Always a reporter, never a source (except maybe once)
For about six months in 1997, this tapestry lay over the table in the breakfast room at our house as we worked with two other couples and a high school student to turn it from bits of amazing fabric to the beautiful design you see here.
It is one of the five large tapestries that hangs during the Easter season at our church, St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Lewisville. Three are conceived as panels in the main display, two more flank the sanctuary, and a sixth, smaller tapestry drapes over the altar.
For Easter season alone, we had to have enough volunteers to make the six tapestries. Multiply that by the many seasons of the church calendar — the bold red tapestries for Ascension and Pentecost (Sam’s favorites) hang for just two weeks — and you get the sense of what a barn-raising that was.
Mark announced in 1996 that he wanted to convert, something apparently he had been quietly thinking about for years. In the early 1990s, we’d found a good church home in Sacramento, at St. Francis, during, of all things, the time when they were retrofitting the sanctuary for earthquakes and Mass was being held in the school gym. Mark said he hadn’t known such a spiritual home when he was growing up, which always made me a little sad. I know there were times as a child I didn’t get what church was about, but there were times that I did.
The first year after Mark died, I came to help switch out the tapestries between Lent and Easter. There was a team of volunteers who did it regularly and they welcomed me. Once they knew I was part of the team that stitched it together, I got peppered with questions, as if they were historians that had just stumbled upon the best primary source ever.
They had a burning question. Was is true, that one of the Easter tapestries had a bit of a parishioner’s wedding dress on it?
Yes, I said, pointing to the tapestry that we had made.
Now, don’t get excited, dear Internet people, it wasn’t a piece of my wedding dress. Mark and I were such hipsters back in the day, I made our get-married-barefoot-on-the-beach-in-Kona clothes of a buttery linen. This tapestry is filled with bridal fabrics, but full of shiny silks and satins and sparkly lames and organzas.
Two Dominican nuns designed the work and set up all the volunteers with the patterns and fabrics needed. They included a little extra for errors.
Our team didn’t quite cut all the fabric at once, which we maybe should have, but we were also worried about losing track of some pieces. By the time we came to the very last piece, there wasn’t quite enough of the creamy white, rich brocade the sisters intended. We nearly panicked. No matter which way we turned the piece of remaining fabric and pattern, we couldn’t make it work.
Marcy, one of the volunteers, studied it closely. “It looks like my wedding dress. I bet I have enough fabric left,” she said. We were stunned when she brought the piece the next week. It was almost a dead ringer for what the sisters had given us to use.
We decided to sew it on and tell the sisters later. They thought it was a great solution, but the story still turned into church folklore. As my friend, Donna Fielder says, now that I am too old to die young, I see that’s what people do with certain stories.
Each Easter season, I get a little misty when I see this tapestry, knowing that Mark’s signature is on the back with mine and that of our friends and knowing the year the tapestry was started was the year he was welcomed into the church.
Random thoughts from the Possum Kingdom 20K
Running 4.5 hours of a 20K equals 17 miles, plus or minus. This proves that lesson from my parents that there’s a price to pay when you don’t think for yourself and just follow the guy in front of you. (But it did make up for the marked-too-short Easter 5K in Cowtown.) The wildflowers were many and the trail was varied, if you consider alternating between sand, rock and hills varied. The air was fresh and clear. Once it was filled the sweet, tangy smell of just-made cedar chips. Another time a smokey smell wafted our way, and then we realized it was just medicinal. Some runners wore “For Boston 4-15-13” shirts. When I got home, I started a batch of kolaches. And, let me say this: compression socks. 
UPDATE: On the way home from Possum Kingdom, we saw a dad helping his kid fly a kite. It was a great day for kite-flying and I remembered this video Mark shot with the kids one day not long after we moved here. Susan said kite-flying is a dad thing.
Again, this is something Paige rescued from the nearly magnetized tapes so it isn’t the best quality, but it’s nice to hear Mark’s voice. If you can hang out til the end, both bugs and more tennis shoes make it on screen.
College for Kids
I’m wondering how many Denton old-timers remember that Texas Woman’s University used to offer “College for Kids,” a summer enrichment program for elementary school children.
All the Wolfe children went every summer for as long as they were eligible. Kids “aged out” in middle school. One of the organizers told me that was because middle school was about the age that kids would start finding ways to get into trouble.
As far as I can tell, the program ended rather unceremoniously in 2002. I don’t know if the people who ran it just ran out of steam or if the kids started “aging out” a little sooner.
Sam went as soon as he was old enough and he went every summer. The first summer we worked closely with the organizers to make sure Sam didn’t get lost going from building to building. After all, he was only a rising 4th grader! We took advantage of several quiet evenings on campus, the week before it started, to practice finding his classes. He did well, only getting lost once, on the first day, (there were four classes to find) and the staff helped him make it right.
