Overheard in the Wolfe House #132
Sam: I really like that new ice cream flavor you made. Is it chocolate cookie dough?
Peggy (not wanting to say it’s a knock-off of Ben and Jerry’s Schweddy Balls): No. But it has rum in it.
Sam: It has rum in it?
Peggy: It has rum in it. Is there any left?
Sam: It has rum in it?
Peggy: Did you eat all of it?
Sam: No. I didn’t eat all of it.
Explaining the Unexplainable
Throughout Sam’s life, the things he’s needed to learn had to be taught directly. You cannot imagine how important learning from context is until you are confronted with the inefficiency of hours and hours and hours of direct teaching.
As Sam has grown, he’s learned to generalize. He’s picked up more from context — but he had to be taught how to do that, too. Taught to imitate, taught to read context, taught to recognize idioms, taught to generalize.
I get tired just thinking about it.
Now, Sam is struggling mightily with a new problem. And I have to figure out how to explain what civil rights are. Do you know how often we toss out that phrase and we have no idea what it means?
That violates my civil rights.
Read him his rights.
They marched for civil rights.
Google it yourself, and see what a mess you get. Dear readers, can you help?
Tour des Fleurs
Random thoughts from today’s “race.”
I love trail running best.
Dallas air quality is better than Denton County’s.
Green bananas taste good after you’ve run for 2 hours and 40 minutes.
I think it would be easier to run farther if I ran faster.
The homes in Lakewood Trails — up in the hills around White Rock Lake — are beautiful, and no two look alike.
My favorite landscapes are the ones where you can tell the owner does it, and not a landscape service.
If you run long enough, your body surrenders the toxins. It took me 3-4 miles, it took RunnerSusan about 6. (Poor thing.)
In the hardest parts of the run, the only people encouraging you are the Dallas police officers at their posts. That has got to be some kind of metaphor about life.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #131
Peggy: So what do you think about having hair like Grandpa?
Sam (inventor of the phrase “no hair, just a head”): It will happen if I keep going bald.
Lights in London
I promise not to subject you to a bunch of home movies — especially as aged as these images have obviously gotten — but I couldn’t help myself with this one.
When the Dallas Symphony went on its first European tour in 1997, Mark was hired as second tuba. I went along for the first half of the trip as an orchestra groupie. We had a blast.
We left the kids — Sam was 9, Michael was 6, and Paige was 4 — in the capable care of my parents. But we took the camcorder to capture things we thought would interest them on our return.
The videos sat in a box for years after our VHS player died. I borrowed one from my parents this summer and, with the help of a Pinnacle Dazzle, have begun digitizing the handful of family videos we have.
We made this little ditty in London when we realized how much fun Sam would have had, if he had been there to play with the light switches.
This was the first time I’ve heard Mark’s voice since the week he died. I’m not sure who was grinning bigger tonight when we captured this first “movie,” Sam — re-living a favorite childhood memory — or me, remembering the sound of the love of my life.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #130
Peggy (after Sam ends a phone conversation with North Central Texas College’s vice president for instruction): Some people are afraid to talk to deans and vice presidents. You certainly aren’t.
Sam: Well, why would anybody be afraid to talk to them?
Peggy: Oh, it might start in elementary school, when children learn to be afraid of the school principal, even though the main part of their job is to solve problems.
Sam: I wasn’t afraid of Gaye Pittman Wise. She was a really nice lady.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #129
Peggy: Here’s this month’s royalty check.
Sam: Man, they’re really pushing the money on us now.
Higher Ed Could Do More
There are thousands of kids with autism coming of age, and Sharon’s comment tells me Sam’s experience — while a first for him — is not unique in higher education and many in higher education need to do more to get ready.
Read on:
Thursday when I picked Adam up from class, he didn’t want to talk, at all. He seemed sad. Finally, late in the night he told me that his philosophy professor asked the class who had read the assignment. Adam answered that he had but, fearing he might get questions he couldn’t answer, he added that he was not sure he completely understood what he read. His instructor ridiculed him and got the rest of the class to laugh at him. Naturally, he felt horrible.
But, that’s not all. Tuesday he went to the music department to get advice about the possibility of majoring in music. He wants to do soundtracks for movies and he is pretty darn good at it too. He was told that he should stick with engineering because he should have started his music career a long time ago.
He is 16 for crine out loud! Sixteen, with 18 college credits and a 3.8 GPA. What’s wrong with the jackasses who are supposed to be teaching our young people.
Higher education has come a long way to accommodate students with disabilities, but there are still problems. This is what happens when you build an educational system that has built-in assumptions.
Oh, and because my past life was in music, I can say this with complete authority: Any music professor who thinks music training needs to begin in childhood, like you do with gymnasts, isn’t a true musician and artist, he is a gymnast.
True Grit
“Thought for the day: there’s a lot to live for, and everything happens for a reason. Pain is normal, tears are how we heal, and being happy all the time is unreasonable. We hurt, but that hurt makes our happiness that much more meaningful. The key is to keep moving on, embrace life, and always be thankful for what we have (which is often much more than we give ourselves credit for).” — Michael Wolfe, Facebook
Tenacity
“Straighten up, Willie. It’s time to row.” — Isabel Allende, The Sum of Our Days.