I’ve got a box of board games that followed me when I graduated from San Jose State University in the early 1990s even as I moved from apartments to houses and from coast to coast.

Old-school games like Monopoly, Life, Risk and my personal favorite, Stratego, are now stacked in a game closet in our home. The old Stratego box is still in one piece, although weathered and with corners long ago split open. I’m proud to say that all 32 red and all 32 blue pieces from the original game are still there, ready to be placed into battle positions about once or twice per year.

It’s always a ton of fun when my younger son Marty randomly asks me to play Stratego. I tend to forget that it’s still there, and I always get a kick out of taking the box down from the shelf and playing it again. I used to win every time, but Marty has turned the tables and now beats me just about every time. We always play best two out of three games, and I rarely force a third game.

(I can’t beat him in ping pong anymore either, after years of superiority. I guess it’s an inevitable fact of life, seeing my sons Marty and Charlie overtake me in ping pong to the point where now I’m happy to at least put up double digits when we play.)

Apparently at some point I tossed my old Simon game into the box as I journeyed out on my path through adulthood. Or maybe my wife brought it to the relationship, I don’t recall after all these years. Regardless, the Simon box is long gone, but the hard plastic game endures and still works!

If you’re not familiar with Simon, it was originally introduced in 1978 by the company Milton Bradley and for many years now has been owned by Hasbro. It’s a primitive electronic game, powered by three AAA batteries. Made of durable black plastic, it’s a round hand-held game 8 inches in diameter, so just a tad smaller than a dinner plate and an inch tall (thick).

There are four large buttons on the face of the Simon circle, each one is 4 inches by 2 inches. There is a unique color for each button: red, green, yellow and blue. When the game begins, one of the buttons lights up and the little black speaker area in the center of the circle makes a corresponding beeping sound. Just as each button has a distinct color, each button has a distinct sound from the others.

Your job is to push the correct button to match what the game gave you: repeat after Simon. If you get it correct you move on, and two buttons light up and flash one after the other. You must remember the sequence as the number of colors/sounds increases. The randomly generated sequences might go something like blue, green, blue, yellow, yellow, yellow, blue, red and so on.

Each time you get the whole sequence correct, the game moves on and Simon shows you the entire sequence again and adds another color. The original game went only as high as 31 colors from beginning to end. If the player got all 31 correct in the sequence he/she won. Nowadays the modern version of this game goes up to 100, and in 2024 someone in Israel got all 100 correct, per my brief inquiry to Chat GPT.

A few weeks ago, Mary was home from her day program and stumbled across the Simon game in the family room game closet. We showed Mary how to play the game a few years ago. Those batteries from a few years ago were pretty good, because they still work today!

Mary has been playing Simon for a few months now. I’ll be upstairs and hear the Simon game making its electronic beeps as Mary follows along. Mary loves it and will play for an hour if there’s nothing else going on. I never had that much patience for the game to be honest, but it’s fun to see Mary get so wrapped up in it.

Mary’s not a savant, she doesn’t get 31 correct answers every game. In preparation for this blog, I paused and listened closely for about 15 minutes over the weekend. In most of her games Mary got between 8 and 12 correct answers before pushing the wrong button. A few times she went higher, other times she went too fast and crashed out after only a few correct answers. Occasionally she waited too long thinking, and the game ended because she didn’t answer in the allotted time.

It’s satisfying seeing Mary get so much enjoyment out of the old Simon game. She used to spend hours on her iPhone playing games like Flappy Bird or Temple Run or Candy Crush and that was fine. Now she’s fascinated with a 50-year old Simon game because she can hold it and see the colors and hear the beeps.

What’s old is new again. In Mary’s case the old Simon game is like her new best friend. Without question this is my favorite toy story of the year.

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If you drive an hour north of New York City you will see farms, corn, hills and streams. When I was a kid growing up in California, I assumed all of New York was like Times Square. That is, I thought the whole state was paved over and crowded!

After all, any time you see New York on television and in the movies, it’s always the hustle and bustle of New York City and its yellow taxis, skyscrapers and bridges and traffic. There’s an exciting energy to New York City, especially Manhattan, and in what locals refer to as the “outer boroughs” such as where we live in Queens. And there’s plenty of concrete, graffiti and traffic here.

Truth be told, I kind of love it and hate it at the same time!

Every October we unplug from the New York City grind and head to a farm just under two hours away, across the border into Connecticut. We tell people we’re going there to get our pumpkins, but of course we could get pumpkins within 5 minutes of home at about a dozen stores.

Instead, it’s all about tradition, the fresh air and panorama views from this farm on a mountain top. You can stand in the pumpkin patch, which is about half the size of a football field, and take a 360-degree spin and see nothing but far away mountain peaks in the distance. And if you come in October, those mountains are covered in a kaleidoscope of trees that are brilliant reds, oranges, yellows and greens.

