For my entire fourth birthday, I spoke not a word. Of course, I hadn’t said a word in my whole life. If Mom and Dad were concerned, they never said anything that I overheard. Possibly they questioned God late at night, asking why He would give them an imbecile to raise. A test of their faith? What would they do with me? In 1953, phrases such as “special needs” and “spectrum disorder” had yet to be invented, and if Americans were polled on the meaning of “mainstreaming,” most would guess it had something to do with heroin.

The spring after I turned four, Mom drove my five-year-old brother and me from our home in Cincinnati to visit her family in central Louisiana. My most vivid memory of the trip was helping Grandma Smith hoe her vegetable garden. For no reason other than being boys, James and I, both barefoot, attacked a fire ant hill with our hoes. The results were spectacular and justified Mom’s comment about intelligence and smarts not always riding in the same wagon.

At the end of our visit, Mom agreed to give Rev. Roy Markley, an evangelist, and former missionary, a ride to his home in Kentucky. My vague recollections are of a dignified young gentleman who was kind, gentle, and compelling in the pulpit. He was a person you might name your second son after, which Mom and Dad did.

Interstate highways didn’t yet exist, and slow traffic delayed us for long stretches through the rolling hills of western Kentucky. When Mom slowed for a large truck, my brother stood on the seat (this was also before booster seats or even seat belts) and pointed ahead. “A truck,” he noted.

I can be competitive. Standing, I pointed through the windshield and copied James. While many children have difficulty pronouncing the “tr” sound, most either drop the “r” or substitute “tw.”

For inexplicable reasons, I substituted “f” for “tr.”

 “Bleep.”

Both adult heads whipped around, eyes wide and mouths agape. “No, Roy,” James corrected, “it’s called a truck.”

“Bleep,” I repeated.

With a shake of his head, my brother sat down.

“Roy.” Mom waved her hand, and I figured she was excited because I finally spoke. “It’s a truck. Can you say, truck?”

“Bleep,” I said.

“No.” She was close to shouting. “Truck. Say, trrruck!”

I couldn’t imagine why she was getting so worked up, but I saw no harm in playing along. With a shrug, I pointed. “Bleep.”

Rev Markley had flushed red, his shoulders shook, and he made grunting sounds. People did this at revival meetings when the speaker’s words flowed with power. Mom had told me it was because they were slain in the spirit. As new as I was to speech, it struck me as extraordinary, but what if God had opened my lips to proclaim his mighty word and stir the hearts of men. “Bleep, bleep, bleep,” I bellowed in my most stentorian four-year-old voice.

“Please, Roy, just be quiet,” Mom begged. But, like the mute man that Jesus healed, I would not be silenced. Mom clenched the steering wheel with white knuckles, her lips stitched a straight, white line, and she glared straight ahead at the offending vehicle.

Rev Markley’s response, however, was encouraging. Emboldened, I proclaimed the word until struck by an epiphany. A song is just words to a melody. I had a word, so I borrowed the first melody that came to mind, Mary had a little lamb. “Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bkeep bleep, bleep bleep bleep, bleep bleep bleep.” Calliope, the muse of poets, must have wandered by because I launched into free-form verse. I was delighted to discover how effortless it is to rhyme when you only have one word.

Twenty long minutes later, Mom, in a burst of desperation, slammed the accelerator to the floor, roared around the slow truck, and managed to dodge back into the right lane without killing her progeny.

Denied my prompt, I lost interest in the conversation and sat down. James and I started a game of slap, and to my surprise, Mom didn’t even seem to care.

That evening, Mom drilled me on phonics until I regretted the gift of speech.

I still don’t talk much and stumble over pronunciations when I do. Fortunately, my wife has never tired of gently guiding me back on track.

First word. First draft. First love. Enamored by a dream, we cluelessly careen into chaos, until we learn to say exactly what we mean.