Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

I wrote this post earlier. You will note the double ‘sentence-to-be-finished’. That, however, is not the reason for the, ‘blockquote-hey!-before-you-get-started’.

Hey! Before you start, have I ever mentioned how powerful Kristi’s FTSF prompts are? No, I’m serious. I’m not asking a rhetorical question. Well, if I have, then, thank you. I guess I’m still in the timeline from which I wrote the finish-of-sentence in the lower half of this post. Well, it’s true. Since I started participating in this ‘hop, I found that there is something about it (the prompt, sure, more likely, it’s the people who participate.)

In any event, seeing as I’m revisiting the post I wrote earlier, let me tell you about another…lesson that changed how I thought. (wavy screen here)

I must have been in 11th grade. I had a dentist appointment. It was autumn. Let’s say, early November, as it was getting dark by the end of my after school visit. I’ve always had a terrible time at the dentist. (Hyper-sensitive teeth, clumsy dentistry, being an adolescent clark, whatever.) In any event, this dentist was willing to use gas for simple cavity filling. Small, rubbery nose-piece, breath deeply, wake up, go home. Fine. The appointment was uneventful and otherwise normal. As I was coming to, I felt the familiar ‘reverse vibration’ that seemed to accompany the process of returning to consciousness. I looked out the window facing the chair and saw the wet-yellow leaves on a tree, along with the skewed rectangle of the light from inside. No big deal. Got up, drove home. (oh! shit! that means this must have been later than 11th grade. seeing as I’m sure I was there by myself. which was a good thing, given what happened next.)

I returned to the dentist for another visit, ten days, maybe two weeks later. Same process. Same weather, dark and dreary. Once again, the appointment was uneventful. Rubbery nose thing, disappear into unconsciousness.

…except, when I returned to consciousness, accompanied by the same ‘reverse vibration’, looking out through the same window, with the drooping leaf tree, I was certain it was the first appointment. My stomach, like, totally dropped towards the center of the earth. Even as a part of me insisted that this was the second visit, not the first, I could not let go of the idea that, somehow I’d looped back in time and was in the chair, ten days, two weeks before.

Man!

But wait, there’s more! (lol) Now, among you Readers, there are, by the way the Wakefield Doctrine perspective allows us to, two groups: clarks and rogers and scotts with significant secondary clarklike aspects. (IF that makes no sense, read up on the Doctrine or, better yet, ask. Don’t worry, its not a bad thing if you’re in the second group.) Most everyone reading this will smile and think, “Yeah, I can imagine what that feels like. Sort of like the time…”

But, (for the clarks) the second thing that seized my mind was, “Stay calm. You can do this, just as long as they don’t figure out what’s happened to you.”

lol  (ya gotta love the world of the Outsider, no?)

Enough, now on to the regularly scheduled post

*****

We’re back visiting with our friends over at the Finish the Sentence Friday bloghop.

This week’s prompt is totally like, when you were in school, and there was a new teacher coming in mid-semester and he/she gives an assignment to do a book report and you remember one that you actually saved from before. Even better, that classmate was absent that day and no one in class mentioned it was a repeat assignment.

Yippee!

So this week’s sentence to complete, down there in bold italics* the sentence that lies on the page, all interrupted Lego house, structure insistent on ‘house’; details and features needed to make it ‘a house’ still in pieces in the box and under the bed, I’d like to try¹ to use the ‘Eureka Moment’ of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) to finish the sentence…

“The lesson (or event or whatever) that changed how I thought…” aka “The lesson that changed how I thought…”

In the early 1980’s, Scott (the progenitor scott) worked at a music store in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He was the only full-time salesman and (also) ran the store’s repair department. In addition to musical instruments, the store provided repair services for a wide range of electronic equipment, including  tape recorders and other audio equipment.

One day I happened to stop by the store to visit. While there, a young man walked into the store, went directly to the ‘repair department’ where Scott and I were talking and without preamble placed a ‘duel cassette recorder’ on the counter. A duel cassette recorder was designed to allow one cassette to be copied directly to another, what today we would call, making a back up. The controls on this ‘dubbing recorder’ consisted of two sets of tape recorder controls: Volume, Treble and Bass. Where it differed from a single recorder was that it also had a Master Volume control. As the name implies it controlled the volume level, for both recording and playback. The tape recorder the customer placed on the counter appeared to be new and showed no signs of damage or abuse. I stepped back, Scott looked up and said, ‘What can we do for you’?  The customer said, “This thing is brand new, it worked for a couple of days, then it stopped working entirely. I can’t figure out what’s wrong”.

Scott looked at the device for a second, then, without a word, reached under the counter, brought out a roll of black electrical tape, and, tearing off a 2 inch piece, taped over the Master Volume control (after returning the dial to it’s highest setting). He then slid the device back over the counter and said, “There, it’s all right now.”

The customer asked to plug in the recorder. Taking a cassette from his pocket he put in the machine and ran it through it’s paces. Satisfied that  his ‘broken tape recorder’ now worked like new, he thanked Scott and walked out of the store, a totally satisfied customer.

My reality shifted. For reasons not clear to this day, although I observed what scott saw as to the nature of the problem with the dual cassette recorder, I realized that the character of scotts solution implied a reality, a ‘context’ that was clearly different from mine. At that moment I accepted that the personal reality that I experienced was not necessarily the one that of anyone else. That the manner in which Scott perceived the ‘problem’ was fundamentally different from the way I witnessed it.

From that moment, standing in a small music store in Pawtucket, I’ve been observing the behavior of others knowing that what they are experiencing is not necessarily that which I am, I try to understand, “What kind of reality does this person exist in?”

So the rest, as we might have written in our book reports….

“In conclusion, it is clear that Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, intended to portray Hester Prynne as a victim of the injustice of early American social mores.

The End.”

* ‘bold, italics… man! how obnoxious would the person, who was ‘bold and italics’, be?! I mean, I’d want to hang out with someone who was ‘italics’** and I know I already have a friend (or two) who are ‘bold’. But both?  probably would not be too much fun.

1) experienced writers (and Readers) of Finish the Sentence Friday are smiling at the caveat. The gift of our hostinae, Kristi and Madra and Tamara is disguised two ways. Innocent looking prompt, ‘sure, seems direct and straightforward enough’ in a context in which genuine creativity is encouraged and celebrated. This last, about the positive atmosphere at the FTSF ‘hop, should not be underestimated.

** hell, some might argue I tend to be kinda that italics sort of guy, whatever that implies lol