It’s a magical place that we stumbled upon 20 years ago when our kids were toddlers. Back then we would hop onto the hayride, pulled along by a tractor through an adjacent field of hay bales. Though we don’t opt for the hay ride these days, I swear it’s the same tractor, trailer and probably the same driver as it was back at the turn of the century.

Some things do change a bit, however. In recent years we noticed a new suburban housing tract built a mile or so from the farm. The modern world is all around but given the farm’s elevation it continues to stand out as a timeless treasure.

Without question one of the farm’s greatest treasures is the corn maze. With corn stalks nearly 8 feet tall, you can’t see above or around the pathways, you must follow them and try to find the way out. And there’s also a game involved! At the entrance, you pick up a small scorecard and a golf pencil. The scorecard lists 10 questions, always around a specific theme, and as you make your way through the maze you keep an eye out for the 10 answers.

Mary knows the drill very well now and loves to take charge inside the maze.

“Let’s go this way!” Mary exclaims as we get started. My wife and I follow along eagerly. Sometimes one or both of Mary’s brothers join us, but this year they were out of town, and it was just the three of us.

Mary systematically made her way through the maze and found 9 answers. Uh-oh. We missed one somewhere. I asked Mary where we should go.

“Follow me,” Mary said and she headed back into the maze. In less than 10 seconds, Mary made four or five specific turns in the maze and ended up exactly where the missing answer was located. I was astonished and impressed, as I had feared we would spend 20 minutes looking for that last clue! Mary read the sign and answered the question on the card.

This year’s theme was all about gourds, and really don’t we all need to learn more about gourds? The final question was this: What kind of gourds are used to make bird houses? The answer: Bottle Gourds. You learn something new every day!

(Bonus fun fact about gourds: apparently the Mayans of Central America used to fill gourds with hornets or wasps and throw them at enemies. Imagine being the guy told to go fill the gourds with hornets!)

With the corn maze completed it was time for pumpkins. Mary loves to pull a small wagon and load it up with beautiful orange pumpkins. Of course, she goes for the biggest pumpkin she can lift first, and these days that’s a hefty pumpkin! Then she loads in five or six more and informs us it’s time to go.

We never leave without checking on the animals first. There’s a small barn a short walk from the pumpkin patch that has goats, sheep, pigs, chickens and turkeys in pens. The animals have enough room to roam around, and they can access part of the pen that is indoors and part that is outdoors.

Somehow, it never gets old. I can stand and watch the little pigs grunt and sniff and roll around for at least 15 minutes easily. Finally, it’s time to get in the car and head back to civilization. The drive home is a slow one, apparently everyone had somewhere to go on this 70-degree sunny fall day.

We at last reached the Whitestone Bridge and arrived back in Queens. The farm was great, but home sweet home is awesome as well. The pumpkins went from the car to the backyard shed, to be retrieved and carved in just a few more days on Halloween.

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In my day job as Regional Storyteller for Special Olympics New York, I meet lots of terrific athletes and coaches throughout the state. I enjoy hearing their stories, watching them compete, and then sharing the interesting highlights with the community via our website and social media.

It’s not unusual to hear an athlete talk about getting bullied, either as a kid or to the present day. The stress and pain caused by bullying is awful and unacceptable. While anyone can be bullied, and it’s never ok, people with disabilities are a common target. When they look or speak or act a little differently than others, unfortunately not everyone has the grace to accept them as they are.

Time and again, athletes have told me they find acceptance and friendship through Special Olympics New York. They get to be themselves and play basketball or hit softballs or run races. It’s a wonderful opportunity that brings positivity to their lives, often when it is most needed.

The topic of bullying has been on my mind recently. I’ve done interviews and written stories that didn’t focus on bullying, but it was mentioned as a real burden that athletes were dealing with. Then on Sunday I went on a late afternoon walk with my daughter. Mary, 25, has moderate autism and when we go on walks, she really gets into it. Mary walks with her arms pumping, often wildly, as she high steps her way down the sidewalk. She likes to take the lead and be out in front, and it’s all I can do to keep up with her!

When Mary is feeling especially enthusiastic, she often makes joyous “squealing” sounds. They’re hard to describe in words, but it’s an unusual sound that resonates with happiness.

Most people hear us coming before they see us! The other day, as we were coming around a bend, a teenage girl came jogging toward us wearing headphones. The girl may have been training for the upcoming marathon or just out for a run. Even with her headphones on, she gave Mary a long and exasperated look, like she couldn’t figure out why this person was squealing and waving her arms as she walked.

