Hayward's Not Quite Dead Yet

No, I wasn't kidnapped by maurading time share salesmen and held captive in some dreary Holiday Inn conference room until I bought into a condo. I've been busy writing and attending Book Expo America in Manhattan. I've written several posts, but not posted them, so I'll backdate them soon.

One of the more interesting highlights of BEA was to meet Kim Peek, who is the original Rainman, after whom Dustin Hoffman's character from the movie of the same name was written. Kim is a savant, and can tell anyone, without hesitation, both the day of the week they are born and the day they will reach retirement age or reached retirement age. I told him my birthday, and he immediately replied "Wednesday" (true) and then gave a date for my retirement (ha, ha, if I'm lucky! I actually have no plans to ever "retire" as such).

When he saw from my press badge that I was from Monterey, he said, "When I think of Monterey, I think of this..." He then grabbed my head between his palms and began to firmly but gently shake it from side to side while chanting "MRI..MRI...MRI..." Now, if you don't know, Kim is brilliant in that he retains almost all information he reads, and can process mathematic problems like a computer, however, he is developmentally disabled, and lacks many social skills. I've worked with developmentally disabled folks, and this doesn't bother me, but the people accompanying him became a bit alarmed and began to pry his hands from my head. I was laughing, thinking to myself, "Wow, the Rainman's shaking my head and chanting MRI! Wonder what MRI means?"

Turns out, after Kim let go of my head and I had a chat with his wonderful father, Fran, that Kim had been flown to Monterey for a twelve hour MRI scan. Naturally, so much magnetic resonance left a rather unpleasant memory for him.

I had met a savant once before, while working in a convalescent hospital about 25 years ago. I had just gotten pregnant, and let my coworkers know. One of my jobs was to pass out cigarettes and cigars to patients twice a day (yes, indeed, things have changed). A man called Donald, with thick glasses and a perpetually soggy cigar that refused to stay lit with all the drool, walked up and muttered, "I hear you're going to have a baby?" I said yes, and he asked "When's the baby due?" I gave him the date, and without hesitating he said "That's 7 months, 25 days, 13 hours and 22 minutes from now." It was such an extraordinary thing for Donald to say, so I had him repeat it, and I noted these numbers on my cigarette checklist, as well as the time (Donald hadn't looked at a clock or watch when he said this). Later, upon checking, I found Donald's calculation was spot on. Up until then, nobody had known he was a savant. And even though I thought someone should have taken notice, mostly those in charge of his care, didn't care. To them, he was just a slobbering old man whose mutterings and piles of illegible scribbles (he liked to write) were of no consequence. And subsequently, they weren't.

It has made me wonder how many unknown savants are locked away in facilities.

Meanwhile, an article titled Our Bodies, Our Cells just got published on the WIP, and I'm working on another article about women gamers.

Comments

[Fang]

Thanks for the update!
It made me wish for the story about the Christmas present. You remember, it was the same job, I believe. I never heard this one about the soggy-cigar-chewing guy before, though. Say hey to the Tone for me.

Love,
Fang