re: #368 Olsonist

Indeed.

When I was in Kindergarten, they decided to mainstream disabled children into public school which is something they hadn’t done before (like 1967). There was a boy named Scott (I also remember his last name) with severe cerebral palsy. It doesn’t effect the mind at all, but he walked with braces (like polio), he couldn’t speak well, he drooled. Anyway, I sat next to him and always helped him with his pencils, paper, crayons. All the kids made fun of him, as kids do, and me because I was “his girlfriend.”

Anyway, we picked names at Christmas for a gift exchange and I got Scott’s name. There was a $10 limit but my mom wanted to get him something special so we got him a train set. We exchanged the gifts in front of the class and when he opened the box, he was so happy, he started crying. He hugged me so tightly and said thank you. All the teasing didn’t matter after that.