I learned long ago to ignore the weird looks. They don’t seem to bother Mary at all, so rather than get upset or try to explain Mary we just keep on moving. The long look from this girl wasn’t really bullying, but nevertheless a milder relative to that abusive treatment.

Later that afternoon at home, I asked Mary about bullying. Does she ever notice people staring at her or making her feel uncomfortable?

“No, I’m fine,” Mary said. “People are nice to me.”

When I asked Mary in greater detail about bullying, she wasn’t interested. “People are nice to me,” Mary said again and that was the end of that.

I’m glad Mary isn’t carrying this burden. She seems mostly uninterested in what other people think of her, and she’s totally uninhibited when it comes to singing loudly at church, advocating for herself if she wants something, or just not noticing a stranger making a longer-than-needed look as we’re walking.

Throughout Mary’s life she has attended a variety of schools, sometimes in inclusive settings with typical students and other times in all-special needs settings. Either way she’s been focused more on herself and her wants and needs, and I can’t recall ever hearing about her being bullied.

A fast-growing segment of Special Olympics New York is the Unified program, in which students with and without disabilities play together to compete in basketball or soccer or bocce or other sports. Bringing the students together helps break down barriers and reduce bullying in schools and beyond. There are Unified adult programs in some communities now as well.

Mary may be blissfully unaware of any bullying, but it’s a real threat to other people. We should all do our best to try to nip bullying in the bud if we hear of it and look for more opportunities to spread kindness.

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Later this month my daughter Mary and I will meet with at least a half dozen professional adults to discuss Mary’s safety.

Mary, 25, has moderate autism and attends a Medicaid-funded day habilitation program in Queens, NY near where we live. Every six months, we meet with several people from the day program as well as Mary’s Medicaid care manager and two professionals who oversee and manage the funding side of things. The topic of discussion will be Mary’s annual Life Plan.

Once individuals with disabilities “age out” of the New York City school system, they often go through rigorous testing and evaluations to achieve Medicaid funding. With that funding in place, parents and adult children tour various day program sites to find the best fit. It’s a long but important process and in our case, we spent more than a year reviewing options.

It was nearly three years ago that at last, Mary started attending the Quality Services for the Autism Community (QSAC) day program. Fortunately, she loves it there and attends Monday through Friday for about six hours per day. I have written about various aspects of the QSAC program over the past year in this blog, including the transportation team, the social engagement Mary gets, educational field trips, the opportunities to work as volunteer in the community, etc.

To continue funding, there are annual and semi-annual requirements. Most basic of all is the annual Life Plan review. Although the day program is not a school, it is a place for continuous learning and development. The Life Plan contains goals that everyone will strive to achieve in the coming year(s).

There’s also a full section of the Life Plan called “Individual Safeguards/Individual Plan of Protection” that discusses Mary’s capabilities and what amount of oversight she requires. This is always discussed in great detail and will be talked about again in our meeting.

I thought about the Safeguards discussion this past week when I heard about a tragic incident in Florida. I read that a 120-pound digital whiteboard used for teaching fell on a student and sadly that 5-year-old boy died from the injuries. My heart sank when I saw the headline, and I wondered if he had special needs. It has been reported that the boy had autism and apparently, he was fixated on the whiteboard and possibly caused it to fall.

There are no judgments here, I only know what I read and I know everyone involved is saddened and distraught about this tragedy. The investigation will run its course, and any settlement amount will never replace a beautiful young child, we all know that.

It illustrates just how challenging it can be to professionally and still warmly care for individuals with special needs. Each person is so unique, and behaviors are often unpredictable. I speak from experience, having fielded many phone calls from Mary’s school administrators over the years to get my thoughts on her various behaviors.

Mary went through early stages where she could get aggressive if she got upset. If she didn’t get advance notice about a change in plans, she could react negatively. She had to learn to stay with the group and not rush ahead when going on group outings. Over two decades Mary made significant progress in regulating her behavior thanks to a small army of amazing teachers, support professionals, therapists and others. Mary and my wife and I remember them all and are grateful for their hard work.

Mary’s current support army will take the upcoming Life Plan meeting seriously and discuss how to ensure Mary’s safety. We will discuss Mary’s latest abilities in using her phone if needed to call for help, if she can follow an emergency evacuation plan, how much supervision she needs when the group is out in the community, and so on. While 100% safety can never be guaranteed we will all do our best. Every parent is concerned about safety, but that element of unpredictability in many people with autism takes it to another whole level and I’m glad to review this on a regular basis.

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People were lining up at Starbucks coffee shops at 3 a.m. recently, and it wasn’t for coffee.

