This story started out to be about flying homing pigeons, however after writing two chapters, I realized that the content must be more inclusive of my life experiences.
I was born on March 16,1944, at the Aycock Clinic on Main Street in Franklin, Louisiana. I am the youngest in a family that once consisted of eight children. Six of the original eight are still living I have no recollection of the two that are dead. The first -born died as an infant of spinal meningitis. The only other death occurred when I was a baby. My sister, Betty, was seventeen years old when she was killed in an auto accident. I was too young at the time to remember anything about her, however her death caused a profound effect on our family.
My mother was forty-three years old when I was born; the last thing she needed! She would readily admit that if the pill had been available at that time, then the last three or four of us would not have ever seen the light of day! I can now appreciate how she felt, not enough money, premenopausal, and arthritic. Damn who in their right mind would want more kids under those conditions?
Our family lived on Hanson Street in Franklin at the time that I was born, but I don't remember anything about that part of my life. I don't even know the address on Hanson Street, nor have I ever bothered to find out. The street is only one or two blocks long, so I have never felt as though the address is even relevant.
My first recollection of anything at all is when we moved from Franklin to Centerville, six miles to the east. Life was good at that time, World War II was just ending, and even as a two year old, I could sense the relief that the country as a whole was experiencing. We lived in a two story rent house on what is now LA. Hwy 317. I can remember when the road was being paved; prior to that is was just a "Shell Road" all the way down to "Bayou Sale Bay". At that residence we had enough room for everyone in the family to live under one roof! There was even enough land for my dad to keep a couple of cattle, and for one of my brothers to keep a horse. Another brother had a dog that I was deathly afraid of, and I had a pet "Chicken"! After all, I was the least among us!
The first person I ever knew outside of my immediate family was C.H. "Joe" Wiegmann. He was very polite, and he was the only boy I have ever seen attend school dressed in shirt and tie and spit-shined shoes! His family was very poor, and his mother even found it necessary to allow one of her boys to be adopted by a wealthy couple. They could not have children of their own. They were both attorneys, and the offspring of "carpetbaggers"! Later in life Joe was convicted of armed robbery in Houston, TX, and he served about six or eight years in the penitentiary in Huntsville, TX! My how life has it's way of offering up surprises!
When I was about four years old we were forced to move out of the house in Centerville, and we moved into a three roomed shack in "Baker Town" which is on the east end of Franklin. It was there that I would spend the next thirteen years living in abject poverty! The first two years I spent at home with my mother, all of my other siblings were enrolled in school. I was about a foot and a half tall, and I just hated being held and kissed by old women who were friends of my mother!
Life in that shabby old house had a profound effect on my life! I had two sets of friends. One group lived near our house, so they knew where I lived, and the other group was friends of mine, at school, who did not know where I lived. I made it a point to not let anyone get close enough to me to ever find out! So the rule became, "let's be friends, but let's not get too close, because you might want to know where I live, and I am ashamed of that"!
I remember being normal until age five. About that time I began having involuntary and nearly unbearable nervous impulses. The sensations started out primarily in my wrists and ankles and later progressed to the neck area, which resulted in jaw thrusting. My mother bought me a bicycle in a futile attempt to curb the extremely disturbing sensations. It did not matter much anyway, because she backed over the bicycle with the car, and there was no money available to replace it. Dr. Hilton Brown made, what I thought at the time, was an astoundingly complex diagnosis. His thoughts were "that repeated bouts of tonsillitis had resulted in lymph node involvement, which caused the impulses"! Wow, was I impressed! Dr. J.M. Fernandez was more than happy to perform a tonsillectomy. When I awakened from the surgery, I remember how disappointed I felt as nothing had changed!
My older brother had extremely bothersome and overt motor and vocal tics. He referred to my problems as "The Hands and Feet Syndrome"! As I said before, "I was the least among us", so we did not refer to his problems AT ALL! He later became a General Surgeon, and believe it or not, his tics were never mentioned by anyone during his medical training. He was in his forties before he was diagnosed by a high school student!
She was watching a television program which showed a group of individuals who suffered from "Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome". At long last, someone had come up with a clue that might explain his problems. I did not at all associate the condition with my problems, because the symptoms were manifested so differently. A year or two later, he mentioned to me that he thought I had what he had. This was hard for me to believe, since my symptoms were so different. However, this promulgated my quest to find some answers of my own.
In the spring of 1988, I took a Clonidine 0.2mg tablet for the very first time. The results were quite dramatic; it resulted in the first night of restful sleep since the age of four! Later that year, I went to see Dr. Tim Himel, a neurologist, in New Iberia, LA. He confirmed the diagnosis of "Tourette Syndrome", and for the first time, I felt as though I had met someone who could actually almost relate. He, by the way, has "Lazy Leg Syndrome". I remember the office visit very well, because I had to wait over an hour in his waiting room before being seen. This was the first time I had been to a doctor for this problem in over thirty years. I could not help but thinking about the sensations, so I went outside and paced around his parking lot! When my turn finally arrived, I almost went nuts! My blood pressure was sky high, and I told the nurse, "don't you EVER let me sit in that waiting room again"!
On October 9, 1985, Joan and I had a son. We named him Scott, and by1990 he was beginning to exhibit signs of "Tourette Syndrome". Joan wondered if it could be learned behavior. I explained to her, "you have to FEEL it, you can't FAKE it"! By this time I had figured out that my dad had had some milder form of the genetically acquired neurological disorder. This made the third generation affected to my knowledge. Obviously it goes back much farther than my personal knowledge. On May 7, 1987, Joan and I had one more child. Kaci was born at Lakewood Hospital in Morgan City, Louisiana. This is also the hospital where Scott was born. Kaci, now fourteen years old, shows no sign of the disorder. However, she, along with Joan, must endure its presence in the same household! Not an easy thing to live with, even for the most patient and understanding person! I'm quite sure this had something to do with the fact that Joan was my third wife!
I now find it quite remarkable that we have all done well scholastically, and have led quite productive lives. It is interesting to note that Joan was perceptive enough to relate my medical condition with that of my brother's on our very first date! This was long before I even suspected that there was any similarity! I sometime think of "Tourette Syndrome" as a curse, then there are times I think of it as a gift! I have all of the major symptoms of the disorder: Echolalia, Coprolalia, Motor Tics, and Phonic Tics! I do things compulsively, and for some strange reason, I like to keep people guessing as to what I might say or do in any given situation!
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