Newsletter 2002
Bump and Grind
This Year:
Luke’s Last Drive
Education Every Day
Cathy’s SpEd Days
Info Mgt Finds Jeff Again
Kate Filling Out
Dr. Strangejeff
Wireless but Cabled
Season’s Best From Tennessee
Start 2002 with a Bang
Though Rainman claimed to be a very good driver, Luke can’t. He can state that his father is stupid, though. In January, Luke rolled my previous truck down one neighbor’s hill and into another’s house. He received only 8 stitches. The S-10 wasn’t so lucky, but our insurance paid for all restorations (then tripled our premium).
Cathy, Eternal Student One
Cathy spent her summer vacation adding the SpEd Modified endorsement through UT’s program. So she’d have peace to study at night, I signed us up for the subdivision’s pool. The kids and I endured chlorinated H2O under the setting sun each evening so Cathy could leisurely read about how to assess and teach on the road less traveled. I also took Luke and Kate to separate weeks at the Jersey shore. Marriage is full of compromises, isn’t it?
Who Wants to Teach SpEd?
I’m moving away from the classroom already, toward SpEd Supervision. Information Management (digital paper pushing) is my life. I will have to get in enough teaching, though, to qualify for tenure by this school year’s end.
Meanwhile Cathy found her way back to Science—teaching Biology, Ecology, and Physical Science at Seymour High. I’m hoping her SpEd work is just on hold until she gets this mad desire to work for lazy ingrates out of her system. (I mean the so-called normal teenagers by the way, not the SHS administrators.)
Estrogen Freak Out
One reason Luke went to school with Cathy last summer but Kate didn’t is that puberty is turning our baby into The She-Monster of Autismia. She’s had these burst of biting and scratching that don’t go over too well in a middle school setting. What has worked is to give her her own place to be (section of the classroom), so she can let go of feeling in public all the time.
Of Softball and Autism
There’s something to be said for having a 6’3”, 260 pounder to do your bidding. One reason Kate doesn’t make the same progress Luke did is that they’ve gotten into this George and Lenny routine. The brains of the outfit shouldn’t have to put on her own shoes.
My Rockies went 4-5-2 last season, twice as many wins as in 2001; this matters to those in the stands a lot more than it does to the players (or their coaches). Kate switched to the Knights this year, sort of playing third base. “If it really mattered, they’d send out Luke to do it for me.”
She did offer that she prefers “Katie,” though, when the Upward basketball coach asked us what to call her and while Cathy and I were just looking at each other with a shrug. Katie and Luke did this messianic ball in the winter, in addition to their secular softball in the spring, and Easter Seals Camp last June.
We finally got them to the dentist again, for the first time since before moving to Albuquerque. An all-day ordeal that saw both through same-day surgery (UT Hospital’s Dental facility does most of the dental work for the mentally disabled in the area.) Luke had six cavities and Kate nine. At least on the 6-month follow-up they were both cavity free, though plaque laden.
Eternal students three and four also switched from Blount County schools to Sevier County (Pigeon Forge Middle and High) February to June, Seymour Middle and High since August. They attended summer schools in Anderson County (with Cathy) and in Sevier County for most of June and July as well, while I was sending (and resending) budgets and body counts to Nashville.
Eternal Student Two
Going to school on my own dime now, for the first time since 1984. (Paying is new, not the going, obviously.) I started an Education doctoral program in August, the terminal degree. Four degrees above ignoramus, but God and Cathy love me anyway while Luke and Kate tolerate me well. Dr. J by 2006.
Can It Be 2003?
Aside from 24 more credits for me and the completing the SpEd endorsements for Cathy, we have no big plans for the year ahead. A nephew is marrying in Arizona and I intend to drive Luke out to witness his first cousin on my side marrying. (On Cathy’s side, we’re already a great aunt/uncle a few times.) Probably more Jersey shore and Dollywood, and the mundane stuff like when the house and vehicles demand attention. In a few more years I’ll have time for more of this fun writing to you all, but my compositions these days tend to be of the Ed Admin strain.
I haven’t even been keeping up the Autistic Family site as faithfully as I’d like to, but it’s still more worth visiting than is the actual Autistic Family. Why does the Eagles’ line “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave” come to mind?
We got rid of our house phone earlier this year. Wireless only now at (865) 748-7711 (Jeff) or 654-1338 (Cathy). As always at www.geocities.com/autisticfamily
lukate@charter.net
Peace to Thee in 2003!
Kate, Luke, Cathy, and Jeff
lukate@charter.net