Elizabeth Atkinson’s Blog

Anyone who attended my alma mater between 1978 and 1982 would recognize “Elliot” in a police line-up.

A little over six feet tall and 130 lbs, Elliot had wooly ink-black hair piled six inches on top of his rectangular head. He wore thick glasses with thick black rims, the kind that magnified his eyes. His nose was prominent and his heavy lips were always too moist and red. Every day he wore a polo shirt tucked into baggy khakis tightly secured just under his ribcage with a brown belt. When Elliot moved, his joints followed a second later, giving him a floppy, cartoonish gait. Perhaps most jarring was his neck, the longest I have ever seen on a human.

It could be said that Elliot resembled a caricature of an alien. And while I have not laid eyes on him in almost 25 years, I know that Elliot most definitely feels like an alien to this very day.

“Hello Beth, it’s Elliot calling,” is how every phone conversation between the two of us begins.

 Throughout the decades I have known Elliot I have never once called him…even though we speak, on average, twice a week.

“Beth, do you ever feel inferior? Like you’re much dumber than everyone else in traditional jobs?”

Elliot’s New York accent is so pronounced, his tone so loud and whiny, my kids can hear his voice projecting through the receiver clear across the kitchen into the family room where they are usually watching TV or playing guitars (or both) in the evening hours when Elliot likes to call.

“I have a feeling I’m much dumber than everyone else, Beth. Would you say I’m dumb or just not a traditional thinker?”

It doesn’t really matter how I answer, as long as it’s always brief and positive. No explanation is needed. Just verbal stroking.

“Do you think most traditional thinkers believe that non-traditional thinkers are dumb because they, for example – and this is just one example – don’t score high on standardized tests?”

Over the years Elliot has slowly revealed some of his deepest secrets, then panicked once he has realized his act of confession.  For instance, Elliot once let it slip that he received enhanced tutoring throughout his education (including graduate school)…enhancements made possible through generous family donations.

“Would a traditional thinker, unlike myself, get upset if someone tried to convert them, say, or ask them why they are registered as an Independent?”

Over the years Elliot has lost both parents and a stepparent. These losses appear as large, jagged scars on his daily life. There is no avoiding them.

“Do you think the average traditional person – with a traditional job and traditional way of thinking – do you think they miss their mother every single day even though she died in 1988?”

I am not the only classmate Elliot contacts. There are a handful of others, people I occasionally passed on campus, whom he calls regularly as well. The funny thing is, because of Elliot, I know more about their lives than the lives of my close college friends.

“Beth if your kids weren’t traditional thinkers – and I’m not saying they aren’t because I know nothing about them – but if they weren’t, would you consider them dumber than kids who were traditional thinkers?”

Every five years or so, Elliot fixates on a new subject about which he knows everything. For a while, right after graduation, it was weather. He was an encyclopedia on weather and knew the daily impending forecasts for most corners of the country. Then his interest moved to sports, particularly football. (During those years my husband liked to get on the phone for office pool advice.) There were many years when religion consumed his thoughts, specifically his lack of belief. Lately, since the years Guantanamo Bay have come to light, it’s been politics.

“I was wondering Beth, if a non-traditional thinker was asked by a traditional thinker how they scored on standardized tests, would it be rude to say that’s none of their business, since non-traditional thinkers traditionally score low on standardized tests?”

Recently I interrupted Elliot to ask him what he looked like now.

Was he still tall and thin? Yes, he told me.

Did he still wear thick black glasses? Yes.

And did he still favor short-sleeved polo shirts tucked into khakis? Yes, he did.

“My hair is gray,” he confessed.

 It turns out I didn’t want to know that. Part of the comfort that is Elliot is his lack of changing over the past 30 years. Everything else has evolved at lightning speed, my own life half over. But Elliot, in my mind, has been the keeper of my youth. In reality, a time long gone.

 “Beth, I have to go now. Talk to you later,” is how every phone conversation between the two of us ends.

And without fail, we always do.

Tags: aging, alma mater, aspergers syndrome, autism, change, college, intelligence, standardized tests, youth