Hi, Mike!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

MP>  I added the echo to my board earlier this year, I
MP>  think.  I read a few of the messages that came in,
MP>  and found some of them interesting.  I don't really
MP>  know why, but they were.


          Seems to me we're on pretty much the same wavelength, judging by
what you said below!  Maybe what interests you here has less to do with any
specific medical condition or whatever than it does with the underlying
attitude to life
... if so, you've come to the right place.  That's what we're here for....  :-)



MP>  When I was in college, I worked once a week with a
MP>  fellow who had a CP-like problem, which was caused
MP>  by an injury as a child.


          Brain injury... yes!  The causes may be different & the
diagnoses may have different names.  But an injury to the left hemisphere,
for example, could mean a person has difficulty generating spoken and/or
written language although they understand & remember what others say. 
My aunt had an injury of this type years ago as a result of a stroke, and
so did one of Nora's roommates in rehab. When I said to the latter
"You understand, but can't speak... is that correct?" she nodded
vigorously & grinned from ear to ear.  I think other folks tended to
assume she lacked the desire to communicate because she made no vocal
sounds at all, unlike those who remember the vocabulary but can't always
get their mouths to co-operate.  A young fellow who lives in a group home
near us has the latter type of problem.  He seems very bright & he's
interesting to talk to if one has the patience to wait while he gets his
mouth under control.  He stopped to chat one day when he noticed Nora
practising stair-climbing... and now that he knows her routine he often
happens to be in the same place around the same time.  ;-)



MP>  Some of my co-workers were uneasy working with Bob,
MP>  in part because he was difficult to understand.  I
MP>  think I learned some better listening skills while
MP>  working with him, as I was always able to understand
MP>  him if I took the time to listen.  ;-)


          Uh-huh.  You recognized that Bob had something worthwhile to say,
you were willing to make an added effort to understand what it was, and you
learned something from the experience which was beneficial to you as well
as to him.  I feel I've learned a lot from my own experiences in such
situations too....  :-)



MP>  I can remember how excited I was, as a child, to
MP>  receive mail.  I used to wait for the postman,
MP>  hoping I'd have something.  The Internet age has
MP>  taken some of the fun out of it, or maybe it is
MP>  just getting older that did it.


          Probably a bit of both.  When we were kids we didn't get much
mail... if we did, it was almost always a friendly letter or a birthday
card.  Now it's more likely to be a bill or another form we have to fill in
or another piece of advertising.  Whatever it may be, chances are it will
mean more work... (sigh).



MP>  All I know is that I get a lot more junk mail via
MP>  e-mail than I ever do via the post.  ;-)


          Uh-huh.  Fortunately... touch wood... we have very little in
Fidonet. I guess we're small potatoes by comparison.  I wonder, though,
about people who post "DROP" messages in a dozen echoes they've
never posted in before....  :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+