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Musings from Moyieboy ... |
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Bashful is not all it’s cracked down to
be |
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April 4, 2019 |
By Ken Carpenter
My Bonners Ferry High School graduating class
voted me in as “Most Bashful” in 1969. I
remember being mortified and thinking, “oh
great, now I’m one of the Seven Dwarves!”
That was more appropriate than you might think
since I was one of the few kids in any class who
was smaller than any of the famous seven. It
still didn’t seem right, but looking back on it
I was probably deserving of it and did not like
the attention it focused on me.
It didn’t occur to me at the time, but being
compared to a cartoon character also fit me like
a spiked leather glove.
I learned to live with it even if I didn’t like
it, but it did little at the time to change my
wallflower personality. Watching and listening
had always seemed preferable to talking, at
least to me.
When I was a little kid I was usually the one in
the corner who silently played with his plastic
army guys during family gatherings. Unknown to
the adults around me, I rarely missed a word
that was spoken or a momentary facial expression
that showed an innermost opinion different from
that the person wished to convey.
I learned that you could absorb a great deal of
info about people when you keep your mouth shut,
but I probably did carry it to extremes. Perhaps
bashful to one person could be considered sneaky
to another, but that never registered at the
time.
By now you are likely thinking, “If you are so
darned bashful, why do you draw attention to
yourself with a weekly column and a picture of
your ugly mug?”
Well, it is funny how 48 years can change a guy,
even if I still prefer listening to speaking and
hanging with the dogs to socializing.
Statistics supposedly show that 40-45% of
Americans qualify as shy. Of course, surveys
also show that the average person toots 14 times
a day. Believe what you will, I guess, but I’m
just glad I never worked gathering stats,
especially smelly ones.
Mercury poisoning is said to cause excessive
shyness. That is primarily based on studies of
felt hat makers in 18th and 19th century
England, but if you want to remain outgoing (not
to mention alive) do not sip any thermometer
fluid.
English writer Arthur C. Benson, 1862–1925,
could have been the jerk godfather of shy
haters, for he claimed that they were predatory
and that shyness was a "sinister quality that
needs to be uprooted." I think he deserved the
bash part of bashful.
I found a few more quotes that I have to share
before I go.
"The bashful are always aggressive at heart." ~
Charles Horton Cooley (Who?! What?!)
"I’m so shy now I wear sunglasses everywhere I
go." ~ Al Pacino.
And no, I say with a stern expression, I do not
wear sunglasses everywhere I go in an attempt to
copy Al Pacino.
"We writers are shy, nocturnal creatures. Push
us into the light and the light blinds us." ~
John Banville.
You see, if I qualify as a writer, I have a
perfectly good excuse for my shades. |
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