Bittersweet Fun In Little China
There are six ways to get to China Elementary School from Pinewood.
The Highway. The Back Way. The Other Back Way. The New Back Way. The Other New Back Way. The Other, Other New Back Way.
Or at least that’s what my preschooler son, Curt, and I call them. It took us a good part of the fall to discover them all.
This morning, Curt and I got up early and took The New Back Way, a school year-end favorite due to its having three train crossings. Curt, 5, is in love with trains, so we decided to have breakfast by the tracks in China, a sleepy town of about 1,100 residents just west of Beaumont on U.S. Highway 90.
The New Back Way snakes through rural neighborhoods and turf farms. We pass the house where we picked up our puppy, Jack. We see old barns, stray dogs and an abandoned, vandalized convenience store out in the middle of nowhere. We see drilling rigs go up and down.
We talk about why we have to stop when a school bus stops. We speculate which trucks use diesel gas. We wonder whether the fat hawk will be in his usual power-line sitting spot. If a train comes, we stop and watch it pass.
Today was Curt’s last day at a school we were willing to take on two mortgages last year to get him into.
Through four seasons, we made the 20-minute drive between Pinewood and China Elementary School. At first, we mostly took The Back Way (a U.S. 90 frontage road) and The Highway (U.S. 90), but every now and then we took The Other Back Way, a dusty, bumpy, creepy, mostly unpaved section of Old Sour Lake Road.
I stopped taking The Other Back Way, the quickest route, after spending $700 on new struts for my SUV.
Early on during the school year, it was all about listening to a different “daddy CD” every morning. It was interesting to witness what he liked. I let him pick whatever he wanted out of the collection. He loved Coldplay, Los Lobos and Led Zeppelin, but Korn and the Butthole Surfers didn’t make it a half mile before Curt hollered for it to be shut off.
In recent months, the music has stayed off, and we mostly take The New Back Way, also known as Reins Road before curving and becoming Moore Road, with the conversation focused on whether there will be a train that day.
It’s a school year that saw the death of Curt’s pawpaw, my dad. It’s been a year of bats and bobcats, floods and horseflies, frustrating car breakdowns and the rise of a backyard treehouse, built to fulfill a promise made regarding toilet usage and diaper abandonment.
It’s a school year that started with stressful uncertainty and ended with a new ballgame, one in which a bright, happy boy, whom some knuckleheaded professionals gave little chance of normalcy, beat the odds and will go off to a mainstream kindergarten this fall.
But it won’t be at China Elementary. It will be at Sour Lake. Sadly, there are no train tracks along the way.
This morning, we got to the tracks by 7 a.m. and saw not one but three trains. There was an eastbound one that stopped on the secondary tracks and two westbound trains that rocketed past. Curt was elated.
Our morning trips to school, which started in Beaumont in January 2005, have been a father-son bonding experience. It’s not easy taking a little guy off to school and leaving him for the day, but we had to do it. Diagnosed with autism and way behind on his speech, early intervention was critical.
He stills hold my hand on the walk to class. Before I go, he still wants to be picked up and get “a kiss on both cheeks.”
But the changes have been bittersweet over the past year. A year ago, he was still pooping his diapers at night. Now, he's writing complete sentences, doing chores and devouring a beautiful world around him.
Hey, there goes my new friend
I don’t want this time to end
But I know it won’t be long
Before he grows up and he’s gone
Next year, the drive won’t be the same. It will be half the distance and void of trains.
Hopefully, our walk-to-class routine won’t change. But some day, he won’t want to hold my hand anymore. Then he won’t want me to walk him to class anymore. Maybe he’ll want to take the bus instead of having Dad take him to school.
With every little step like that, I’ll be letting him go.
Nevertheless, like it was with me and my father, our relationship will continue to grow and change. The great adventures are yet to come: the camping, the sporting events, the traveling, the navigation through life’s maze of discovery, joy, triumphs and hard knocks.
And, like it was with me and my father, I know it’s OK to let him go, because I know he’ll always come back to me.
Hey, there goes my old friend
I don’t want this time to end
But I know it won’t be long
Before he grows up and he’s gone
The Highway. The Back Way. The Other Back Way. The New Back Way. The Other New Back Way. The Other, Other New Back Way.
Or at least that’s what my preschooler son, Curt, and I call them. It took us a good part of the fall to discover them all.
This morning, Curt and I got up early and took The New Back Way, a school year-end favorite due to its having three train crossings. Curt, 5, is in love with trains, so we decided to have breakfast by the tracks in China, a sleepy town of about 1,100 residents just west of Beaumont on U.S. Highway 90.
