Someday He’ll Be a Hero

It takes a courageous soul and a true downhill specialist to attempt a double diamond run in a blizzard. And only the most expert of sailors would take out a small craft under the warning flag and sail wing-on-wing. As for climbing up to the Everest base camp in a pair of flip-flops: leave that to anyone born in an afternoon’s shadow of Annapurna. And, by the way, parents of autistic kids are of a different breed of parent, though not quite gifted as you are welcome to think.

No more or less skilled than those of typical children, indeed, parents of autistic kids are like school crossing guards assigned to monitor the security of Fort Knox. We are the veritable employees of McDonald’s placed in charge of establishing a nutritional system and meal plan for the United States of America’s Olympic Rowing Team. Yes, we are like high school graduates sitting for a bar exam. Let me be clear, although my autistic child has special needs that I ought to address, my parental super powers are not superior to those of any parent of a typical kid.

Obviously, I wish I had super powers. Autistic kids are not easy kids to raise. Although an ASD kid may be gifted with early reading skills as he enters Kindergarten, he might also retain the emotional maturity of a two-year-old through the end of first grade, tearing, screaming and crying his way through the days. And he may alienate his peers with disturbing or repetitive behaviors, like, and for no apparent reason, slamming his own head into the wall over and over again. While our son’s classmates engage each other in pretend play and sports activities on the playground, he can be frequently found to be spinning himself in circles. The thing about Seb is that he spins around and around and around, but he never gets dizzy. He just keeps spinning, and I wonder, could this be a talent?

To raise a child with autism certainly requires a level of intervention that most parents simply do not anticipate that they can easily muster. It’s doable, but with ASD, there is no wait-and-see. We do not endure tantrums, continue to change diapers and foster our child’s obsession with spinning things beyond age 5 and otherwise do nothing. If we do not act while our kids are young, they will simply fall further behind and then perhaps require even more special attention. Actually, there is so much more we can do right here, right now.

If I could have one super power, I would want to be able to be everywhere at once. So that no matter where I had to be, I could also be on the playground with my son encouraging him to stop spinning and make some friends. Such persistent qualities as these, the delay in socio-emotional maturity and the odd repetitive behaviors, keep ASD kids from advancing. If they hit them at all, they reach their organic development milestones late. For now, I am simply trying my best to help my kid improve, and it seems that I will have to try just a little bit harder.

Playing with Words

A couple of years ago, Seb, our 5-year-old, was diagnosed with the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Elia and I were deeply affected by this news, yet we were not quite caught off guard. Although he had been meeting with many of the expected milestones of his infancy, he had gradually regressed, and almost all of those milestones were seemingly forgotten or, perhaps, abandoned. Before he lost his speaking skill, his final words were mama and papa. We had been noticing other signs a few months prior: intense focus on inanimate objects, lack of speech, and extreme separation anxiety during preschool, to name a few. The flapping of his hands at the wrist was his typical emotional response to a wide range situations.

Throughout the past two years, Seb has endured a bevy of therapists, more than I think any child should ever have to meet. He was assessed by several doctors and professionals who set to work on lifting him out of his early childhood depression. Funded in part by insurance, in part by California Department of Disabilities, in part by the California Department of Education, and the rest out of pocket, he has undergone Floortime, Applied Behavioral Analysis, Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy. Fortunately, he is a quick study and has benefited tremendously.

Seb recovers after a trek around the La Jolla UTC ice skating rink.

In just a few months, Seb went from speaking no words to reading and spelling, and at the time he was barely three years old. Over the past two years, he has made dramatic improvements in so many aspects of his life that, unless you were acutely aware of his history and the telltale manifestations of ASD, you might think Seb is a typical kid–a bit quirky, but, for the most part, typical. Look at him: you have to admit, he is a good looking kid. I mean, you might prefer his father’s green eyes to the dark brown color he shares with his mom, but he looks fine. And with a couple more years of regular, intensive therapy, he will be fine and, hopefully, low-maintenance.

We are the Champions

Elia and I are responsible and in charge of his progression. We let the therapists do their jobs and work their magic, but before we go home, we listen to them tell us how we can reinforce the skills he is picking up. We read through social stories to help him overcome his ritual anxiety. We walk him through morning and nightly check-lists to enable self-care, in which he is taking pride. His ability to speak and communicate has developed so elaborately that we enjoy helping him and seeing him improve. While Seb has worked hard, we have also tried very hard to encourage him to continue with his therapy. We make the work fun by playing games. Because Seb is astutely aware of any abnormality in his environment, we try to exploit this talent as often as we can, to foster creativity and challenge imagination. The games help draw out his focus on his own inner world into a friendly conversation.

