The Castaway Hotel - 5 - 37. Chapter 37 - Small Acomplishments

On Monday, I went in to my office. I was pretty much up to speed on most things now, so I was now ready to fly solo. This meant I could go through the day without all of the constant meetings that were scheduled to fill me in about the issues I wasn’t familiar with. All in all, it hadn’t been too bad of an adjustment period for any of us and everyone was being super-nice. I knew this was just because we were still in the honeymoon period and this wouldn’t always be the case. However, I’d try to enjoy it while it lasted.

One afternoon, after I got home from work, I discovered a letter in our mailbox. It was addressed to the Thomas Cole AEA Memorial Foundation, using our address, so I figured it was merely another request for the free packet of material. Therefore, I was surprised when I opened it and began to read the letter. It got to me immediately and this is what I read.

To the person who founded the Thomas Cole AEA Memorial Foundation,

I just wanted to let you know that you helped to save my friend’s life. You didn’t do it yourself, but by letting me know how dangerous AEA is. After my teacher told us about this in class, it made me talk to my friend, so I could make him promise not to do it any more. I think that promise saved his life.

Maybe I should explain how it happened. My friend and I are both 15 and he got into AEA because he heard his brother’s friends talking about how kewl it was. They raved about what a rush they got when they shot their load while doing it and said it was way better than normal. My friend thought this sounded great, so he started doing it too. After our health teacher explained the dangers of AEA in class and passed out the stuff you sent her, I tried to talk him out of doing it any more, but he wouldn’t stop. He said it felt too good to just quit. I did get him to promise me not to do it unless someone else was there with him, so at least he wasn’t going to do it alone. That’s why I was always there with him whenever he did it, and we both kind of just got off at the same time, you know.

Even though I did it at the same time he did, I wouldn’t try the AEA. One day he kind of passed out after he shot, with the rope still tied around his neck. I was able to get it off him when I saw what happened or else he would have died. I even had to give him mouth-to-mouth, since he stopped breathing because of it. I’m also glad I took that class from the Red Cross. I’m sure he would have died if I hadn’t been there, cuz he had the rope tied to the bar in his closet and then around his neck, while he sat on the floor. When he passed out, he kind of laid back, with his body on the floor, but his head was kind of dangling in the air. It was really scary.

After that happened, I convinced him to give up messing around with AEA completely. I guess what happened must have really scared the crap out of him too, because he didn’t argue with me about it this time.

Since I nearly lost my best friend, but was able to save him because of the stuff you gave our teacher, I thanked her for telling us about how dangerous it was. That’s when she told me I should write to the Foundation and let you know you helped save my friend’s life and thank you too. So, thank you for what you did and I promise neither of us will ever mess with AEA again and we’ll do everything we can to stop others from doing it too.

Your friend,
Bobby

I was really moved by this letter, and now knew we had saved at least one life due to our efforts, so maybe Tom’s death wasn’t entirely without purpose. I decided to make a copy of this, to keep for myself, but I was going to send the original, along with an additional note from me, to Tom’s parents. I thought they should also know that the Foundation created in Tom’s name had helped to save someone else from the same fate and felt it might give them a little solace, or maybe bring a greater sense of closure to their suffering. I also hoped I would hear back from them about this.

Apart from that good news, other things weren’t going as well. The search for the new Superintendent was moving along smoothly, but proceeding more slowly than any of us would have liked. The school district had posted advertisements in the local newspaper, as well as the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh papers, but they had also posted it with some of the online job search organizations and in several professional publications. The letters of application and resumes were beginning to roll in, but not in the quantities, nor quality, we might have wished. The selection committee would meet occasionally, to go over them and would immediately weed out those that didn’t meet the minimum requirements or the ones where the applicant’s credentials didn’t seem to be quite what we were looking for. It was beginning to seem that by having this opening so late, it grossly limited the number of people responding to it.

If the letters of application made it through that process, then we would conduct telephone interviews with the candidate, to get an impression about their personality, educational philosophy and communication skills, before the committee would determine whether we were interested enough in them to request they come for an in-person interview. If they agreed to make the trip, we would tell them it would be seven to ten days before we set up the interview and then advise them our plan was to hire and have the person onboard by mid-August.

Over 80% of the applicants who had reached the telephone interviews were eliminated after we spoke to them, for a variety of reasons. Some did not share the same educational philosophy or goals the board had established, while others didn’t seem to be able to think on their feet or their personality was deemed to be too abrasive to fit in with the locals. Others were eliminated because they didn’t seem to have the required verbal skills necessary for someone in such a high position, as this person was in essence the spokesperson for the entire district. One was also eliminated because of the grammatical and usage mistakes he made while answering questions, such as choosing words that were inappropriate in that context. It appeared this would be a long and time consuming process, so we had to focus solely on favorable end results and not on a speedy timeline.

