{"id":471,"date":"2011-07-20T15:27:30","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T13:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=471"},"modified":"2015-04-03T15:41:43","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T13:41:43","slug":"the-parable-of-ned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/the-parable-of-ned\/","title":{"rendered":"The parable of Ned"},"content":{"rendered":"

My time in Catholic grade school<\/span> was pretty uneventful<\/span>. It was a small school, so all the students knew each other \u2014 and the teachers, half of whom were nuns, knew all of us. There were no drugs or bullies<\/span>. There were a couple of kids who tried to bend the rules from time to time, but it was all harmless stuff.<\/p>\n

The main rule they tried to bend was the one requiring us to wear uniforms \u2014 a white shirt, green tie<\/span> and dress trousers<\/span> for the boys, and a white blouse and long, green skirt for the girls. The nuns enforced<\/span> this rule very strictly<\/span>. Later on \u2014 much later, in fact \u2014 it became clear to me that the uniforms were not so much a means of imposing<\/span> discipline or respect as a way of making us equal to each other.<\/p>\n

Children in general can be mean<\/span> \u2014 and this starts when they notice differences between themselves and others. We had heard, for example, that one family was much poorer than the others \u2014 but we never noticed it because their kids wore the same clothes we did. Some classmates<\/span> were more creative, or far less creative, than others, but we treated each other the same, because we were dressed alike. The only obvious differences were physical ones.<\/p>\n

In the days before high-fructose corn syrup<\/a>, we \u2014 like most Americans \u2014 were thin. The exception<\/span> in our class was a guy called Ned. At age 11, when we weighed 45 kilograms, he weighed 75. He was the last kid chosen to do any kind of sports. We’d do running exercises; he’d end up walking part of the distance. During our lunchtime recess<\/span>, he’d often sit or stand near where other kids were running around. Several of us would usually keep him company<\/span> so he wouldn’t be left alone.<\/p>\n

We had some great conversations about technology, things we’d seen on TV, trips he’d taken with his family, and things that had happened in school. Ned was a little shy, but he always had intelligent things to say, and of all of us, he seemed to have the most reasonable<\/span> viewpoint. He was interested in everything, but he never got riled up<\/span> about any of it. He was almost a role model to us.<\/p>\n

The other kids all seemed to respect this. Nobody teased<\/span> Ned about his weight or made fun of him for not being able to keep up<\/span>. He was nice to everybody, and they were nice to him. But his size was something we always associated with him.<\/p>\n

After eighth grade<\/span>, our paths diverged<\/span>. Ned went to a Catholic high school, while the rest of us attended public school. We sometimes wondered what happened to him.<\/p>\n

At my 20-year high-school reunion<\/a>, a number of us from the Catholic grade school happened to be sitting together when a classmate asked if he could join us. We were talking about our lives and travels and careers. The man paid close attention to our stories and asked thoughtful questions, telling us about his life as well. But the whole time, we couldn’t figure out<\/span> who it was we were talking to \u2014 and in such an informal circle, we would have felt ashamed<\/span> to ask. We just couldn’t remember knowing anyone who was that tall and articulate<\/span> and confident<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The evening wound down<\/span>, and he left the event. After a ten-second pause, someone asked, “Who was that?” We all admitted<\/span> to wondering<\/span> the same thing. Then across from me, one person’s eyes grew wide as he realized the answer.<\/p>\n

It was Ned. He had grown into the person we’d always seen inside him. We just couldn’t believe our eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My time in Catholic grade school was pretty uneventful. It was a small school, so all the students knew each other \u2014 and the teachers, half of whom were nuns, knew all of us. There were no drugs or bullies. There were a couple of kids who tried to bend the rules from time to time, but it was all … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[187,41,188],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}