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"DUMBO" "Look at that ugly little Dumbo with the big ears.” So many times I heard those words as I was growing up and all because I had big ears that stuck out. Many of the kids at my school were just as cruel to me as the people where I lived. I lied in my little bed and cried myself to sleep every night. For years, I secretly hurt inside, while sitting at my little desk at school - in a classroom with 25 other children, yet still all alone. There was never a moment of not being afraid, embarrassed or scared all the time, so afraid that I could not learn because my little mind just would not work or think any more because all it wanted to do was shut down and be void of thought. There was not a day in my young life that I was not laughed at or called "Big eared Dumbo." Not one time would a little girl talk with me for fear that they too would be mocked for talking with "Dumbo." Almost 50 years have passed since that time. I am now all grown up and my ears still stick out, just as they did when I was a little one. As I look inside my own heart this morning and think about all the hurt that still lives within my 50 years of memory, I would like those of you who made fun of me and those of you who might make fun of others today to please remember this: you hurt me very, very badly when you made fun of me and called me "Dumbo the Big Eared Elephant." You never took the time to look inside my heart to see who I really was. Your friend, a little boy with the heart of MICKEY MOUSE. Author, Roger Dean Kiser