Mighty Unicorn Marching Band vs. the Westlake Chaparrals (i.e., roadrunners, i.e., “Chaps”)

Driving into Westlake territory set off, as many things seem to these days, another Missy Elliot song, this one about having money and expensive cars, because, as far as I can see, Westlake is, in part, fueled by a lot of money and has, perhaps, even more expensive cars.  

Escalades, BMWs, Lexi, Porshes—even those cars whose doors raise like roach wings—abound there.  And the High School reflects these “fly cars” and the “platinum Visa cards” their owners possibly carry.  The football stadium looked comparable to some college ones:  new with a central red section in center of the home side for the season ticket holders, a super elevated press box, instant replay (really, at an HS football game) on a big end-screen.  And, at half-time, the announcer, in the highfalutin’ diction with which such affluence is associated, described the band’s marching routine as a “confluence of Tchaikovsky and the rhythms of jazz, juxtaposed to the traditional strains of a John Philips Sousa anthem”—or some such talk.

Groovy, instant replay screen, final score displayed.  Not my photo, of course.  Sun was behind screen (which was to my left) shining on us poor visitors during most of game and hindering picture taking on the handy dandy digi-cam. 

Fancy red section across from quotidian visitors' side.  Chaparral Band on field.

Even the dance team had costumes which left our drill team looking like kids wearing sparkly blue tow sacks.  Maybe we were in our “away” suits, as I’ve seen our dancers in fancy boots and hats too. 

Boy, this is a downright professional looking photo of the Chap "Hyline" dance team--nudge nudge, wink wink.

 However, while the band was bigger than New Braunfels’ (Roger and I joked about their having an escalator to take them all into the stands), their costumes were comparable to ours in their newness and quality:  their blue feathered hats nicely “juxtaposed” our white feathered ones.  Watching the bands bob out to the field, Roger observed, “It’s the battle of the plumes.”

All this is not to say that the school’s parents and students aren’t dedicated because the district is wealthy.  I know parents there who have devoted countless hours to fundraising for their children’s activities and getting tutoring for their kids.  And I know that the students have a competitive, even dangerously so, atmosphere at that HS, where a straight A, all-AP GPA doesn’t necessary land one in the top ten percent of the class and a large percentage of graduating seniors end up going Ivy League. 

However, the affluence of the area, and the educational reputation of the district, brought back memories of Colin’s early days in therapy in the land of less fortunately funded public school ed.  At the first district we had him in, the spec ed autism resource people claimed that they didn’t even know what PDD-NOS, the clinical diagnosis for High Functioning Autism, was.  Though, to their credit, that district was probably one of the poorest in the state, and Colin one of the first of a huge, new “wave” of autistic kids.

Which takes me back to my first encounter with Westlake’s reputation, way before now, when Colin was going through hippotherapy at a wonderful, nonprofit org in San Marcos called AWARE (Always Wanted to a Riding Experience).  Largely devoted to disabled kids, the therapists at AWARE honed and developed Colin’s proprioceptive functions (sense of the body in space) and addressed other physical/neurological differences (like sensory integration) associated with autism.  Because he was fairly high functioning sensorily, Colin got assigned faster moving horse, Tupelo Honey, bless her soul, a twenty-something mare.  In fact, most of the therapy horses were 20-plus with extremely gentle natures.  

Thanks to Stephanie Boyd, id-ed below!

 Colin recently told me he remembers his time there, when he had to have been all of 4 years old.  Here’s what he wrote about it:

Feeding the horses in my early life was a big deal because I had to nearly put my hands in their mouth which is covered with bacteria.  Riding the horses was pretty cool.  It was like taking a piggy back ride only on a four legged creature.

Sound underwhelmed?  What happened to the freedom and self-confidence granted one by a hippotherapeutic experience?  Does Colin remember old Tupelo Honey at all? 

Uh.  Not Tupelo Honey.  This is Stephanie Boyd, at AWARE.  Stephanie is one of my honors thesis students, and this and the preceding shot are from her Honor's Thesis:  Horse AWAREness, which she did about AWARE, years after we had moved to Unicorn Land.  Thanks Steph! 