Here are a few examples of the games we play:

• One of the first games we learned to play was to leave out a keyword in a sentence or song. For instance, when taking a bath, I used to tell him to get out of the bathtub by singing Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up. I sang it every night, and eventually Seb learned the lyrics and could sing it with me. But instead of singing it together, I would sing all of one line and leave out the final word: “Get up, stand up, stand up for your … “, and Seb would fill in the blank: “Right”. “Get up, stand up, and you don’t give up the … “, and Seb would sing: “Fight”, and we’d follow it up with the mock chord strike.

• Our favorite word game involves speaking common phrases or having typical conversations with him. In one iteration of the word game, we replace keywords with quasi-homonyms. For example, sometimes when prompting him to begin a task, chore or routine, we might say, “Ready, set, go!” But in our word game you can hear the similar cadence as we replace the word set with the word Seb: “Ready, Seb, go!” When Seb hears this and sees our feigned urgency, he laughs and asserts a correction, “No, not ready, Seb, go. Ready, set, go!”

• Another iteration of our word game involves replacing a normal direct object with another funny one. As in, when we are eating chicken nuggets, we might say, “Okay, Seb, are you ready to eat chicken plates?” Of course, no, he is not going to eat the chicken plates. “How about the chicken pancakes?” No, not the chicken pancakes. “Then how about the chicken fish sticks?” No, not the chicken fish sticks. Seb’s ready to eat the chicken nuggets.

• And in yet another musical iteration of our word game, we might change a key word in a familiar song, like We Are the Champions. Except, in our song, we change the We to Seb, as in: “Seb is the champion, my friends. He’ll keep on fighting ’til the end. Seb is the champion. Seb is the champion. No time for losers ’cause Seb is the champion of the world.”

We enjoy playing together and laughing about silly things, as we play and mess around with common phrases and songs. These simple games help Seb, like any kid, listen to every word we are saying, utilize his ability to recognize the abnormality, and enjoy the interaction.

Millie sees her Big Bro-tector and smiles with adoration.

Update from the Baby Front

Baby Amelia Sophie, or Millie, as I am liking to call her, is growing bigger and bigger–gracefully, every day. She is eating, smiling and cooing. Her hair, a lightish, blondish color, is growing out now in furry, fuzzy tufts. One of her favorite activities is to lay in her crib gazing at the lion-star-swirl-pony mobile that her Grandpa got her. Millie loves to be held and, in fact, according to Elia, demands it 24-7. Although we are struggling to enjoy a complete night’s rest, all is well on the baby front.

The Christmas Experience

When I was a kid, what I truly cared about during Christmas was the getting, the receiving, and the opening of my allotment of gifts placed beneath the Christmas tree. As I unwrapped the box and saw the item that, until then, I had only dreamed of possessing, this was my pleasure: the jacket my Grandma gave me, the toy jet plane my dad gave me, the book my mother gave me, or the puzzle my brother gave me. Despite being the beneficiary of many cherished gifts, something I misunderstood in my youth was this spirit of giving and sharing.

Now I admit that, beginning on Thanksgiving and continuing until about the day after Christmas, I am concerned, worried even that I have not given enough; that I am taking advantage of holiday sales to buy myself something special; that, in fact, I have given nothing; that the gift I selected is too small of an acknowledgment of my love, my friendship and my kinship with my friends and family; that the recipient would be able to measure and mark the quantity of thought I put into a gift and thereby judge it inadequate; and that still I am missing out on an authentic experience of the season. I wish I had a limitless amount of time, a bottomless budget, the perfect memory and unflinching humility to grant everyone in my life a delightful surprise this Christmas, yet I am sure that I could give more.

Grandma, Grandpa and Seb snuggle up during a night cap at Las Campanas.

Although in the past I used to care about Christmas things, now I care more about the Christmas experience. Which, for me, is the tenderness between my family and friends, both in this neighborhood and abroad. For me, the Christmas experience is an expression of the Golden Rule, which I understand as giving another human being, friend or stranger, the best possible and imaginable treatment appropriate for any particular situation. As when, during their recent visit, my mom and dad treated Elia, Seb, Amelia and me to a stay at the Mission Inn in Riverside, where we enjoyed an afternoon and evening of sitting together and chatting in the splendor or an historic place and amidst a festival of light. Of course, we missed sharing these moments with some key family members and friends of ours–which would be just about everyone I can think of, regardless of religious bent.

