Dad on Duty #32 – Texas Day!

This is the second busiest day in the spring semester at school. Kinda crazy, but it will pale in comparison to Field Day at the end of the year….

[interesting side note; while talking with a couple of volunteers today, I mentioned Field Day, and teachers who just happened to be passerbys would mutter “oh lord….THAT’S a day”, as if recounting the Mt Vesuvius eruption. The effect on the rookie volunteers was priceless. “Is Field Day that bad?”   “Oh my poor, innocent child….”]

Very full day, but a couple of events stand out as needing to be shared here in the blogosphere:

1. The Boss is showing around a VIP. I happen to be walking upstairs to get a glass of ice tea (I keep my special tea in the faculty fridge). As we pass each other, we both happen to notice a GISD maintenance dude who is ON THE ROOF, and is using an odd series of ropes to lift ladders and large boxes….AT THE SAME TIME….up to himself onto the roof.

Mind you, the school is full to the brim with visitors on all sides of the building. If something fell off the roof, in any direction, it’s guaranteed to hit somebody.

I’m staring at this, thinking “wha…..?” when the Boss reaches me, VIP on her elbow. She does great; really big, fake, smile in place, tells me under her breath in a near whisper “Please find out what the H that guy is doing”. Again, bookended with a Cheshire Cat smile, and walks down the stairs with the VIP.

Yes ma’am

I walk out into the courtyard where the dude is halfway through hauling up what looks like a bad Leggo assembly of crap via a single rope, while he’s leaning over the precipice.

He holds his hand up in “stop” mode and says “Sir, this is dangerous”.

Buhhhh-what?

Now, any of you who know what I’ve done for a living most of my life (for those of you who don’t…I was a professional crochet-er before I became a McCoy watchdog) will share with me the intense humor of this dude telling me this is “dangerous”.

For a moment, I’m speechless.

Then I say “yeah, that’s why I’m here. You’re kinda freaking my boss out”. He says (really) “I do this all the time”.

Ok, not really helping.

My reply, I quote verbatim:   “Yeah, you’re gonna need do do this some other way, or wait. I’ll be back in 30 minutes, and we’ll chat again then”.

He didn’t respond, but the ropes etc were gone when I came back and we didn’t really see him again.

Really funny part; I don’t tell the Boss any of this. She asks later, and I tell her “yeah, craziest thing, huh? I guess he got it taken care of”.

2. My most cyclical kid had a really good day today. I engaged him on a couple of things, and he was really positive and downright fun. To put this in perspective, last week he was AWFUL, and I literally had to physically redirect him about 3 times. But for some reason today, he was outgoing and smiling and….for no reason whatsoever……came up to me with his arms outspread and gave me a hug.

If that kid hugs me spontaneously, you can stab me with a hot poker, and I’ll still be happy. By far, the high point of my week. I want so badly for this kid to do well, and I’m not really sure how to get there. All I can think to do is be as positive as possible when he’s doing good, and be a consistent person in his life. I pray that’s enough.

3. For the past two weeks, I’ve been tasked with handing out the food to some of our at-risk kids. We (or at least, I ) forget that even in Georgetown Texas, there are a lot of people who are just scraping by, and need help just to feed their kids.

It is one thing to talk about hunger, and “like” some post about helping others, or drop off some used clothes and a can of beans at Caring Place.

It is a COMPLETELY other thing to look a real kid in the eyes….that you spend a fair amount of time with every week….and hand him/her a can of beans and some rice so their family can eat tonight…

….and then go get in your very nice car to go to your very nice house…….

It should shake you to your core. There is no other reasonable response.

I sit here now writing this to y’all, genuinely, profoundly touched by the opportunity to hand that can of beans to that kid.

Thank you, McCoy, for the privilege of helping as best I can. And thank you GISD, and all the public schools, for stepping in to help the neediest among us.

Merry Texas Day, y’all!