During this time I also started my new trio on their driving lessons. Although I wasn’t so worried about Trey and Nick, I did have some questions where Vinnie was concerned. I wasn’t sure if his muscular deficiencies would cause him problems in driving or require him to use special equipment, like hand controls instead of the traditional foot pedals. I also wasn’t exactly sure how to broach this subject with him, since I didn’t want him to think I was trying to discourage him from getting his license, but I needed to know he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage or put at risk because of his handicap. Eventually, I just decided I had to try to do this as tactfully as I could.

“Vinnie, I know you want to get your license,” I told him, after getting him alone, “but I do have some questions to ask you about this first.”

“Okay, that’s not a problem,” he replied, looking quite unfazed about my singling him out.

“I’m glad you feel that way and I hope these questions don’t offend you, but these are things I feel I have to ask,” I continued.

“Don’t worry about that. I owe you way too much to let anything bother me,” he replied, and I hoped he was being sincere and not merely trying to butter me up.

“Well, I hope what I have to say won’t bother you,” I reiterated, still slightly concerned. “First, are you going to need any special equipment or anything different in order to learn how to drive? I mean, I’m not sure if your legs will be able to do everything that is required of them.”

“Nah, I know I’ll be fine and won’t need anything special,” I shot back, without hesitation. “My legs will do just fine.”

“How do you know that?” I countered, trying to pin him down and make him be more specific.

“Well, my dad used to let me drive his car on some of the back roads near our house,” he confessed, “and I could operate the pedals without any problems. It really wasn’t that hard.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” I agreed, “but please let me know if you have any doubts or change your mind.”

“I’m sure. You’ll see,” he told me, “but I will let you know if anything changes.”

“Okay, I’ll hold you to that,” I confirmed. “If you are as committed to this as you are with everything else, I’m sure you’ll do fine. We’ll go out Saturday for the first time, okay?”

“Yeah, that’ll be great,” he agreed.

“Well, I’ll let you tell Trey and Nick about it then,” I continued, “since you three will make up this group.”

“That sounds good to me,” he confirmed, “and I’ll be happy to let them know. Thanks, Pop.” After giving me a quick hug, he took off to inform his new partners in crime – I mean driving.

The first lesson actually went pretty well, in fact even better than I’d anticipated. It was nothing heavy, just my typical first lesson where I go over some of the basics and then let them drive around the empty school parking lot. I like to do this so I can get a feel for where they’re starting from and how much work we’ll have to do.

Since this was the most diverse group I had worked with to this point, I wasn’t sure what to expect. You see, there was Trey, my meek, quiet and thoughtful one, juxtaposed against Nick, the aggressive, sweet-talking conman, and then there was Vinnie, who was bright and confident, yet had the physical limitations to overcome. I somehow knew this class wouldn’t just be a repeat of the others, yet I surmised it might also be the most rewarding of all my efforts. In a way, I was really looking forward to this challenge and the individual victories that awaited us at the finish line.

After we got back home, I jumped on the computer and discovered I had received another email from Ricky. That reminded me of something else. Even though it was only June, I figured I had to start planning for Ricky’s birthday, which was on July 7th. I would talk it over with the boys, to see what they thought we should get him, but we’d have to send it within a week, two at the most, to give it plenty of time to arrive there for his big day. I suggested the boys try to be discrete and get some ideas from Ricky, either when they talked to him on the phone or through their emails, since I felt my doing so would be too obvious. They didn’t seem to mind my request to discover what he might want; in fact I think they liked that idea of getting it out of him, without him learning what they were up to. Even though I figured I’d probably end up sending him some extra money too, so he could enjoy himself and be able to do more things while he was there, I wanted to do something more than that for his birthday.

Hi Dad,

My host parents took me to see some of the area over the weekend. It was really neat. They kind of live in the foothills of the Blue Mountains here, and they took me there to see some of the places that everyone comes to see. First, we went to this place called Echo Point, so I could see what they call the Three Sisters. It’s three mountains jutting up into the air, but it’s supposed to be three sisters who were turned into stone. They said it is part of some Aboriginal legend.

I guess that a long time ago there were supposed to be these three beautiful sisters in one tribe and three brothers from another tribe fell in love with them. The problem was that the tribes didn’t really get along, so neither tribe would let them marry. This made the brothers mad, so they captured the three sisters and took them away, but this started a big war between the tribes. This put the three sisters in danger, cuz they might get killed during the war, so a witchdoctor from their tribe turned them into stone, to keep them safe. He planned on turning them back after the war ended, but the witchdoctor got killed in one of the battles. That caused a big problem, because he was the only who could turn them back, so they have been left as these rock mountains ever since.

