Salt of the Earth

Just back from a field trip with Thomas 6th grade science class. We went to Salmon Creek and Bonneville Damn. It was really cool. At Salmon Creek they had 4 stations set up- each demonstrating something educational about salmon. Our first station was water purity. The second was salmon anatomy or something like that. After I got my group of kids situated with the group leader I headed off to find a bathroom. As soon as I came back I saw that the instruction had dissected a salmon and had the organs out on the beach. I then noticed Thomas kind of staggering towards a rock. I immediately went over to him and asked if he was ok. He shook his head NO and proceeded to put his head between his knees. I knew this meant that Thomas would soon be passing out. I stood next to him and the instructor continued to talk about the heart, blood, guts, etc…. and Thomas put his hands over his ears and moaned. He begged me to take him away from the area- so I helped him up and took him to a near by bench. He laid down and put his head in my lap and I started talking about leaves and kittens and anything else to get the idea of fish guts out of his head. Then the all to familiar chain of events began. He started babbling incoherently, his legs stiffened and then his body went completely limp. After about 20-30 seconds he moaned again. I leaned over and asked him ‘are you back now?”. He nodded. As he lay with his head in my lap I kept thinking of ways to get us home. SInce I had taken the bus with his class my car was still at the school and hour away. Mick rides to work- which meant he was an hour away from the car and two hours away from us. I looked around and saw an old folks home bus pull up. I remembered I had $20 in my pocket which i was completely ready to bribe the driver to get us back to town. I asked Thomas if he wanted to go home. He said ‘no’. He lay in my lap for a few more minutes then ate the protein bar i gave him. By the time his class got back up the hill from the fish gut demonstration Thomas was feeling better. He finished the field trip but I brought him home with me. He said his stomach feels a bit weird- as it always does after one of his fainting spells. All in all we had a really great time together. He’s still at that stage where it’s ok for me to be around. The bad news is, i don’t think he’ll be a surgeon or a fisherman or a dentist- or anything that requires blood and body parts. OH well

Tomorrow is a very busy, but fun, fun day
so Happy Halloween in advance!
T