Find Me! (Based on a true story)

Dear Dad,

In a few years I will probably have to go on a search for Michael. He will get lost somewhere. I recently told him about the time that I got lost at the state fair and you had to find me. Michael is eight now, I was 11 then. The older he gets, the more I remember things that happened when I was his age. The similarities strike me sometimes. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have an account of searching for me at the state fair written in a journal stashed away somewhere. I would like to compare notes so that I can have a clue about where to look when it is my turn.

Mom took Suzanne and me to the fair that year. She generously allowed us to take along our friends, Ronnie and Barb. After we walked around a bit and got something to eat, Mom told Ronnie and me that we could go off on our own. She told us to meet her and the girls at the bottom of The Ramp to the stadium so we could all go to a concert together. I shouldn’t have listened to Ronnie. I thought that the bigger ramp I saw was the one Mom was talking about, but Ronnie insisted that the one he selected was the right one.

We waited and waited until after dark. We went to look for Mom and the girls, and stopped to look at stuff along the way. I went to use the restroom. When I came back out, Ronnie was nowhere to be seen. That was when he went to find a payphone to call home. I think I remembered that you told me if I got lost to stay where I was. I decided to wait until someone came to rescue me. I don’t know why I didn’t get the same idea that Ronnie did, and call home. I think you asked me about that when you came to pick me up at the fairgrounds police station. I now understand why you were baffled that I just sat in one place until after midnight.

I was so literal-minded and legalistic in my thinking that I wanted to follow the instruction to remain in place. I didn’t stop to think that you gave me those instructions when I was six. I think I wanted to be rescued. I wanted to be found. I was scared to ask anyone for help. When no one came for me, I assumed I had been abandoned. I thought I would be on my own after that. I imagined myself as Oliver Twist, and someone like Fagin would take me under his wing and teach me how to pick pockets.

I saw you driving through the fairgrounds after the fair had closed for the night, but you didn’t see me. I was thrilled because I knew you were looking for me. Not much later, a police officer approached me and took me to the State Fair Police Station. I was amazed that he knew my name. While I was waiting for my rescue, I remembered reading in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not that the Minnesota State Fair had its own police department, jail and even its own court. I thought it was so cool to see this come to life. I noticed the officer’s insignia that read “Minnesota State Fair Police.” I took an interest in the old photographs and other memorabilia on the walls of the police station. I thought if I had to go to jail, it was so cool that the jail would be at the state fair. You arrived about 15 minutes later and we had a long ride home. We got home a little after one o’clock in the morning. Mom and Ronnie were sheepish and apologetic to me the next day. Suzanne and Barb thought I was an idiot.

If you do have your version of this story written in a journal or diary, I may ask you to provide it to a psychiatrist one day. I may also want to ask if you can remember things about raising me that are like things about raising Michael. For example, it took months to teach him how to put on his socks. I worked at it every morning and didn’t think he would ever learn. He didn’t seem interested in learning it. Then, one day, he put on his socks like he’d been doing it for years.

I want to get a diagnosis for myself. I thought about seeking an Asperger’s diagnosis for myself a few years ago, but thought better of it. My temptation then was to use such a diagnosis to get a disability check. From what I observed though, getting a disability check can be more work than work. Besides, I didn’t want that to be the example that I provide to my son. I now want to get a diagnosis so that I can contribute to autism research.

Michael got his diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was three. Since then, I have learned about autism and wondered if I would have received the same diagnosis if I had been tested when I was a kid. The online quizzes I have taken have indicated that I am not on the autism spectrum. I think they would have if they had been around when I was young. The last quiz I took reminded me that an online quiz is not a substitute for a professional diagnosis.

I learned how to adapt in my 53 years. I learned how to make eye contact by looking at the space between a person’s eyes when talking to them. I learned how to make small talk and how to get along with people by reading Ann Landers and Miss Manners in the newspaper. I had help from many people. I am grateful that I had high school English teachers who encouraged me to try out for the debate team and school plays. Those experiences taught me to interact with people and to confront fear. I managed to make a few close friends, but two of them have died. I have gotten better at organization, but still have much to learn. I am often surprised by the fact that I am a supervisor at my job. I am even more surprised to find myself going home to a wife and son at my own house.

I think some of our family stories could help those investigating the genetic components of autism. One that comes to mind is the time when I was in second grade and you asked me one evening why I was late for school the day before. I told you how I had stopped to watch a squirrel run along a power line and tried to figure out what he was saying to me when he looked at me and chattered at me. You were unsuccessful at suppressing a laugh before you scolded me. I figured you had done something similar when you were a kid.

