Douglas Avenue by Sarkis Atamian

Author:Sarkis Atamian [Atamian, Sarkis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9781594331145
Google: V8WHAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Publication Consultants
Published: 2005-04-01T04:18:12+00:00

Chapter 12

No Tigers in Africa

Harry had his brother and parents laughing so hard as he recounted what he had said and done that they begged him to say no more. Their aching sides hurt too much from uncontrollable laughter even though the event Harry related had happened some five or six years before when he first started school. The story of his experience only now emerged these many years after the fact. Harry's anecdote always sent anyone who heard it into gales of laughter.

Harry had suffered the same embarrassment and shame that many of those children of the first generation had suffered at the start of their schooling because they had not yet learned some very necessary commonplace words in English. For instance, they did not know what the word urinate meant or how to say it and even if they knew they would have been reluctant to utter the word. Such words were considered impolite, dirty, and even profane, so an entire list of euphemisms existed in Armenian to get around the problem but there were no English substitutes that Harry or his classmates had yet learned. As a solution, they created an entire list of their own words in English, for expressing what otherwise would be considered impermissible to mention. When words failed them, the inexperienced children found that appropriate gestures were also a means of successfully expressing themselves.

Harry didn't know how to ask the teacher permission to go to the boys’ room so he would sit at his desk suffering for a very long time until the teacher excused the class for a scheduled lavatory break. A few times, when he couldn't hold it back any longer and finally lost control, he was forced to sit in the puddle he had created. He took the problem to Garo who had the good sense to be discreet about it.

He told his kid brother the following secret: “Walk up to the teacher's desk and raise your hand for permission to speak to her. Don't worry, she will give it. As soon as she does, cup your hand in front of your fly and jiggle up and down on your toes. As soon as she says you may leave the room, thank her and march out to the john. Don't run until you're out of sight. Don't repeat these details to anyone else. Keep the secret safe.”

The first time Harry put into action Garo's advice, there was no one else in the corridor when Harry ran with maximum speed toward the john, arriving at his destination before he lost control of the high–pressure valves in his system. Having followed his brother's instructions, Harry was surprised at how easy it was and told Garo about it. “Yeah,” Garo said, “it always is when you know how. Just don't forget to unbutton your fly.”

So during the remainder of his first year in school, Harry never forgot how to jiggle up and down, using his newly learned gymnastics to good advantage. It was

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