Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Upside of Dyslexia

The Upside of Dyslexia

If I haven’t mentioned it before I served in the Military. One of the things you get to do in that career is go abroad…Vietnam….and other places like Germany. While assigned in Germany I discovered that it was an amazing place….except for the fact that there were entirely too many Germans.

Germans are the most anal people in the world…women and men. Another thing is that German men love their automobiles more than they do their women.

Anyway most Germans speak English better than Americans do. They have a gift for languages, particularly the women. I think they were invaded so many times that the women had to learn to pick up a foreign language quickly. Those who did survived and passed the gene on to their descendents. The same is true for all those European women. They can speak foreign languages. If they don’t know one to start with and they get a GI Boyfriend, they have it mastered in a week.

My mother was German, third generation and a died in the wool, card carrying member of the Nationality. She had the language gene. She also had blond hair and blue eyes and carried the dyslexia gene which she passed on to me…not that I’m complaining mind you… There is something about dyslexia that takes you to mental abilities that are hard to explain. Sure you spend most of your life looking stupid but sometimes it allows you to soar in unexpected ways….for example in languages.

When I was growing up we lived in France and I learned to speak some French. In High School I took Spanish. In College I studied more French. The Army sent me to Germany. Anyway where I worked in the transportation field, there were many may German employed and many of these were females. Many of the young girls married GIs. These young woman would rotate back to the States and often return when their husbands were reassigned. Since most army posts in the United States were in the South they had the most beguiling Southern accents and they tended to be virtually without the trace of any accent. I swear they became more American than we were except for the anal part….They were organized, smart and paid attention to detail. They were also dependable and made terrific employees.

Even though Germans could speak better English that Americans they liked it when Americans made an attempt to speak their language

Often I was asked to speak to German audiences as a part of our “Partnership” programs and here is where the dyslexia came in. Dyslexia can give the afflicted what I call an actors memory. My daughters both have it. They can go to a movie and come home and recite nearly every line. I found that dyslexia gave me the ability to memorize. What I would do…I know this sounds devious, is when I had one of these speaking engagements I would write a speech in English. Then I would give it to one of my German friends and they would translate it into Kraut. Once it was translated I would get this old high German Speaking employee to record it into High German on a recorder. I would then memorize the speech from the recorder exactly like the old German guy had spoken it.

Now picture this if you can. Here I am an American, with a memorized speech in a language I don’t even know giving a speech to a bunch of Germans…but you know it works…not just good but great. When I finished the applause was resounding. The down side was I still couldn’t speak German and even though I admitted it they still loved to have me come and speak. Plus, like those girls married to the GI’s I began to learn German fast and Europeans love an American who can speak their language.

So now you know what a fraud I can be…but also that dyslexia can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. I can tell plenty more about dyslexia and what some of the unexpected spin offs are.