{"id":2608,"date":"2021-11-29T20:37:31","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T01:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2021-11-29T20:37:31","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T01:37:31","slug":"tommy-and-helen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=2608","title":{"rendered":"Tommy and Helen"},"content":{"rendered":"
For a deaf, dumb and blind boy to master a pinball game<\/div>\n
is nowhere near the effort it took for a young girl<\/div>\n
in the same circumstances to learn language from scratch.<\/div>\n
Not only did she become a prolific author, an activist<\/div>\n
and a disability rights advocate (*the three A’s),<\/div>\n
but also earned a degree from Radcliffe College as well.<\/div>\n
But her mastery of her surroundings did not stop there.<\/div>\n
She learned to hit a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball,<\/div>\n
simply through a sense\u00a0of air distribution, fast hands,<\/div>\n
and the smell of horsehide. Not powerful, but consistent.<\/div>\n
And her ability to drive\u00a0a small car, slowly, based on the feel<\/div>\n
of the wheels on the road, was considered legendary.<\/div>\n
No one was hurt in the learning, but there were close calls.<\/div>\n
She travelled to thirty-five countries in ten years’ time,<\/div>\n
and swam the English Channel under cover of darkness.<\/div>\n
As a socialist, she invented a robot she named Eugene Debs.<\/div>\n
She is now depicted on the Alabama state quarter.<\/div>\n
She invented bitcoin based solely on astral projection.<\/div>\n
But in her vain attempts at pinball, she always tilted the machine.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a deaf, dumb and blind boy to master a pinball game is nowhere near the effort it took for a young girl in the same circumstances to learn language from scratch. Not only did … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1672,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=1672","url_meta":{"origin":2608,"position":0},"title":"Yahrzeit","author":"Rick Young","date":"March 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Two years ago today, my mother died. I'm glad she did not have to see this end. When her mind fled somewhere deep inside, she still thought the world was her best friend. She remembered talking to the birds, planting flowers, dancing in the night. For this life, I don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":832,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=832","url_meta":{"origin":2608,"position":1},"title":"Easy Bake","author":"Rick Young","date":"January 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Jenna's favorite present from Santa was the Easy Bake Oven. She always watched her mommy in the kitchen and was eager to imitate the cooking process, in her cute little apron. In fact, the very next day, she made cupcakes for her parents, baked them for six hours under the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2092,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=2092","url_meta":{"origin":2608,"position":2},"title":"Last Scene from “Psycho”","author":"Rick Young","date":"October 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"There wasn't much suspense in Harris versus Pence. She had the upper hand. He's going to be shit canned. And yet, he rambled on, as if she'd up and gone. She did a great slow burn while waiting for her turn. He flaunted debate rules, treated the 'girls' like fools,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1223,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=1223","url_meta":{"origin":2608,"position":3},"title":"R.I.P., A.G.Y.","author":"Rick Young","date":"March 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Mother died today. And I am no Camus. She danced along her way, begun in twenty-two. A raving farm girl beauty, with rabbits in her yard, and pledged to family duty, life later became hard. A mother to her brother, who'd always be a child, she jumped too soon at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Obit"","block_context":{"text":"Obit","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=35"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":696,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=696","url_meta":{"origin":2608,"position":4},"title":"Xerox Fox","author":"Rick Young","date":"February 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"She used the office fax machine to reproduce her parts. Her arm was just magnificent. Her leg was off the charts. She sent a xerox of her foot to some guy with a fetish. He telephoned quite quickly but she acted all coquettish. She sent an image of her hand\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":105,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=105","url_meta":{"origin":2608,"position":5},"title":"Courteous Mallflower","author":"Rick Young","date":"November 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"She takes her picture once a week in that old photo booth. She once fell down outside of Sears and chipped a baby tooth. She buys her jeans and magazines and cigarettes all there. At CVS she buys a gel to colorize her hair. One time she stretched out on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"KnockKnock","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redtinnoodles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/KnockKnock.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redtinnoodles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/KnockKnock.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redtinnoodles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/KnockKnock.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redtinnoodles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/KnockKnock.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redtinnoodles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/KnockKnock.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2609,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}