You may be aware that Starbucks created a frenzy in mid-September when it launched a limited-time collection of Snoopy-themed drinkware and collectibles. The global coffee chain timed the promotion to coincide with this month’s 60^th anniversary of the Peanuts’ It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown television special.

It was reported that “Starbucks Snoopy” was one of Google’s most-searched terms for a few days, and all of the items sold out quickly. Many are now available for resale at a significant price increase.

Alas, I won’t be getting any kickbacks from Starbucks or Peanuts for mentioning their iconic brands in my blog this week. I won’t even be getting any of the coveted Snoopy cold cups. But I did get an opportunity to stop and appreciate how endearing and incredible those Peanuts characters have become in our society.

My daughter Mary, 25, has moderate autism and she adores the Peanuts characters. For Mary, the passion or even obsession with Peanuts started early. When Mary was in kindergarten, she went through an entire school year carrying around a six-inch plastic Lucy figurine. It was the traditional Lucy attire with blue dress and flowing black hair, and it was always in Mary’s hand or on her desk or table. At some point it broke, and Mary grudgingly moved on to something else.

These days we have Peanuts plush toys, calendars, dishes and of course Peanuts-themed holiday decorations for occasions year-round. The October-November-December holiday triple crown of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are the backbone of the Peanuts franchise in my opinion.

(Side note: one of the best books I’ve read in years was the 2008 biography of Charles Schulz by David Michaelis. It’s widely available, including here: Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography | Barnes & Noble®. I read that book years ago and learned so much about how the author and his characters evolved over the years.)

If it’s possible, the Peanuts phenomenon has only increased as more years have passed. Thus, the lines at 3 a.m. for Snoopy coffee mugs. Mary isn’t up at 3 a.m., but she does see many Peanuts characters at 7 a.m. every day. The plush characters are lined up on her desk, leaning against the morning schedule Mary follows so religiously.

As soon as I see leaves changing colors and fluttering to the ground, I can’t help but think of the Peanuts Halloween special and Linus jumping into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker (lollipop). As the weather turns colder and football takes center stage, I think of the Peanuts Thanksgiving special and Lucy pulling the football away as Charlie Brown runs to kick it and falls flat on his back once again. A few weeks later the tree branches go bare here in New York, the weather turns really cold and we even start to see some snow north of the city. Of course, my thoughts turn to the Peanuts Christmas specials and the ridiculous-then-brilliant “Charlie Brown tree.”

Those television specials were must-see events in the 1970s and 1980s for Generation Xers, and now that our kids are mostly grown up it’s been fun re-watching them again every year. I remember as a kid seeing the commercials a week in advance touting the time and date to watch each special, then waiting all day for the show to finally start. You had one chance in those days, miss it and it was wait until next year. We never missed it, and neither did the other kids on our block.

Our kids grew up with DVD players, so we were able to watch the Peanuts holiday specials more often. Now, of course, DVDs are ancient and everything is streaming. Scratched and unplayable Peanuts holiday DVDs aren’t even a concern anymore. We can literally watch the specials whenever we want.

But we don’t. Nobody I know watches A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in March or August or even October. You watch them in order, in October and November and December.

And if you’re Mary, you watch each one with great excitement and enthusiasm, just like I did back in the old days. And like the younger me, Mary watches each of them only once per year!

Mary could watch the shows repeatedly now, like she watches Ratatouille almost every afternoon. But she doesn’t do that. Once Mary watches It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown at some point this October, that will be all. We can and probably will ask her to watch it again, especially on Halloween afternoon, but she won’t do it if she’s already seen it this year.

Apparently for Mary, too much of a good thing is just that, too much. If only I had that much restraint when it comes to the leftover Halloween candy bars!

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Balloons, some presents and an ice cream cake.

My daughter Mary turned 25 last weekend, and planning her birthday celebration was just about the easiest thing ever. Normally, a milestone birthday such as the 25^th might require travel plans, booking a banquet hall or making restaurant reservations, sending out invitations and perhaps hiring a live band or DJ.

Mary has moderate autism, so large crowds and noisy gatherings are not really her thing. Travel is mostly fine, but Mary also enjoys quiet time at home after spending six days per week engaging with peers at her day programs.

Although I kind of knew what to expect, I still wanted Mary’s input on how we should celebrate her 25th birthday. I asked what she wanted to do for her birthday a few weeks ago.

“I want balloons, some presents and an ice cream cake,” Mary said without hesitation. That was all. I waited for other requests, but none came. After some prompting, Mary added another request.

“I want cheese raviolis for dinner!” she exclaimed.

And with that, Mary moved along, confident that her birthday wishes would be fulfilled as planned.

