Season of Confusion

Yes Virginia, there is a season for football!  

    

Here in my part of the world, it's football season all year.  Rumor has it that football is a religion.  After tonight, I'm a believer even though I never doubted it.  Of course, I'm right there with the rest of the followers of the almighty pigskin! Tonight, we had a scrimmage game at the high school where I teach.  Blue jerseys vs. White jerseys.  Blue won 21-14.  It even felt like a fall game.  The temp is about 66 out there and with a strong wind!!  People had blankets, coats and sweats. It ALMOST makes me wish there was another game next Friday night.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot..... there is one!!

                                                 

Blackberry Winter

It's blackberry winter around here and has been for the past week or two.  Blackberry winter means it's gotten a lot cooler (and wetter this year...) all of a sudden.  I don't know if my yankee friends ever expreience blackberry winter, but we sure do down here in the south!! 

In probably another week or so, the temps will go from the mid-sixty's up to 90 degrees without any warning at all!! 

 

Graduation and the after life......

This afternoon I am going to a graduation party for one of my kids.    As you may or may not know, I teach high school kids that have physical and mental disabilities.  Not easy sometimes, but at least the kids (and a sprinkling of parents) are fun.  My kids can stay in school until they are 21 if their parents wish.  Most of these kids have been in school since they were 3 years old.  Why not stay?  Their friends are there and for the majority, this is their social life. 

What happens afterward? 

For most of society, this is not an issue.  You graduate, go to the beach for a week's vacation, come home, get a job, get ready to go off to college or whatever.

These kids don't understand what the heck is going on.  Sure, they put on the cap and gown.  Afterwards, they get to open gifts and have cake.  Then, they go home.  It's really fun for that 5 minutes of life.  

One of my kids that's graduating has a lot of non-communitive issues.  With each new year, mom has to go through a new calendar and write the day's agenda, such as, school, home, church.  This year in August (who decided August was a good month for school to begin??) there is no school.  Boy, did he get pissed!!  He came in and greeted everyone with his normal greeting until he got to me.  He screamed and shook his finger at me.  He did this for a few days and then I found out he had been talking to mom about August.  He kept saying, 'school'... mom said, no more school.  He thought I wasn't going to let him come back.  We had a chat (ok, i chatted, he listened).  He's cool now. 

The party I'm going to will be for another kid who won't talk about graduation.  Other day I mentioned how I thoughthe would be glad when he didn't have to come back to school.  He told me to be quiet, he didn't want to talk about it.  That's ok.  We don't have to talk about it. 

I never really thought about graduation how terrible it is for some of these kids until just this year.  One day, I wondered how I would handle life if I had been going to school every day since I was 3 and then all of a sudden, I couldn't.  Sure, we try to get them placed into jobs, but it's not the same thing as seeing your buddies.  You know what I mean. 

So, anyway.... Happy Graduation to all the graduates!  May you always be happy!