playground area on the open field. All of the girls were inside where the see-saws and swings were. One pretty little girl, Ann, had my attention. She was wild, and fun to watch. She did what she wanted to do, alone or with anyone else who wanted to join her. I was amazed.

A few minutes later, I was running around and chasing a ball a few of us were tossing around, when I noticed a crowd of boys taunting Ann, much as they had taunted me in class. I stopped playing and went to the chain link fence which separated them. In fact, it was the same subject, Ann claiming that there is no such thing a cooties, and the boys saying she had them. She said something about the story was that you got it from kissing a girl, and not just touching, and that it wasn't true anyway. I was ready to defend her, when she taunted back at the boys, "You are all just scared of girls, that is why you make up those stories-- you are to scared to kiss a girl!"

Someone said, "Crews? You don't believe in cooties? So prove it." Ann looked at me differently. Not angry, not taunting, but peaceful. Her short page-boy haircut blowing in the wind, and it got quiet. I walked over to the fence and she said, "You aren't scared to kiss me, are you." It was a declaration to the others not a question.

"No. And I don't believe in cooties."

"Let's touch tongues. It i the real way to kiss" she said. 

Through the chain link fence we lined up our lips inside one of the diamond openings of the chain link and kissed, touching tongues so everyone could see.  "Ewwwww!" was the most common reaction from the boys and the girls. A whistle blew, and the startled teachers were trying to decide what to do. I could see no problem. There wasn't anything that made me want to go "Ewww," in fact, it was kind of nice. 

So Ann wanted me to walk home with her, and I was happy to have a new friend only two or three blocks away. Her family had just moved there and she invited me inside. We went up to her room. There was no furniture, and no toys. Clothes on the floor, and an empty closet. She got us some koolaid and we sat on the floor talking. She showed me around the upstairs and her Mom's room. It was a wreck and a mattress on the floor was the only furniture. 

Back in her room, she asked me to sit on the floor, commented that I wasn't afraid of girl's and said she wanted to show me something she had seen her Mom do with her husband. Ann lifted her short plaid skirt, spread her legs and began peeing through her panties onto the floor. I was seven, so had no guess what she had seen and may have been trying to act out. I was out the door five minutes later, very confused, and not so intrigued with my pretty new friend anymore.

But back to Junior High...

I did not know then that many girls had crushes on me, but I was naive, self-loathing, acutely aware of all of my lackings, and oblivious to any strengths I might possess. My father seemed amused that I was enjoying girls a much as I did—especially when he had to drive me to the dates I kept getting. One night, early in the year, he asked me about my new hobby in this way, “You know, old Schnicklefritz used to chase cars all the time, but I always wondered if he knew what to do with one if he actually caught one?” I said, “Dad, I’m not sure I have it worked out yet, but I am having a great time trying to find out.”

I got accepted on the school newspaper staff, and instantly made a new set of friends. The notoriety that would come from that surprised me, and I enjoyed being told that I write well and that I have a good sense of humor. I was being supported and thought highly of, and did not understand why I had such a different image with my classmates than I had in my family. Actually, I still do not understand that.

Early in that Fall semester, one class required a creative writing assignment. It had to be a short story told in the third person but on any subject. I loved trains, and read several books on them, including history books on my own time. So, I took what I had learned, gave my story an historical setting, and wrote of a train wreck in the third person.

I sat down one evening, excited with my idea for the story which I had been working out in my head for days, and began to write. The words flowed out, and I had finished the assignment in about an hour—a little over the page length of the assignment but I had no way to shorten it and didn’t think it would be counted against me. I reread what I had penned, and was satisfied. I actually liked it, and hoped the teacher would, too.

 

I came downstairs to share it with my parents to get their opinion and any suggestions. After I finished reading it to them, I sat on the foot of their bed and said, “Well, is it okay?”  

Silence was my answer. My mom stared at her knitting and did not look up, but glanced sideways at my Dad, who said to her, “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

She answered, “I think so.”

To me, my Dad says, “Let’s go upstairs to your room.”

