“Here Comes the Rain Again,” Last Game, First Game in Playoffs, Unicorns vs. MacArthur

“Here Comes the Rain Again,” Last Game, First Game in Playoffs, Unicorns vs. MacArthur, Unicorn Stadium, Nov. 12, 2010

“The game went alright in particular except for the rain," Colin wrote.

Yes.  The last game had the challenge of one of the first.  Rain: Colin’s nemesis.  Or at least, one of his least favorite sensory experiences.  But, unlike the second game, or even the third, where it really did rain, it did not rain at this game.  It poured. 

When we arrived, we arrived with the rest of the fans to the only place halfway safe from the rain, under the Unicorn bleachers.  And when I say halfway, I am being literal, not figurative.  The Unicorn bleachers, unlike those in some of the stadiums we’d been to, are “old school”:  with gaps through which bottles, candy, cell phones, blankets, and this night, rain, fell.  In spots, we had to use the umbrella to stop the flow, and then I had to hold the bumbershoot as high over our heads as possible so as not to blind the population of tall people (growing daily) in this town. 

We found the band coming off the stands and huddling under their far end.  Many of their instruments, as was emphasized to me later, cannot be exposed to pouring rain without suffering damage.

Our first concern was that Colin made it down without climbing over the backs of those in front of him, and that he was calm.  He was safely down, and he was also calm, nor had he hurt anyone in his rush to escape the acidic properties of H2O, and worse, its sound and feel. 

Meanwhile, the football players continued sloshing back and forth on the field.  The opposing team, MacArthur, was one we’d played before and won against.  However, they had a very good “Wide End,” Jace Amaro (now signed with Texas Tech).  Not a running back, like Malcolm Brown (now signed with UT and considered the best running back in the U.S.  Oh yes, his team beat us in _only_ the last 30 seconds), or a running back like Green (signed with Nebraska now), or a third or whole back (whose nonexistence as positions puzzles and perturbs me still).  The point: McArthur's “Wide End” caught a catch that our coach was upset by, one that probably aided our losing this game.

But back to Colin’s report:

“The rain was basically the main problem with the game.  Mrs. Pradervand (the director again) let me stand under the risers for a second, but I had to come out sooner or later to play boom, boom [one of Colin’s favorite songs, as an earlier blog states], zoot suit riot, and grandioso in the Rain!!! [I don’t think “in the Rain!!!” was part of grandioso’s title, but it does have a ring to it].

See, tarp on risers and ponchos on boosters means a rainy game

Unicorn Band going out for their last marching performance of the season. 

Halftime in game against the McArthur Brahma's.

Breaking out the umbrellas again.

 And next the hard part for me, for several reasons, the first of which has to do with the way what follows in Colin’s mini-essay reminds me of an episode from a popular network comedy show, “The Middle."  In the "troubling-to-me" episode, the mother runs out onto the field at half time when her son, a Varsity football player at last, is knocked down to see if he is okay, much to his dismay.  But I’ll let Colin say it:

“I was very embarrassed about the fact that my mother embarrassed me out in front of the band.”

Okay.  There was a reason for his being "very embarrassed" about my “mother embarrassed me out in front of the band” issue that had nothing to do with my being an overzealous mother of a varsity player.  But, it did have something to do with a booster parent who didn’t want to confront a child (albeit a 5’9” teenaged male child with a ferocious scowl) who was different and potentially, in the crowd and fluster of the night, threatening.

Once again, communication problems involving autism proved to be a sticking point.  With me and my husband working full time, we hadn’t followed up, after I talked to the director, the mom of the Colin’s section leader, some of the other booster parents, including Colin’s speech therapist, and the booster club president, to inform the booster club member working on the field with the band that night that Colin was autistic. True that the same kid had done everything directors and other boosters had told him too.  True also that we were being stormed upon and the adult who asked me to help could have been tired and handling other problems. 

So I was asked to go out and tell Colin, when he wouldn’t respond to his peers, to stick his clarinet under his shirt at the half time performance when the rain started to pour again and his instrument was, for the second time that night, in danger. And I knew he would respond to his mother exactly as any neurotypical kid would respond to his mother going out onto the football field during a performance to tell him what to do: in short, he was embarrassed and angry and, of course, wouldn’t do what I said. 

Colin, right around the "10" marker to the left looking to peers and not taking advice.

Colin, slightly to the left of the 10 and looking to another peer whose advice he doesn't want to hear.

