Chapter 12.8 - I Have a Dream

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

    Len had no way of knowing that he was an exceptional child.  At eleven months he merrily wandered around the house in front of amazed neighbors saying, ”Hi, what your name is?”

    Len couldn’t understand the reaction his parents had when he drummed out the rhythm from something he had heard on the radio.

    “Tom, do you think we should look into some special school for Len?”

    “No.  His best chance in life is to grow up normal without any pressures and responsibilities.”

    Len loved to explore the backyard.  At two years old he was allowed all the way down to the beginning of the path into the forest.  There were rocks with crevices he could hide in, small caves, a stream which froze in the winter, and best of all a family of squirrels.  Armed with some string and wire Len would walk down to the edge of the forest and make things.  All kinds of things.  He especially liked the pond he had made for the squirrels.  It was made from a tricycle wheel, some irrigation tubing, pieces of bark, and a rubber dish.  The bicycle was suspended over the water with pieces of bark wired to the spokes.  A piece of conduit his father had left over from making his work shop was used as the tricycle wheel shaft.  Len had mounted the wheel into two rocks.  He had hammered out indentations in the limestone to ensure a good fit.  The irrigation tubing was held directly in front of the paddle wheel with some rocks.  The end was cut at an angle.  The tubing led over the bank of the stream and into a dug out pond with the rubber dish in the middle.  The dish had holes in it.  Len had dug up some of the plants near the stream and replanted them near the pond.  From the pond edge to the rubber dish was a flat stick.  Len placed food for the squirrels all around the pond.  Almost any day you could find him out by the pond in the shade watching the squirrels play around the pond.

    Len started piano and math lessons when he was two and a half.  Margaret convinced Tom that Len deserved the opportunity to express his genius in ways other than outdoor engineering.  Every weekday from 1:30 p.m. until 3:30 he would sit with Mr. Curuthers and learn piano, astronomy, math, and physics.  Mr. Curuthers was an expert in child prodigies.  He himself had been one and was now working at Los Alamos as one of the most notable physicists around.  Much to Mrs. Mahoney’s chagrin all but the piano lessons were taught and learned out by the pond.

    Len loved Mr. Curuthers.  Everything that he asked Len to do always seemed to have an outcome that benefited Len.

    “What say we build you a star observation platform, Len.”

    And so it would start.

    “I’d like you to get this large rock on top of this larger rock.”

    “I can’t do it.  Rock is to big for Len.”

    “I know better than that.  I’ll show you an example of something that might work and then you get that rock where I asked.”

    Mr. Curuthers would push a small rock through the dirt and lift it with a smaller twig.  The twig would snap.  He would then find a piece of wood with a flat edge and use a twig the same size and push the rock up the wood without breaking the twig.  Len would always see the analogy and utilize many different examples of what Mr. Curuthers showed him.  After every successful implementation of a physics concept Mr. Curuthers would sketch a diagram in the dirt of what had been done using pictures and symbology.  He would patiently explain how each piece of the diagram represented something that Len had just done.  He would then write down the formula for the diagram.  Harry Curuthers took pleasure in tying the world together for Len.  Harry developed the personal history of every famous scientist that he introduced.  He wanted Len to understand the principles of cause and effect.  He described the transportation, the clothing, the animals, the flora, and the discoverers parents.

    After Mr. Curuthers left, Len would sit down in his favorite spot and watch the light change through the branches of the trees. He would listen to the stream tell him a story about the squirrels.  Sometimes, the wind would teach him a new song to play on the piano.

    On Len’s third birthday he was sitting out by the pond watching two older boys playing further down in the forest. He learned the difference between himself and other children.  They could have fun with wild abandonment and not be concerned with the consequences of their actions.  He could not.  Not because he couldn’t do what they were doing, but because he wouldn’t.  Every action created another action, on and on forever.  To him, wild abandonment was a dream left behind at two and a half.  No one would ever know that they had stolen his childhood by educating him too early with music and physics.  Who could have thought that physics was philosophy?  He would have.  But then, he was different.