Demoted at the Special Olympics

The three truly Special Olympians above are Lee, Yogi, and Helen (left to right in the blue shirts, front row). I met them in 1984, and for a year, had a wonderful time with them, culminating with the Oklahoma Special Olympics. I miss them 25 years later!
I met them when I took my friend Rick (former post, "There but for the Grace of God, Go I") to his weekly bowling league. It was a league for bowlers with disabilities, and I have to admit, the only time I thoroughly enjoyed myself in a bowling alley. The athletes were excited, noisy, and competitive. There is no suspense in the world like waiting in the tenth frame for a bowling ball rolling ever so slowly down the lane with the outcome a few pins away. They rolled the balls with two hands, their feet, special ramps, all sorts of ways. And if three games of this unadulterated fun wasn't enough, there was the stop at the local pizza parlor for a post-game celebration. I think I really truly learned to laugh with Rick, Lee, Yogi, and Helen.
I kept going back to that weekend bowling league, even after Rick dropped out. When the state Special Olympics drew near, the staff supervising the league asked me if I would like to go to the games as a chaperon for the group. I jumped at the chance, despite my dubious record at the Special Olympics. For you see, I had been fired from one post a year earlier. I had participated with the Special Olympics the year before as an event judge. I was assigned to designate the third place winners in each race - had it been the second or first place finishers there would have been no problem. The first, second, and third place finishers win medals, the rest ribbons. I found out early on, that if I declared a tie for third place, more than one contestant could get a third place medal. It took them a half a day to notice the unusually high number of third place ties, once they ran out of bronze medals - I was demoted to a hugger.
The year before that, I had a truly incredible experience. Incredible for many reasons. I was assigned to chaperon one child, a young boy with extreme Autism. My primary job was to keep him safe, and to stop him from eating inappropriate things. He wore me out that first day. He said two words to me, and barely acknowledged my existence. On the second day, I mentioned dinosaurs somehow and the world changed. He turned toward me and said "are you talking about carnivores or herbivores?" Smartly, I said "Omnivores." He didn't shut up for two days. That night I drove to a bookstore and bought a beautiful picture book about dinosaurs and we spent the following day on a hillside talking all things prehistoric. When I took him back to his bus, his mother met us, took one look at him then smiled at me. "You said dinosaurs, didn't you?" I smiled back and proudly said "yep." I never saw him again, but I am smiling now remembering it.
So, anyway, a year after my demotion, I was going back to the games as a vindicated chaperon. I couldn't wait. When we got to the games, I was told I would be assigned to Lee, as he had MS and needed constant attention. I was happy to do so, as Lee had a beautiful spirit, and he always made me laugh - like the time in the pizza place when he made me play Aerosmith/Run DMC's "Walk This Way" fifteen times in a row, despite threats from the other patrons. So it was Lee and I for three days of fun and havoc. Lee didn't speak, but he used basic sign language and other gestures. Communication would prove to be challenging.
One afternoon, during lunch, Lee had an event. I looked across the table and noticed that he was choking. It was hard to tell at first because his normal motions were jerky and sudden. I stood up, almost in a panic. Helen looked over at me and said "do that hand lick thing." Hand lick? It took me a few seconds to realize she was saying Heimlich as in Heimlich Maneuver. I jumped over behind him, grabbed him under his rib cage and heaved violently. A piece of pickle shot out across the room and a dozen Olympians burst into laughter. Lee recovered quickly and was smiling too. I was a mess. It was starting to dawn on me that maybe I had saved his life until another of his friends looked over and said "it happens all the time." Evidently Lee's condition made it difficult to swallow food correctly. I payed much closer attention to Lee from that point on.
Later in the evening, we were eating dinner and Lee got excited. As before he was sitting across from me, and I couldn't tell if he was having difficulty or not. He was trying to speak to me (low grunts and sighs) and sign at the same time. I struggled to understand him, thinking he wanted to convey something very important to me. After fifteen minutes I realized he was saying "the food is good here." For some reason that upset me greatly - he had to spend that much energy and time to convey something basic and simple to me in a friendly conversation, and I was too ignorant to understand him. That night I spoke to one of the staff that had come from his group home about communicating with Lee. She told me Lee understood and was very patient. I told her I wished I could sign, and she surprised me by giving me a handout with the American Sign Language signs for the alphabet. I stayed up all night learning them. The next day, I shocked Lee with a "hello" and we had a great day. I found out so much about Lee just by him being able to spell random words throughout the day. I found out he had a slightly naughty sense of humor, that we shared the same tastes in the opposite sex, and that he loved hamburgers.
Later in the day, Lee won a race and I broke the prime directive of the games - I took him off campus to celebrate at a college hamburger joint where we stuffed ourselves with cheeseburgers and signed off-color remarks about the college chicks. I miss Lee.