I was confused by this, but followed him up to my room.

“Where are all of your books on trains?”

I knitted my eyebrows questioningly, and pulled my small but beloved collection from the étagère and handed them to my father. He took them and said, “Let me have the paper and I am going downstairs. I'll call for you when we are ready.”

He left, closing my door which suggested I was confined to my room.

I was called downstairs about an hour later.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Son, the story is good. But your mother and I question whether or not it is your story. You know, you cannot copy something out of a book and call it your own?”

“Yes, I know that. So you thought I copied that story from one of my books?”

“Do you have any other books upstairs?”

“No. And I gather that you ask, because you have already found out that I wrote that. It isn’t in any of those books, is it? Sorry to disappoint you.”

“M_____, talk to him, and I am going upstairs and search his room.”

He left, and I sat down on the foot of their bed in exasperation and I did my best to look neutral as I began to seethe inside.

My mother filled the time by telling me how they may have been wrong, but they had never seen me turn out such work before and so I should understand their suspicions. It didn’t take my father long to return and with a sort of laugh that indicated some level of surprise, he spoke kindly to both of us, saying, “I guess he really did write that. I don’t know what to think.”

“Well,” my mother aid, “it really is good, and we are pleased. You may go."

I got up, picked up my train books, my paper, and stopped at the door, and spoke, looking at them both and noticing neither could look back at me, “I came down for your opinion and any advice. I now know your opinion of my story—it is good. I also know your opinion of me, and therefore, I no longer seek your advice. Goodnight.”

They said nothing.

Despite my stern and harsh manner, I cried in my room that night.

The next day, I woke, went downstairs to pour a cup of coffee (I had begun my love affair with coffee when I was five), and instead of sitting at table with the family, took it back up to my room to read again my story and decided it was still a work I was proud of producing. I wondered how long I would have to wait for a grade, and really thought I could get a good one. I arrived at the class-- my second one of the day and was horrified when the instructor surprised all of us by announcing that we would read our papers aloud in front of the class.

Many of those who were called on either claimed or really didn’t have their assignments ready. I was tempted to say I left mine at home if called upon. I was watching the clock and noticing the pattern the instructor used to call out who would read next. At first, I felt better because I would have another day to get ready to read my story out loud to my peers.

As he went down each row, starting to his left, I would be the first of the last row. But several of the stories were very short, and five persons, straight, claimed not to have their paper ready or with them. It was getting close to me. There was ten minute left in class when my name came up. “Do you have your paper ready, Mr. Giles?”

“Yes sir, but I would rather have another day—I had not planned on reading it.”

“Neither has anyone else. Come on up front.”

I walked up and started reading. As I read, my classmates reacted to the exciting parts as if they were witnessing the story for real, they made sounds of disgust at the gruesome description of injuries, and sighed with sorrow at the aftermath. I glanced up from my paper a few time and saw everyone paying attention. No one had been doing that when others had read. It crossed my mind that my peers were acting oddly, smiling at me as I read, nodding their heads, some had eyes wide.  

I finished and turned to hand the paper to our instructor and people started clapping. Someone said, “God! That was great!” Someone else I did not even know, said, “He is going to be rich someday.”

The instructor smiled at me as he took the paper, and said, “I have been reading his papers-- all the term-- and was expecting something good, but that was even better than I was prepared for. Mr. Giles, thank you for sharing your talent with us.”  

I was not keeping up with this unexpected praise and support and had nothing in my mind to say. Time saved me, as the bell rang. Private praise followed me into the hall.

That evening, when my mother got home and I came in from playing with my friends outside, she said, “Did you turn your story in?”

“Yes. No one knew that we were going to have to read it allowed, but I did it.”

“How did that go?”

“It went okay. I’m going upstairs now.”

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles

Plagiarism (Part I)

Before the dyslexia was diagnosed, I was often punished for being lazy in my school work, for my bad report cards, for getting in trouble at school. I was doing the best I could do, but being punished for not trying. To reconcile this, I believe, now, that I began a pattern of behavior that became somewhat ingrained—automatic.