You get one birthday a year obviously, maybe 70 or 80 or even 100 of them in a lifetime if you’re lucky. I know when my big day nears every June, I start thinking about golf reservations or a new hike we can check out or perhaps another long bicycle ride. For my 50^th birthday we even traveled all the way to Hawaii, where come to think of it we played golf and hiked in the paradise of Maui.

Mary though, prefers the simple pleasures. A quiet afternoon at home, some decorations around the house and some presents to open. Cheese raviolis have become a staple the last few birthdays, and an ice cream cake to top it all off and finish the day.

My wife and I initially started thinking about organizing a day of bowling or miniature golf for the birthday celebration, but Mary wasn’t particularly excited about them. She would have had fun, but she bowls every few weeks with her friends already anyway. Mini golf was an option but then the forecasters started talking about a massive “nor’easter” rainstorm, so we scuttled the outdoor plans.

Mary’s 25^th birthday was going to be simple: balloons, some presents, cheese raviolis and the ice cream cake. My wife wrapped presents and I decorated the house before Mary woke up on her big day. Later that afternoon we walked just a few blocks to buy the ice cream cake. Mary insisted on making the raviolis herself, which was just heating water, emptying a bag, and then adding the marinara sauce 9 minutes later after draining the water. Mary splurged and added peas to the dinner menu and loved every minute.

After dinner Mary opened presents, then we enjoyed the ice cream cake and singing, and then she headed upstairs for the comfort of her nightly routine of shower, pajamas and bedtime. She was out like a light by 9 pm, delighted to have enjoyed the simple pleasures of her choosing. The day was relaxing, nobody was overly tired, and despite the nor’easter howling outside we were warm and dry and content. Maybe there’s something powerful about keeping things simple after all.

Next year Mary’s 26^th birthday won’t be quite the same milestone, but I’m pretty sure I know what she’ll want: balloons, some presents and an ice cream cake!

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Do you ever walk into someone’s house or a medical office and notice right away that a picture has been hung crooked?

Sometimes I wonder, has it been like that a long time? Or did it just get bumped askew earlier today? How could they not notice? I would never say anything, but sometimes I do reach over and straighten it quietly as I pass by.

Mind you, I’m not saying every frame on our walls at home gets aligned with a level each morning. Far from it! We are not Zen Central with our pile of mail on the desk to be dealt with later, our traditional junk drawer full of pencils and pens that don’t work, and a particular kitchen cabinet door that refuses to hang straight no matter how often I get out a screwdriver and tighten the hinge screw.

We have our issues, but we also have Mary.

My daughter Mary, 24, has moderate autism and spends most of her afternoons at home. Upon arrival from her day program, Mary goes about her typical daily routine.

As she makes her way through the house, Mary stops at the dining room table to make sure all six chairs are aligned. They need to be pushed in, but not all the way in. The two chairs on the ends have arms, so those literally can’t get pushed all the way in. However, the other four chairs do not have arms – two chairs per side – yet they must be pushed in but no further than they would as if they had arms. Thus, all six chair backs are set the same distance from the table itself.

There’s a large handle on the oven door where we hang a dish towel. Does everyone do this? The towel hangs there perfectly straight. If the corners don’t align, or God forbid either the front or rear portion is hanging lower than the other, Mary will notice it on her next pass through the kitchen.

Mary crouches down low, knees bent like a Major League baseball catcher, as she carefully pulls on one side of the dish towel or the other to make sure the front and back are hanging exactly the same, with corners perfectly aligned. Mary doesn’t say anything, she just pops up and continues on her way.

There are other examples throughout the house, but you get the idea. Some would call this need for alignment “obsessive compulsive disorder” or OCD. Google Gemini summarizes one type of OCD as “the need for exact order, symmetry, or things to feel ‘just right’” and that describes Mary.

For some people, OCD can refer to fear of germs, obsessive cleaning, repeatedly checking and double checking if doors are locked, arranging items such as toy cars or blocks in a specific way that might only make sense to them, and so on.

OCD can be debilitating if it prevents a person from continuing with the rest of his or her day’s activities. Almost all definitions of autism include some form of OCD, and in my personal observations over the years that’s pretty accurate. Many of Mary’s former classmates and friends have exhibited these behaviors to various degrees, often significantly.

So Mary will arrange napkins on the dining room table just so and align the chairs. She’ll make sure the towels hang straight and she arranges all her stuffed animals so they’re looking in the same direction.

I’m sure most of us can think of our own OCD tendencies as well.

One that comes to mind immediately is the roll of toilet paper. Do you replace an empty roll with the new roll inserted so the paper hangs forward out the front, or hanging back along the wall? It’s quite a debate, isn’t it?

Guess what Mary says? She doesn’t care! If the paper hangs level, she’s good. Maybe Mary has settled that debate once and for all.

