A Man in the Destruction, Second Essay

I had to ask a few questions of the man. My first question turned out to be a question that got me nowhere. I asked, "What were your feelings when you first saw the destruction all around?" He looked at me, but didn't respond. I felt for a moment that maybe his emotions were too raw and he couldn't respond. Then I realized that he really wasn't responding at the level of the the emotions at all. I was about to try another approach, that would also have brought out the feeling dimension, but I stopped myself and decided to take a different tack. Because I knew something about certain human disabilities and afflictions, I decided to switch my questions-- and I began to ply him with factual and numerical questions. Bingo.

The Numbers of the Man

I began by asking him about the house, when it was built and when he moved in. He looked at me without emotion and said, "They began work on it March 3, 1956 and finished it September 13, 1956. We moved in on the same day." I thought his answer was unusual in its precision, and I kept talking. He told me he was born on April 17, 1925, that he had grown up seven miles away in "County Corners," that they had first moved to a lot in town in 1945. He then broke away to describe the storm again, giving very precise direction of the storm, saying that it headed up from SW Kiowa County from 67 degrees to 90 degrees NNE. He told me that he lived in the house with his parents from Sept. 13, 1956 until they died (he told me the precise dates of their deaths, but I don't recall them--I wasn't taking notes so as not to distract him). He mentioned many other factual things--the population of Greensburg in the 1950s, the date when he first became began his employment (March 1, 1950), the number of employees in two pipeline companies in the 1970s, the date of merger of those companies, etc.

Taking a Cue

I realized that he became animated when he was asked about precise phenomena, and so I picked up the clue, just to see where he would take it. I looked at him and said, "What you are demonstrating, with your extreme precision, is something very rare in humans. Your ability to recall dates, facts and numbers from the deep past is an amazing thing." Seemingly re-charged by my comment, he began to talk about calculations. He loved going into stores and adding up the purchases of his commodities in his head, bringing them to the counter and placing down something like $10.02 because he knew things would come to $9.62--with sales tax included. He often would be able to correct the sales people, who themselves had added numbers incorrectly into the cash register. After several more moments of this, I felt I has to ask him another question. I plunged in, sort of holding my breath. I asked him about his childhood 70 years ago.

Epilepsy and Asperger's Syndrome

First I asked him if he had this mathematical capability as a child. He said he did, and that he was "mathematics champ" in the county for several years running. Then, I asked him about his childhood health. He didn't look at me but he said that he had epileptic fits as a child. As a matter of fact they were so severe that he couldn't go on to college, like his brothers. After WWII, in which he couldn't serve, he told me that his parents found a doctor in Denver who had developed a regimen in a sanitorium for the healing of some epileptic seizures. The man was able to tell me in detail the regimen that he was to follow and the names of the doctors. It was a 90-day residential program (at $9 per day, he informed me), followed by 90 days back in Greensburg, then 30 days in Denver, several weeks in Greensburg and then one more time in Denver. Finally, the man told me that the last epileptic seizure he had was in January 25, 1950. Within six weeks he joined the Odd Fellows, began selling as a Fuller Brush man and then continued them until the storm on May 4, 2007.

Conclusion

We talked further about his epilepsy (the medical people concluded it was from a difficult birth), and then we parted, after he gave me some literature of products he sold. Oh, he also took me into the house, opening the front door, pointing out every room in the house to me, telling me stories about his mother and father and pausing to show me his room.

As our conversation developed, I realized that the man not only suffered from epilepsy as a child but that he must also have the condition known as Asperger's Syndrome. He demonstrated in our conversation all the "classic" signs of this fairly new (the DSM-IV only listed it for the first time in 1994) syndrome: social deficits, extreme precision in memory, emotionless affect, inability to "connect" in some ways that we "neurotypical" (the word that the autism/Asperger movement now uses to characterize what used to be called "normal" people) people consider "normal."

Though many people might not have had much to do with such a man, I was completely charmed. Something about precise minds allures me tremendously, even if a person doesn't seemingly have all the "package" that we might consider "normal." I think that one of the things our society will discover in the next generation is how to use the contribution of Asperger's "people" to their and our mutual benefit. In the current situation, those with Asperger's memorize precise dates and numbers, taking fascination in the most obscure things. But maybe we will become mature enough as a society some day to see these people as gifts to us all. MY companion on Saturday certainly was such a gift to me....

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