I remember running through the screen door glass several times, falling down the stairs often, and spilling my milk at the dinner table nearly every night. “Mom, Marc fell down the stairs again,” Brad would call out. At dinner Dad might say, “I can’t believe we got through an entire meal without Marc knocking over his milk.” Those events along with my frequent splitting headaches should have tipped off my parents that I was having some serious depth perception problems caused by esotropia, or inward turned crossed eyes. Just looking at photos at that time might have given them a clue. This is how I describe the condition: When both of my eyes are working I see two images that overlap. For something that is three feet away, they might be about three inches apart. I have the ability to turn off my right eye if I want, changing it to a single, but not 3D image. So, I couldn’t figure out Viewmasters or binoculars. I would just look at one of the sides because I found looking through both sides was confusing – I saw two images. I later found out my mother had a similar condition, she called it a lazy eye, which made it impossible for her to be good at sports. Here I was, an able bodied young boy who loved sports, but couldn’t play baseball, basketball, football, tennis, anything that involved determining the trajectory of a ball.
To make matters worse, I had another major issue with my stuttering. I couldn’t get through a sentence without a severe stammer. It was so frustrating to speak and equally frustrating to listen to, I’m sure. This is how I would describe stuttering: you have a word or phrase you want to say. It is in your head, but your mouth can’t say it because it’s clogged up. So like a high pressure fire hose, your mind pushes the phrase through anyway to clear the log jam. At first it just sputters and then finally it comes out. Scientists say it has to do with your mind working too fast for your mouth to catch up. One of my CEO’s later in life, Jack Welch at GE, stuttered as an adult. Growing up his mother claimed it was a side effect of being a genius, so he was actually proud of it. Well, I’m no genius, and I still have times when I catch myself stuttering.
My only solace was my blanket and my thumb – just like Linus from Peanuts. I must have been someone everyone wanted to be around — a stuttering, stumbling, impatient, thumb-sucking kid, who was an easy target for teasing, who really just deep down wanted to fit in and be normal. I was still trying to find my place in the world. I would ask myself, “Why can’t I play in Little League?” The fact that my brothers were good at sports made it all the more frustrating and no doubt affected my demeanor and self image. I did find escape in my imagination, our pets, and of course TV. But I was searching for something I could well. Something that would allow me for once to feel special.

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