Category: Bo, Jack, Mark — and Donna

The Source Of The Problem

It was the Fourth of July, we were at North Topsail Beach, and it was hot.

My wife, Donna, took Jack, our mentally handicapped son, to the pier at nearby Surf City so they could sit in the shade. 

Jack doesn’t know very many words but he knows some sign language and he signed to his mother that he needed to go to the bathroom. Sometimes when he asks to go to the bathroom he really does need to go. Sometimes he doesn’t, he just wants to walk around. Or, maybe, he wants candy. He knows we’ll take him to the bathroom –don’t want to take a chance, do we – and on the way he might snag some candy.

Jack and Donna
Jack and Donna

He kept asking and she finally took him to the bathroom on the pier, too late. By then Jack, who was an adult in years, had what my wife called an “upset stomach” and on the way to the bathroom he left a trail.

“The bathroom was very small,” Donna told me. “I took off his bathing suit and washed it out but Jack wouldn’t put it back on – it was wet and cold. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a towel with me, and I couldn’t march him to the car naked.”

That’s when the man who worked there knocked on the bathroom door.

Donna said she asked him what he wanted and he said he was “looking for the source of the problem.”

“I told him the source was in here with me, and I asked him if he would do me a favor. I said, ‘I’m coming out and I want you to hold this door closed while I run to my car and get a towel.'”

So that’s what happened. He held the bathroom door shut and kept Jack from coming out wearing – nothing. Donna got a towel from her car, wrapped it around Jack, and off they went.

Jack was not embarrassed, he never is. Donna was pretty laid back too, all things considered. This was not her first rodeo.

Coming Friday: Everything Weighs Something

 

Broken!

Our son Jack is called “Jack” and his twin brother is called “Mark” for a reason.   Here’s the reason:

Mark and Jack
Mark and Jack

Jack was born first, and he won’t very pretty. The first time I saw him I thought, I sure am glad he’s a boy. If he was a girl, she would have a hard time finding a fellow. You might disagree, and that’s all right with me, but I think a man can do without good looks more easily than a woman.

And then along came Mark and he looked like Hollywood.

Both of their grandfathers, John F. Stith Sr. and Jack B. Hyland, were called “Jack” and we figured that, consciously or unconsciously, they would favor the grandson named Jack. So we gave the not-so-handsome son the name that we thought would endear him to his grandfathers.

The handsome son would be called Mark Harrison.

*  *  *

Jack, who is profoundly retarded, has a tiny vocabulary which made his comment on a photo in the newspaper all that much more surprising.

He can only say 12 or 15 words, words like “work,” “finished” and “beach” and his favorite foods — “shrimp,” “pizza,” and “cookie.”

Jack can’t read, of course, but he liked to look at newspapers. On this particular day there was a picture on the front page of a bad train wreck. Railroad cars were piled up, sticking out every which way.

Jack studied the photo and then said, “Broken!”

Postscript:

Mark was supposed to have been called “Hank” but his mother loved the name “Mark” and wouldn’t call him anything else.

Coming Monday: Strange But True, Parts I and II