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LEARNING ABOUT LIFE I began running as fast as my little legs would carry me. "I'm coming Ma'am. I'm coming". I screamed when I heard the matron holler at me once again through the dormitory window. "Did I make it in time?" I asked, as I stood before her gasping for breath. "Young man, who were you sword fighting with?" She questioned. "I wasn't sword fighting. Robert was hitting me with a green bamboo stick. I didn't do no sword fighting. Honest I didn't." I told her. "You were warned this morning....when you wouldn't drink your milk, that that was your last chance to be good. It seems like there is always something major going on with you. It's almost every single day." Said the matron, as she reached out and pulled me by the nose. "I didn't mean to burp last night in the television room" I told her. "I don't suppose you mean to climb in the damn oak tree either?" She questioned. "Robert and Wayne pulled off my shirt after supper and they threw it up in the tree. I was just going to get my shirt. That all it was." I tried to explain to her. "Mrs. Winters has instructed me to tie you to your bed." Said the heavy set matron. I sat down on the edge of my bed watching her as she tore a sheet into long, slender strips. When she was done she began to tie the strips around my wrists and ankles. I was then instructed to lay back onto the bed. "Can I go pee first?" I asked. "NO" Said the matron, in a harsh voice. "But I might pee on myself by accident". I said to her. "And if you do I will be the pure living shit out of you. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?" She screamed out. "Yes Ma'am. But how long do I gotta stay here like this?" I questioned. She said not a word as she picked up the remaining strips of sheeting material. She grunted a few times and then she looked directly at me and then she walked out of the bedroom. For hours I laid in my bed shaking my little legs back and forth. I tried for hours to get the straps loose so that I could sneak to the bathroom. Once in a while one, or two, of the boys who lived in the orphanage with me would come past my room. I begged them to un-tie me so that I could go to the bathroom, but they knew better. Finally I could not hold it any more. I tried to slowly expel just a little bit at a time but I just could not hold any longer. Within a minute my pants, as well as my bed, were totally soaked with urine. When the Matron returned at 4:30, to untie me for supper, she beat the holy hell out of me with a wet dish cloth. I was then stripped naked and my wet sheet was pinned around me like a large diaper. I was then made to walk to the dining room where I was given nothing but a glass of warm powered milk. I was ten years old when this happened. I remember, very well, laying there tied to my bed. I remember asking my orphan brothers for help but no one seemed to care. I remember feeling totally helpless and all alone. I remember sitting in the dining room with all the other orphan girls and boys. Each with a somber look on their face. No one stared, no one laughed and no one even looked at me. As I look back at this incident I know that the other children would have helped me if they could have. Being tied to my bed taught me that sometimes things in life, no matter how hard we try, are totally out of our control. The fact that no one laughed at me taught me that people are basically good, kind and considerate. I am not really sure what all happened in my life to make me look at things on the "bright side" of life. If there is any one thing that this incident taught me it was to never make fun of anyone. Until I was almost fifty years old I felt that I was incapable of loving anyone, or anything. Nevertheless, I was always kind and considerate to others. That is what I thought "love" was all about.