what He was praying about upon that rocky hill as a light shines down on Him from Heaven. In the background are the silhouettes of the other men that look a sleep, and still the boy contemplates what it all means.
`Well maybe they’ll say something about it at church next week.’ the eight year old boy says to himself as he turns the corner to his street. He once again looks at the mountains and sees Mt.
Olympus directly before him. Again he feels the joy of living in the shadow of this creation of
God and the love he feels for this city.
His pace quickens as he feels the urge to ride a board down the small irrigation ditch that runs through the back yards of all the houses on his side of the street. Water runs in the ditch only two or three times a day. So he plans in his mind to get to his friend Jimmy’s house. The two can help each other take turns riding down the concrete ditch by removing the metal plate which is used to dam up the flowing water.
:April 24
:7:04 am
It is a Monday; for Timothy it is another day at school. Belle Vista is the name of the school, which the young boy feels means `grand view,’ for that is what it is to him as he walks to school with the mountains looming above it. It is such an image that causes him to remember his dream from the night before. He recalls walking, on top of the curb on the west side of the large paved playground. He recollects slipping once and as he does so, he spies an unusual rock. In his dream he bends down to look at it more closely; and as he does so he notices the saddle of the mountains again.
He returns to reality as his mind leaves the thoughts of his dreams behind. He looks at the crossing guard as she signals him and several other children across the busy street that separates his subdivision from the school; and so the school day begins.
`This is the only thing I don’t like about this place,’ he thinks to himself, beginning to dread the long day ahead a thought that possibly every child with him has thought, but for him there is something different in the way he feels about it. It is not the schoolwork that disturbs him, but just a feeling of being out of place. Tim just cannot put his finger on the problem, but he does not look hard to find it either.
:12:28 p.m.
Recess and it has been a very uneventful day for the most part. The schoolwork has not been too hard, and Timothy’s teacher, Miss Ushio, tells the class she has a special announcement she wants to tell them at the end of the school day. He wonders if it might be a field trip to the zoo, or the planetarium, or maybe even the Mormon Tabernacle. He remembers going to the museum of the Tabernacle, but he has never been inside the church itself. He thinks about why he has never been in it as he walks along the curb of the west side of the playground.
`It must be a great place in there’ he thinks to himself. Suddenly he loses his balance, and one of his feet slips off the curb. As this happens, he sees a strange black, and shiny stone lying upon the paved surface next to the curb. He bends down and looks at it as he picks it up.
`Uhm, I wonder what this is,’ he thinks to himself, kneeling; and then he turns his head towards the mountains. He looks at the saddle of the mountain as the sun shines fully upon it and is awed by the beauty of the scene before him. He then quickly stops as he remembers his dream from the night before. Puzzled by this he sits there a moment in shock. Then the bell rings, calling him back to class. As he goes, he again looks at the mountain and tries to understand what has just taken place.
:2:01 p.m.
“Class,” the slender Japanese American teacher says, causing the twenty students in her class to look to her. With a large smile upon her face she begins to speak.
“Class, I have an announcement to make.----------- At the end of the school year I plan to get married. ----- It will be in the Tabernacle, and I want all of you to come.”
The children all respond joyously as some of the girls in the class go up to Miss Ushio and begin to talk to her.
“Oh, this is great!” says one girl sitting two seats to the left of Tim. She is talking to yet another girl seated in front of her.
“Yes!” Tim replies, so happy for his teacher that he wants to talk with someone about it. “I can’t wait to go!” The girl looks at him with a questioningly superior look.
“What do you mean you can’t wait to go?” the second girl asks arrogantly.
“I can’t wait to go to the wedding,” he says more clearly, confused by her reaction. He knows that they do not get along, but he still tries to be the girl’s friend, even though she always shows him nothing but hate.
“You can’t go!” she states strongly. “You’re not one of us!” She and the other girl get up from their desks, both looking at the young boy as if he is crazy.
Timothy watches them as they go up to their teacher’s desk. The joy he has just felt leaves him just as they have. Shocked and bewildered by the girl’s statement, he sits there looking up at the crowd around his teacher’s desk. A loneliness begins to rise within him, and he does not know why.
`What does she mean, `...not one of...them?’ he thinks to himself as his earlier self-awareness of being different starts to grow larger within him.
THE SHADOW YEARS BEGIN
:Illinois, Naperville
:1973, May 25
:1:41 p.m.
Tim has grown into a young teenager. He is thirteen now, and school is still a difficult place.
Now, though, it is in his studies, as well as the feeling of not being accepted by the other students at the school. He has tried many times and ways to fit in but it never seems to work out.
He asks himself repeatedly, almost daily, `what can be the problem’ but he can never find the answer. This day has been a particularly hard one on him. He confides to a boy, that he has considered a friend, that he has a crush on one of the girls in his class. He soon notices that the entire school is aware of his feelings for this girl. Several of the `hotshots’ of the class have hassled him about these feelings. He also observes that the girl in question is avoiding him. Hurt and confused by these events, Timothy enters the last class of the school week. Making him feeling even more out of place than he usually does.
The class is Social Studies, taught by Mr. Evans, a young teacher with new ideas about teaching.
This class is one of Tim’s better subjects in school. He has been going to special classes twice a week to help him with a reading problem, which has become more pronounced in the last five years. It is also this class that causes some of the reticule that he has had to deal with.
“So, `Brickhead’ I hear you got a crush on Carry. Ugh!” a boy says as he enters the room. Carry looks at Timothy a second and then turns to whisper to her best friend. Tim quickly moves to his seat, without saying a word. Embarrassed beyond any means of comfort within the room, he feels the eyes of everyone upon him. Disgraced not only because of what has just been said, he is now beginning to realize just what everyone thinks of him. He has tried his best to fit in with the people at his school, but it just has never quite worked. He is friendly to everyone, and most of the time he thinks they return his friendliness, but now he sees that it is all a lie.
Last year he had even tried out for the basketball team, but was soon cut from the team due to his lack of coordination. So he became the “Manager,” which was nothing more than a glorified water boy. Now he knew better than to do that this year, because that is when he first began to notice the other students’ attitude toward him here in Naperville. This year he just stays around a few people he feels he can trust, but after this experience he realizes he can never trust anyone again.
Time passes very slowly within the class. It soon feels to Timothy, as if the class will never end.
Whispers begin to reach his ears from the boys in the class. The insulting name of “Brickhead,” he had first thought was about his hair, but he now perceives that it is also in reverence to the fact that he is going to the special education classes. Simply, he knows that they think of him as the
class dope, and at this moment he feels every inch of one.
Finally the clock shows that there are only fifteen minutes left in the class, he can no longer take the insults and jabbing words. He jumps up in the class and begins to yell at all that are there as they look on, shocked by the sudden outburst.
“I’ve had it with you jerks! Why don’t you just leave me alone? Why do you always have to pick on me?” he shouts as the teacher jumps up from on top of his desk, where he has been sitting.
“Tim!” he shouts. “Sit down! Stop it!” He appears confused by the sudden explosion by one of his students.
“No, I won’t sit down!” Timothy shouts back. “I’ve had it with these jerks. They insult me and make fun of me, and they hate me!”
“Tim, sit down this instant,” the young teacher orders, more determined to regain control of his class. Timothy notices this and slams back down into his chair.
“Now, stop this behavior, right now,” Mr. Evans demands. In response Tim places his head down between his arms upon his desk and soon begins to cry. His teacher returns to teaching the rest of the class.
:3:17 p.m.
Timothy unlocks his front door and enters his house. He does not say a word, for he knows no one will hear his words. His father is hard at work as an accountant now for a company in downtown Chicago,