I recently convinced Rose that Michael was not being a smart-aleck when he asked, over and over, “Are you angry?”  I think one of his therapists suggested that he ask that. I had to work at learning how to read people’s emotions. I remember both you and Mom getting exasperated and asking if I could not tell when people were upset. I admire my son for working at learning this more directly than I did.

When Michael was undergoing testing for ASD, I had to interpret for the clinicians once. They showed him an array of pictures and told him to answer questions by pointing to the appropriate picture. The woman asked him, “Michael, what do you use to watch cartoons and videos?” Michael did not point to any of the pictures until I said “What do you use to watch DVDs, Michael?” He pointed to the picture of a TV. I was able to clarify in that situation because I happened to know that we did not refer to them as “cartoons” or “videos” at our house, but as “DVDs.”

The incident makes me think that I might be a useful guy to have around for clinicians studying children on the spectrum. I could help them tell the difference between what’s autistic and what’s idiosyncratic of a child’s family. I think I could talk to the children in such a way as to get them to participate in activities the clinicians want to observe. People have told me that I have a lot of patience with Michael. It’s just because I remind myself that he is listening even when it seems like he is not. When I used to drop Michael off at preschool there was a nonverbal little boy who often grabbed me by the finger and would lead me to something in the room, like the train set. I never knew what he was trying to communicate, but his mother was tickled that the boy was trying to communicate something to somebody.

Maybe I can be the guy at a clinic or classroom that teaches the kids to put on their socks and look both ways before they cross the street.  I have accomplished both of these things. I enjoyed being a guest reader in Michael’s classroom. Maybe I could be the guy that reads the same books over and over to the kids. If I don’t work with autistic kids, I hope that I can provide data that will help people on the spectrum adapt to adult life if I undergo lengthy interviews, cognitive tests and physical examinations. I want to donate my brain to science, but I want to do it while I am still alive.

Perhaps the best thing I could do for Michael and other young people on the spectrum would be to share my mistakes with them. I have plenty to share. If they can put them to good use by learning what to avoid, I will have done my duty.

When I see Michael get frustrated, I remember how I first started to get the idea when I was seven years old that I had a burden or disadvantage that I could not name. I did well at schoolwork, but all the other kids thought of me as stupid. I missed things going on around me. I understand my son’s frustration. I want to be able to help him overcome it by articulating what I did to overcome it. I think I have done some of this, but I think science has much to learn about autism. I have a lot to learn about communication, too. I think there are many adults who grew up before their parents ever heard about Asperger’s Syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorder who could contribute data to the body of knowledge about the phenomenon.

When I get the call that Michael is missing, I think I will have some clues as to where to look. If he is not in the last place anyone saw him, I will have to rack my brains to remember conversations with him. He may be acting out some drama that he saw on TV or read in a book, like I imagined myself as Oliver Twist or Huckleberry Finn. Besides the time at the fair, there were other times in my life that I ran into you in unlikely places and your timing was good. You have told me stories about how it was the same with you and your dad. I hope this talent is genetic.

A Constitutional Convention of the Earth

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine demonstrates the need for a Constitutional Convention of the Earth. We have been reassured that this conflict is not the start of World War III, because the world’s economy is so interconnected that it would be disastrous for everybody if other nations became involved in the conflict. Economic sanctions are the way to go. It turns out though, that we don’t want to make the economic sanctions against the Russians too harsh, because the world’ economy is so interconnected that harsh economic sanctions against the Russians would be bad for everybody.

If the world’s economy is that interconnected, then perhaps nation states have outlived their usefulness. They interfere with our ability to freely trade with anyone in the world. They recruit our young men into armies and navies, and then hire out those armies and navies to oligarchs so they can keep the oil flowing. Instead of armies and navies providing for our security, they are targets themselves. They make life more dangerous for everyone. Nationality is one tool in the divide-and-conquer toolbox used by plutocrats and oligarchs.

If our plutocrat masters think of national governments as nothing more than subsidized security services, then perhaps we should stop subsidizing their security. If our plutocrat masters refuse to pay taxes to our national governments, then we should do the same. A government of the Earth should govern as little as possible, but ensure the conservation of resources and promote the health and welfare of all humans. One simple way to do this would be to eliminate all income taxes, sales taxes and excise taxes. Instead, we could tax anyone who mines or harvests any of the Earth’s resources. Such a tax system could take into account the limited nature of a given resource, and the damage that extracting the resource could cause. Oil companies and coal mining companies might pay a higher tax rate than farmers.

