I WANNA BE A REHAB RANGER

I went to work on dorm 18 shortly after my 18th birthday. Dorm 18 was predominantly for adult males with downs syndrome with a few "profoundly retarded, congenital birth defect, cause unknown"(PR-CBD-CU) types that matched the temperment of the downs residents.
With the exception of myself, the entire staff of this dorm were older women of all colors, most of them from the farm and ranch communities around the schools location. All long term state employees suffering from varying degrees of disinterest/laziness regarding the job. Back in the day, if you made it past probation status, it took an act of god to get you fired. They knew this, and had work avoidance down to a science.
Because of my long hair, most of the residents called me "momma" and the ones with a little more on the ball called me "mister Bob's son" because they knew my dad.
I worked the day shift "C pattern" ( your pattern determined your work cycle and when you got weekends off, everyone rotated- A,B,C or D) 6a to 2p.
Here's a typical day:
Wake up and hygiene, a row at a time (10 to a row, 2 MHMR aides per row), you'd shuffle your row into the bathroom, one aide would supervise shaving and teeth brushing, another the "bath". I was assigned shaving and brushing because I was a guy who, since being a guy, shaved his face. OK...truth be told, I preferred this over the "bath". This consisted of several 5 gallon buckets filled with warm water and this nasty state manufactured "soap" that was sinclair dinosaur green and smelled vaguely of lye. It was applied with coarse washcloths by the aide and they were rinsed off with a garden hose T'd into the faucet. Barbaric and efficient.
The entire bathroom was littered with these little bottles of deodorizer called "BIG D", later used as an inhalant in gay discos in the 80's and renamed "locker room" or "rush" cause it was mostly butyl-nitrate.
It was very unsettling at first, but I got used to it. Besides, I was providing a basic "human service". Most of the residents who couldn't shave themselves liked the way I shaved them...it was called "nick free".The one thing I never got over though was the size of their genitalia...the were all hung like john holmes! I guessed it was gods way of compensating them for shorting them in the "big head" department.And don't think they did'nt put them to use. I walked in on more couplings than I would have cared to. This was an all male campus for years, so homosexual activity was tolerated. We were instructed to walk away whenever we encountered them in the act. The state brought in some female residents (about 120) at one point and the cries of "let the fucking begin"! resonated into the valley below, only it was garbled and unintelligible because they were after all, retarded.
The thing I remember most and hold dear in my heart was the unconditional love these guys developed for me in a short period of time. After a few months, when I would walk in to report for my shift, a lot of the residents in "my row" would already be up and surround me in a sea of hugs. It was the most awesome thing, and all because I paid attention to them...all day...not just when I had to.
But there was one in particular.
His name was Travis, he was old for a downs syndrome person during this time period. I don't remember exactly how old he was when I met him, late forties at least. He had bad feet that required orthopedic shoes...shoes that he would let nobody else tie but me. he had cataracts and could hardly see, when I was working I was his guide. He had this huge waddle of skin hanging under his jawline that only I could shave.This presented a problem initially, because I wasn't there 7 days a week. After some time, we got him to understand and be ok with someone else taking care of him on my days off...they would do it just like "wobba" as he came to call me. We would go to the canteen for coffee every other day...this was akin to giving me free margaritas for life. He lived for our walks down to the canteen for "cowfree". He had a little more spring in his step on those days.
It was because of my experiences with them that I stayed. But it was Travis that made me believe in what I was doing.