Autism research 'ominous but inconclusive'
- Going to jail
- Bloomington Recycles: Fact or Fiction?
- How public is our library?
- Interstate 69
- The Insider's Guide to the Outdoors
- Poverty
- Environment
- Community
- Who owns downtown?
Who owns Kirkwood?
-- The story
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Who owns the Square?
-- The story
-- The list
Alternative Features
On a rainy November afternoon, around 25 individuals amble into Geno's Cafeteria, a local soup kitchen from Backstreet Missions that serves free meals five days a week. Bundled up to fight the howling wind and sideways rain people of all ages enter. The only age group absent is children, but perhaps the bad weather is keeping them at home.
Today's menu includes beef and noodles, chicken and rice, asparagus, a pastry assortment with cookies, donuts and muffins, and a salad bar. Three servers stand on the food side, helping those in need receive a well-balanced and comforting meal on this cold day.
The atmosphere is friendly. Almost nobody is sitting at a table alone. They either came to eat in pairs or groups, or came to meet up with the usual crowd.
In many ways, the journalistic journey I am taking into the world of autism reminds me of a mushroom experience I had deep in the Martin County woods in the late 1980s.
As some tree-hugger friends and I led a Washington Times columnist through a valley en route to a particularly egregious U.S. Forest Service clearcut, I noticed what, to someone who had never found a morel before, a specimen that seemed like a giant. Once I discovered the first one, they suddenly appeared everywhere, and I left the woods with a couple dozen in my backpack.
So it has been with autism. Since I started paying attention a month ago, I've realized it is everywhere.
I've seen you at rallies cheering for the charismatic junior senator from Illinois. Overheard you in coffee shops discussing Barack Obama's performance at the presidential debates. Spoke with you about the prospects of the Democratic ticket while making our way across campus. And on the morning after this historic election, together we pondered the implications, and the possibilities, of this remarkable achievement.
Truth be told, I'm a little envious. When I cast my first vote in a presidential election, nearly 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan won the presidency, and I was on the wrong side of history. Today, you are on the cusp of what President-elect Obama rightly described as a "defining moment."