And I didn’t have time to respond to another booster parent as we stood in the rain at that moment and tell him that my son would listen to ANY other adult better than he would to his mother, just like ANY other neurotypical kid would have done. 

So there I was, pleading, embarrassed myself and getting a severely ugly look and a “NO” shake of the head from my son when I was asked to do what I shouldn’t have been asked to do.  

Colin thinking bad thoughts about his mom (who chased him onto the field).

Suffice it to say I’m staying far from the band at each performance now, unless of course, what has happened happens again, and Colin really does need me.  Damn.  You have a special needs teen and try to figure it out.

The good news:  Kids recover from "embarrassing" parents, as the picture below hopefully attests.

Colin, smiling again.  He's not saluting by the way.  That's the arm of a ROTC guy behind him!

Back to Colin:

“I discussed a few of my problems to Katy Underwood such as standing under the risers a few seconds.  Nothing else in particular happened except for the rain.”

Nothing else in particular happened but that I did talk to Mr. Eckert, one of the assistant band directors, and got permission to take Colin out early, when the rain did not end.  So, after going back to the school building and searching and running about the band rooms as I (nor any other adult) was not supposed to do, I found Colin somewhere.  Then Roger and I took Colin home, and Roger went back to watch the game in the rain. 

Again, we're not through with this band thing, any more than Colin is or needs to be, but obviously, we need to work on communication with others on many levels, for ourselves and especially for Colin. In fact, having read and helped untangle the confusing jumble of an explanation of my behavior as a overzealous mom that night, Roger just said, "I thought everyone knew [that Colin had autism]"!

And we need a clarinet teacher now to get us ready for next year.  This because, Super or not, Colin won't be happy as a Shadow forever, a fact I take now as a sign of progress.  He's embarrassed like any kid when his peers leave him behind.  And, one more time, when his mother chases him onto the field in front of the whole band.     

Unicorn Band UIL Contest for Region, San Antonio, Heroes Stadium, Oct. 23, 2010

Unicorns in UIL Contest for Region (I Believe), in San Antonio, Heroes Stadium, Oct. 23, 2010

Again, I’m going to use those much venerated “bullets” here.  But, as a preface, let me say it was a long event, and one which Colin did well in standing in his Super Shadow Mode on the sidelines.  It was also a long afternoon, followed by a long night that his parents got him out of. 

Though Colin is a "Super Shadow," he’s also a "High Functioning Autistic Super Shadow," and so after his morning of sitting and waiting for a contest in which he participated by standing in full costume on the sidelines, asking him to wait an afternoon and an evening for the results seemed too much, both to his parents and his band director. 

And here are the bullets, and a bit of dialogue from Colin, followed by a fabulous Colin drawing and a couple of uninspired, coffee deprived photographer’s photos:

• 24 other bands at UIL at Heroes Stadium in San Antonio: 10 made the cut, and only 5 went to state.

• Morning for me:  tripping in my vintage “roach stomper” cowboy boots on an exposed root in the yard, spilling my coffee, stopping at Starbucks and getting espresso, having to drink it all at once at the gate because you could not bring outside drinks in.  I must have looked appalled when informed of this, as the ladies working the gate looked worried at my unconscious reaction (of “appallment”), which I tried to make up for by being extra gracious and polite.

• After the UIL competition on Oct. 23^rd, Colin told his section leader Amanda, “That was great.  You were awesome”

Amanda:  “Really?  That’s good.”

• What was more, when I went to pick him up at the break, he wanted to eat lunch with the band and went over and _sat with his band friends in a circle_.  Amazing.  This from a kid who, last meal I remembered with the band during Unfair day, was roaming the hall restlessly between lines of kids leaning against the wall eating.

Not our band, but an example, by no means the most elaborate of the pagentry involved in these competitions.  What is more puzzling is how my coffee deprived brain did NOT take photos of the crazy props some of the bands use (blinking railroad lights and tracks, for example, that were then replaced by color guard members dressed as railroad workers slinging "mallets" (props, but still) at ties, more blinking lights and clectric guitar, etc. 

Our band ready to go on field.  Colin in line at front getting ready to go stand.

Our band, minus band member shadows, performing. 

And no, unfortunately, the Unicorns, perhaps they are a “young” band (most of the members not seniors), did not place.  

After we took Colin home early (unlike his neurotypical band members--including the other Shadows--who stayed till 9:30 p.m. when the winners were announced), I had him draw this picture—by far more exciting than the photos I did take.

Colin Jones.  His caption says the rest.