This season we will experience the company of our family in Playas de Tijuana.

This year, I really, truly hope and believe that my understanding of the Christmas experience has advanced and branched out, and that next year, I will be able to apply this understanding for a maximum benefit for all those within a wide periphery and throughout the several circles I know. But until then, I will not make any excuses or attempt to defend any of my failed attempts to give more. Since I still have another day or two, I want to go ahead now, give you my prayers and wish you and your family a blessed Christmas and, ultimately, a righteous New Year.

Amen.

Side Trips through the Desert of Southern California

We live in the area of Southern California kindly regarded though seldom derided as the Inland Empire. It’s an area known more for its tracts of rooftops and a prevalence of strip malls than for any attraction. A benefit to living in the middle of Southern California is its central location to many activities.

With the addition of a newborn, our excursions are somewhat limited for now, but we anticipate embarking on future adventures, most within a 60 mile radius of our home in Eastvale. Elia and I have lived in the area for several years and still are exploring to discover nearby activities for our family. We have been almost everywhere from Palm Desert to Los Angeles looking for new sights and landmarks. Although we’ve had to search, we’ve discovered something in just about every city of the desert valley east of Los Angeles.

In the mountains of Big Bear, one can ski, snowboard, mountain bike, and boat. In the winter, one can also make a snowman in any of the several public parks.

With a focus on affordability and non-obvious attraction, the following are some of the places we like to go as a family in or near the Inland Empire.

Palm Springs: Living Desert (http://www.livingdesert.org/) is a desert-themed zoo, home to animals, including several kinds of cats, native to deserts all around the world. Probably the best part of this zoo has nothing to do with animals and their habitat, rather it is the most amazing, gigantic, outdoor model train set that is about the size of half a city block.

Papa and Seb stand amazed at the edge of a vast model train landscape.

Redlands: Pharaoh’s Adventure Park (http://www.pharaohsadventurepark.com/) is a water park and theme park with medium-sized roller coasters. The Redlands Bowl (http://www.redlandsbowl.org/) is a place of frequent live entertainment throughout the summertime, including performances from a variety of musical groups and acting troupes.

Big Bear Lake: Big Bear Lake is a fairly rugged playground for mountain biking enthusiasts, skiers and snowboarders. This place is also a scenic destination for families. In the summer, on the south side of Big Bear Lake, a couple of boat tours cast off, one a normal boat tour with a presentation on the history of Big Bear Lake, and the other is a pirate themed boat tour. On the north side of the lake, there is a nature trail that leads up the mountainside from the Big Bear Discovery Center (http://www.bigbeardiscoverycenter.com). In the winter, huge snow hills are made for tubing, or your could opt to make a snowman at one of the public parks.

In one afternoon, we learn the history of Big Bear and the FMV of numerous lake houses.

Rancho Cucamonga: Victoria Gardens is a shopping quarter designed for the entire family. In the center of the shopping district is a park with an open garden, which frequently has live entertainment. In the midst of this upscale mall, a great place to sit and enjoy the sunshine with a draft beverage, the Yard House beer garden is in view of the central garden area. During summertime, there’s a synchronized outdoor splash fountain, where kids can play in the water for free. There’s also a $3 mock train ride that our boy loves. An outdoor playground around the corner from there is also nearby a fast food court, where we can find a frozen cherry lemonade.

Here comes Seb in the caboose of the Victoria Gardens mock train.

Riverside: The Mission Inn (http://www.missioninn.com/) is an old hotel–and, I mean, a really old hotel for Southern California, established in 1876. Aside from its architectural splendor and elegant accommodations, its claim to fame is that several of the POTUS have stayed the night here. Before Seb and Amelia were born, Elia and I had stayed here on a couple of occasions. Now that we have little ones, we visit the Mission Inn every winter for the Festival of Lights and an outdoor Christmas market featuring a small ice skating rink and fresh mini-donuts.

Grandma and Grandpa stand with Grandson in the driveway of the Mission Inn.

Ontario: A Rainforest Cafe restaurant in Ontario Mills Mall is a fairly cool
place to spend an hour or so. And if you go for drinks only, you don’t have to spend
a lot of money.

