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Writing and Research
Leon Troyer
10-5-07

Journal Week 2 #2
Recollection of a childhood person:

            I have met countless people in my exciting and illustrious childhood.  I have forgotten most of them, but I will never forget Angela Wilcox.  I bit her.  We were in 3^rd grade and had just finished a particularly laborious section of the achievement test required by the state.  For in my day the state deemed that a child’s public school educational experience would not be complete without yearly suffering through a series of high stress, high boring tests which somehow magically (with the help of a computer) evaluated your brain and the knowledge therein to see if it was developing properly in accordance to the average ability of all the other young persons your age.  Now our teacher happened to be an exceptional teacher by the name of Miss Latimore who understood the unique needs particular to 3^rd grade boys and girls.  She knew that 3^rd graders cannot sit still for consecutive 40 minute periods while filling in little circles with yellow #2 lead pencils so she had us stand and stretch.  Angela Wilcox happened to be standing to my right, and as I was busily stretching my hands in accordance to my teacher’s instructions, I noticed a hand being waved directly in front of my face.  Upon further investigation I deduced that it was indeed the left hand of Angela Wilcox.  Being a girl’s hand, it was clean.  Who knows, it might even have smelled nice, I don’t remember anymore.  The hand was not eye level or neck level, it was directly mouth level.  I did not particularly like having a hand, especially a girl’s hand, being waved so closely to general proximity of my face, which I had been taught was my ‘personal space.’  So I bit it.  I did not need to lean to the side or adjust the elevation of my mouth, I simply opened my mouth and bit.  Not particularly hard, certainly not hard enough to draw blood. I was not so uncivilized as that!  But hard enough to leave a gentle tooth mark or two to subtly communicate the fact that her hand was uncomfortably near to my face.  Angela immediately clasped her bitten hand with her non-bitten hand and the look on her face was indescribably priceless.  Being a sensible girl, she immediately went and ‘had words’ with our teacher.  At the next recess period for some reason I was asked to remain behind in the room.  Miss Latimore inquired as to why I would bit a fellow classmates hand.  I engaged all the blarney I could muster up and waxed eloquent on the themes of invasion of personal space and something to the effect of not being able to communicate my desires in normal means as I had just been instructed by our most excellent and understanding teacher to wave my hands as well, and to stop waving before further instructions would have been in direct violation to her commands, something I did not wish to do.  Our entire conversation lasted less than seven minutes and in the end I agreed with her that less aggressive means of communication existed and committed myself to follow more culturally accepted methods of communication in the future.  After our conversation I was free to go.  I was rather relieved and have managed thus far to live to the standard to which I committed myself that day.  I will always remember Angela Wilcox as the owner of the first and last hand I have ever bitten.    

P.S.  The author apologizes to the instructor if this entry seems more like a description of an event than a description of a person, it wasn’t going to be but something happened to it along the way.  He hopes that the instructor will sense the enjoyment the author had in writing this entry and will see the value of the exercise even if it did not comply exactly to the specified directions. 

P.P.S.  This entry was written very rapidly and took to heart the instruction to write not as carefully as plentiful and freely.