Family stories are resurfacing. I told one yesterday that I had forgotten for many years. It’s about the creases in my ears.

If you look at the picture of my ear, you can see that there is a crease. This is the story of that crease.

Bat Ears run in my family.

Bat Ears as in ears like a giant bat.

My maternal grandfather had ears like this. In fact, we never were allowed to watch “Dumbo” as children because his ears. As the firstborn, Mom did not want me to have bat ears, so the first few years of my life were spent with silver dollars taped to my ears to hold them down and reshape, much like trimming a Doberman’s ears and putting toilet paper rolls over the ears to help them stand up.

As you can see, it worked. I ended up with nice ears fitting tightly to my forehead. Unfortunately, the number of preschool fights I got into because of the other kids making fun of me, despite being a head taller than everyone, was a  cause of concern with to my parents. Also, my ears never grew nearly as large as was typical of the Bat Ears of the Marshall family.

When the first sister was born, she had small ears and so they skipped the silver dollars. She was the lucky one, which might be why she became what our father called, “the Daughter of One’s Dreams,” in his retirement speech. Or she just a middle child that needed to overcompensate.

The second sister though, poor girl. She inherited the the Bat Ears and they didn’t realize it in time for the silver dollar trick. She’s had to wear long hair all her life, in part to soften the noise of the wind blowing past those huge things. She was fortunate to be cross-eyed and need glasses early on, so that helped distract from the ears. Sadly, the styles available for glasses, especially for children, in the 1960s left very much to be desired.

Of course, some of this nonsense. But this is a story that was passed around for years. Occasionally forgotten, but it resurfaces once in awhile. I do remember my maternal grandparents joking about silver dollars on my ears as I stared at those giant Dumbo-like ears of my grandfather.