South Corona: Tom’s Farms (http://shop.tomsfarms.com/) is like an old style town with an assortment of cheap activities for small children. If you like Classic Rock and motorcycles, you’ll especially feel at home here. There is a large scale train ($2) that families can take their kids on, a carousel ($2) with bobbing horses and sleighs, small scale tractors ($2) kids can drive, and occasional carnivals that operate giant inflatable bounce obstacle courses. A full-time farmer’s mart sells countless varieties of fruits, nuts, soda-pops and fresh veggies.

Tom's Farms has a train loop featuring a covered bridge and crossing. On occasion, Tom himself has been spotted engineering trainloads of families around his farm.

Central Corona: I have always wanted to take my boy to the Fender Museum
(http://www.fendermuseum.com/), home of the Fender guitar. But he’s a little young for it yet. A place we have visited is the Citrus Park Splash Zone. It’s free fun in the summertime. My boy has finally embraced water and is manning up to brave new splash challenges of shooting water from squirt gun turrets and running through water gauntlets
(http://www.splash-pads.com/citrus-park-splash-zone/).

Old Town Temecula: This is another old style town with a variety of shops and
eateries. It’s home to Penny Pickles Workshop (http://www.pennypickles.org/), the Temecula Children’s Museum, a place where kids are allowed to run around, touch everything and explore science-like exhibits. Our boy has enjoyed his visits and usually gravitated to the player piano.

Eastvale: Eastvale, like many other communities in the Inland Empire, is home to
an abundance of families with small children. Public parks are all over the
place. We take our boy to a different park almost every weekend, and we meet
new kids and new families during every visit.

A traveling carnival set up a few blocks away give Seb and Chloe a chance to play.

Chino Hills: Chino Hills also has a somewhat smaller outdoor mall that is a bit
cozier than Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga. There’s a free splash
fountain for kids and canvas-shaded outdoor tables and cushion chairs for
families. The parks in Chino Hills are the most magnificent of any we have visited in the Inland Empire.

Chino: We have uncovered a number of airport cafes in the vicinity of where we live. An airport cafe is a food establishment adjacent to the runway of a local airport. Our family has dined in the D&D Airport Cafe in Riverside where we witnessed a personal aircraft take off and the Flabob Airport Cafe in Rubidoux where we saw a personal aircraft land. Our next stop is Flo’s Airport Cafe, where we will endeavor flight training.

Inside the Lines

And, of course, there are pricier, more obvious places to explore that are within a morning’s drive of the Inland Empire.

Beaches: Driving to the beach from the Inland Empire requires planning. While we do not need to spend a lot of cash to enjoy the waves and the sand, we might need to spend quite a bit of our precious time getting there. On a weekend day, we are sure to leave early, like around 8:30 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. If we leave our place much later than that, we expect to spend more than 2 hours in traffic going less than 5 mph and then we might have trouble finding a parking space whenever we finally arrive. The beaches are very popular, needless to say. To save some time on the drive home, we recently acquired a Fastrak account (http://www.91expresslanes.com/).

On a trip to San Diego, Elia and Seb wait for the next train at the Solana Beach Station.

Anaheim: Disneyland and California Adventure (http://disneyland.disney.go.com/) speak for themselves.

A dazzling light display helps us pass the hour we spend waiting in line for Small World.

Buena Park: Knott’s Berry Farm and Medieval Times are worthy recreational investments.

Irvine: Pretend City (http://pretendcity.org/) is an educational excursion for a toddler to learn the fundamentals of building a community, including earning and spending play paper money.

Pasadena: Griffith Park (http://www.griffithobservatory.org/) is vast and full of secrets.

Long Beach: Aquarium of the Pacific (http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/) is one of many aquariums along the Southern Californian Coast.

Santa Ana: The Santa Ana Zoo (http://www.santaanazoo.org/) is quite cheap, but needs upkeep.

Los Angeles: The Getty Center (http://www.getty.edu/) is an art museum that could be considered a work of art in and of itself. Universal City, Hollywood Bowl (http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/), and Center Theater Group (http://www.centertheatregroup.org/) all add character to the LA area.

Every aspect of the Getty Center is a work of art, including its structures and gardens.

San Diego: We could spend almost every weekend basking in San Diego’s perfect weather while strolling through Balboa Park (http://www.balboapark.org/), exploring the Safari Park (http://www.sdzsafaripark.org/), and learning about the world of animals at the San Diego Zoo (http://www.sandiegozoo.org/).