I began to see that for me (and for me, alone) that trying was inconsequential—that only success mattered. That is a lot of drive for a boy to take on. I did not handle it well. If I doubted success, then I weighed the punishment for failure against the work of putting together any attempt and sometimes choosing to accept that punishment as it was immanent anyway and so chose not to even try.

If I did not know that my homework was correct, I simply did not turn it in. If I could not understand the homework, while that was rare, I simply did not go any further. So, the encyclopedias were my main source of satisfaction for my intellectual fulfillment. I could read all I wanted to read, and never be tested over it. I loved learning, I hated testing. I was also treasuring books at the library, having to check them out several times to finish them before being taught how to compensate for the dyslexia.

Likewise, I was once called into the den with my brother, and my mom and dad seated, stern-faced and silent for a long time before they spoke. My father began, “You are going to tell us who did it.” A long time passed before he spoke again, and he stared at me the whole time. My mother looked down, glanced at my brother, and then rested her eyes on me.

Eventually, my father offered a hint, and was visibly angry that he had to do so, so certain was he that I knew exactly what he was talking about, “The matches.” I was clueless. I looked at my brother to see if he was any more in-the-know than I was, and he shook his head and shrugged, but he was not about to say anything and draw my father's anger away from me and risk it being turned on him.

“The matches,” I repeated, and waited for him to make that a sentence.
“You know damn well what I am talking about! Come here!” I stood up and moved toward him expecting to be turned over his knee and beaten. He stood, instead, and walked to the landing of the stair case. “Come here!” I followed him, now thinking I was to be marched to my room to receive my punishment. I had never seen my father this angry, and I was racking my brain to come up with some sin which I had committed (although it was good training for a priest), but it I impossible to make a good confession of the sin unknown to you.

My father grabbed my head and forced me to look down at the carpet of the triangular landing of teh staircase. Where he violently forced my head to face was three or four burnt matches on the carpet. I was so scared, and could not understand what was happening and the force my father used to twist my head was hurting my neck. My brother came over, and said, “Maybe he doesn’t know—I don’t think he knows.”

For a moment, my brother got the wrath, “Are you saying you did this?!”
“I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t think Crews does either,” he said.

“Both of you sit down!”

We did, and my Mom spoke, , “We don’t believe you.” She was looking at me, not my brother. You brother was at football practice until I got home. You were the only one alone in the house.”

“But I didn’t do it,” I said, “I was outside almost the whole time.”
My Dad answered with ignoring my claim of innocence as if I had not spoken, “The picture of you standing at the top of the stairs lighting matches and throwing them down the steps—I can’t imagine what you were thinking. Do you realize that we could have lost everything I have worked so hard to provide to you and your mother? Did you even think about the dogs?”
“I don’t know why you think I did anything like that.”
“So what? my mother asked, “Were you smoking my cigarettes and just putting them out on the carpet?”
“I don’t know anything at all about it. I can’t believe you are so angry and so certain that I did something like that.”
That was pretty much it. I was thrown over my father’s knee and spanked so long and so hard, that I ceased to struggle. I was seething, I was outraged, and I was humiliated because I was crying.

I had pretended not to notice that my parents had thought I was stupid for so long, (“He’s never going to be more than a shade-tree mechanic” I once heard my mother say to a friend of hers about me) but there was no pretending my righteous indignation on this point. When my father let me go, I stood, walked to the steps, wiped my face and with rage well beyond what I had seen in my father’s face, that little boy that I was yelled, “If it had to be one of us, it had to be M___. Better yet, Mom is the only with matches in this house, why don’t you beat her, you asshole?”
“You want more trouble?” My father threatened.
“No, but it doesn’t matter, does it? Because you are going to punish me whether I did anything or not! You want to do it again? I WILL burn this God Damn house down… Big Man!” I snarled the last two words.
My mother yelled, “Both of you just stop!”

