Three Rights Make a Left

It has been almost two years since my dad died and left my “special” brother Shawn in the care of my brothers Ron, Jeff and myself. It came as a shock that dad left guardianship with Ron since he is an Electrical Contractor that does a lot of work in the Caribbean in places like St Kits, Martinique, Antigua, St Martin as well as in other states. He just finished a job in North Carolina.

About a year ago Ron moved to Kerrville and moved Shawn from the sandy hills of Floresville to the rolling rock and cedar hills of the Texas Hill Country. Ron and I have worked out an arrangement that when he has to be out of town for a while, Shawn comes to Forney and stays with me. That being said, for the past couple of weeks Shawn has been here.

Even though he is “mentally challenged”, Shawn is not “disabled”. He has different abilities. He has a tremendous capacity for love of other people and he is a devout Christian. He has a tremendous love for service of the Lord.

I like to introduce Shawn to new and exciting experiences. A couple of times when I did disaster relief work traveling to other states, I would often take Shawn with me. We have been to Red River, NM, Colorado, Arizona and California together. Now I’m retired and don’t travel as much but I manage to find adventures for my youngest brother right here, close to home.

Last week we saw an ad on TV about the State Fair of Texas. I asked Shawn if he had ever been and sure enough, he hadn’t. The next day we rectified that omission in his catalogue of life experiences. I am still recovering from Achilles Tendon surgery and I’m not that mobile so we took my dad’s old electric scooter which is exactly like the ones you can rent at the State Fair. Shaw had a terrific time. The crowd was a fraction of the size I had seen in the past but we were literally there on Tuesday of the first week they were open. That being said we were able to see all of the State Fair we could handle in about three hours.

Later in the week we decided to go to see the Texas Rangers during the last home stand of a very bad season. I bought tickets on StubHub in the “All you can eat” section for $7 each. We watched the game and pigged out on hot dogs, burgers, chicken sandwiches, nachos, peanuts and popcorn. The game itself was a historic one, but not in a good way. It was the first time since 1973 that the Rangers posted 100 or more losses in a season. However, we bought matching Rangers Hawaiian shirts and Blue Bell Ice Cream sponsored Rangers caps.

Tonight (Monday), we will drive to Fort Worth and see Pat Green and ZZ Top at Dickey’s Arena. We will be the guys in Covid masks, Texas Rangers Hawaiian shirts and of course “Cheap Sunglasses.”

It’s not like my mom and dad sheltered my brother, far from it. Dad was a Boy Scout leader and took him all the way through Scouts and he became an Eagle Scout. But there are a lot of things he has never done. He also took all of us fishing and hunting all of the time. As I am writing this, I have been pondering what other new experiences I can give my little brother. Mom and dad were very protective, and there are some things he has never done. Some experiences only a brother would think to give him. It has occurred to me that in his 53 years, Shawn has never been on a date……Hmmm?