The program helped Sam develop some independence and think about school in different ways. They had all kinds of fun classes in topics like rockets and printmaking and magic-making and video production.
Here’s what remains from the video production class. Paige rescued what she could from the copy we had that was getting magnetized.
Sam and Michael liked the magic class so much I’m pretty sure each of them took it more than once.
In one class, Sam learned to write music. I was surprised when he came home at the end of that session with this:
It was and is a sweet little tune.
When I unearthed recently, I put it up on the piano and tried harmonizing it very simply. I asked Sam, did I come close to what he imagined? He told me that’s the sort of thing that he thought musicians should be able to arrange and produce how they want.
I’ve often wondered how much guidance the teachers provided with such projects. Paige was 4 or 5 years old the last time we went to Bear Valley Music Festival. She and Michael participated in a summer art program at the little library that had them making collages with wallpaper samples and objects they found on nature walks.
Paige’s piece took my breath away, with the little bird in a nest perching above the boundaries of her collage. Did the teacher do that or Paige?
I’ll never know.
Bird Nesting on a Post, by Paige Wolfe
Rainbow toast and sunshine strawberry jam
Sam limited his food choices when he was in elementary and middle school. Sometimes we took action, but otherwise we tried to keep a good humor about it.
I can remember taking the kids out for breakfast, usually when we were on the road, and as the rest of us were all scarfing down pancakes and eggs and grits and bacon and sausage, Sam would be opening a fun pack of cereal and spreading jam on an order of dry toast.
He expanded his food universe by trying all different kinds of jam. He settled into a routine where he would spread each piece of toast with all the jams at the table equally. Sometimes that could be four or five different flavors. When that happened, he called it rainbow toast.
Some of those pieces of toast became real works of art, kind of like that cool stuff baristas can do designing hearts or flowers or conifer trees in the foamy milk in your coffee.
He doesn’t do that anymore, but he hasn’t lost his appreciation for a good jelly or jam.
For a long time, I just made the classics, like grape and blueberry. Lately, I’ve been trying new combinations, like strawberry-rhubarb with ginger, and apple-tequila. He likes them for the most part. The prickly pear jelly was a bust, as far as he was concerned, and he doesn’t like the butters — so things I can do with figs and pears, he just passes on.
Today, we finished the “sunshine” strawberry jam. I got the recipe from Jamison and Jamison’s “A Real American Breakfast.” This is not a recipe where the list of ingredients tells you much. You have to read what they tell you. It’s an old recipe. I’d been wanting to make it for a very long time, even before I wrote this story.
After the first day in the sun, Sam said, “It smells great.” After the third day, Sam said the flavor was intense.
Yep. Sunshine in a jar. Rainbows on your toast. This recipe is going in the regular rotation.
Photo credit: Sam Wolfe
UPDATE:
Because Tom Reedy wants the recipe:
2 pounds strawberries
2 to 3 cups sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Make sure you and your utensils are scrupulously clean. Discard berries that are bruised or otherwise ailing. Stem the berries and halve them, cutting out any cottony white cores. This can easily eliminate 1/2 pound of the berries. Weigh the berries and combine them with 3/4 cup sugar per 1/2 pound of berries. (Really, truly, I say, weigh them with your kitchen scale; no guessing.) Mash lightly with a potato masher or pastry blender until you have a goopy strawberry soup of sorts, a thick liquid with small but distinct berry segments (These segments are rather toothsome when the jam is done, so, I say, think about that when you stop mashing and decide if the bits are small enough for you.)
Pour into a shallow dish (I poured it into two ceramic baking dishes so it was no more than 1-inch deep.) Cover with cheesecloth secured with rubber bands. (This is Texas, cover it with a double layer.) Set out in the sun for the day. Bring back inside and refrigerate overnight and repeat the following day. If you live in a warm, dry, sunny climate, you’ll probably have jam by the end of the second day without doing another thing (The Jamison’s live in N.M., so I’ll bet they do.) In a more humid or cloud-covered setting, it will likely take another full day of sitting out (and overnight refrigeration) to get the proper gelled texture, less thick than commercial versions, but with definite body. It will help speed the evaporation if you stir the jam a time or two during the day. If rain is anticipated, leave the jam in the refrigerator rather than putting it out. (We had rain at the end of the third day, but by then the jam was done. Sam brought it in.)
When the jam is ready, sterilize 2 half-pint (1-cup) canning jars. (I had enough jam to fill two-cup jars, as you can see). Spoon the jam in the jars, leaving about 1/4 inch of headspace and refrigerate for up to several weeks. Freeze for longer storage.
