Exception to the rules?

I recently read a news story about a 19 year old boy that won't be allowed to play basketball with his team this year.  In Michigan they have a rule that anyone that turns 19 before September 1st is ineligible to play.  This particular boy has Downs syndrome and was held back in kindergarten, so he is now 19.  His parents are trying to get them to make an exception for students with special needs. 

The story itself is not what catches my attention, what really made me stop and do a double take was the comments after the story.  They were mostly negative against the boy and his and his family.  I don't know why but I was really surprised by that.  I guess I thought it was human nature to look at people with special needs in a kinder light.  To give them more of a pass than you would a "normal" kid.

One person even said that if they do make an exception for this boy, the athletic board would be in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Wow!  I can see where that case can be made but is it correct?  This person’s argument was, the whole point of tAwDA is for everyone to be treated with equality, and if they made an exception, well that wouldn’t be equal now would it.  I see their point.

However, I completely disagree.  People with special needs, sometimes are just that, people with Special needs.    The point of tAwDA, as I see it, is to make sure people are allowed to live as full a life as possible given the challenges they already face.   It is there to make sure someone of sound mind cannot be turned away from a job just because they are in a wheelchair.  It is there to make sure a blind person is allowed to bring their service animal is permitted inside a restaurant.  It is not there to be used against people whose mental capacity is may not be where it should be for their age.

I have a daughter with Autism, so this is something that has always bothered me- physical age limits for the disabled.   How do you explain to a child that she is too old physically for something she is the right age for mentally?   The first time I can remember this being a problem was at a company Christmas party.  Santa was to show up with gifts for all the kids under 12.  Our daughter was 12 physically but probably 7 mentally, so she had aged out of the party, but how do you explain to a 7 year old that she is the only one Santa doesn’t have a gift for. 

The tAwDA is a great thing, but it should take into account that there are some Americans with disabilities that simply can’t and shouldn’t be treated equally.  There are some people that should have concessions made for them.   Just something to think about, as you go through your day. 

Site number…

Dear Reader,

It was supposed to be a fun family outing, a quick little get away.  That’s what it was supposed to be, but that wasn’t how things worked out.

I am getting ahead of myself, for you to understand my story, for you to attempt to fathom the terrible fate that befell my family, you must first meet them.

Sara was the oldest and at 15 you couldn’t tell her much she didn’t already know.  Then there we Jacob, he was 14, and I guess what the girls would call handsome.  Jacob was big for his age but bigger in his own mind.  There was me, I am really nothing special, just your average kid.  Oh, and of course there was mom and dad.  You know the ones, laughing at their own stupid jokes, droning on about keeping the campsite tidy and yelling “Be careful with that flaming marshmallow”.

Yeah, that where this all started, with a simple camping trip.  We were at our favorite campground, in our favorite spot.  Looking back maybe that should have been a red flag.  You see our favorite spot was very popular, and we were shocked to find it was unreserved when we planned our little impromptu camping trip.  We just counted it as our good fortune and went off to enjoy ourselves.

Things were great the first day, we set up camp, swam, rode our bikes, and ate hotdogs roasted over the fire. 

Later that night Sara walked to the bath house, for a shower.  We heard a scream, and ran in that direction.  We got there in time to see Sara run out wrapped in a towel.  She was babbling about something cutting her.  She was bleeding, but Mom said it was probably just a piece of rough plastic from the shower curtain, and she would be ok.

Late that night I woke to a noise outside our camper. I sat up to listen, but no one else stirred.  Maybe I imagined it, or it was an animal foraging pieces of carelessly dropped hot dog buns.  No, there it was again, a scratching noise, followed by a thump and what is that?  Is it dragging something?  I couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t bring myself to look out the window.  I pulled the covers up to my eyes and listened.  The next thing I knew the first rays of dawn crept through the small openings around the curtains of our old camper.  Something was moving outside.  Mustering the courage that seems to accompany daylight I slowly pulled back the curtain.  Mom was making breakfast.

When I walked outside, mom asked if I had seen Jacob.  I hadn’t, he was probably up early for a run.  When he hadn’t come back by that afternoon, the police were called and a search party was formed.  There was no trace of him.

Our family was worried and there was no chance of enjoying the rest of the trip, but my mom would not think of leaving.  So we stayed. 

That evening my sister walked down to the water to watch the sun set.  She took a towel and a book with her.  That was all we found, when she didn’t come back to camp, just her towel and a book.  No Sara, not a sigh of what had happened.  

The police were again called and a search party again formed, and again they turned up nothing.  There were mumblings about runaways or suicides, but no one really knew what to think. 

We stayed; I guess we had no choice.  What if they found their ways back to camp?  What if they were simply lost in the woods?  We couldn’t leave them. As much as every cell in my body wished we could just go home, I knew we had to stay. 

That night Mom and Dad walked together to the bath house.  Almost from the second they left I felt something.  I’m not sure I can really describe it, it was just something in the air, a thickness. I waited and listened.

The screams pierced the night in a thousand places.  They seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I wanted to run, but where could I go?  Into the water?  Into the woods?  Past the bath house toward the main road?  None of these sounded like good options. There was nowhere to go and nothing left to do but wait.

This letter was my only hope to get our story out and warn others.  What is that?  The scratching has started again.  It sounds as if there are more of them now. I have to hurry I know there isn’t much time left for me, but maybe I can save others if I can just warn them.  They are at the door, the scratching is so loud, I can’t take it.  My time is up but I have to focus. Listen to me no matter what, no matter how perfect you think it is, you have to STAY AWAY from campsite site num^FDA

Mary Celeste-Jinxed?