Colin's 9th Game, Unicorns vs. Seguin Matadors, Oct. 29, 2010

Unicorns vs. Seguin Matadors, Oct. 29, 2010

As I was looking at Colin's Marching Band Year blog, attempting to finish it now that it’s February 2011 and one project is out of the way as well as the fall semester, I realized I’d written about the game after this, but not this game.

So this post will be as short as I can bear it, and utilize what we--us “old folk/a.k.a. ‘spry’ folk”--are learning is the preferred manner of presenting written information "nowadays," using the hallowed bullets.

·         The game was at the Unicorn Stadium in New Braunfels (and we went here first, instead of to another city looking for the game, as we have two other times—but that’s buried in the other blog entries)

·         It was Seniors’ night for New Braunfels.  All Unicorn alumni who’d achieved community awards (or any awards—some for simple longevity, it seemed) were recognized on the field first (a.k.a, oldest local football team member, old this, that and the other)

·         Mrs. Renkin, Colin’s elementary school resource teacher who’d been fantastically devoted to him, got one of two awards for NBISD teacher of the year.  Yey, Norma!  She was always super fond of him, which in turn, caused him to dislike her quite a bit at the time because along with her fondness came the belief (in Norma) that he could do well academically—and a corresponding belief that he should work hard that Colin, strangely, felt was not pleasant.

·         PS: When the NBSID school board tried to cut positions, including Mrs. Renkin's, at the elementary level, I’d prepared and read aloud a speech supporting her, which I almost finished before getting cut off for exceeding my allotted time.  Did my impassioned, curtailed speech do anything?  Who knows.  But Norma kept her job and even got promoted.

·         Lots of other kids got awards.  When Colin gets to their age, I expect to feel bitter about that, too.  As in, this autism thing isn’t fair.  But those worries and their corresponding lack of grace involve projecting into the future.  Next slide please.  I mean, next PowerPoint, please.

·         Did we win or lose the Seguin game?  I think we won.

·         Colin’s writing about the game, unlike my memories, is accurately recorded here:

[The] only thing I didn’t like was the fact that when I was being nice to only 1 girl named [C.], she was rude to me.  [L]isten to the quotes:

Colin:  hey just in case you might know, you’re cheering for another football team.

C.: (in a rude tone) I KNOW!!!

That really p[scratched out by Colin] ticked me off and made me think that she was a brat!!!

One of the other things I liked [interesting illogical transition, writes Mom, intrusive, non-omniscient narrator] was the fact that some of my friends were very talkative.  Also dancing was very fun as well until the end of the game which was when I got tired.  rather than that my day was regular.

We resolved the next problem in Colin's band life, the question about whether he should go to the USSBA contest in the Woodlands in Houston the weekend of this game, was resolved by emails to band leaders after Roger and I did a bit of psychological math:  High Functioning Autistic kid on bus for 6 hours to practice in Houston all day + one parent doggedly following in car + HFA kid in Houston High School stadium all day to stand on sidelines during performance again + HFA kid on bus back for 6 hour trip to New Braunfels (followed by dogged and wiped out parent) = awful experience for HFA kid and everyone nearby him and a long recovery time he didn’t need to expend the energy on. 

So, on to the next game, which strangely, I already did write about.  And a few more pictures from this one, soon to come, here. 

Blue Unicorn Man. Senior's night affects some seniors more than others . . . and there wasn't even a full moon.  I don't think.

Yes, the photo is too dark. But there, second from the right is Norma Renkin, Colin's longtime teacher and advocate. _And_ his current English teacher, Mrs. Zilliman, bless her soul, is seond from left. I couldn't NOT show them, even in this nauseating half light.

In another strange, football-related tradition, the dance team officers' dads, called this night the "Manoceras" in honor of the dance team's name, the Monoceros, must not only dance on field with their daughters, but also form a kickline at the end of the game with their daughters kick once for each score the Unicorns made in the game.  It was a high number this year.  I predicted injury for those dads starting the morning after this game, if not before.  That one on the left, in particular, is a bit too ambitious with his high kicks.  Ouch.

The Seguin Matador Band.

Perhaps this is perverse.  I'm showing the New Braunfels "Best Seniors" (academically or otherwise awardically) to prepare myself for my son not being one of them.  Colin probably won't be out there for a Normal Kid Award, and I don't remember awards being given to Un-Normal Kids.  This is life, Rene',  Deal with it.  Or maybe, just, get over it.  Or not.  How about an award for most "addled" parents?