getting back on the horse
Position of trust
Emails have been flying for the past week from Riding Unlimited, although I have yet to see anything official from the board of directors. All we know in the Wolfe house is that two people who have been a part of Sam’s extended family for more than a decade are suddenly gone. And just two weeks before RU is to host regional Special Olympics, we hear rumors of a “new direction.”
Overheard in the Wolfe House #165
Peggy: Everybody makes mistakes, Sam. I made a $400 one when I dropped my phone. I’ll never make that mistake again (shaking the Otter Box).
Overheard in the Wolfe House #162
Sam: It looks like Tutorial 10 is the last one.
Don’t Spare the Horses.
When Michael was home visiting for the holidays, we had a shared moment for which the details completely escape me now, but after which my son said, “Wow, Mom. Don’t spare the horses.”
I’d never heard that before. But I liked it. I liked it so much I wondered whether it would make a good New Year’s resolution. One I could actually keep.
In a word, yes.
I logged my 500th mile in in training this month and other things in my life are proceeding at that dogged pace.
Last night, I dreamt something was outside my front door. Unlike all the other dreams of monsters and tornadoes and machines and floods and fire and being forced to get control of a runaway vehicle from the backseat of the car, I didn’t hesitate.
Texas has a castle law, you know.
Belt Buckle Quality
Sam took first in showmanship in Class A today at Chisholm Challenge.
This event gave him fits when he was younger. If you are not familiar with showmanship, here’s what little I know. In many horse shows, competitors are showing the animal to the judge — just like a dog show, for example — so it can be evaluated for its conformation to the breed.
Showing an animal is complicated. You’ve got to get the animal to do things on your lead. People sometimes hire professional handlers to show their dogs. Being judged on showmanship is having someone evaluate your handling skills.
For kids with autism and other disabilities, showing an animal can be wickedly difficult. You have to stay focused. You have to follow directions with many steps. If your animal doesn’t behave as expected, you have to deal with it.
That’s gray-matter growing stuff.
I highly recommend it for kids with disabilities. Some stables will take kids at-risk. Michael rode for a year after he had surgery on his ear to help correct some balance and perception problems. Sam has been riding at Riding Unlimited since he was five. If you can volunteer or donate to a therapeutic riding program, you will be a big part of making amazing things happen in your community. Some volunteer programs will help you learn to ride, too.
Just one caveat: make sure the program, the instructors and the facility are certified by the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship, or PATH International.
Sam competed in Class A, where the patterns are more difficult. The other classes do simpler patterns for the judge, just walking up, turning and coming back.
And here’s his buckle!
Chisholm Challenge
Before the bull and bronc riders, before the rodeo show and the barrel racers at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, you can see some terrific horsemanship at the Chisholm Challenge for Special Riders.
Thanks to all the volunteers and staff, and sponsors, of the area stables that continue to serve the community in a way no other recreational outlet can.
If you check it out, you’ll never see horses and riders in quite the same way again.
It Takes a Village
The summer we stayed in Colorado, Sam took swimming lessons. He was 4 1/2 years old. He enjoyed the water very much, but he didn’t learn to swim.
After we moved to Texas, my neighbor, Karol Smith, took all three of my kids into her backyard pool and taught them to swim in a week. She said she’d taught dozens of kids to swim by condensing the way most parks and rec programs did it — sometimes over several years of summers. She guaranteed she’d get it done.
It was the summer Paige turned 6, so Michael would have been 8, and Sam, 11. I was certain she’d have Michael and Paige swimming, but told her Sam might take a little longer.
It didn’t. And, Karol turned Sam into the biggest fish of them all.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #145
As Peggy takes Leroy Anderson’s famous Christmas tune at half-tempo and still plays lots of wrong notes.
Sam (in a stage whisper): Uh-oh. Sleigh Ride is hard.
Southern Impolite Meets a Yankee Can of Whoop-Ass
(Note to readers: This is not one of my best moments. I’m exploring events from our lives for the next book, in hopes that there are lessons and wisdom in these experiences. Or, at minimum, a good chuckle. Let’s see what happens with this one.)
At the end of Sam’s second-grade year, the kids and I went with Mark to Shreveport for a year-end concert with the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra.
It was a great opportunity for the kids to see their dad perform as the tubist in the orchestra. Most concert settings are so formal, even I had hard time behaving.
The Shreveport Symphony had always held their year-end concert in the convention center. They put out round tables and lots of kitschy decorations around the room. Some people decorated their tables, too, and of course the food and wine flowed as the symphony played a pops program.
The acoustics were horrible — there was a level of background noise in the room that I’m sure made it a real challenge for the guys on the mixing board. But a great time was always had by all.
The kids and I sat in the back with some other symphony friends at our table and at tables around us. Given how young the kids were — Sam was 8, Michael was 5 and Paige not quite 3 — I was thrilled how well they behaved. Especially Sam. He didn’t get up and run around the tables. He wiggled and fidgeted some in his seat. Sometimes he would slip down and stand up next to his chair, but at his size, he wasn’t tall enough to block the view for any one around us.
This was a huge accomplishment for him. We had worked hard during second grade to help Sam learn to stay in his seat and pay attention. He had such trouble with it at the beginning of the year that his teacher had begun to send him out to the hallway with his aide when he couldn’t sit still. While I could see her point that he was a distraction for the other kids in the class, the aide noticed that sending him out in the hallway was reinforcing the problem. She got worried. I called Kevin Callahan, a special education professor at the University of North Texas at the time. He came to observe and designed a little intervention that helped Sam teach himself to stay in his seat and pay attention. It was brilliant and it worked.
But Sam’s behavior wasn’t perfect, and even though his little brother and sister wiggled and fidgeted, too, Sam’s wiggles got the attention of one woman a table or two away. She would watch Sam. She would whisper to the people at her table. It was hard not for me to notice I was being judged, too.
I did my best to ignore the Chinese water torture of her judgment. We were making some good memories and I didn’t want to give her the power to spoil it.
After the concert ended, people began packing up their tables. Sam, Michael and Paige rushed to the stage to hug their dad and meet the other musicians. I stayed behind to pack up our things. I looked up to see the woman was approaching me.
She began to tell me what she thought was wrong with Sam.
I listened patiently for her to get to her stopping point. I told her that actually I was quite proud of my son because he has autism and his dad was performing and this was about the best he had sat still and paid attention this whole year.
Then she smiled this treacly smile and said, “Well, I am a teacher of the emotionally disturbed and in my experience …”
I lost it.
I leaned forward and yelled, “Get out of my face.”
She looked stunned. But she didn’t move.
“Get out of my face!” I yelled again.
She took a step back.
“I said, get out of my face!”
Rule of three, she finally went back to her friends.
I was ashamed of myself for losing my cool. And a little grateful that the room was full of ambient noise, enough that only the woman and her friends knew what had happened between us. Maybe another table, but that was about it. The kids and Mark never heard it.
I walked very deliberately towards the stage. I could feel the woman and her friends watching me. I told Mark what had happened and turned and pointed to the woman. He studied her. She and her friends finished packing up and left.
“Do I need to go over there and do something?” he asked.
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t think she’ll bother another autism parent again in her life.”
Best. Rejection. Ever.
I was cleaning out some files and came along this little gem from about a decade ago, when I was first casting about for freelance work while in grad school.
This one was a real keeper.