INTRODUCTION TO DEDUCTIVE THINKING

I was 26 years old when I stood holding a human brain in my hand. I’d just finished assisting with an autopsy. My job was to take the brain from the cranium and suspend it in formalin. I’d just removed it, and was standing looking down at this strange, gray organ. Suddenly, the question came into my mind. “I wonder what is the greatest thought this brain ever had?” Immediately, I reflected. And you, what is the greatest thought you’ve ever ever had? I was shocked to realize much of my time was spent thinking of my comfort and mundane daily things that I did routinely just to keep myself content. I invite you to give some thought along this same line.

I was born in the center of the world, as we all are. From there, the world stretches out. It seems miraculous that our creator made the world so we could all start out right in the center.

My first memory was of my mother trying to take me from her breast and lay me down. I remember being robbed of my comfort. I became frustrated and started to scream. I, frequently, now have those same feelings when I’m disturbed and respond much in the same manner. Some of you are going to say it’s impossible to remember that far back and tell me what my reality is. I’ve become accustomed to that kind of rhetoric over the years, so, please, feel free make your own judgment.

I’ll put down here the formative years of my life. The things I’ve come to believe, as well as some of the things that have shaped, and made me who I am. I hope at times you will smile, and at others you will feel some of the pain, and joy I’ve experienced in the few short years I’ve lived.

I was born in rural Arkansas, into a very impoverished family, in the year of 1937. I can hardly believe that it was before the big war or penicillin. In those not so long ago times we’d never heard of an atomic bomb. My mother and father were tenant farmers. My Daddy could barely write his name. My mother had an eighth grade education from a one-room schoolhouse. Our home had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing. In the evening, our home was lighted with kerosene lamps. Our heating and cooking was fueled by wood. The water was hand-pumped and carried into the house.

My Daddy had one horse and farmed twenty acres. Most of it was in cotton, but we did grow a little corn for animal feed. We always tried to maintain a few hogs for pork. My mother raised a big garden and kept chickens for meat and eggs. I remember that sometimes we’d have a cow that my Mommy or Daddy would milk. I delighted, as a boy, My Daddy squirting milk into the mouth of the cat and me as we played around the barn at milking time.

I came second to my parents. My older brother had beaten me into the world by two years. That must have upset my psychic as we commenced to fight as soon as I was able to crawl. I can never remember ever agreeing with him about anything when we were children. Unfortunately for me, he was bigger and stronger and I never quite caught up to him. Nevertheless, I fought with him as though I’d surely, miraculously, win the next fight.

My mother used to put me in a wind-up swing and locate me in an area where she could see me while she hoed cotton. I’d spend hours there. I can remember falling asleep, and my neck hurting so badly that I couldn’t hold it up. The pain was unbearable. My anger at not being able to relieve my discomfort is my first memory of having an emotion. I became quite desperate and felt hopeless. I probably cried. But I only recollect my inability to control the situation. I’m sure my poor mother felt she was doing the very best possible for me. Labor in those days was held as a sacred thing; one must labor to live, and it was expected.

My Daddy’s horse was named Dick. It became one of the few words in my brother’s limited vocabulary. At my home birth, when he was allowed to see the new addition to the family, he exclaimed in a shriek, “Dick!” My Daddy, being a man of much mirth, thought he had just heard a very fine name for such a red faced, long, black hair arrival. So, I became, and remain to this day, “Dick,” to certain members of my family.

One of my first memories, as I became mobile, was the discomfort of a lump in my diaper. I remember that if I screamed, and kept it up, it would miraculously go away. Now, the problem was, that at times, I’d scream myself to sleep, wake up, and it would be gone. I couldn’t quite figure that all out.

One day while playing in the yard in front of the house, I became aware of some very high wooden steps leading up to the porch. As I crawled around on the steps, I noticed the lump again. Being very busy at the time, I continued on my mission without a lot of fuss. Suddenly, I became aware the lump was gone, and no one had done anything to, or for me. I became very perplexed by this. I didn’t understand the process of a loose fitting diaper. It became my very first challenge at deductive thinking.