AND THE BEAT GOES ON

I spent about a year and a half on dorm 18, honing my skills at human service and got a promotion to "activities therapist" on dorm 21, a new unit comprised entirely of geriatric residents. This translates to a building full of men who were ditched by their families during the depression when they could no longer care for them. Back before mentally retarded was a label...they were "simple" or "not right". Truth be told, most of these men, by "modern" standards would have been mainstreamed and probably would have done just fine.
After so many years in the system they were to me "socially retarded". They had adjusted to their situation and, as a result, any chance at a normal life had been sacrificed before I was even born. This made me sad... a building full of wasted potential.
Still, I gave it my all. The program of the day was called "behavioral characteristics progression"(or-BCP training), which covered everything from basic motor skills (roll clay into a ball) to reasoning skills ( distinguishing between the hot and cold faucet). Some deep shit, let me tell you.
My favorite BCP story was one my dad told. He was working with a mildly retarded resident of the aforementioned era on coin recognition. It went something like this:
Mr. bob: "How many quarters in a dollar"?
Tard: "4".
Mr. Bob: "How many dimes in a dollar"?
Tard: " 10...there's 20 nickels and 100 god damn pennies...can I go now"?
Touche' my friend.
(I just remembered this guys name! It was A.J., I somehow feel better...)
All of my new charges were smokers, some pipes, some cigars and some rolled their own. Frequently with paper towels.Depending on the level of family support (most of these guys were alone at this point) determined what they would smoke...the state issued kite tobacco loose, the cheaper version of bugler, it came with papers, but after all, they were retarded and couldn't deal with papers so small. I came to the rescue.
I was able to put my skills into action, and helped these guys keep their pipes cleaned and provided real cigarette papers and kept a drawer full of hand rolled cigarettes at all times...as I've said before, I was a rollin'-pipe cleanin' son of a gun.
My most vivid memory of my time on 21 was a resident who had a plush curious george that he carried with him 24-7. One morning, he came to me with his plush toy horribly battered. A leg was almost torn off, the head was hanging by threads. He presented it to me like I was the medic. This resident was wholly non verbal, but he pointed to the damage and made these whines and yelps and pointed at me.
I took a needle and thread, some scissors and a washcloth and patched his beloved george back together. Whenever he would spring a leak, I would add more washcloth patches. This went on for a year or so.
I was still on 21 when Travis died. I have only vague memories of standing on the hill of the cemetery with the chaplain and the resident choir who sang a retarded version of Amazing Grace. I remember it was overcast, and I was crying-hard.
I would stand on this hill again before I left, with the chaplain and his choir, just the five of us...saying goodbye to our loved ones.
That's enough for now...