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My wife was at her nine-month prenatal appointment near the Queens/Long Island border the morning of September 11, 2001, when the world changed forever. I was working in midtown Manhattan that same morning, curious what news she would have for me as the Expected Date of our first baby Mary drew tantalizingly closer.

Unfortunately, the news of the terror attacks in lower Manhattan arrived first that morning. Uncertainty and fear spread instantly across New York City. My company advised everyone to clock out and leave immediately, and I joined the hundreds of thousands of people making their way outside to the chaotic sidewalks and then tried to figure out a way home.

The 9-mile walk home to Queens that day was sad and unpleasant, but I felt fortunate to be able to make that walk. There were so many lives lost that day, and so many heroes. I prayed then and will continue to pray for everyone who suffered losses that day.

This past weekend across New York City, Washington, Pennsylvania and all over the country there were moving tributes to the people we lost and the heroes of the NYPD, FDNY and so many others who stepped forward in a time of crisis 25 years ago this week. The tributes were far more moving and powerful than I could describe, and deservedly so. The bravery and compassion shown that day and in the weeks to come were beyond belief.

What I can describe is the relief we felt when my wife and I finally met at home. I recall a hug that lasted many tearful minutes. Service on our mobile flip-phones was spotty at best in those days, and my wife and I couldn’t connect until later that afternoon, so finally getting together and seeing her and her big belly were an emotional relief.

When Mary was born about two weeks later, it was a different world. The ripple effects were felt from coast to coast and continue to play out to this day.

For us, the joy and stress of learning to care for a newborn were incredible and life-altering yet most welcome. In a time of massive grief and despair, we suddenly had a beautiful new baby face looking up at us each day. We had doctor appointments and feedings and diapers to change round the clock.

I recall many walks to the park that fall pushing a ridiculously large green stroller with tiny baby Mary inside. (Over the next few years as Mary got bigger, the strollers got progressively smaller as I recall!)

As we followed the news and watched the changes occur in lower Manhattan over the next few years, we always felt blessed to have Mary’s loving presence in our family. She entered the world at a precarious time, but she brought us hope and the opportunity to look forward and set goals.

We would welcome two more babies in the next few years, little brothers for Mary. The little guy recently celebrated his 20th birthday, so the teenage years are done for us.

Lots of those goals set 25 years ago in our little old living room were achieved, while others were set aside. Mary was diagnosed with autism when she was 3, so goals were modified somewhat but always with Mary’s best interests in mind. New goals were constantly added, and the amazing people we met along Mary’s journey have enriched our lives significantly.

When I started seeing posters and television ads for 9/11 memorial shows and events the past few weeks, it kind of blew my mind that 25 years had passed already. There were so many days between then and now that I couldn’t tell you a thing about, but that specific day I remember so vividly.

And although Mary wasn’t quite born yet, she remains fixed in my mind from that day as well. We all need hope, and we all need to continually refresh our goals to find our way forward. In one of the darkest months of our nation’s history, our newborn baby Mary arrived to give us a bright ray of sunshine. She helped us see the world differently every day since.

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There’s an old saying that the person who runs the household “wears the pants” in the family. Long ago this may have referred to the man of the house, but in recent times most households I know are a collaboration. With both spouses or partners working and sharing in the duties I believe few individuals totally run the household anymore.

Earlier this summer, we had several family members visiting from Germany. Our niece and nephew are young adults now, and they brought their steady boyfriend and girlfriend along to see America for a few weeks. Somehow the topic of who wears the pants in the family came up, and the Germans laughed.

I asked what was so funny, had they not heard this expression before?

Quite the contrary as it turns out. I was informed that in Germany there’s an expression that the man wears the pants, but his wife tells him what color pants to wear each day! We all laughed.

I don’t know if my daughter Mary will run her own household someday. It’s possible. Mary, 24, has moderate autism and for now she lives at home with us. Mary is quite happy and attends a day program six days per week where she engages in sports and educational and recreational activities with other young adults who have autism.

Mary has a fascination with calendars, as I have noted previously regarding holiday decorations. The most recent calendar flip occurred a week ago on September 1. It was a bit confusing, however.

The calendar says it’s still summer. The calendar also says it’s September. Yes, two things can be true at the same time. If the season is summer, but the month is September when cooler fall weather descends upon New York City, what’s a young lady to wear?

I often pull out my phone and check the weather. It will be 85 F and sunny today? Ok, continue wearing shorts and keep the pants out of sight a while longer. In fact, I try to keep wearing shorts until Thanksgiving if possible!

Not so with Mary. When Mary woke up and flipped several wall calendars to September, that was it for the shorts.