The New Back Way snakes through rural neighborhoods and turf farms. We pass the house where we picked up our puppy, Jack. We see old barns, stray dogs and an abandoned, vandalized convenience store out in the middle of nowhere. We see drilling rigs go up and down.
We talk about why we have to stop when a school bus stops. We speculate which trucks use diesel gas. We wonder whether the fat hawk will be in his usual power-line sitting spot. If a train comes, we stop and watch it pass.
Today was Curt’s last day at a school we were willing to take on two mortgages last year to get him into.
Through four seasons, we made the 20-minute drive between Pinewood and China Elementary School. At first, we mostly took The Back Way (a U.S. 90 frontage road) and The Highway (U.S. 90), but every now and then we took The Other Back Way, a dusty, bumpy, creepy, mostly unpaved section of Old Sour Lake Road.
I stopped taking The Other Back Way, the quickest route, after spending $700 on new struts for my SUV.
Early on during the school year, it was all about listening to a different “daddy CD” every morning. It was interesting to witness what he liked. I let him pick whatever he wanted out of the collection. He loved Coldplay, Los Lobos and Led Zeppelin, but Korn and the Butthole Surfers didn’t make it a half mile before Curt hollered for it to be shut off.
In recent months, the music has stayed off, and we mostly take The New Back Way, also known as Reins Road before curving and becoming Moore Road, with the conversation focused on whether there will be a train that day.
It’s a school year that saw the death of Curt’s pawpaw, my dad. It’s been a year of bats and bobcats, floods and horseflies, frustrating car breakdowns and the rise of a backyard treehouse, built to fulfill a promise made regarding toilet usage and diaper abandonment.
It’s a school year that started with stressful uncertainty and ended with a new ballgame, one in which a bright, happy boy, whom some knuckleheaded professionals gave little chance of normalcy, beat the odds and will go off to a mainstream kindergarten this fall.
But it won’t be at China Elementary. It will be at Sour Lake. Sadly, there are no train tracks along the way.
This morning, we got to the tracks by 7 a.m. and saw not one but three trains. There was an eastbound one that stopped on the secondary tracks and two westbound trains that rocketed past. Curt was elated.
Our morning trips to school, which started in Beaumont in January 2005, have been a father-son bonding experience. It’s not easy taking a little guy off to school and leaving him for the day, but we had to do it. Diagnosed with autism and way behind on his speech, early intervention was critical.
He stills hold my hand on the walk to class. Before I go, he still wants to be picked up and get “a kiss on both cheeks.”
But the changes have been bittersweet over the past year. A year ago, he was still pooping his diapers at night. Now, he's writing complete sentences, doing chores and devouring a beautiful world around him.
Hey, there goes my new friend
I don’t want this time to end
But I know it won’t be long
Before he grows up and he’s gone
Next year, the drive won’t be the same. It will be half the distance and void of trains.
Hopefully, our walk-to-class routine won’t change. But some day, he won’t want to hold my hand anymore. Then he won’t want me to walk him to class anymore. Maybe he’ll want to take the bus instead of having Dad take him to school.
With every little step like that, I’ll be letting him go.
Nevertheless, like it was with me and my father, our relationship will continue to grow and change. The great adventures are yet to come: the camping, the sporting events, the traveling, the navigation through life’s maze of discovery, joy, triumphs and hard knocks.
And, like it was with me and my father, I know it’s OK to let him go, because I know he’ll always come back to me.
Hey, there goes my old friend
I don’t want this time to end
But I know it won’t be long
Before he grows up and he’s gone
posted by Brian Pearson at 9:43 AM
1 Comments:
Brian, I'm one of Amy's board friends, and this is one of the most touching things I have read in a long time. Your tribute to your time with Curt reminds me of a poem that I always share with my seventh graders:
Love That Boy
By Walter Dean Myers
Love that boy,
like a rabbit loves to run
I said I love that boy
like a rabbit loves to run
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
“Hey there, son!”
He walk like his Grandpa,
Grins like his Uncle Ben.
I said he walk like his Grandpa,
And grins like his Uncle Ben.
Grins when he’s happy,
When he sad, he grins again.
His mama like to hold him,
Like to feed him cherry pie.
I said his mama like to hold him.
Like to feed him that cherry pie.
She can have him now,
I’ll get him by and by
He got long roads to walk down
Before the setting sun.
I said he got a long, long road to walk down
Before the setting sun.
He’ll be a long stride walker,
And a good man before he done.
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