self-advocacy
Overheard in the Wolfe House #256
Sam (as Pandora ventures to other artists on an Enya holiday station): You can’t listen to that when you’re depressed. It makes it worse.
Letter to Santa
In 1993, Argyle still had a free weekly community paper, The Argyle Sun. Each Christmas they ran letters to Santa from the kids. Some children conveniently numbered each item on their lists, but a boy named Jimmy didn’t. The Sun still printed the entire 30-item list, in all caps, with the plurals attached by apostrophes.
Sam was only 6 years old when he “mailed” this letter at the Argyle Post Office and it later appeared in the Sun:
Dear Santa
My nam is SamW. I would likem more
Thank You
The Reason I Jump
Number #1 bestseller on Amazon right now.
A gift to us English readers that started with a bootleg translation …
How to be spontaneous
Sam got an email Friday giving him a day’s notice for a chance to ride on a float Born2Be would have in the North Texas Fair and Rodeo parade Saturday morning. He forwarded the email to me. I replied that I already had promised to run trail with Susan Saturday morning, but this looked like something fun he could do on his own.
When I got home from work that evening, he said he just didn’t think that a day’s notice was enough notice for him. Did he have to go to work Saturday? Did he have other plans? He said no. But, from time to time, through the evening, he would talk about the parade. I knew he was thinking about it.
Finally, I reminded him that in the movie, Mama Mia, the character, Harry, had a hard time being spontaneous, but he saw everyone else being spontaneous, so he wanted to try. Maybe you can try to be spontaneous like Harry, I told him.
Sam decided to call someone at B2B for more information, and went to bed early with a tentative plan of how he would fit the parade into his day. Sam’s right, a person does have to lay some groundwork to be spontaneous.
Saturday morning we all were up early, and he was ready to head out the door to get there in time to meet everyone else. He was home by lunch and said he had a great time.
Photo by my Denton Record-Chronicle co-worker, David Minton.
“I’m spontaneous,” he said.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #238
Sam (slapping the wall in the other room): Goodbye, mosquito!
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.)
Overheard in the Wolfe House #227
Peggy (watching TV): Oh. There’s Hawaii. Still wanna live there.
Sam (in a stage whisper): There she goes again.
Smart as a 5th grader #5
1-15-99
At Recess, I played Duck, Duck, Goose. It’s when people sit in a circle and one person walks around and when (s)he says goose, then the goose tries to get the duck, but if (s)he gets tagged, (s)he’s in the mushpot.
1-19-99
This 3-day weekend I had lots of fun. On Saturday I went places, but not very many. I knew I went to my mom’s work, but I went to DATCU, and other places, too. At DATCU, it had too many people at the drive-thru. On Sunday, I rested. Yesterday, I went to Eureka Park and went shopping.
1-25-99
This weekend, I had a great time. My Grandpa rested. He rested because he had a disease. It probably was a cold. On Saturday, my Grandma worked all day in my upstairs. And on Sunday, she rested.
2-19-99
I want my report card at a one hundred. One hundred is perfect and it’s an A+. You get an A at usual. Sometimes you can get an A-.
Smart as a 5th grader #1
Sam’s journal from 5th grade doesn’t have the charm and pithiness of his earlier journals, but re-reading his entries, it’s clear that he was ready for middle school. The teachers worked hard to plan his transition, and Mark and I really sweated it, but looking back — you’ll see, too — we didn’t need to worry.
Aug. 14, 1998
My goal is the A-B honor roll all year. The thing I know how is to work hard.
8-19-98
We did our Diamante today. This tells all about me, as a person.
8-24-98
This weekend, I was working on my house. It was upstairs. I’m building a bedroom and a bathroom upstairs. It will be the guest bedroom.
9-4-98
The weather outside at recess is hot. I played with Carly and Maria. We played tag. And I got so hot that I had to go inside and watch a movie. The name of the movie was The Fox and The Hound. I only had to watch a little bit of it because Mrs. Boren came by and she needed me.
Dave’s FCS and the village
My friend, Lyndsay Knecht, gave a shout out on Facebook the other day to the auto shop that our family has patronized since we moved to the Denton area in 1993 — Dave’s Foreign Car Service. She was happy that Dave recognized although her engine light was on, there wasn’t really anything wrong with her car. And he didn’t charge her for the look-see to make sure.
Sam thinks Dave’s is great, too. “They tell me what’s happening,” Sam says. He knows what work they’ve done to his car and what’s coming up — like changing brake pads and the transmission fluid — so he can plan.
“They also let me know when it’s time to get new tires,” Sam says.
He doesn’t get the tires at Dave’s. He goes a few blocks down to Briscoe to get that taken care of.
Because I know most everyone at Dave’s (I wrote about one occasion where Dave talked me off the ledge not long after Mark died), and I know they keep an eye on others who get their referrals, I don’t feel like I have to backtrack to make sure nobody’s taking advantage of Sam as he takes care of his car.
Sometimes, when I think about why Sam wants to stay in Denton (believe me, the marginal quality of life in the Barnett Shale makes you think really hard about that — and I didn’t say “terrible quality of life” because that would be an affront to the people of the Eagle Ford), I know it’s all these small, reliable relationships he has in the community.
The restauranteurs near Albertsons know him, especially the guys at Luigi’s Pizza, where he’s been known to knock back a pie all by himself on a break from work. He schedules his own check-ups at the dentist and the doctor. Wayne Johnson takes good care of his diminishing hair line at Unique Barber Stylists. They know him DATCU credit union, too. And of course, there’s everyone at Born2Be.
Even for adults, it takes a village.