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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (57835)	9/13/2002 1:56:49 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

When I was in junior high school, I had an acquaintance named Joe who was mildly retarded, and a couple of grades behind. (He was a year older than I, though one grade behind me). He was of average build, whereas I was large and muscular for my age, and on several occasions, waiting for school to open, I had to intervene to keep some greaser from picking on him, just because he was obviously slow and a little weird. Before my son began to get more normal, he got picked on in school, but he was clever, and found ways to make the bullies his friends, and sometimes protectors against others! It worked on two or three occasions, at least. In our neighborhood, I had to protect him from bullies to some extent. Once, several kids began chasing after him like a rat pack. I got him in the house, but they still hung around for a little while, occasionally bouncing a softball off of my front door. I finally went out, yelled at them, took their ball, and threw it deep in the woods. Nothing like that happened again. There is an impulse in some (not all) people that is quite the opposite of compassion, but that delights in setting upon the weak. Fortunately, as most of these kids got older, they were socialized into more civilized behavior......

To: epicure who wrote (57835)	9/13/2002 2:45:59 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think I've mentioned before that for a number of years I was on the board of a camp for the handicapped. We had the use of an abandoned Air Force radar base, which was wonderful -- had dormitories, mess hall with commercial kitchen, rec hall with a two lane bowling alley, gym, playing fields, the works. We converted their officers club into an art studio since it had lots of open space and a bar area that worked really well for sinks for washing up, a counter, storage, etc. It was al pretty old, it was a WWII base, but servicable, with plenty of volunteer labor to do the maintenance. We had paid staff, including a full time nurse and college students as counselors (in a 3 to 1 ratio), but lots of community volunteers also came by to do various activities, so we had trips to the nearby beach, one person brought a few horses over each week for a day of riding, etc. We did four one-week sessions. We took all ages -- from about 7 on up through our oldest camper who was 83 the last year he came before he died. It was something they looked forward to all year. We got donations and sponsors for most of the cost, but we required the campers to pay something themselves, not much but enough that it wasn't pure charity. Some of them would start saving the day after camp ended for the next year's camp. It gave a focus to their whole year. And it had the added benefit of giving the caretakers a full week off, which for many of them was the only break they had in their entire year. The campers were a delight, as Neo says, almost all sweet and happy and grateful to be there. Got along really well, adjusted to the spartan environment, and generally had a blast. The experience changed my view of the handicapped completely.