You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

DUMMY

On that fateful morning when, I was 2 years old, I was in our back yard with my 9 year old sister. Our cleaning lady, a middle aged African American woman, was ironing in the back room, which had a window onto the back yard. She looked up from her work and screamed “Mrs. Lundy the baby!” Mom ran into the back room and saw me hanging by the neck from the rope of the swing set, blue with foam coming out of my mouth. The ironing lady was already there untangling me from the rope. Mom, screaming, ran out, picked me up and carried me to the front yard.

At that moment my dad, a medical doctor, drove around the corner. He was coming home for lunch. He took me directly to the hospital emergency room. My sister, who was supposed to be “watching the baby”, me, was not in the back yard.

Years later, I asked my sister about this incident, she told me that she was not in the yard when it happened. She said that she had gone into the house to get a soda. I wondered about how a two-year-old could get a swing rope wrapped around his neck. When I asked mom about it, the most she would say, regarding the incident, was that following this incident, she and dad had a very long talk with my sister.

While I survived with no obvious injuries, mom said that dad thought that my being hanged had damaged my brain. It could be a reason that I had learning problems in elementry school. When in the ninth grade, my last year at Roosevelt Junior High, I wanted to take algebra. I was told I could not, that I would be taking an art class instead. Mrs. Letto’s art class was easy, even childish.

A couple of weeks later dad called to talk with my younger sister and me. He had left the family several years earlier. He asked me about school. I told him that I had not been allowed to take algebra.

A couple of weeks later I was called from my classroom to go to a conference room and meet with a woman. I remember the meeting as starting with a pleasant conversation in which she asked me questions. Then she explained that she had a few tasks that she would like met to try. She didn’t say why. I remember that one for me was to repeat back to her, a list of numbers. She started with a short list and proceeded to give me increasingly long lists until I failed to remember them correctly. She told me that she was surprised at how well I had done. I felt good about that experience but had no idea why it had happened.

A few weeks after that meeting with the woman, dad called again. He asked about my interviewed with the school psychologist. When he sensed by confusion, with the mention of a psychologist, he explained that he had called the school principal and learned that I had not been allowed to take algebra because I was considered to be retarded. This was because of a note in my school records from the first grade. The note stated: “Don’t expect much from Tod Lundy. As an infant he suffered an accident which resulted in brain damage.” As a result of dad’s conversation with the principal, the school district had sent a psychologist to our school to test me. He also said that the school psychologist had found me to be of normal intelligence and that the note had been removed from my student file.

Perhaps I do have some brain damage. I have always had trouble learning things by rote memory. I need to have some logical order or relationships among facts in order for them to be keyed into my mind. Possibly, if it weren’t for that learning problem, I would have been able memorize those tedious organic chemistry reactions when in pre-med, and would have become a doctor. As it was, I took courses in science and psychology while in my first two years of college. As a standard part of the General Psychology Course, all of the students took the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. When the results of that test were returned, I was surprised to find that according to that test, I had an IQ of 120. While I didn’t take much stock in the test result, it was pleasant to think that I was above average intelligence instead of below it.

At the start of my junior year, I took an introductory class in the architecture department titled “basic design”. It was recommended to me by a friend as a class in which “you will be taught to think in a different way.” I took it thinking that it would be a valuable experience for a psychologist. I found that I loved it and discovered that architecture was a field which suited my interest in and abilities to understand how things work. As a result of a situation involving misunderstanding and coincidence, I changed my major from psychology to architecture. *

I eventually became an architect. This was no small accomplishment, there was a sign above the door of the School of Architecture when I entered to register for my first class in Basic Design. It read “10% of the Freshmen who start college majoring in architecture will graduate in architecture, and 10% of those who graduate in architecture will become registered architects. I didn’t think that it could be an accurate statistic at the time. However, I found the first part of this prediction to be close. Over 60 students enrolled in architecture with me in the Fall of 1960, and about a dozen were in my graduating class in 1965.

After sharing this story with others, I was asked “Why didn’t any of your teachers recognize your intelligence?” The answer to this question is simple. They thought I was a dummy because I was a dummy. The interesting realization, which this question brings to light, is why was I a dummy when I had normal intelligence.

My elementary school teachers expected me to be a “slow learner” because of that note, and being a compliant boy, I didn’t present different behavior. They did not recognize my intelligence because I wasn’t. Furthermore, I was a dummy for a reason which most likely applies to many. We learn to be what we are considered to be, by authority figures. In my case the authorities were my school administrators and teachers, all of whom had read that note before meeting me. Because of that note my teachers expectation of me was low. And because of the teacher’s low expectations of me, I adopted the same attitudes about myself. After all it was easier to be the dummy. I would participate in regular classes, turn in my work, and take the tests. The result was that either Richy Farwell, who lived in a cardboard shack, or I would be the bottom of the class. It was what they expected of me and what I assumed to be my capacity. I was a dummy and accepted it.

This experience has made me aware of how oppressed people, such as African slaves and even women, of an earlier time, become under achievers despite having normal, or even superior, intelligence. This experience also inspires, in me, a great admiration for those who have the tenacity and self confidence to excel, in-spite of societal pressures to hold them down.

My high school teachers knew nothing of that note so their expectations of me were the same as they were for the other students. However I was handicapped with an educational deficit as a consequence of that note. I had to work extra hard to do modestly well in my classes. By the second year of high school I was achieving average grades. I even had the experience of getting an A on a geometry test. It was my first A on a test ever. That “A” gave me an unfamiliar and wonderful new feeling of academic pride.

My grades steadily improved through high school. By the time I graduated they were good enough to gain admission to Oregon State College and the University of Oregon, where I successfully graduated from the five year Architecture program. I was even able to gain admission to “the master’s class” with Lou Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania. I have been the principal of an architectural office, and I have taught architecture for 11 years, at three universities in the US and abroad. I was a project manager for Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the United States. A job in which I was entrusted with managing the design and construction of many projects including a new medical office building and a new radiology treatment center. As it turned out, I was not a dummy after all.

* The story about the situation which caused me to switch majors is found on this web site under the title “Career Choice.”