Cream of the Crop

Diane and I, after dating 4 years, were married in 1969 (thank you...thank you)...the Year Man Walked on the Moon...Woodstock...The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius (what a year, eh?). We were accused of 'having to get married' - which was true - 'cause we were in love! Due to unnatural circumstances, Diane was unable to get pregnant (plenty of drilling...just no oil). It would be 10 years before we would see the fruit of our labour.

Philip's birth was, at the time, considered normal (if you consider 14 hours of sweating, screaming, pushing, clutching, la mazzing, and"wishing you had never been born", normal...then yes, Diane would agree). He weighed in at 6 lbs., 8 ounces and appeared to be a fine, healthy adorable baby. Mind you, his head surfaced 'cone-shaped' which concerned the doctor and had me wondering if Diane had been having an affair with Beldar (Dan Aykroyd) of the Coneheads.

Fortunately within a few weeks his head, at least externally, realigned itself with the customary shape of the rest of the human race. Unfortunately, what happened internally, was a different story. No matter though, for as you can see, to his 'Opa', Philip was 'the Cream of the Crop' (some might say a basket case...but that would come later).

One Right...Two Right...All Night!

Philip lives in his room (his choice). He has his TV, VHS and DVD players, Play Station 2, binders, pencils, and 250 movies (so why on earth would he want to come out and join the rest of us in the living room or the kitchen for that matter?). He eats most of his meals in his room, because sitting at the dinner table for 30 minutes just might cause him to miss a score! It's not like they aren't repeated every 15 minutes on every sports channel he has access to. But we've learned not to argue with The Scorekeeper.

He has a binder for each sport...one for basketball, one for baseball, one for football (actually 2...one for the CFL and one for the NFL), and one for hockey. A few years ago he started recording temperatures and fluctuating gas prices - we 'curbed his enthusiasm' over those two for they each required their own binder. We've often wondered if at some point he was secretly keeping records of his parents 'bedroom scores'...never found that binder...phew! His daily ritual is to print, off the computer, each day's schedules and then physically transcribe the games (hence the pencils) into the binders. He prints the date...then next to each team draws a line. He will not...can not...go to sleep until every score has been properly recorded. At one in the morning we'll hear him confirming his entries with the tv ticker...one right...two right...three right...and so on. "Philip, go to bed!"..."Soon dad - just 2 scores to go!" (baseball and hockey seasons are killers).

To this day he has difficulty spelling 'kitchen' or 'picture'...but can rattle off 'Philadelphia' and ' San Jose' without a glitch. In school when he struggled with adding and subtracting, a very wise teacher, tuned in to his sports obsession, asked him..."if you have a runner on first, plus one on second, and another on third, how many do you have?"..."Duh...3!" It was uphill from there.

With 'special needs' kids, you soon learn to adapt, and the road you travel and the load you carry quickly become much easier.



A single moment of understanding can flood a whole life with meaning.