When the calendar says it’s September, Mary wears the pants. No questions asked, no hemming and hawing. Regardless of the thermometer reading, Mary will be wearing pants from now until June 1. That’s just the way it goes.

Kind of makes life simple, one less thing to worry about. Who is wearing the pants in our family as the last few weeks of summer slip away? No question, that would be Mary.

Life with Mary is published every Tuesday. Feel free to subscribe and to share the link with friends.

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The Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is one of the most magical places in the world. It’s a bucket list location for global sports fans, and it’s right here in my backyard in Queens, New York.

For the past 25 years I have been attending the U.S. Open tennis matches at the national tennis center with sheer joy and excitement. Starting in the early 2000s in the Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Williams sisters era, on through the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic years to today, I’ve seen dozens of epic tennis matches featuring the world’s best players.

Just last week I saw an aging but still amazing Grigor Dmitrov of Bulgaria dazzle the crowds during qualifying on Court 17 with a variety of one-handed backhands, deft drop shots and powerful first serves. I saw Dmitrov play during the U.S. Open’s “Fan Week” when admission was free and the tennis was phenomenal.

As experiences have become pricier for everything from concerts to ball games to touristy travel spots, so has the U.S. Open, which has gotten some bad publicity this year due to the exorbitant price of tickets during the actual tournament. There’s some validity there. But despite the high prices, the matches are all sold out and the grounds swell with 70,000+ attendees each day for two full weeks.

What does any of this have to do with my daughter Mary? This blog is Life with Mary after all.

Mary, 24, has moderate autism and she has attended some matches at the U.S. Open over the years, but not many. It’s a sport that requires fans to be relatively still and very quiet during play, and those aren’t Mary’s strengths. She’s better off at basketball or baseball games where crowds are encouraged to MAKE NOISE in all caps bulletins on the scoreboards.

(Side note: I always wondered what it would be like if Roger Federer had to make a big serve with everyone in the stands behind his opponent standing up, screaming and waving their arms! I mean, how many free throws have Lebron James and Michael Jordan swished through effortlessly while the crowds erupted in pandemonium trying to distract them just a few feet behind the basket? Most!)

Because tennis is a genteel sport, some semblance of etiquette and manners is expected. That means largely sitting still and being quiet during points, then erupting in applause or laughter or excitement between points. That’s the way it works, whether there are 12 people watching on a side court or 24,000 people watching in the always sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens.

Mary’s experiences with tennis therefore have been almost entirely as a participant, not a paying customer. There are a few adaptive tennis programs for people with disabilities at the national tennis center, including wheelchair tennis for players with physical disabilities. There are also adaptive programs for children with intellectual disabilities, including an inspiring organization called Aceing Autism that operates tennis programs all over the United States.

Unfortunately, most Aceing Autism programs are only for children under 18. Same is true for almost every other adaptive tennis program in New York City. Sadly, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center itself does not offer regularly scheduled adaptive tennis opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities. The site of one of the biggest and best tennis tournaments in the world, a location with more than 30 tennis courts, doesn’t have a place for adults with autism for even one hour per week.

The national tennis center at times partnered with an outside organization called HERO to provide adaptive tennis programming for adults with intellectual disabilities, but a search for this program on the BJK NTC site this week showed that it’s no longer offered. The HERO website lists several locations in Westchester County but not in Queens. Oh well.

Fortunately, Mary participated in an adaptive tennis program in Brooklyn called Special Aces for most of her teenage years. That program is wonderful, with caring and understanding coaches and a bevy of young volunteers who help the athletes learn to play tennis. Mary loved playing there, and they bent the rules for an extra year or two after she aged out to give her an extended opportunity to play.

There are Special Olympics New York training clubs in Manhattan, Long Island and Westchester County that offer tennis for adults with intellectual disabilities. These are on our radar and could be options for Mary in the coming years, although each would require dealing with significant traffic times.

It’s probably not well-known, but the population of the borough of Queens is nearly 2.4 million people, which would make it the country’s fifth largest city if it was not a part of New York City. Only larger are the rest of New York City itself, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston!

So, the country’s fifth largest “city” hosts one of the world’s four major tennis tournaments and it boasts of an incredible tennis center with at least 30 regulation tennis courts. And yet, if you’re an adult with intellectual disabilities, you’re out of luck. Maybe it’s not fair to just pick on the national tennis center, even though they’re a big target. There are plenty of other tennis facilities all over Queens that don’t offer adult adaptive classes either.

Someday maybe Mary will join the Special Olympics New York team in Manhattan or Long Island. We’ll see how she feels and how it fits into our schedules with commute time included. And there are other sports besides tennis out there too.

