Look Out World...

....... I've been thinking. On the "drive" into work today I started thinking about how MUCH paper we get from school. This in turn started my thoughts of how as we advace technically and go to a more computerized world we use MORE paper. Like, remember how we didn't use paper wastefully at school when I was little - and then go back to my Grandma when they used slate??? The slate thing got me to think about how difficult it would be to get first graders to copy problems down on paper let alone slate and then I started to think about how much LESS we are progressing in that area then - say - the "slate days". THIS then started my mind to go to Autism in the "slate days". I then looked at the facts that Autism is more a social problem. S and others do have learning problems too - along with physical (motor skills and such) but we mainly focus on social. In the slate days we weren't THAT social. Think about it - you walked to school - where you LEARNED - you had recess - but other than that - not a lot of socialness, your parents didn't see other parents till Sundays or maybe if they went to town to sell something - but there just wasn't the "networking" that we have today. So Autism was almost a way of life in some ways.

I think of Little House on the Prarie and remember that episode where there was that Buzbee character who was "slow" but he was taught life skills - farming, fixing - stuff like that. See, S would be FINE in "those" days. Maybe she'd be determined "slow" but she would "make" it.

Ok - now think about this. In "those" days I wouldn't be SO afraid of dying - because even though they lived VERY far apart from each other and didn't see or correspond with each other daily they did "see" to each other in times of trouble. They "helped each other out". Now, we are at each other's doorstep in an instant - what with phone, email, airplane, car and yet we're farther apart then we used to be. Think about that for a moment.......

So what sums this up? Oh, heck. I don't know. Just my crazy train going around in my mind with the conductor downing a 5th of gin. :-)