IED

Acronyms, so many meanings for so few letters. Here, now, tonight, typing with my thumb on my phone to force a slow pace, it's explosive alright and intermittent but it's not a device it's a disorder. Like my "lysdexia" only a "reasonable accommodation" is possible never victory, never recovery. The dyslexia was reasonably accommodated in some serendipitous ways beginning at the age of four in 1951 when my father who had been teaching me to read using phonics discovered, much to his displeasure, that I could not read sentences of more than two or at most three words. After several visits to various extended family members who were teachers and the pediatrician it was decided that perhaps the best thing to do was to place me in school as soon as possible and hope that I either caught on in the hands of professionals or if necessary caught up by repeating the first few grades as often as required. The September before my fifth birthday in November I was placed in a private kindergarten and then the September before my sixth birthday I went into the first grade with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at St Mary's School. In every room at St Mary's there was a placard above the front blackboard with the caption

Read it, Say it, Write it and Know it

displayed beneath a lithograph, some Renaissance Master's work I suppose, depicting a toddler Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the traditional family pose with Joseph standing behind a seated Mary, Jesus in Mary's lap and both Mary and Joseph looking down beneath their halos at the three or four year old Jesus who stared with the Deity's omniscient eyes straight out at the viewer. We did lots of oral recitation as a group and lots of "read it, say it, write it" individually in school and at home. By the sixth grade most traces of dyslexia were not manifest as long as I kept to the program which was simply lots of drill in the old method, filling reams of paper with my work. Eight years with the nuns and this method seemed to do the trick. By my senior year in a public High School I came out of the middle of my graduating class with ninetieth percentile SAT's and advanced placement in English, Russian, French and Math. I went on in the space of the next twenty years through a complete baccalaureate program in Biochemistry but never graduating, did two years of graduate work in Physiology and Pharmacology and later actually earned a BS in Computer Science, the only actual degree. No one seems to know but me and perhaps my writing coach of these last ten years who has simply been patient, leaned on me hard to straighten out my tangled thoughts and never even suggested the obvious. So reasonable accommodation is possible in one area at least. But, with Intermittent Explosive Disorder reasonable accommodation seemed to be at best at the tender age of sixty still a distant and perhaps unachievable goal until today. The U S Navy, from which I am now officially retired, innumerable hospital laboratory jobs, countless outside sales jobs, marriages and sundry other relationships have all at one time or another fallen victim to IED. Today the current position as a mechanized mahoot nearly became a casualty due to my extreme displeasure over some rather long repair delays, I'm still here waiting on repairs nearly twenty four hours after the problems erupted. Repairs that could have been avoided if some timely action had been taken earlier as I suggested. I would have exploded and walked off this morning if it were not for a few kind words from a very insightful site manager who himself has many of the same opinions about our company as I do. My site manager, who if he hasn't had training as a counselor or analyst certainly seems to have the skills, simply dissuaded me from taking a rent car and going home by saying that perhaps things would work out today if I just gave it all some more time and that often he had the same urge recently but has restrained himself and found a good result in most cases, if not exactly the result he wanted at least better than things were before. His opening statement in response to my question as to what would be the best cab company to use to pick up my rent car was, "Oh, that's not necessary I'll have someone drive you. Are you going on vacation?" My site manager has been placed in one of my company's major locations as a trouble shooter to straighten out a few wrinkles that have developed over the years. This fellow, my site manager, who grew up in Germany but has only the slightest trace of not having had English as a first language, is a shining example of how respect is earned not demanded. He is firm but sympathetic, an excellent listener but not incapable of giving orders and expecting them to be carried out. He is renowned among the longer term employees as a fair, straight talking guy who can get things done. It was in that vein that he presented his suggestion this morning that I just wait a bit, not quite an imperative but a soft command that might best be followed. Where was this fellow in all the other jobs and situations in the past when I needed him? Perhaps the old Zen aphorism, "The teacher arrives when the student is ready", has come to me in the flesh. Perhaps, just perhaps, some reasonable accommodation with IED is possible before we take the dirt nap. No big boom today, thank God and my site manager. Onward ever onward and upward, nearer my God to Thee. Wonder what happens if you write "JMJ" in the notes section of the daily log? Perhaps the nuns were right

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 'In your anger do not sin' Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

their method seemed to work before. A good manager, everyone needs a good manager. What do those troublesome Pentecostals always say, "Let go and let God." Hmm. Hmm, indeed.