San Diego's Wild Animal Park is now known as Safari Park. However, wild animals--and wild children are plentiful here.

Many families call the Inland Empire home, so there are actually quite a few things for us to do here. The only catch is that we either have to pay to play, drive across town to get there, or both. It seems to have taken awhile for reliable entertainment to become established to support the massive housing boom that peaked here in 2007. Every time we find a new place, we experience a eureka moment. Maybe one of these weekends, we’ll share one with you.

Amelia Sophie

On Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 8:13 a.m., a child was born, Amelia Sophie. Her birth weight was measured at 3.14 kilograms (6 pounds, 15 ounces).

The Delivery

That morning, Elia was admitted to St. Joseph Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County at 5:45 a.m. Two hours later, after being checked and placed onto a gurney, she was wheeled into the operating room, where the delivery team assembled itself. I sat on a small stool nearby Elia and conversed with her while the team proceeded to perform a C-section. The operation commenced and went painlessly and thereby smoothly. Everyone was delighted to hear the cries of a newborn baby ringing through the air.

In the instant I returned to Elia’s side holding the baby, she recognized her mom. Once she heard Elia’s voice, she stopped crying, opened her eyes, and motioned with her tiny tongue to feed. She had to wait another half hour, while the delivery team completed the procedure, before being handed to her mom. Elia and the baby have remained very close ever since.

Words cannot convey the love we have for our daughter, Amelia Sophie.

The Name

Amelia Sophie is a combination of the names of two people very important to both Elia and me. Amelia is the name of Elia’s grandma, and Sophie is the name of mine. Abuelita Amelia lives a few hours south of us in Playas de Tijuana. My grandma Sophie is still alive in the hearts of her eight grandchildren. Both of our grandmas are key sources of love in our lives. We are simply trying to return some of this love to the world.

Seb, the Bro-tector

To help Elia and me perform our duty to protect our little one, I commissioned Seb as the Big Bro-tector of the baby sister. As the Big Bro-tector, Seb watches out for his Baby Sister and is to be careful with her, not poke her in the nose with his finger and, instead of grabbing at her ears and cheeks, gently caress the tufts of hair on her soft head. Seb has accepted his role and is preparing himself to bro-tect his baby sister.

Seb's initial bro-tection duties include posing for photographs with Baby Sister.

So far, Seb is pleased to have a baby sister. About every half hour, he asks me to pick up Baby Sister and carry her on a walk around the house. I proceed to cradle Ameliasita while Seb accompanies me on a home mini-tour. With boundless enthusiasm, he points out the features he finds of interest to his baby sister: his nightly routine checklist, a posted menu of all the new foods he has tried, his Thomas the Train table, the home computer with all of his stored videos, the bathtub, and so forth. Once we are finished reviewing a station, Seb leaps forward and gallops ahead down the hall to the next.

At each station, he asks me to explain to Baby Sister the importance of a particular feature. “Here is the Pizza Truck, one of Seb’s favorite toys. Seb acquired it at a garage sale several years ago. Pizza happens to be one of Seb’s favorite foods. He enjoys eating melted cheese. When you are older, you and Seb will eat pizza together. Seb, why don’t you sing Baby Sister the Pizza Truck song?”

As we conclude the tour with a snack, he insists that I include the baby: “Papa, can you tell Baby Sister about what I’m drinking, please?”

What happened to 11-11-11?

One day, about a week ago, during a routine doctor visit, an administrative aide informed Elia that she had been bumped from an extraordinary Veteran’s Day celebration of the 11-11-11 birth date to one day earlier. Neither Elia nor I really attach any significance to numbers and birth times. Our primary objective was to ensure delivery of a 100% healthy baby. We agreed that the actual date, plus or minus a week, did not matter.

As Elia and I decided how to re-arrange our plans to conform to the updated delivery schedule, Elia commented on the significance Americans attach to dates and their associated zeal with anniversaries for everything from annual retail sales events to bloody acts of terror. Why should the definition of the personality for an individual or nation be founded on a schedule? I admit, I was disappointed in the so-called clerical error that advanced the birthday up the calendar from the coveted 11-11-11, but ultimately I am happy to have welcomed a new member of our family to our world on 11-10-11.

In the Spectrum

You might have heard that our son, Seb, has been diagnosed with the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Still, you wonder, how can it be that a normal-looking, cheerful and otherwise silly kid could be considered autistic? What makes Seb autistic? I mean, in most appearances, he seems like a normal boy.

