Day: June 8, 2020

My name is Helen, and I’m a thumbsuck-aholic. ‘Tis true. I didn’t defeat my personal thumb-diction demon until sometime after 1st Grade. When I was in Kindergarten, I knew I had to stop, but I couldn’t. I did not want to take my baby habit with me to elementary school, but I did—at least to 1st grade. I distinctly remember “accidentally on purpose” dropping my pencil underneath my desk a dozen times a day at least, so while I retrieved my pencil, I could suck a quick puff o’ thumb with my desk as my cover. I never got caught committing my baby habit, but I knew my luck with getting away with such an embarrassing habit would likely not hold out much longer.

Besides, my 1st Grade teacher thought something wasn’t quite right with my behavior anyway. I’m sure the near-constant droppin’ o my pencil was one of the reasons she told my Mom she was sorry, but she thought I was probably retarded, and Mom and Dad should just face it. Mostly, my teacher thought something was wrong with me because I barely spoke. My teacher did not speak in low decibels: She was a yeller, and I had not yet hobnobbed with any adult yellers up to that point in my life. I handled her yelling by trying to be invisible and silent. I tried to blend in with the furniture and hoped to go entirely unnoticed for my first year in elementary school. Looking back, I can see I truly needed my thumb-sucking habit to help me reduce the stress of my 1st Grade experience. It makes perfect sense to me now why I couldn’t stop thumb-sucking before I got away from all the shouting.

Over the summer, I focused all of my superpowers on quitting my bad habit. I begged Mom to cut off my offending thumb (the right). I reasoned that if I didn’t have my thumb, I wouldn’t need to suck it. She would not do it. One of my brothers had his pocketknife at the ready, to lop it off if I gave him a dollar (which I did), but Mom didn’t let him cut it off for me either. Neither did he return the dollar I had already given him for his services.

I soaked my childish thumb in rubbing alcohol, so I wouldn’t be tempted to suck it anymore. But that didn’t work either. I held my nose and sucked my thumb. I was desperate. And as every pro-level thumbsucker knows, thumb-sucking isn’t merely about sucking a thumb. For me, it was about sucking my thumb while mousing my fingers in the fabric of MY quilt. See my raggedy blanket there on our clothesline, barely hanging together. See how tattered it is from my thumb-sucking, fidgety-fingered use and from all the dragging it around with me. See how I couldn’t be separated from it at home for the length of time it took for it to dry on the clothesline. See how I stood at the clothesline, clutching my quilt all day in the hot sun. #yesthatisthebattingyoucansee

Standing there with my blanket was for many years my idea of Heaven. But I needed to stop. So I begged Mom to burn my blanket, reasoning that if I had no blanket, I would have less desire to suck my thumb. Mom would not burn my quilt, and I don’t have any idea how I finally stopped the whole thumby experience. All I know is that my infantile thumb habit did not go with me to 2nd Grade, where my teacher was not a yeller. In fact, at the end of 2nd Grade, my teacher thought I should skip a grade.

BTW This washed-out slide is one of my faves. I haven’t been sure if I really did this or have just been “remembering” I did it because I heard the story from so many family members for so long. This slide proves it was not just a family myth. My quilt, my right thumb, and I were united. And I’m sure there’s a Bow o’ the Day tied somewhere on my dress.

When I discovered the long-hidden slides of baby-me yesterday, I knew two things were bound to happen: I will be making Suzanne watch slideshows of me and my family every evening until we have seen them all many times, AND y’all will be seeing pix I take of the slides projected onto my wall. I’ll eventually get the slides scanned and turned into photos, but I can’t wait that long to show y’all.

With this slide, I am utilizing my bow-tied hoodie string around my face as our Bow Tie o’ The Day. Here, I am just amblin’ through the neighborhood, down our front sidewalk in my natural habitat with my natural prop: a gun, of course. I am a Wright, therefore, I shoot things. It would not surprise me if Dad put this gun in my arms as we left the hospital after I was born. I do remember the gun shot corks. A double-barrel cork gun! And please note that I am already carrying the gun barrel-down, which means Dad had already taught me to hold a gun safely. Heck, Dad had probably made sure I passed my Hunter Safety classes before he ever brought me home from the hospital in the first place.

For those of you Deltites over 50, you might remember the building in the far background of this slide. If my kid memory is correct, it is the old train depot. Yup, Delta used to be a regular stop for passenger trains. As a kid, I spent a lot of time hanging around the tracks and the depot. I did a lot of investigating stopped train cars, especially cabooses—with and without permission. I will always miss the sound of trains during the night. Trains were part of my natural habitat too.