I felt like writing something on this bittersweet day

[Rusty Syringes 478]

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 people 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, scary, 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. He loved Coldplay, Los Lobos and Led Zeppelin, but Korn and the ###### 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 some parallel 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 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 and hard knocks.

And, like it was with me and my father, who died in January, 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

[Toro 1]

I think my aunt is the counselor at Sour Lake Elementary.

 

ETA: confirmed. She is.

[edjr 4,866]

MDC > Rusty

[KSB2424 2,700]

I couldn't find a "bittersweet" emoticon. So..........

[30 Fat, Bald & Texan 5]

tears

 

I can't wait to be a dad

[cmh6476 550]

[Fervid Ro 0]

[galmgren 0]

[Blitzen 0]

I have a niece who is autistic. I think hers is Aspergiller's syndrome although I can't remember right now.

[IGotWorms 2,414]

He's lucky to have such a devoted father.

[football_scooter 0]

[gutterslut] this would be quite touching if it weren't all the hoax of an alias. [/gutterslut]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i don't care if you or this story is real, it was touching anyway

[mighty_thor 115]

Sounds like he went to a pretty da mn good school if he is writing complete sentences entering kindergarten.

 

Rusty --> Father of the Year

[football_scooter 0]

It is worth noting that Rusty hasn't stopped sh!tting himself at this point either.

[JustinCharge 2,133]

On 5/24/2007 at 7:59 AM, Rusty Syringes said:

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 people 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, scary, 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. He loved Coldplay, Los Lobos and Led Zeppelin, but Korn and the ###### 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 some parallel 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 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 and hard knocks.

And, like it was with me and my father, who died in January, 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

 

this is a beautiful story about a father taking his son Curt to school in Sour Lake Texas.

What the hell happened to this version of Rusty? now he's the biggest antagonist on the forum, trying to anger as many as possible.

[wiffleball 4,373]

Man, now who's going to keep you company when you're pooping your diapers at night?

[RogerDodger 248]

7 minutes ago, JustinCharge said:

 

this is a beautiful story about a father taking his son Curt to school in Sour Lake Texas.

What the hell happened to this version of Rusty? now he's the biggest antagonist on the forum, trying to anger as many as possible.

Kid must have went back to crapping his pants.

[JustinCharge 2,133]

Let's dedicate a song to this lovely post.  I found a pretty good one.

 

 

[RogerDodger 248]

On the plus side, Curt should be old enough to drink now.

[cmh6476 550]

as a facebook friend, rusty comes off as a great father.

[JustinCharge 2,133]

6 minutes ago, cmh6476 said:

as a facebook friend, rusty comes off as a great father.

obviously not considering his post history here.  hes a turd.

hes OBVIOUSLY a sociopath.  he can be thoughtful and sweet in formal settings but underneath that is he cold, vicious and brutal.  total manipulator.  the guy's gotta have a small graveyard somewhere filled with human victims.  and he laughs about it.  hes a Patrick Bateman.

[GutterBoy 1,196]

33 minutes ago, cmh6476 said:

as a facebook friend, rusty comes off as a great father.

Doesn't everyone come off as great on Facebook?

[GutterBoy 1,196]

31 minutes ago, JustinCharge said:

obviously not considering his post history here.  hes a turd.

hes OBVIOUSLY a sociopath.  he can be thoughtful and sweet in formal settings but underneath that is he cold, vicious and brutal.  total manipulator.  the guy's gotta have a small graveyard somewhere filled with human victims.  and he laughs about it.  hes a Patrick Bateman.

This might be the first post you ever got anything right

[OldMaid 1,575]

Just now, GutterBoy said:

This might be the first post you ever got anything right

That’s because Justin is an expert on this subject.

[frank 1,970]

You could have written a symphony.

[seafoam1 593]

27 minutes ago, GutterBoy said:

This might be the first post you ever got anything right

When is your first time gonna be? Cause you're 0-fer. 

