From Shy Child to Sixth in the Nation-Part 1

Nineteen years ago, a wonderfully happy, smart, funny, caring but painfully shy child came into my world. As a baby, he seemed very outgoing. He was to my way of thinking and many women in the supermarkets I frequented, the cutest little boy ever born. As soon as he was old enough to sit up in the shopping cart, it would take me forever to get my groceries! Every woman in the store had to stop me and talk to my sweet child. He responded in kind. He would coo and giggle away at them.

As the years went by, I did not see any change in him but other people noticed. When we got visitors, he would hide behind me and smile at them. I thought it was just him being a child. They would comment about his shyness. I just brushed it off as a stage he was going through until I noticed that he was not talking to many folks anymore. In fact, it got so bad that if you tried pushing him to talk to someone he would literally look like he was going to throw up. I tried many different approaches until finally settling on just hoping he would just grow out of it.

He has a sister two years older who is very outgoing and maybe just a little overbearing. At eight years old, she started showing poultry in 4-H. Chickens, ducks and geese of all kinds. She had to learn showmanship, which meant showing the birds to their best advantage and answering questions from the judges. With her personality she soon became very good at it and won lots of ribbons and trophies.