Mary will keep hiking and bicycling and swimming and golfing and shooting basketballs, and life will go on. The U.S. Open also will go on for almost another two weeks, with close to a million paying customers soaking in the grandeur of it. I was one of them during Fan Week and again last Sunday on opening night. I loved it, and I will continue to love the energy and the high level of tennis competition there.

While at the U.S. Open the other day, I noticed they’re building a large fitness, training, dining and recreation center for the exclusive use of the professional tennis players, just beyond the current practice courts. It’s an impressive world-class building that will open in time for the U.S. Open in summer 2027.

If something that magical can get built at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, perhaps it’s possible to build an adaptive tennis program for adults with autism there too. Now that’s an idea worth adding to my bucket list.

Life with Mary is published every Tuesday. Feel free to subscribe and to share the link with friends.

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I noticed the odd breathing within the first minute that my daughter Mary stepped off the bus.

After two weeks away at a sleepaway summer camp, Mary rode out a two-hour bus ride back into New York City earlier this month. She left behind the serene rural rituals of camp and was dropped back into the hustle and bustle that is Midtown Manhattan on a weekday afternoon.

The sun was shining brightly, cars were honking and the sidewalk was crowded with suitcases, camp workers, parents, guardians and dozens of other young adult campers trying to reorient themselves to the city. As Mary walked down a few bus steps and onto the sidewalk I saw her processing her surroundings.

As I briefly noted two weeks ago, I had a huge smile on my face as I walked over and greeted my daughter. Mary, 24, has moderate autism and she wasn’t quite as quick to embrace me, or anybody. Right away I noticed her taking deep breaths in and out of her nose. Her nose breathing was actually audible when standing next to her.

OK, that’s odd I thought to myself. I didn’t recall Mary ever doing that before. I started to wonder if Mary had picked up some new habits while she was away.

We walked two blocks to the car, mostly in silence as she acclimated. In the car, I asked a few questions and Mary gave some very short answers, all punctuated by that heavy nasal breathing. She obviously was still processing the change from camp to home and city life, so we put on her favorite Taylor Swift music and continued the ride home. As Swift sang about the Fate of Ophelia, I wondered what our fate would be the rest of the week. Would Mary decompress soon and fall back into the comfortable old routines?

I tried to process Mary’s mindset as we drove on, and finally the light bulb went on in my head. Mary’s behavior was new to me, but it made sense. Her deep breathing was a form of what is called stimming, short for self-stimulatory behavior. Most people do it, even if subconsciously.

Feeling nervous? Many people bite their fingernails without realizing it. A bit bored and also anxious about getting called into the dentist or doctor’s office? I know I rapidly lift one heel up and down just an inch or so from the floor for up to a minute, and I’ve seen other people do this too. Exasperated that the person in front of you at the grocery store line is taking like 10x longer than they should so you cross your arms or roll your eyes or sigh quietly under your breath?

These are all common forms of regulation for many people. We take them for granted, as they are safe, acceptable physical outlets for our stress, anxiety, irritation or frustration. We’ve been conditioned since childhood to not act too loudly or aggressively, so we let off steam a little at a time, so we don’t totally lose it.

For individuals with autism, physical stimming can often be more visible. The classic outward sign of autism is hand flapping. This occurs when the stimulated person holds their hands out in front of them and shakes them up and down vigorously, as if trying to air dry wet hands when towels aren’t available.

Stimming can also come in the form of jumping excitedly up and down, twirling fingers in front of the eyes, spinning in circles, pacing back and forth, shaking, humming, echolalia (e.g., reciting long amounts of cartoon or movie dialogue) and many other variations. The intention is usually to provide comfort, often from a stressful situation but sometimes seemingly out of the blue to strangers and even family members. Other times, stimming is a demonstration of unrestrained joy and enthusiasm.

As the frequency of autism diagnoses becomes greater, I’ve noticed more acceptance of Mary’s occasional stimming. Sometimes we get strange looks, but I shrug those off. No point letting someone’s reaction get under my skin, but it took years for me to get to that point!

Over the years, Mary has had great teachers, therapists, coaches and extended family members who helped her learn to regulate her behavior. Her outward physical stimming has decreased as she aged and matured too. As I pulled the car into the driveway after the drive home from camp, I started to appreciate Mary’s loud nose breathing. While it caught me by surprise initially, I was glad that she was regulating her emotions and easing herself back into real life again.

Now that a few more weeks have passed, I’m happy to say that Mary is well-adjusted again. She saw the new Spiderman movie with her day program friends before any of her family members saw it, and she attended cooking classes and enjoyed ferry rides. Now and then I hear that nose breathing flare up, and I don’t even give it a second thought anymore.

Life with Mary is published every Tuesday. Feel free to subscribe and to share the link with friends.

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