Well, friends, let me explain what makes Seb autistic and, therefore, so different from other kids. The following is a partial list intended to shed some light on Seb’s autism. As a unique, special kid, who happens to have been given a diagnosis of autism, Seb is:

• Partial to a limited variety of food: mac ‘n’ cheese, veggie lasagna, and chicken nuggets;
• Obsessed with wheels and other spinning things;
• Often found to be twirling himself in circles;
• Unable to point at anything with his finger;
• In possession of a perfect pitch;
• Able to sing in tune;
• Naturally gifted with echoalia;
• Intolerant of any interruption to his routine;
• Enraged by imperfection;
• Anxious and fearful in the observance of typical cultural rituals like changing calendars and the top of the hour;
• Overwhelmed in crowded rooms to the point of tears;
• Prone to inconsolable crying tears and runaway meltdowns;
• Unwilling to use the toilet like a normal person;
• Frightened by or unusually interested in harsh sounds, like automatic hand dryers and electric vacuum cleaners;
• Afraid of normal childhood activity, like petting dogs and riding on carousels;
• Extremely disappointed upon separation with friends;
• In denial of eye contact;
• Charming;
• Unable to sleep regularly and consistently;
• Lacking in attention to two- and three-step routines;
• Seeking self-stimulation in the forms of sound and light;
• Constantly seeking sensory input, like poking his eye with his finger until it turns red, picking his nose until it bleeds, biting his lip until it scars, hitting friends, running into people, flapping his hands about his wrists, and walking on his toes;
• Burdened with stereotypies, like hand flapping and grimacing;
• Unaware of his peers;
• Intensely focused on and quite comfortable with a monotonous activity;
• Referring to everyone, including himself, in the third person;
• Challenged to develop fine motor skills, like holding a pen and using scissors;
• Uncoordinated in his development of gross motor skills, like running and jumping;
• Taught otherwise naturally developing language skills, like pragmatics. For example, instead of saying that the water is cold, Seb used to say that the water is not hot;
• Easily distracted;
• Hyperlexic; and
• Quirky.

Actually, Seb’s autism is not half of what it used to be. The above list is cumulative but not necessarily current. Some of these behaviors have already been mitigated or overcome. Seb has even developed quite a sense of humor and a typical fondness for mischief. Yesterday, after coming inside from riding his scooter home from the park, Seb dropped his helmet in the middle of the tiled entryway floor. When I called him out and pointed at his helmet, he laughed with glee and proceeded to put it away.

Seb has made a lot of progress since his first visit to the pediatric neurologist a couple of years ago. With thanks to the understanding and recommendations of Dr. McIntosh, during the past two years, Seb has undergone more than 30 hours per week of intensive behavioral therapy. What other kids learn naturally on their own, Seb has been taught by a contingent of therapists mobilized to practice a battery of therapies, including occupational, speech, sensory integration, and auditory processing and applied behavioral analysis. With this very early intervention, we believe Seb is more likely to seem like a normal kid.

What is the Meandering Sidewalk?

The meandering sidewalk is the wavy sidewalk that veers back and forth at the side of the road.  No matter how straight the street, the meandering sidewalk always wanders to and fro, never quite encroaching into a neighbor’s yard and never allowing the pedestrian to land a foot the gutter.  You will likely find the meandering sidewalk constructed in suburban neighborhoods where ample parkway exists for landscaping.   The community planner uses it to break up the monotonous alignments of straight-edge city blocks.  At about six feet in width, a meandering sidewalk can handle a mom and a dad walking side-by-side, each pushing a baby stroller.  Dual meandering sidewalks often straddle collector roads or greenways, allowing neighbors to amble and rove about their neighborhood.

Like the meandering sidewalk, I have wandered aside the straight and narrow path through life, fortunate to be protected by a master plan.  These stories I will tell here of family, friends, strangers, colleagues, inspirations, triumphs, lost causes, past, present and future, I want to share with you.  At times, I have found myself struggling to avoid the gutter, but I have also had countless stoop talks away from the path at a neighbor’s door.  Let us try and take a walk along the meandering sidewalk, and perhaps we’ll find a place along the way to stop for awhile, chat and enjoy life.

This is sidewalk was built with a revolutionary non-meandering option.

Meandering sidewalks are implemented best where pedestrians are expected. Do you notice the truck dealership?

A true meandering sidewalk will allow you wander away from your neighborhood and ramble on like a hobo on an after dinner walk.