Filling the role of a missing dad

The following letter appeared on Feb. 20, 2010, in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis.

The May 15 article "Study hints at stuttering as an inherited trait of genes" brought back memories of Malcolm Fraser, who founded a stuttering institute in Memphis.

My brothers Bill and Bob and I were active in the then Man-for-Boy Club in the 1950s, which was based at the Downtown YMCA on Madison.

Mr. Fraser, along with other prominent men (namely Mr. McRae, president of then Memphis U-Drive-It and Dr. Rayburn Johnson, professor of geography at Memphis State University, all now deceased) played a prominent role for boys who came from divorced families and who were without a father figure to look up to.

Because we were sponsored by these men, we became close to them in all the activities Man-for-Boy represented.

Mr. Fraser even gave my disabled mother a job in the shipping department at Standard Parts, as he was a founding partner of that firm. All three of us graduated from Humes High School, earned college degrees and served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Bill, now 73, retired from the Marines; Bob, 72, who owns his own CPA firm in Hattiesburg, Miss.; and myself, 70, a retired educator from State Technical Institute at Memphis, all are appreciative of these men. Who knows what would have happened to the three of us had Mr. Malcolm Fraser, Mr. McRae and Dr. Rayburn Johnson not taken the time to get involved? To all three gentlemen, we say "thank you" for caring.

John C. Cummings
Lakeland

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Ken Venturi

As much of the nation watches the U.S. Open Golf Championship, it is impossible not to think about our late friend Ken Venturi. Ken overcame many challenges to win the Open at Congressional in 1964 and go on to become the voice of golf for more than three decades.

However, Ken faced no bigger obstacle than stuttering. Ken Venturi was a champion to those who stutter, going out of his way to share his personal experience when consulted by a colleague, friend, or child who stutters.

Carly Simon

Carly Simon began stuttering severely when she was eight years old.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.

Lewis Carroll

The recent Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, garnered a great deal of media hype. Even though the mainstream media has not made mention that Carroll was a person who stuttered, his family history gives credence to the discovery of the genetic link to stuttering. Carroll was born to parents who were first cousins; almost all of their eleven children, three girls and seven boys, struggled with stuttering past childhood.