[GutterBoy 1,196]

35 minutes ago, seafoam1 said:

When is your first time gonna be? Cause you're 0-fer. 

You have the wit of a slug

[TheNewGirl 704]

1 hour ago, GutterBoy said:

Doesn't everyone come off as great on Facebook?

Social media is everyone's highlight reel. 

[Pimpadeaux 1,453]

2 hours ago, RogerDodger said:

On the plus side, Curt should be old enough to drink now.

He is. He turned 21 in January, and we had our first beer together. He seems to favor sweeter drinks such as margaritas and wine.

It has been a hard road for him.

He's autistic, so transitions are a problem. One of the worst was going from charter school to public school. His junior year was brutal.

Then he got it together, had a great senior year and went on to get an associate's degree in music with a 4.0 GPA.

Then last spring came the meltdown, thanks in no small part to going off kind of far away to college to finish his degree.

So he re-trenched, got his own apartment and is trying to figure it all out while making decent money as an Uber Eats driver.

I'm super proud of him. The diagnosis was pretty grim all those years ago.

[Pimpadeaux 1,453]

1 hour ago, JustinCharge said:

obviously not considering his post history here.  hes a turd.

hes OBVIOUSLY a sociopath.  he can be thoughtful and sweet in formal settings but underneath that is he cold, vicious and brutal.  total manipulator.  the guy's gotta have a small graveyard somewhere filled with human victims.  and he laughs about it.  hes a Patrick Bateman.

You would have been rendered a greasy spot back in the board's golden days, with the reactions to your nonsense so brutal and hilarious that you would have spent years in therapy and crying into your pillow at night. You only get some marginal support here because the MAGAtards need all the Geeks they can get.

[JustinCharge 2,133]

7 minutes ago, Pimpadeaux said:

He is. He turned 21 in January, and we had our first beer together. He seems to favor sweeter drinks such as margaritas and wine.

It has been a hard road for him.

He's autistic, so transitions are a problem. One of the worst was going from charter school to public school. His junior year was brutal.

Then he got it together, had a great senior year and went on to get an associate's degree in music with a 4.0 GPA.

Then last spring came the meltdown, thanks in no small part to going off kind of far away to college to finish his degree.

So he re-trenched, got his own apartment and is trying to figure it all out while making decent money as an Uber Eats driver.

I'm super proud of him. The diagnosis was pretty grim all those years ago.

i dont believe any of  this for a second.  and even if it were true, its even WORSE because you are using that kid to generate sympathy to cover for your nasty attitude. 

[Pimpadeaux 1,453]

12 minutes ago, JustinCharge said:

i dont believe any of  this for a second.  and even if it were true, its even WORSE because you are using that kid to generate sympathy to cover for your nasty attitude. 

Dude, you rooted around in board history, dug up my son's name and then dug up and posted my name.

Who's the crazy person here?

That's next-level crazy stuff here, bro, and now you just look like a psychopathic stalker, just because I make fun of your predictions and theorize that you've never kissed a woman other than immediate family. 

You've underscored the very reason why posters here have to be more guarded with their lives. 

Seriously, your dysfunction is a real thing, and only mentally ill people get all weird and paranoid over what has been routine ball busting on this board for more than 20 years.

You should seek therapy, medication and perhaps take a break from this place to get yourself in a mentally healthy place.

 

[Hardcore troubadour 10,189]

This is an example of the boards “golden days”. Lol.  

[seafoam1 593]

1 hour ago, GutterBoy said:

You have the wit of a slug

Still 0-fer. Waiting....

 

[wiffleball 4,373]

In the same spirit, why don't you set yourself up a nice little cocktail hour right on the train tracks?

[Bert 1,042]

16 hours ago, JustinCharge said:

i dont believe any of  this for a second.  and even if it were true, its even WORSE because you are using that kid to generate sympathy to cover for your nasty attitude. 

You are a bigger failure than your POS football team.