In all fairness, I suppose his could be a response almost any 15-year-old male, with or without autism, could give.

But again, AWARE connected us to Westlake.  A mom of a kid we saw at AWARE had moved with her whole family to Westlake—because the autism services were so great.  Problem was they had to live a cardboard-walled shanty to afford doing so. 

While Roger’s work and our schedules (and money) kept us from going that far afield, I know what this is like, moving for a district, and in our case, for a teacher in a district.  It might sound precarious but for us what the autism services came down to in public ed was people, and help from those people early.  And those people cost money, which usually means higher property taxes derived from those who own expensive homes.  Many families move to places where they knew the educators were doing what their child needed then, because with autism, statistically, usually, the kids who get closest to living happily and independently in the world neurotypicals inhabit get educational therapy that consists of structured, one to one drills--and they get it early. 

So, prior to the game, we knew something of the territory we were entering.  Thus we weren’t all that surprised to hear the aforementioned announcer tell us that Westlake was the first high school in Texas if not the nation to offer its own IPod app, nor that the educational booster club had a $5000 Visa gift card to award to a student, nor that the boys and girls LaCrosse teams were having a car wash.  High school LaCrosse?  In Texas?    

But the point, the kids, the game, Colin’s experience.  How Colin lived through a radically long day that had already included marching in a parade, performing at a fair, rehearsing, and driving in school buses an hour-and-a-half to, and later from, a city for a game: 

Here is your turn, Colin, on the trip (in schoolbuses, with band) to Westlake:

The trip to Westlake wasn’t that long.  We got to eat chicken express on the way there as well as take some ipods.  [He didn’t take his because he was afraid he’d lose it.]  I didn’t fall asleep on the way which was good because I needed to get pumped.  I didn’t talk to anyone because I was usually very quiet.

Then, once back and rested, he wrote about his experience there:

Standing and watching the band play was a hard task to accomplish.  My face began to sweat and started to itch but I didn’t scratch until the music was over because it wouldn’t help the band at all.  Sitting in the bleachers was very tough in which we were squashed in together in the top row which I got vertigo.  It was also difficult up there because we had bugs zooming in and out of our faces.  While we were up on the stands we were basically just goofing off in which I didn’t say anything because I don’t like to get hyper after watching the band till I was exhausted. 

Woodwinds' section practice, right before marching.

Colin's one of the "possessed" clarinetists, middle, but off-center right. Curly hair, no glasses, not quite as "possessed" as the flautist with the ponytail, lower center.

The next day, I asked him some questions to expand on his feelings about the game:

[Transcript]

Mom:  Did you like dancing in the stands at Westlake [because he did this]?

Colin:  I did it to impress the others.

Mom:  Who did you do it to impress?

Colin:  Just some of my friends.

Mom:  What are their names?

Colin:  I don’t know.  Just some of my friends.

Mom:  What their names?

Colin:  I don’t know.

Mom:  Did you like watching the football game?

Colin:  Yes.

Mom:  What did they do that you liked.

Colin:  Just liked watching them ambush each other. 

Mom: Did you like it when the guys [the Blue Crew] ran up and down the field with flags and the girls pulled the blue unicorn [the Swarm] back and forth in front of the stands?

Colin: Sometimes—if it means we scored a point I do.

Dad:  What part of the football games do you like?

Colin:  Basically, none.  I don’t like watching football games very much.  They’re just boring.  I’m not a sportsman.

Mom:  Did you like Westlake’s mascots and paraphernalia?

Colin:  It doesn’t bother me.

Mom: What section of the band do you like [he plays clarinet in the woodwinds]?

Colin:  I wish I would have signed up for percussion.

I wouldn’t be blowing my mouth so hard I would suffocate.  Blowing so hard my face turns red.  It doesn’t scare me [though???].

And one finally word, from Missy Misdemeanor Elliot who, to the day two weeks later has been haunting my thoughts:

“Where your Lexus jeeps, and the Benz jeeps, and the Lincoln jeeps, and the Bentleys, and the Jaguars, and the fly cars?

Where you at?”