Tooting Our Own Horns

Mom Said It Was Wrong, I Say She Was

Full disclosure upfront, I did not come up with this idea. It was something I read by Leonora Watkins that got me thinking. She wrote a piece asking readers what they’re good at. Here it is:

Singing my own praises is a bit of a foreign concept to me. I was raised in an old-school Christian home. Bragging wasn’t part of our culture. In fact, I was taught humility from day one. No matter how I excelled, no matter how cute I may have been, no matter the prizes I won, I was told there was always someone better waiting around the corner.

I wrote a poem about it and the damage it did to my self-esteem as a kid and an adult:

It’s a total headfuck to force a child to look over his/her shoulder for this better person all the time. I get what she was doing. She was trying to teach me humility, that no matter my accomplishments, I was, in a human sense, no better than anyone else and I was subject to defeat. I get that at 50. When I was 10 or 15, not so much.

So what am I good at? Quite a few things, as it turns out. I may not run as fast as I used to. I may not be the prettiest girl in the crowd anymore. And I sure as hell am not becoming Olympic gymnastics champion anytime soon unless they introduce an Old Lady Division. But I still have some skills, and some pretty nifty ones at that.

I’m Brilliant With The Mentally Ill and Developmentally Delayed: Not sure why. I worked in group homes before I went to law school and even one after I left the legal profession and the mentally ill and the developmentally delayed are my people! It’s a strange superpower I have. But it’s not really. All it is is treating people, all people, with respect.

Here are a couple of examples. First up, is RT, he was a guy, roughly my age who had suffered a serious brain injury in his mid-twenties. He was no choir boy before the accident and was dubbed the province's most violent group home resident. Countless homes refused him.

I took a job at the home that took him. Staff refused to deal with him. He stayed in his room, not permitted to take meals with the rest of the house, citing violence. Treated with annoyance when his adult garment needed changing and handled roughly when they had to. He was violent, demanding, and a huge asshole.

On a night shift, he hollered for me. He wanted pudding. It was after 3 am. I wasn’t supposed to give him anything. But I did. I gave him some pudding because to me, a 45-year-old grown-ass man who wants some damn pudding can have it.

We chatted. He wasn’t all bad. He was a Nascar-loving, truck-driving hillbilly. I could work with that. He was also a very skilled carpenter, who couldn’t physically do the work anymore, but could tell you how. He was violent. He was angry.

Why? Because no one treated him like a person. That night we made a deal. I’d treat him like a grown man and he’d act like one. The staff hated me, but RT was eating with the house within a week and enjoying the TV. Did we have a few challenges? Yeah, and we dealt with them. The man wanted to be heard, to be seen as a man, a person, not a problem. His mother thanked me more than once and even offered me gifts, which I refused. When I left the job, she pulled him out of the home.

Secondly, there was PS, a severely Autistic young man who didn’t seem to know anything. Except he knew EVERYTHING! It was easy to see. And he’s still my pal. He still hates I made him set the table, but he also has pride in his mealtime job.

That’s my strength, I can see past whatever is on the surface and see the person behind it and treat that person with dignity and respect. Honestly, that shouldn't be a strength to brag about. It should be a given. It isn’t.

I Can Pinch A Penny Till It Cries: Seriously, I can pinch a penny till the Queen’s head pops off! Well, a nickel, I’m Canadian, we don’t have pennies anymore. I’m sure it’s from my years as a single mother in the trailer park, but yeah, give me $20 and I’ll feed a family of 4 for 4 days with some leftovers for lunches. And, it’ll taste good.

I Know All The Random Shit: Yeah, I just do. Maybe it’s from watching the news with my parents as a kid, or just being a bit of a nerd, but I remember the most random, useless stuff. Name of the Soviet Union’s newspaper — Pravda (meaning truth), duh. First Western act to play Communist China — Wham, duh. My phone number from 1977–35*-8944. Postal code from that time got that too. My New Brunswick Medicare number too and I haven’t lived there for 5 years.

My mind holds useless stuff that’s only good for winning bar trivia from Dartmouth to Dublin and Simcoe to Sidney. And I did. I eat and drink free wherever I go because of my freaky mind. I really should try out for Jeopardy, but my luck, they’d want me to know science stuff or pop-culture garbage from any time after 1990.

I’m Handy as Hell: Yeah, I’m more than a pretty face, I can actually fix shit. I got that from my daddy. He could fix and build almost anything. I can change my own oil, my own tires. Actually, I can do most routine maintenance on my vehicle. I can plant and till gardens, erect walls, paint, and crack fill. I can even do enough rough plumbing and electrical to get by (I don't recommend the electrical for insurance purposes).

I’m also a pretty decent dancer, cook, writer, and photographer. But what about you? I want to hear you too your own horn — what are you awesome at? I’m looking at you Jimmy Misner Jr., Jan Sebastian, KL Simmons, Carl Parker