Credit: Jamison, Cheryl Alters and Jamison, Bill. “Real American Breakfast.” New York: William Morrow, p. 404
Lullabies are the original love songs
If you are even a wee bit Irish, or Irish in spirit, this little gem — an old lullaby from the Emerald Isle — will grab your heart.
Recorded on the old Shakey’s Pizza Parlor piano via iPhone.
Can’t get more heartfelt than that.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #228
Peggy (watching Dixie toss a rawhide in the air and catch it): She gets really playful with those chews.
Sam: She tossed one right into the window today. (pauses) I’m not kidding.
Peggy: Did she think she could toss it out the window?
Sam: Nah. She’s just goofing around.
Ten things we didn’t know about autism one year ago …
Autism Speaks ran a super cool top ten list this week.
I’ve re-arranged their list by topic. I think it’s more useful that way, but you can refer back to their order, too. (ASD means Autism Spectrum Disorder. Let’s all get used to the change of language again.)
Prevention
Prenatal folic acid, taken in the weeks before and after a woman becomes pregnant, may reduce the risk of autism. Here’s the story.
Early intervention
High-quality early intervention for autism can do more than improve behaviors, it can improve brain function. Read more.
Being nonverbal at age 4 does NOT mean children with autism will never speak. Research shows that most will, in fact, learn to use words, and nearly half will learn to speak fluently. Read more.
Though autism tends to be life long, some children with ASD make so much progress that they no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for autism. High quality early-intervention may be key. Read more.
Researchers can detect presymptom markers of autism as early as 6 months – a discovery that may lead to earlier intervention to improve outcomes. Read more.
The first medicines for treating autism’s core symptoms are showing promise in early clinical trials. Read more.
Many younger siblings of children with ASD have developmental delays and symptoms that fall short of an autism diagnosis, but still warrant early intervention.Read more.
Social skills
Research confirms what parents have been saying about wandering and bolting by children with autism: It’s common, it’s scary, and it doesn’t result from careless parenting. Read more.
One of the best ways to promote social skills in grade-schoolers with autism is to teach their classmates how to befriend a person with developmental disabilities. Read more.
Other signs of hope
Investors and product developers will enthusiastically respond to a call to develop products and services to address the unmet needs of the autism community. Read more.
Autism, cooking and inference
Like most parents of a child with a disability, I’m on way too many email lists. Sometimes I get the itch to get off a bunch of them. After all, my child isn’t a child, he’s a grown man. The kinds of things we worry about, the world is just beginning to worry about. Many times I’m convinced the answer to our problem isn’t going to be in that mountain. Just like when he was little, when he was 1 in 15,000, and not 1 in 88, my job is to ready the pilgrimage and go find Mohammed.
But then something flies across cyberspace and there it is. A solution.
This time the reward for sifting through the mountain of email was finding out about Penny Gill, and how she teaches adults with autism how to cook.
When I was younger, combing through some of the recipes my mother used, I would sometimes get frustrated with the instructions. A lot was inferred, little was written.
Inference is a difficult skill to master for people with autism.
Julia Child came along and helped with instructions for how to cook, but she and all those television chefs expect us to generalize what they do. Generalizing is also a difficult skill for people with autism to master.
Can you imagine writing the recipe that really has ALL the steps? Well, Penny Gill and her team have been doing just that. Check out the directions how to make Bumbleberry Squares.
They have a cooking class coming up in the middle of the day, May 7 at Central Market in Dallas (scroll down to find the registration instructions). That’s a rotten time for us in the Wolfe family.
But we ordered the cookbook, Coach in the Kitchen.
Stay tuned.
Random thoughts on the Cowtown Easter 5K
Getting up early on Saturday and lining up with hundreds of people to run around, raising money for charity, is a nice way to connect with humanity. But, standing at the start line for 45 minutes waiting for a freight train downstream to clear out is its own kind of endurance test. A 5K feels like barely getting started after years of training for half-marathons. A man in a bunny suit with whiskers, pink ears and a pink pom-pom tail while also wearing a leather vest and carrying a six-shooter, even in the Fort Worth Stockyards, is just creepy. From a distance, an Iowan seeing your shirt and saying “Hey! A Hawkeye!” kind of sounds like “Hey! A Hot Guy!” Michael came in under 22 minutes, I finished under 25. Once you have kids, your whole life, you’re always chasing them.
Happy Easter, y’all!
Smart as a 5th grader #8
5-21-99
My plans about summer are having free time and playing games. I like playing games better than free time. On the last day of school I don’t get homework because on the day before the last day of school, I take my school supplies home! Wouldn’t that be something!
5-26-99
The best thing in 5th grade is that I work faster and get it done on time. Also, I was on the AB honor roll all year and I participated at Camp Summit. I also got a Circle of Friends award and I had a Circle of Friends party yesterday.
(Scroll down to the bottom of this page to learn more about Circle of Friends.)