Two facts are pertinent to this diary. One, we moved from Virginia to Texas in August. Two, one of my children has severe autism.
I was appalled when my husband said that word. "Texas". It sent chills down the spine of this New England girl. It was countered with another word, "Austin". I told him those two words had to go together, and he agreed to make it work.
So here we are in Texas, and let me tell you, I have been nothing but pleasantly surprised. Some might say that it's because we're in Austin, but the one thing that has impressed me most about Texas is something that's state-wide, and it's wonderful.
It's heartwarming, and inclusive and straddles all socio-economic status.
It's the Special Olympics. And Texas does it right.
We have lived in two other states since my girl, who is eleven years old, has been of school age. We lived in two different locations is California, and we lived in Virginia for a while.
Our first location in California made no mention of the Special Olympics. Our second location had a "Special Olympics", but I now suspect that they were just co-opting the name. It consisted of one day of activities for the special needs kids. It was fun, but it was more like a field day than what I'm experiencing now. In Virginia, there was nothing, as far as I could tell.
I'm not trying to paint Texas as some kind of special needs wonderland; we had some problems with the schools that I'm still trying to work through, but I'm making progress. I suspect that a family with less means or experience would get short-shrift here.
Outside the school seems to be a different story. I was immediately hooked up by a parent liaison (none of that in CA!) with a special needs list-serve which began bombarding me with more special needs activities than I had ever seen. The school and the listserve contacted us about Special Olympics right away, and told us the deadline for signing my girl up was fast approaching. I got the necessary paperwork done and got Ellie signed up.
I am blown away by the Special Olympics organization here. It is massive, it is a well-oiled machine, it is staffed to the hilt. They offer sports year-round for these kids, bowling, basketball, soccer, track, power-lifting, swimming and tennis.
Each sport has about seven different ability levels, from simple skills up to team sports. Some have "typical" partners who play with the special needs kids. I wasn't sure how it was going to work with Ellie, since her skill level is pretty poor, but they had a bowling level for her, and they challenged her as far as she could go. The bowling rules say no bumpers, which I think is awesome. No one is being coddled, only encouraged. If they need a ramp they get one.
There are volunteers everywhere. On the first day of practice I was up there with Ellie showing her what to do. They gently told me to go sit down, they didn't need me up there! They knew what they were doing, and Ellie learned to bowl independently. She didn't score much, but she could get her own ball, bring it up to the line and swing away. Every week I would ask her if she wanted to go to bowling, and every week she said yes. I was amazed. Bowling is loud, it involves a lot of stops and starts, getting up and down. All things Ellie hates. Occasionally she lost her cool, but for the most part we had a fantastic season.
We just finished our three-day area tournament with kids as far away as New Braunfels. It was a sight to behold. I didn't think it was possible, but there were even more volunteers, some whose job as far as I could tell was simply to cheer the kids on. The kids had a ball, I kept waiting for someone to get upset over a gutter ball or a bad score but everyone was happy and upbeat. Ellie got fourth place, it was something else.
I suppose this could fit into the Texas stereotype that all Texas cares about is sports, but I don't care. I think they're proud (they seem to be a proud people) of what they can do when they put their Texas Spirit to work, and I am impressed.
So, Texas has a lot of drawbacks for a progressive. But, they do this one thing right, and for those friends of mine who mocked me for moving to a state with Rick Perry as Governor, I say, "Well, I for one can't wait for the moment I get to vote against him."
12:51 PM PT: Update:
I see this hit the rec list, so I'd like to add the following disclaimer.
Some in the comments see this diary as Texas bashing, though (as one commenter put it) "naive, somewhat well-intentioned" Texas bashing.
I can see why a reader might think that, and indeed I'm quite guilty of having some unkind preconceived notions about Texas. For me the point of the diary is being honest and sharing my delight at having been so wrong.