The revenue derived from taxing the extraction of resources from the Earth could be used to develop sustainable food and energy systems, facilitate free and fair trade, serve the interests of justice, promote education and dismantle the world’s weapons systems. Farmers and miners would pass along the cost of their taxes to the rest of us. We would be taxed according to how much we consume instead of how much we earn. This is merely my own suggestion. Such questions would need to be discussed at a Constitutional Convention of the Earth. We would need to make such decisions collectively.

We Have Much To Learn

I would not have known anything about snow rollers before I saw them if I had not logged into Facebook to wish people happy birthday the morning of January 27^th, 2014. A local television station posted photographs and an explanation of how they formed. I tried to imagine how I would have explained them to my eight-year-old son if I had seen them without this knowledge.

I can understand the temptation of giving children mythological explanations for natural phenomena, such as telling them thunder is the sound of angels bowling. This makes me wonder if some of the things that we think of as supernatural phenomena have scientific explanations that none of us have figured out yet. People have long reported seeing strange lights before and during earthquakes. It turns out that they were not lying or hallucinating. We now have a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. I wonder if animals already knew this.  People have reported animals acting strangely in the days before an earthquake.

If we are just now finding the cause of lights associated with earthquakes, perhaps there are scientific explanations for things people have reported through history that we now regard as superstition or tall tales. Scientists investigating cosmology and quantum physics are learning that the more we learn, the more we find out how little we know. They are starting to see a need to investigate the nature of reality. While they are at it, I would like to see scientists investigate such things as miracles, ghost stories, UFO sightings or fairies. We have some understanding of how giving a sick person a placebo sometimes ends up as a form of faith healing, but applying this knowledge would involve lying to a patient.

The scientists who investigated the lights associated with earthquakes began by searching for things that reports about such lights had in common. It would be interesting if we could apply the same method to descriptions of supernatural events found in the Bible, other ancient texts and folklore. St. Joan of Arc made a case to leave some fairies alone to her parish priest as a young girl. Psychiatry may be able to explain some of these phenomena, but others may turn out to have explanations we do not yet understand, such as the earthquake lights until recently.

Metaphor can probably explain some of the descriptions of visitations by angels mentioned in the Bible. We do not need a scientific explanation of The Angel of the Lord telling Abraham not to kill Isaac to understand that human sacrifice is not necessary to please God.

A Holiday to Observe Non-Violence

Observing Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a holiday reminds us that we can overcome. Our republic started with some good ideas, but also with some unresolved issues. These unresolved issues almost led to our republic breaking apart. After a long war we were left with a caste system that mocked our declarations of justice and democracy.

Dr. King started us on the path to overcoming these problems. We still have much to do, but we have made good start. Dr. King showed us that we can overcome our hypocrisy by ensuring equal access to education and the voting booth. He showed us that we can accomplish these things without resorting to violence. Dr. King seemed to understand that a caste system dies a long death. Rather than fighting the caste system as a whole, Dr. King focused on working for equal treatment under the law. He probably deserves much more credit than he receives for preventing a great deal of bloodshed in the struggle for equal treatment under the law. It is through equal treatment under the law that individuals can realize opportunities and overcome their own hypocrisy and prejudice.

Dr. King reminded us that if we are going to draft people into the army and levy taxes on them, then those people should be able to vote and attend public schools.

Christmastide

Someone reminded me the other day that it is still Christmastide. My dad explained Christmastide to me when I asked him why we had a vacation from school in the middle of winter. Our school still called it Christmas Vacation then. He mentioned the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and told me that Christmastide lasts until January 5^th. I didn’t participate in Christmastide activities at church growing up, but I usually enjoyed it.

My sister and I usually spent our Christmas vacations staying with grandparents, cousins, or our mom. When I got old enough to take the bus on my own my cousin and I would knock around downtown St. Paul. I later explored the Twin Cities by bus on my own during Christmastide. I thought this was great fun. I saw places I didn’t get to see very often and had conversations with people I normally would not have: bus drivers, fellow passengers, waitresses, store clerks, panhandlers and librarians.

I think I spent most of the time between Christmas and New Year’s Day exploring the radio dial one year. I am grateful that I got to attend many different kinds of New Year’s Eve parties. My aunt and uncle usually had a big dinner on New Year’s Day. After I grew up and moved out of town I spent part of Christmastide traveling between Columbus and Minneapolis. I flew out to Phoenix and back for Christmas of 2001 – just a few months after 9/11.

