He Talked Just Like Elmer Fudd.

I knew this little kid. It's fifty years ago now. Long time. He was real smart but only did OK in school. He spent a lot of time by himself. A very quiet, gentle soul. He had big hips and narrow shoulders and was kind of doughy soft. He stuttered a little but a lot of kids did that. The main thing with his voice was, when he talked, he sounded just like Elmer Fudd. Not really a lisp, something else. I don't know what that's called.

This kid got picked on and made fun of, a lot. He never got mad or fought back. He just withdrew a little more. He seemed to be halfway living in another dimension anyway. Seeing things the rest of us couldn't see and hearing things we couldn't hear. Maybe it was a better, kinder place. Maybe the voices there all sounded like Elmer Fudd. The ribbing that he took from all of us was not that vicious. People liked him OK. The fact that he could take a lot of kidding was a definite plus. He was a pretty fair baseball player. He was one of the first guys to get a steady girlfriend, in the fifth grade. She was a little wall eyed and didn't talk much but a lot of us envied his social skills with the opposite sex and the fact that he had access to an actual girl.

His shortcomings didn't go unnoticed by his parents. They were concerned and got right on it. They made sure he was involved in a lot of activities, scouting, little league, top hatters, which was an organization that taught social skills and dancing, church youth groups. They fed him a low carb, high protein diet and kept him in swimming programs to ensure he got plenty of exercise. They arranged intensive speech therapy for the Elmer Fuddism. I remember once, his mother picked up a group of boys and gave them a ride. She implored them not to make fun of her son or call him names anymore. That may have been a mistake.

So by the time this kid is out of high school, he's a lanky six foot two. He grew his hair long so nobody could notice his head was a little funny shaped. He spoke in lovely, well modulated tones. He had learned to concentrate on didactics and his grades had gone from OK to very good. He got out of college with a degree in geology, which was something you could actually use to make a decent living. He had a setter named Gandalf and pretty little hippie girlfriend that he married. They all moved up to a mountainous region of Oregon, not too far from the coast. He did geological surveys of the area, quadrant by quadrant, for a big mining company. In his spare time he would collect logs on the beach, mill them himself and do woodworking. They had a shitload of kids, six or seven, right away.

Eventually, the geological work petered out. He couldn't bring himself to leave Grant's Pass. He and his family were happy there. He opened a small business that went bust after several years. He tried teaching in the local public school but didn't like it, too much pressure.

In the end, he and his wife made a marginal living by working as walk on coaches for high school girl's sports, driving school buses morning and evening and doing schoolyard supervision. The kids got plenty to eat. They went to State schools. They did all right. It was a big, happy family. They loved their parents.

Sometimes I used to talk to Mike on the phone. Not often. He talked just like Elmer Fudd and seemed to be living halfway in another dimension. Maybe it's a kinder, better place. Maybe all the voices there sound like Elmer Fudd.