A couple of things. Maybe three.
I won't be posting again until probably Tuesday. Things are hectic and I have to take care of them, as best I can. There are things I'd like to tell you, though. As Dorothy said about Oz, some of them aren't very nice, but I can't seem to keep my mouth shut.
Also, I have a book coming out. It was supposed to be in mid-summer, then September, then October, and now I'm hoping next month. I pray the fervent prayer of all writers who have books in the works ("Please let it be here before Christmas!"), so you all can buy three to send as gifts and I can pay off Sears once and for all.
On the other hand, some of what's in the book I've posted here, free and clear. So maybe you can just wish me luck and save your money for The Preacher's book, which is going to come even if I have to publish it myself.
The following will probably not be included, although things are still up in the air. I've written about my son several times, and he's at the age where he's probably not going to appreciate it much more. I had a meeting at his school yesterday, though, and although it was constructive it was still frustrating. How to explain to busy teachers a life of 13-1/2 years? How to sympathize with their problems, understand their probably secret desire for him just to go away, and still be an advocate for my child?
I wrote this piece last spring, and it probably got more response than anything I'd written up to that point. Most of this was either anger or sorrow, and while I felt some of that it wasn't the reason I wrote it. For the first and only time, I took advantage of my position as a public commentator for selfish reason: I wanted to put the Fear of God into certain people.
Lost and Found
We never hear about good news in the media, or at least we like to think. It's there, of course. "If it bleeds, it leads" is a journalistic cliché, but happy stories are out there. Some are harder to find than others.
Jessica Lynch is one. The private from West Virginia, who left an impoverished life to join the Army and maybe get an education, has a happy story that we know all about. Not only was she rescued from the Iraqi hospital, but her savior was an Iraqi citizen who found that values are absolute in war, regardless. "Mohammed" caught sight of her being slapped around by one of Saddam's thugs and risked his life, and the lives of his family, to save her. Thank God for happy stories, especially in war. Gives us some hope.
This one you probably don't know about. Last Friday morning, a seventh-grader at a private school a few miles north of Seattle fell asleep in class. I mean, conked out, head on the desk, out. He had to be shaken awake, and his teachers decided as a punishment (excuse me, "consequence") he would be placed at a desk outside in the parking lot and given make-up work to do. This apparently is a favorite strategy of theirs. No coddling at this school.
Do you remember it being a little nippy last week? I do. In fact, on that day I recall looking at the little temperature icon on my computer screen and wondering if it was ever going to break into the 40s. A brisk morning, to say the least.
Now, here's the interesting thing. This is a school for children with special needs, and this kid has a pervasive developmental disorder. This sounds like a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo, but in fact it's a well-documented neurological condition that's been identified since well into the last century.
I happen to know something about this, actually. It's sort of fascinating. People like this have recently been studied with contrast-enhanced CT scans, and the results are striking. Their brains respond in remarkable ways to sensory stimuli.
This child, like many others with this disorder, is acutely sensitive to his environment. Sounds, temperature, touch: His brain processes input from his senses in unique ways, and he has trouble with any kind of extremes. It's just something he has to learn to deal with.
After an hour or so of shaking in the cold, unable to focus on his work, he knocked on the locked door of the school and pleaded with his teachers. He promised to do all his work if they'd let him back in where it was warm. Tough cookies. That's the consequence for the crime of falling asleep. So then he told them he'd leave the school if they didn't let him in. Slam. Click. Bye-bye.
I also know something about special education teachers. My brother, Bill, has spent more than 25 years in this field. He once told me of a boy in his class who punched him every day. At the end of the year, Bill considered it a victory that the boy was punching him a little less. They are underpaid and overworked, and they do their jobs because they care about kids, particularly damaged kids.
So I'm not going to pass judgment on these teachers in this space. You'll probably have your own opinions. I know I do.
I should also mention that this particular boy was wearing a coat, and he is 13. This is an age where we might expect to feel a little more secure about a child wandering away from supervision. But, again, this is a special kid. He has a view of the world different from yours or mine. He trusts people. He is virtually incapable of reading body language, whether it's from a Good Samaritan or a pedophile.
So his parents were a little frantic when they got the nonchalant call from the school. "Have you heard from your son?" Somehow I think the Army approached the Lynch family a little differently. The mother stayed by the phone while the father sped down I-5, trying not to imagine scenarios he really didn't want to imagine.
Because for every Elizabeth Smart, there are Megans and Pollys who don't make it home. It's a dangerous world, full of sinners as well as saints, and not knowing is always the worst. For the better part of an hour, a boy scoured the sidewalks for loose change to call home while his parents waited and watched.
His father found him at a gas station a few blocks from school, huddled in a phone booth. So, as I said, this is a happy story. One that will only make this paper, because the relief we all must feel at such a happy ending is a little more acute for me.
As you probably suspected, it was me searching the streets, and my son. I've grown used to the fear that comes with having children, but each time it strikes it's fresh and unsettling. And relief is an emotion fed by what might have been, so it was with sort of mixed feelings that I drove into that Chevron station to find my son, glad to see me, glad to be finally warm, and only mildly puzzled by his newfound knowledge that pennies don't work in pay phones.
11:31:14 AM 
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