The Mary Celeste

On November 7, 1872 the ship departed New York with 1700 barrels of raw American alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy.  At its helm was a man named Captain Briggs.  He was young but had already been in charge of three other ships. Also aboard was the Captain’s wife, young daughter and a crew of seven.

On December 4^th 1872 the Mary Celeste was found floating alone in the Atlantic Ocean.  There was enough food and water on board for approximately 6 months.  The weather at the time was good, although there had been sporadic reports of bad weather in the Atlantic during that time frame.  The passengers and crew were missing along with one life boat,  the sextant, marine, and all the ships papers other than the Captain’s log.    

So what happened to the ten souls that left port with the Mary Celeste?  There has been a lot of speculation over that very question.

Were they attacked by pirates?  All the crew’s personal belongings and the ship’s cargo were still on board so that is unlikely.

 Were they, as some believed, robbed by the very people that “found” the Marie Celeste?  The Captains of the Dei Gratia Captain Morehouse and Captain Briggs were family friends.  In fact they dined together the night before Briggs set out.  There was some disagreement as to whether there were signs on a struggle on board or not.  Ultimately the court decided there was no evidence of piracy or foul play, nor of mutiny, struggle or violence. Afterward, the salvagers or crew of the Dei Gratia were awarded a payment, amounting to one-sixth of the $46,000 insurance covering the ship and its cargo ($730,000 in current money).  

The most logical theory was that some of the alcohol in the cargo hold began to leak.  When faces with toxic fumes and the possibility of an explosion, the people on board simply trailed behind the ship in a life raft to let the fumes dissipate.  The rope wore and they were lost to the sea.  This theory is supported by the fact that there was reportedly a hank of rope found “tied to the ship very strongly and the other end, very frayed, was trailing in the water”.  Moreover, although the ship’s cargo was first thought to be intact, once it was unloaded, nine barrels were found to be empty.

We will probably never know what really happened, and it is an interesting story for sure, but not the only strange story to surround the Marie Celeste.  Some even say she was jinxed.

When first built she was named Amazon.  Her first Captain was Robert McLellan.  He was the son of one of the owners, and the first to succumb to her “curse”.  He contracted pneumonia and died just days after leaving port.

 John Nutting Parker, the next captain of the Amazon, struck a fishing boat, and had to return to the shipyard for repairs. At the shipyard, a fire broke out in the middle of the ship, thus ending his short stint as Captain of the Amazon/Mary Celeste.

Her next voyage seemed to be going well, until it collided with another ship in the English Channel near Dover, England.  The third captain immediately left to seek other employment.

The next six years passed uneventfully, but in 1867, the ship ran aground during a storm off Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. After that she was salvaged, and bought by Richard Haines of New York, and repaired.  In 1868, she was transferred to the American registry, and in 1869, was renamed the Mary Celeste.  The ownership of this sailing ship was then divided into 24 shares, owned by four partners :James H. Winchester, Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs , Sylvester Goodwin, and Daniel T. Sampson. 

After Captain Briggs’ disappearance, James Winchester considered selling the Mary Celeste. He made up his mind after he felt the ship took his father Henry Winchester-Vinters’ life. Henry drowned in an accident in Boston, Massachusetts while bringing the ship back to America. Winchester sold the Mary Celeste at an enormous loss. Over the next 13 years, the ship changed hands 17 times.

By this time she was in bad condition, and her last captain and owner, G. C. Parker, over insured her cargo, and deliberately wrecked the Mary Celeste in the Caribbean Sea on January 3, 1885.   She refused to sink and Parker tried to set her on fire.  Even after the fire, the vessel remained intact, though the ship's log was destroyed along with Benjamin Briggs' prior entries.

Parker filed an inflated insurance claim for a cargo that never existed, the ensuing insurance investigation revealed his attempted fraud. Parker sold the salvage rights for $500.  Captain Parker was arrested, and put on trial for the intentional destruction of a vessel. At that time, the sentence for doing so was death.  Despite clear evidence of Parker's guilt, the jury deadlocked.  Despite his acquittal, he and almost everyone indicted for actions related to the shipwreck were ruined.  Captain Parker died three months later.

The partially burnt hulk of the Mary Celeste was deemed beyond repair and she was left to eventually slip off the shoal and sink.

In 2001, an expedition headed by author Clive Cussler (representing the National Underwater and Marine Agency) and Canadian film producer John Davis along with divers from the Nova Scotian company EcoNova announced that they had found the remains of the brigantine where Parker had wrecked her. Maritime archaeologist James P. Delgado identified the wreck as Mary Celeste based on the location, along with other factors.  One researcher has disputed Cussler's claim. Scott St. George of the University of Minnesota maintains that the wood recovered from the wreck, was cut from trees still living at least a decade after the Mary Celeste sank, putting the authenticity and identification of this shipwreck in question.

The Mariners' Museum in Newport News has a detailed waterline model of Mary Celeste, depicting the brigantine exactly as she was found in 1872.   The crew and passengers of the vessel are listed in the ship's records reproduced from the original in the National Archives, Washington, D.C. as;   Benjamin S. Briggs, 37, Captain, American; Albert G. Richardson, 28,Mate, American; Andrew Gilling, 25, 2nd Mate, Danish; Edward Wm Head, 23, Steward & Cook, American; Volkert Lorenson, 29, Seaman, German; Arian Martens, 35, Seaman, German; Boy Lorenson, 23, Seaman, German; Gottlieb Gondeschall, 23, Seaman, German; Sarah Elizabeth Briggs, 31, Captain’s Wife; Sophia Matilda Briggs, 2, Captain's daughter.