speeCH

Her name was Miss Always. I don't think that was how her name was spelled or even if that was how it was actually pronounced, but she never corrected me. Lord knows she had enough worries when it came to the Haislip kids' speech patterns.

She arrived at Wilkinson School when I was in fourth grade, and she promptly tested the students by requiring them to read or recite sentences and letter sounds, and watching and listening closely as they did so, and the kids that flunked the test were required to have private speech therapy sessions with her several days a week. (As an aside, I think it smacks of impropriety that the person doing the testing is the same one providing the therapy - a fairly easy way to ensure job security if you were ask cynical me. But no one does.)

Apparently, all four Haislip kids of school age flunked the test and landed in speech twice a week. Okay, now I can see this with my brother Jimmy, who often thought the letter S was totally optional - as in "Dad, I want to be a cub 'cout! 'teve is a cub 'cout! I wanna be cub 'cout!"

Little Mary, as I recall, had some issues with softening her R sounds, which as well all know is a huge no-no. Lots of serial killers do this. As for Timmy, I'm not sure what specifically he was screwing up with his speech patterns. Funny how your mind blanks things out like that. I'll have to ask him sometime. Sorry, Timmy.

My primary sin was a pair of lazy lips (so I was told), that refused to purse properly with my SH, and even worse, my CH sounds. Up until fourth grade, I had no clue that my lips were so freakin' lazy, and I cursed my parents at the time for not even noticing this flaw and gently breaking the news to me.

At first, going to Speech twice a week was a bit of an adventure - especially if I got to skip arithmetic in Mrs. Rell's class. As far as I knew, I was only one of three or four kids who ever got dismissed for Speech, and I could always feel the envious stares of my classmates as I left them puzzling over fractions or long division while I headed down to Speech to tame those damned lazy lips.

Miss Always led me through the rudimentaries of CH words, and I carefully paused to purse my lips with each one, reciting sentences that no one who wasn't retarded would use in real life: "CHarlie sat on a CHair and CHewed CHerry CHewing gum."

Ms. Always would always smile approvingly and then say, "Now make it sound natural."

That's the part where my lips would start getting lazy again, and would stop pursing. But the point is, even with lazy lips, chewing Charlie didn't sound all that different to me...maybe a tiny bit softer and less punctuated, but Charlie was still definitely chewing, alright.

That's when I started to see through the ruse of Speech.

It was only confirmed a few days later when I watched a television commercial for a beauty product - I think it was Ponds Cold Cream. The pretty blonde spokesmodel with the lovely skin smiled at the end of the commercial and said, "For your beautiful complexion!"

What the hey? She had an SH sound and didn't even purse her lips for it? I mean, in her defense, the script probably didn't read "For your beautiful complekshun!" so she might not have realized she was supposed to be pursing her lips for that part, but then again it's obvious the director didn't correct her and order a new take with properly pursed lips. And believe it or not, I was not inspired to find a pen and fire off an angry letter to the manufacturers of Ponds Cold Cream and report I was never buying their product because I couldn't freakin' understand their spokesmodel because she had clearly never been to Speech before.

I stood before the bathroom mirror that night and practicing my CH sounds - CHeese. CHerry. CHew. CHarlie. I tried them with pursed lips and without. They sounded like CH sounds to me either way. In any case, I felt it was time to clarify a few points with Miss Always.

It might have been the first time in my life that I ever questioned an adult's authority. I asked Miss Always point-blank why it was necessary to keep trying to train lazy lips when the lazy lips CH sounded almost exactly like the disciplined, pursed-lips CH. Why pull me out of class twice a week for this?

Miss Always blinked, and her eyes grew wide. I wish she would have told me the truth, which was probably something like "Because I have to fill a quota of you snot-nosed little runts to justify my job in this God-forsaken dump until I can get into a better district."

But she didn't say that.

She pursed her lips and replied with a completely straight face, "Becauth, Litha, you want to talk like thith? Thith ith what happenth to kidth who don't have proper thpeech, Litha. You will thart to talk like thith!"

I was horrified. Apparently, lazy lips was just the first step on the fast road to speaking like a hayseed Mortimer Snerd, and I had no idea. I remember hoping that someone would warn the Ponds model before it was too late for her.

In any case, I wasn't called back to Speech the following year. I think Miss Always gave up on me as a lost cause. Luckily, her few short months of teaching was just enough to save me from the Snerd effect.

I'm not too sure if it saved Jimmy though....