These days I don’t get to knock around during Christmastide the way I used to. I have a job and a mortgage and a kid. This makes me grateful for social media and the Internet in general. I hope that I can give my son the same sense of wonder and adventure that the Christmastide helped me develop as I was growing up.

Merry Christmas, Suckers

We frequently hear or read that 1% of the population of the United States holds 95% of the wealth of the United States. I often hear the question, “How much do you need?” in discussions about the 1%. We may like to think of the 1% as greedy bloodsuckers, but we don’t make it very difficult for them to take our money. Christmas provides a good example.

The term “Black Friday” comes from accounting jargon. Before they had electronic spreadsheets, accountants recorded debts and losses in red ink and recorded gains and profits in black ink on paper ledgers. Historically, many retailers operated at a loss until the day after Thanksgiving, when we all started our Christmas shopping. So, the day after Thanksgiving became known as “Black Friday” because that is when the retailers finally started showing a profit – or started operating “in the black” - for the year. Imagine that. A store stays open all year long just so that we can spend money during the last month of the year.

We can count the family that owns Walmart among the 1%. Walmart has helped us to start a new Holiday tradition: recording our neighbors brawling with each other over merchandise on Thanksgiving Day and posting those videos on social media. We do not brawl with each other over bread because of hunger, we brawl with each other over a bunch of junk that we don’t need. We camp out in front of BestBuy in order to get a place in line so that we can buy electronic devices that we can’t figure out how to use. We trample each other to get shoes that bear the name of a retired professional basketball player. We pay huge premiums for clothing with huge logos of professional sports franchises so we can have the privilege of becoming mobile signs for private businesses.

We give our money to the 1% all year long at the gas pump. We drive around in outrageously large vehicles and drive them much faster than necessary. We think public transportation is for bums and bicyclists just slow us down. We urge each other to “support our troops,” never thinking that if we didn't demand so much gasoline the oil companies wouldn't have the power to put our boys and girls in harm’s way.

I could go on about other rackets such as makeup, TV and food. We pay more for branding and attractive packaging than we do for the actual food. We helped banks become too big to fail by accepting loans from them for more house than we need.

I have heard complaints about the commercialization of Christmas my whole life. My question to you this Christmas, Mr. and Mrs. 99%: How much do you need?

My Murphy Brown Moment

My son said something the other date that reminded me of “Murphy Brown,” a TV show that was popular in the 1980s and 90s. Candice Bergen played the title role. Murphy Brown was the hard-driven, forty-something anchor of a TV news program. The show had a running gag about how much Murphy hated Barry Manilow’s music.

After a few seasons the show became controversial because Murphy Brown decided she wanted to give birth to a child but did not want to bother with getting married. It was a big deal back then. Former Vice President Dan Quayle was widely mocked for criticizing Murphy Brown’s decision and not seeming to realize that he was talking about a fictional character. He tried to apologize by buying a blanket for the fictional baby.

The episode of Murphy Brown that comes to mind was one that took place when the baby was a few weeks old. It was three o’clock in the morning and Murphy could not get the baby to stop crying. She tried cooing to him, rocking him, singing to him. She tried to feed him and checked his diaper. Nothing worked. She turned on the radio to find some music the baby might like. As she was turning the dial, the baby stopped crying for a second but then continued crying as she kept going. She noticed that the baby had stopped crying and searched for the station that had caused the baby to stop crying. It turned out to be Barry Manilow singing “Copacabana.”  Murphy toughed it out. She let the song play, and even sang and danced along with it while holding the baby. It worked. The baby went to sleep and Murphy was able to go to bed.

My son is not a Barry Manilow fan - thank goodness - but he is interested in NASCAR. He told me the other day that he wants to go to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina on summer vacation. I understand that children learn better if they can follow their interests, but geez, NASCAR? I think auto racing is loud, obnoxious, dangerous, and pretty boring to watch unless one has a morbid desire to see crashes. I think NASCAR is a waste of resources and is responsible for much of the aggressive driving we see on our streets and highways. I don’t discourage the boy’s interest in the sport because I hope it will provide motivation for him to learn about mathematics and physics and chemistry.

I am surprised to find myself using Murphy Brown as a parent role model. She is a fictional character, but I know that there are many parents out there who allow themselves to be tortured by their children’s preferences in order to get them to sleep or to assist in their development.

Maybe it won’t be so bad. The boy is not asking to go to an actual race, after all. It will probably be 100 degrees in Charlotte next August, but maybe we will both learn something.  If we make it to Charlotte next summer, I will feel entitled to brag about being a good parent.