My Dear Cousin - Self Fulfilling Prophecy

7^th May 2021

My dear cousin,

It comes to me that in the years I spent in high school you may question the whereabouts of (Pickle). If you heard he was a convicted felon before the age of nineteen, hit and run, and he never drove a car again. At some point the old man, who worked for the department of disability, had him declared disabled and placed back on the government dollar.

After some point, and a major beating from the man, I insisted that if he was mentally ill he should be seeing a doctor. I figured that if he was sick he needed a doctor and if he had the benefit of a doctor I wouldn’t be taking so much of a beating.  Around the age of sixteen or seventeen I asked the old man if I should call the police when (Pickle) started wailing on me. He said “not until he hits you with an ax.”

About that same time was when my grades started failing. I recall the old man said “in Japan when you fail a test you kill yourself.” My take on the matter is that he felt I was a dud and not worth the effort. The funny thing about that is that is what we call a “self fulfilling prophecy”. He will fail, so I won’t help him. Without help he failed.

In any case, (Pickle) did go to City College for four years but never made much progress towards graduating. It was more just something for him to do rather than a hope of him getting a job. Disability would look after him his whole life, and the man was just too disagreeable to take orders from anyone.

I honestly feel that by the time I got out of high school the family felt that he should be my problem. That meant that I could never have a family of my own as a crying child would drive him to rage and violence.

If there is one thing that happens in my life it’s that people tell me how to live it. People should be more interested in their own lives. We all need to make our way on this lonely rock in the universe, and the best way we can is with our own eyes and our own hearts.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

 

Honors Student

22^nd March 2012

Dear Cassi,

       

There is a bit of business that happened in middle school that would be a major shaping agent for the next six years of my life. Up until the age of eleven I was classified as learning disabled. Understand here that schools get more funding for the learning disabled so they have no interest in curing this problem.

       

Now it just so happens that the school also gets money for the honors students and that one can be both. This contradiction is most perplexing given that a student must have problems to be learning disabled and yet must be more capable than average to be in honors.

       

So they tested me for honors aptitude. I went into one of the buildings with a math teacher who had these blue eyes that darted about the room as if he were on drugs. They gave me an English test. What the math teacher was doing there I cannot say but they gave me a set of pictures and told me to write a story.

       

When I was done they explained to me that I would be graded on how many long words I used. I think this was words over seven letters however I cannot recall. As the written word and I had never gotten on well I had written my story in the smaller words I was better with and so had scored poorly.

Then they saw the word ‘jalopy’ in my story and decided to count it even as it was one letter short. That day I became an honors man and the school put a few more dollars in their budget. I only made it through honors classes because they gave me special consideration.

Still the truth in this regard is that my learning disorder was like a broken bone that had healed wrong. The problem progressed only because it was never looked after and I suffered so that they could make a few extra dollars.

Hear the roar of the all mighty dollar, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

Also updating today!

Random Street Theater a Comic

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