My Gypsy friend
I was six years old. Shovel-eared. This means that my ears stuck out at a right angle from my head. Today, such a thing wouldn't even be noticeable if I saw it, but back then I experienced it as a catastrophe and had surgery at the age of 18. The feeling of catastrophe at the age of six was also reinforced by the fact that I was a favorite target of the "big boys" at school, which meant 9-10-year-olds. These were tall, fair-skinned, well-dressed boys from the new town. They played soccer, they were cool, and they smelled good. But I hated them. Hate is not the right word because it has some aggressive attack in it. I was actually terrified of them. I wanted to disappear, be absorbed, and I begged my mother to take me out of school. They caught me in the hallway, but even more humiliating was when they simply followed me into the classroom and led me out in front of everyone. Then they circled around me, hooting, shoving, calling me shovel-eared, bunny, or even mouse. A Gy