OCT-C-6

ARRIVAL IN SAN ANTONIO

TO PLAY WITH TWINS AND TO VISIT THEIR SCHOOL

FOR THEIR HOLLOWEEN PROGRAM

AND TO TRICK OR TREAT WITH THEM

October 31, 2003

SAN ANTONIO VISIT: TRICK OR TREATING

WITH VERY VERBAL LITTLE MEN

WHO ARE ALSO NAMED GEELHOED,

AND HEARING OF MICHAEL’S TRANSITION

TO THE FULL TIME FACULTY OF THE UTHSCSA

Michael picked me up at the SAT airport after I flew down absorbed in the issues that I had typed up in these pages, when I determined to put them away upon arrival here, I got a ride in his Olive Drab Sport Trac Explorer which he has had for over a year, and we compared trucks—as I pointed out the neighbors new white Dodge Ram 2500 Turbo Diesel Cummins engine Laramie Model pick up truck as exactly the one I knew about. Judy pointed out that she always hopes that the fellow who owns it (a big game hunter across the street) does not start it up when the kids are asleep. “Yep! That is the one!” I said.

I asked Michael about the current state of Health South, which seems to be recovering as the former CEO is in Washington testifying that he knew nothing to the creative accounting and scandalous inflation of their growth, as everyone else is testifying that he did, but the stock price has rebounded and the national chain is doing better after its black eye. In San Antonio, Health South is coming under very intense competitive pressures, since there are new groups opening similar PT offices. He supervises the whole town now, and is doing something really exciting as his own career move. He had been to Saint Augustine University to get certified in some manual techniques at a program I did not know at the time is at Saint Augustine University

This is leading toward a degree that is not exactly well known, a “Doctorate in PT”—but that has important implications. Michael has been teaching some courses at the UTHSCSA, his alma mater from which he graduated with MA and also was class president. They are trying to get him to join the full time tenure stream faculty to be an academic, which involves a “full-time job” (which might mean---as I may be the one in the best position to know—sitting at his desk doing the school work for his own doctorate degree!) They would also allow him an eight hour day each week to do clinical work outside, which would not only keep his hand in and help his educational credibility but also make up for the pay cut that he would take to enter academe with a much greater freedom and use of h is time. I know this system rather well!

Michael has looked at what still needs to be done to have his doctorate from the Saint Augustine program and sees that most of it takes place on the internet, and he could accelerate it to be done in a year. So, he is doubling up and pushing hard toward the completion of that degree, which the UTHSCSA would like to have for their own faculty bragging rights, whatever it might mean to the individual bearing the degree (again analogous now to the ELDP and the EDD doctorate), so with this in place, he might be full time faculty as soon as January 1! He could still work a day at Health South or any other clinical PT consulting job he might wish, so this is the best of each world.

We arrive at home to have the two little men come and greet me. At first startled, it seems that Jordan is the one who remembered first—“Grandpa!” he coos, pulling on my whiskers! He is very affectionate, whereas Devin had to take a little while to get to remember, before he was willing to come to me. But soon they were delivering me books to read to them and we were making plans to see their Mon/Wed/Fri school at Oak Hill Presbyterian Church and participate in their Halloween parties. They are little bundles of energy, and like playing with their toys. The “ABC’s” rugs I had got them in Dharamsala had been hung up and they can name some of the creatures there—although the monkey does look like a bear to each of them. They are having a good time with their tunnels and other big playthings and like the choo choo trains and tucks—almost all of which, of course, have to be got in carefully matched pairs.

We are off to a good start, and we have an even bigger weekend planned, since this is the weekend of the Fredericksburg Oompah Bands and bratwurst and beer festival reflecting the San Antonio German heritage, associated with which is a five mile race, which Michael and I are signed up to run. It is also a day for the Blue Angels to fly over. And—it is the Saturday when Michigan plays Michigan State to decide whether the Wolverines or the Spartans go to the Rose Bowl—on a critical contest played in East Lansing on Saturday. I have a Wolverine on its way to taxidermy riding on this issue of pride!

TRICK OR TREAT

We went to the kids Oak Hills Presbyterian Church Mon/Wed/Fri school where they attend in the morning. Today was a special drill in which the kids were going to parade in their Halloween costumes and have a special Halloween program. Miss Linda’s class includes only five boys, and one of those went down to Argentina this week. The kids get instructions in their ABC’s in Spanish or English and to always both, so they may even begin to be bilingual. They are certainly verbal. But, as any two year old, they do not always do what you expect them to do or what they ought to do. So after a big prep in which they got all gussied up in pirates’ bandannas and beads and face paint, they wanted no part of the costuming and the parade after each class was called up. So, I held the costuming, and Judy helped them around, Jordan somewhat frightened by the loud noises of the music and the cheering for them. Afterwards, he not only requested a red nose for the face paint, he also put a spider web on Judy’s face. She might have had to explain when we went to the IHOP for brunch as the kids are led to class and we have to make a speedy getaway before they decide they do not want to be without their mother for a couple of hours—but we did not have to explain Judy’s two-year-old artist’s art work on her face to the waiters who were all in ghoulish costume.

Judy’s grandmother is also here from Florida, and watches a series of soap operas each day. Michael and Judy’s good friend Kerry and her husband came over with their daughter Elisa—same age as Jordan and Devin--as well as a newborn baby boy, their second, after losing their first son in Down’s Syndrome and its cardiac defect shortly after birth. Another friend Jodie comes over to watch football with Michael on a big screen TV since his vegetarian pro bono lawyer wife will not let him have a TV in the house—Yeah for her! They came over to see the trick or treating that we were going to do for the first time in the twins’ lives on Friday night with much of the neighborhood decorated.

The twins knew that something was going on, but never did fully get the hang of it. Why should we go to the neighbors’ houses when we have all this candy right here at the door? We launched out to the next door neighbor while manning the front door at Michael and Judy’s house, but found that it was hard to persuade them to go to the front door and say trick or treat, or to hold out their bag. When they did get candy dropped in the bag, Jordan dragged it along behind him, and I had to pick up lollipops along the street. We made it about four or five houses down the street in the very protected Pemcanyon subdivision of nice houses when they were wearying of it, and we came back to the house to be entertained by further flocks of trick or treaters, many of them past the teens I would have figured would be the cutoff dates for all but parents. But, we then could play with their friend Elisa with whom we will also meet at the Air Show tomorrow. So, after a full day and getting rather tuckered out with the combined excitement of Grandpa and Judy’s Grandma, and visitors and a funny kind of holiday all together, we got the twins tucked in and the parents and Grandparents turned in early also---with Michael and I being the first ones up in the morning to go to New Brunfels Texas for a “Wurst Five Mile Race” that leads off the Bratwurst Festival.

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