Peter and I even walked up and down what they call the Giant Stairway. It’s got like 800 steps in it, so that’s why my host parents didn’t want to go with us. We had a great time, but it can be a little scary. I slipped once and thought I was a goner. Peter laughed at me when it happened and I just sat there, because I was afraid I’d crapped my pants, but that didn’t really happen, thank God. Well, it was still a good time.

I got even with Peter later though, after we got back home. The next morning I sneaked into his room and pounced on his bed while he was sleeping. I scared him really bad. I think he even peed himself a little, but he wouldn’t admit it. I told him he deserved it, but he just pushed me off him and raced to the water closet, that’s what they call their bathroom.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about their house. It’s what we would call a ranch house and it has three bedrooms. The biggest bedroom is my host parents’ bedroom, and then there’s Peter’s room and the guest room, which I use. They have a kitchen, dining room, and what they call a lounge room. That’s kinda like our living room or family room. They have a pool too, so Peter and I will do some swimming. I’m hoping to talk him into skinny-dipping with me when his parents aren’t home. Maybe we can get Kylie to come over and join us, lol. Oh, yeah, maybe I forgot to tell you. Kylie is the girl that Peter introduced me to. We’ve been talking a bit and getting to know each other. She’s kinda nice.

Well, I’ll write again in a few days. Love you all and miss you, but not that much. Hehehe Please write me back.

Love,
Ricky

Everyone got a kick out of Ricky’s email, as it was vintage Ricky. It showed he is still the adventurous one, as well as a prankster, and can have a good time with either boys or girls. He’s very versatile and adaptive, and it sounded like he was enjoying himself. I did get a little concerned when I read about his slipping while climbing those stairs, but knowing Ricky, he probably played that up to make it sound worse than it was, just for our benefit. It probably wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounded, or at least I hope it wasn’t.

I try to get a couple of the boys to respond to each of Ricky’s emails and I try to send something to him as well. That way he’ll get a chance to hear from each of them, at one time or another, without being overwhelmed by having a mailbox full of emails all at once. I hoped he appreciates how it is working out.

On the job front, the search for a new superintendent is not going very well. We aren’t positive if this were merely the result of the opening happening so late in the hiring season, which meant the most qualified candidates had already accepted other appropriate positions by this point. As a rule, superintendents are usually brought on board just as the old school year is coming to an end, while openings for other positions are generally filled over the summer and up to the moment when the new school year begins. No matter the reason for our problems, we knew the quality of the applicants we were getting fell short of meeting our standards.

Out of all the letters of application and resumes we went through, we did phone interviews with fifteen of those applying, but only two of them were good enough to be considered for a face to face interview. We invited each of them to come for a two-day visit and interview, figuring this would give us sufficient time to evaluate them.

One of the candidates was male and the other a female, but neither had a solid administrative background showing a progression of increasing and varied responsibilities. Not only that, but they also didn’t have a grasp on what the future of education might portend. Neither was able to give any indications of what changes they foresaw happening educationally in the near future, no matter how much we tried to draw them out. Above all else, the district needs a leader with definite visions for this job, so we concluded we would just have to keep looking.

After this less than encouraging episode, the search committee decided to extend their deadlines. They agreed to do this in hopes that other, more qualified and acceptable candidates might apply. This meant we were, in effect, starting the process over again. Therefore, we notified the publications we had posted the position in earlier that we were extending our search, while also agreeing to study what other publications or vehicles we might use to get this information out. Along these lines, we decided to send personal letters to all university and colleges within a 300 mile radius that awarded advanced degrees in educational administration and ask them to post it in their placement listings or possibly send out copies of the information to candidates who had earned such degrees within the past five to ten years. We didn’t want recent graduates to apply and calculated those with a few years experience in the field would be better suited to meet our needs, but only time would tell.

Back on the home front, the driving lessons were going pretty well, but we did need to make a few adjustments. One was that we rotated between using the Grand Am and the 4-Runner Vinnie had donated to the family, because it seemed to be easier for Vinnie to operate the pedals in the 4-Runner. In thinking about this, I concluded it had something to do with the angles of the seat to the pedals, as the Grand Am was much lower and laid out in a more horizontal fashion, but the other boys didn’t mind switching back and forth. However, it did mean Vinnie would definitely take his road test in the 4-Runner, where I would give the others their choice. Therefore, I might have to schedule those tests on two different days, one day for each vehicle.

My biggest job with this group was trying to get Trey to be a bit more aggressive at times, like when he was accelerating to prepare to pull into traffic. At the other extreme, I had to pull the reins in on Nick, as he tended to be a bit over-aggressive. Vinnie, on the other hand, had learned he had to be a little aggressive if he wanted to succeed, just to overcome the obstacles he encountered in life, but he also knew he couldn’t get too aggressive, because of his disability and the limitations it imposed on him. Surprisingly, at least to me, he seemed to be doing the best of all of them, and I wasn’t even sure at the start if he’d be able to drive.