I guess I made my point. I think they saw in my rage the real ability to do something so drastic, a threat I was willing to carry out. I could never have done it, but it was a useful threat because they obviously believed that not only could I, but that I had already tried and failed.

I knew, at that moment, that my parents had no idea who I was, what went on inside me, or what standards I set for my own conscience. I never forgave them, nor did I forget. It was neither the false accusation nor the punishment-- It was accrual of their false claims about me, their readiness to expect the worst and the least of me and it was the “perfect brother” they told me they wished I could be like. It was a dozen years of all these sort of experiences that became clear.

I retreated from my family—distanced myself, and am not sure anyone noticed. I was in my room building models, outside playing football and tossing Frisbees, learning tennis, exploring the world on my bike and beginning to realize that girls are kind of nice to be around.

Oh, as a sort of post-script-- The next week, my mother's maid saw the melted patch of carpet on the stairs and came to mother apologizing for them.  Her sister had joined her and sat on the staircase, smoking, while my mother's maid worked.  Apologies to me did come from my parents, but I saw no contrition.  That is, like most post-moderns, they were sorry that got caught being wrong, but they were not sorry for presuming my guilt.

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles

The Sign of the Cross

About that same time as that catechism class, my brother told me about a friend of his who believed he was called to be a Priest and had been praying for a sign from God. I have often looked back on the story by brother relayed about his friend and wondered if he was trying to illicit something from me—perhaps he suspected my secret?

At any rate, his friend had told him that after quite some time of praying, daily, for a sign, this is what seemed to be the answer to his prayers:

He said that his family was having a garage sale and he had been in the driveway and in the alley watching, when he decided to go around the side yard to enter the house from the front door and get something to drink. When he came back out and going back toward the alley where the garage sale was taking place, a man in a nice suit came walking around from the garage toward the street. The man stopped, called him by name and held out a small box, saying, “I am told that you should have this.”

The boy took it and the man simply walked away and around the front of the house. My brother’s friend took the lid off the box and inside the box was a sliver crucifix on a chain. He ran the few feet to the front corner of the house but the man was nowhere to be seen—he had simply vanished.

Pretty neat.

A few years ago, I looked up his name in the current nation-wide Clergy Directory that was on my desk. His name was not listed. Perhaps a tragedy.

I never divulged my secret to even my brother.

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles

Fear of the Godly

I went to catechism class that next year and the Curate, Fr. Ketchum, brought me into his office to go over my final exam, a written test. The last question was open ended, something about Satan in the Garden of Eden, and why I thought God had allowed evil to interfere with our relation with God.

I don’t recall the detail now, but he had asked me where I gotten the ideas for what I wrote. I told him I had liked the question because I had not thought of it before, but it seemed very important to answer. I told him I had no idea if I was even close to being right. He smiled, laughed, leaned back and said something about it being amazing because he had never had an adult be able to answer as well.

I thought being called to the office meant I was in trouble (it always had in school, and had lots of experience with that) but that seemed to be all he had wanted to talk about. He smiled as he stood, and asked me if it was alright he talked to my parents about it. “Sure, I don’t know why not.”

I was very afraid of Fr. Ketchum and his (and my) Rector, Fr. JJ Niles. There was something about them that made me want to be around them all the time, but there was also something so different and so powerful which I did not understand and which made me afraid to approach them. I served at the Altar with them both and watched and listened in awe. In those days, if you were not confirmed, you did not attend the Holy Mysteries of the Mass. So it was in acolyte training that I first began to comprehend part of that power and difference that was a part of these two men.

It was a big Church, but my Priests loved me as if I was their own child— I somehow read this into the way they talked to me— something rather amazing in that I had one on one contact with them so rarely. With parents, you know their love by years of experience. But with these men, that same knowledge was overwhelming— at least to me.

How could they love me so much, how could they have such power and use it so gently, humbly and gracefully— and I am not speaking only of the work at the Altar, but even the gentle pat on my shoulder when passing me in the hall. Ah, but perhaps it was not that these men emitted some mysterious assurance of love, perhaps it was in a mystical something in the recipient— perhaps I just recognize holiness when I am in the presence of holiness. I did not then, nor do I now, presume to know.

