Polar Plunge 2011

Why do I jump into icy water in Wisconsin, in February, when the temperature is in single digits? People have called me crazy, but I love doing it. This is my fourth year doing the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics, Wisconsin. Let me tell you.

My son, who I love very much, and am so proud of has been diagnosed as autistic. What does that mean? It means that he is different and unique, just as everyone is. Only Andrew sees the world differently than most people. He interacts differently than most people. Autism is a spectrum disease, and just to say someone has autism really doesn't describe that person. No two autistic people are exactly alike. Andrew is very good looking. He is sweet. He has a sense of humor. He can name every town and village in Wisconsin, and he can tell you how to get there and how long it will take. He loves looking at maps. He loves going on the computer. He loves cars. Once I thought he would never be able to speak, verbally. But he's quite good at it. He has excellent math skills, and is a good reader. But it's hard for him to carry on a conversation. He gets stuck on certain phrases sometimes, some sounds really bother him, and he has mannerisms that most people would recognize as typical of people with autism. There are very many things he just can't do, and might not ever do, but he is an amazing person, and can do so many things, too. I would not trade him in for another. Not in a million years, not ever. Suffice it to say that people with cognitive disabilities are near and dear to my heart. Special Olympics is something just for people like Andrew, and that is why I support it.

One Thursday, as I was giving the message, I discussed polar plunges. Shaking hands afterward, someone challenged me to actually go ahead and do it. I have never regretted it, and this year was my fourth year. I drove there in snow. I looked at the temperature. Eight degrees Fahrenheit! But I have ways of preparing. Cold showers for a week! Exercise. I make sure that I wear basketball shorts and a tank top for the plunge. As lightly as I can dress. Good shoes are a must... but no socks. Plenty of towels for after, and dry clothes.

The plunge itself is awesome. It happens very quickly. Normally I am chicken to even wade into a cool swimming pool, but it doesn't bother me for some reason to do the plunge. Going into the water is a rush of adrenaline. It is a bit disorienting, especially when I do my belly flop... that has now become my standard way of going about it. I force myself to stay in the water for an extra second or two, just to get the full effect, and then I head to the trailer... and go to work on getting as dry as I can and putting on some carefully chosen warm clothes.

For the rest of the day I bundle up as much as possible, I look forward to the next year, and I am filled with warm memories of this plunge and plunges past. This year I was able to raise $905 dollars that with the help of very many wonderful people, all of it going for Special Olympics. This has truly been a great day for me.

You can see my Polar Plunge web site on my previous blog, with a picture of last year's belly flop!

Laura Plantation

After our time at the swamp, we headed to... Laura Plantation! What started out just as seeing a house and examining some architecture turned into an introduction into a whole way of life and a culture that was very foreign to me. At first, walking around the outside of Laura Plantation, I was struck by the oppressive heat. I couldn't imagine living and working there. In fact, everyone, including the slaves, used to take a break in the afternoon, after getting up to work very early in the morning, while it was still dark. A bell reminiscent of the Liberty Bell summoned them to work and to mealtime. The second thing that hit me was that I had stepped into a time machine. The story of Laura plantation goes way back! It was built by Guillaume Duparc, who had aided the American Revolution during the battle of Yorktown, and built the plantation in 1804, having received the land from Thomas Jefferson. The house was built in the middle of a Colapissa Indian village that had existed there for over a century. Architecturally, the house was amazing, with a raised brick basement level, and bricks between posts above that. You can see the Roman numerals carved in the floor beams, because it was a prefabricated house, built by highly skilled Senegalese slaves out of imported cypress and locally fired brick. Thanks to the numbers, the workers knew right where to put each beam! The house itself was built on 72 brick pillars whose bases touched eight feet underground! As we went around the basement, we saw the lone surviving wine rack, as well as several large earthen vessels, which were what they used for refrigerators, burying them in the moist Mississippi silt! Each generation that lived there carried on their unique version of the Creole way of life, which was marked by excesses of privilege, pleasure, rivalry, monotony, and tragedy at various times. In fact, though slavery was a way of life, it was not, at first, a matter of White and Black. The main thing that mattered was whether you were Creole or not. That of course, would later change. As we toured the house, we saw many pictures of the original inhabitants, as well as original French-style furniture. Then we stepped outside again, and saw where the detached kitchen had been built, and a planting of various banana trees, and several of the slave quarters. At one time the slave houses extended three and a half miles into the sugar cane fields. In fact, workers used to live in these buildings all the way up until 1977! In looking over my photographs both of the house and of the slave cabins, I was struck by the different qualities of light. In the house, it was very bright and harsh. It had a coldness about it quite apart from the temperature. On the other hand, where the slaves used to live, there was a warmth and a wholeness. Two families used to live in each building, and each building had a pig pen, chicken coop, and garden. The legacy of the slaves there came to be known through the stories that were told, tales that we now know by the collective names "Br'er Rabbit" and "Br'er Fox." There was so much food for thought, and so much that was foreign to my way of thinking there. I still have a great many questions. What was laissez faire--their philosophy on the plantation--all about, and why exactly did Laura Locul (the plantation's namesake) really leave the plantation and live a very different life than her Creole forbears? Did she really turn her back on her past, or was it more about embracing a world that had dramatically changed during her lifetime? What did Laura's family think of the slaves, and what did they think of her family? Ironies abounded. There really are no satisfying answers to be had, having peered into a different world and different time.

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