I know Fr. Ketchum spoke with my parents as he had asked to do. He called them that night. My parents never said a word about it to me. Twenty years later, my Mom gave me that catechism test-- she had saved it in a box under her bed.

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles

Gifted Straight C's

Despite all of my reading, I was a lousy student. My teachers kept telling my parents that I was bright but just lazy. My parents, I suppose because they saw me doing my homework assignments and taking far too long to complete them, came to think I was mentally slow. They hired a tutor to work with me. One day he told me that he had met with parents and told them that I was extraordinarily bright, but a very slow reader, and had difficulty writing. He told me about dyslexia, and then that my parents were going to see about finding something that could help me.

That summer between sixth grade and entering Junior High, I was enrolled in an experimental class at SMU. It worked. My reading speed, comprehension and vocabulary went from a third grade level to a post-graduate level in three months.

Yet...

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles

As I edit what I have already prepared to post here, and continue to write more to be posted later, this summary of what all this leads to has been on my mind for two years:

As captain, I led three into the desert. I came out alone.

And still, I ask God: "How do I go on? To what end did I suffer such torture only to survive with the memory of the horror, and the knowledge that the two still live that horror with none to help?"

And He answers: "Like a polished arrow I have hid you away."

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles

Calling

As a seven year old who has mystical visions (I am talking Christian prayer, not ESP, not reading signs, not being in touch with some “ground of being”, and not anything that the Christian Church has ever been without), I only knew that I was not dreaming, that the images meant something that were to be understood, and that the understanding was not necessary to have right away. I simply found them interesting, but having never heard of anyone else describing these-- I knew nothing about what was taking place.

As a seven year old: Sitting on the stairs picking up the laundry which my mom had folded and left there for me to take to my room, and overhearing the words spoken from my big brother to my mom, “He is just different… in a good way. I think Crews would be a good priest” and finding, in a moment, that the statement resolved everything. There was no sense of “What a good idea” or, “That is an interesting thought” much less what I would think to be the normal reaction, “My brother is out of his mind!” Instead, I took those words, and understood that they gave voice to something of me I did not know how to articulate.

My family was Episcopalian, and the parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas were the only thing I knew of Christianity other than most of school friends were Baptists but seemed to believe what we (I) believed. I had no idea that their pastors were not priests. On television, and in movies, Christian worship was always centered on an Altar serviced by a Priest.

I suppose a brief aside is appropriate here…
The difference between a priest (in any religion) and any other religious minister is that a Priest makes sacrifice

Anyway, at about ten years of age, I risked hinting at my secret and told my Mom that I wanted a Bible for Christmas. The Bibles at home were all King James, and there was a modern English paraphrase out that was popular with my friends. I pretended not to notice my Mom’s delayed response, the confused look in her eyes, and the almost stuttered reply, “Uh, well, we’ll see.”

As I grew up, my family continually rose from upper middle class to out right wealthy, and presents were plentiful for my brother and me every Christmas. Like many families, we shared the tradition of getting to open one present on Christmas Eve, either after a light dinner or after we returned from the midnight mass. It was after dinner that night that my brother suggested we open one before we had to start getting ready for Church. My parents agreed, and off to the tree we went.

I am, even today, a terrible poker player. I give away too much by body language and facial expressions. My parents sat silently, exchanging wordless glances of what appeared to be concern when I pulled out the wrapped package that obviously was a book, and of the size and shape of a Bible. My Mom said something about choosing another one-- a toy or something. I was not dissuaded.

My parents were devout. To this day, I do not understand their behavior. At any rate, I read the first few chapters of the Gospel According to Mark before getting dressed for Church. In a few days or weeks, I had searched for and found many references to visions, and while it offered no real answers as to what to do about them, it reconciled these mysterious insights, as out of time and place as they often were when received.

Copyright © 2008 W. Crews Giles