Everything I needed to know about autism began with chocolate.

Differences in perception are important.

When my younger brother was little he was upset by the color brown -- milk chocolate brown, and shades that were close to milk chocolate brown.

This would seem to be very irrational without an additional bit of information -- my brother is red/green color blind. Although this is very common people often don't realize that people who are color blind see colors -- just not the ones we do. The world to them looks complete, valid, and fine -- nothing seems missing. Lots of people -- including people who find color to make a living -- are color blind too. http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2005/jauc5s0/facts.htm


People who are male and color blind (the most common variety) "see" milk chocolate much the same way he "sees" blood. I am very fortunate(and much, much rarer) in that I'm a color blindness carrier with enough of the X's shut down in my retina that I can see patches of my brother's perception of the normal world as well as the version that most everyone sees.

In most of my vision I can see a bright red truck in the site below. But if I close one eye and look off to one side, I see what my brother sees, and if you push the "protan" button you can see his way, too.
http://www.tsi.enst.fr/~brettel/DaltonDemo/DD02.html

Since he had nosebleeds and he knew from the big reactions that the sight of gore makes everyone upset, certain shades of the browns he sees ~~could be~~ blood.

He believes that he is color blind. He understands that this means that pretty much everyone else sees a dramatic color with blood (and pretty much blood and nothing else) so he looks to other people to see if it's blood, or chocolate.

It took a lot of convincing and some maturing to persuade him that *other people* had red/green sensitivities -- but without that understanding finding brown to be disturbing is valid and it's rational to affirm that.

My husband, my son, I and Dan "see" disturbing reactions from other people that most of the time are simply "chocolate". We have enough self awareness to know that it's probably "chocolate" and that other people can sense"blood" -- really troublesome reactions that are outside of what we can percieve. We have people we trust who can affirm if the word "chocolate" is slipped into conversations that what we are picking up is harmless, even friendly and advantageous. Who shake their heads subtly if there's real trouble and help us out.

It's a frightening power to give to other people -- like Commander Data the Star Trek android not wanting other people in general to know he has an off switch. But like my brother trusting other people to see if hamburger meat is fresh or not, giving this trust to other people is a real anxiety lowerer. Being autistic is like a form of emotional color blindness.

One case of food poisoning (one bite of a bad hamburger can put you in the hospital for a round of intestinal agony, catheters and needles even if you spit it out and rinse your mouth) and you're a very wary eater from then on -- unless you choose to have people around you that you give your trust. It's not paranoia if you've ever experienced full-round e-coli food poisoning, nor if you've ever been at the backside of the nightmare of human taunting. Without understanding that other people can help you it's 24/7/365 caution for the rest of your life.

Or, you can share the responsibility with others and lower your guard back to what it was before you had your crisis event.

Because most of the time, it's simply chocolate.

Words Can’t Paint a Portrait of Ron
By Sharie Derrickson
http://www.shariederrickson.com/
(Please go to her site and buy her book!)

“Old Norm sits in there looking like he is on the potty. He has a wall phone, magazine rack with little magazines and framed photos of the grandchildren,” Ron Spooner said. Norm is a garden gnome who lives in an outhouse by the St. Lawrence River. “When I realized that the sewer pump would get run over by me with either the lawn tractor or snow blower, I built a wee no pun — outhouse where Norm lives.” Welcome to the creative, never boring, if not ostensibly quirky, mind of Ron Spooner.

There is no way to adequately describe Ron. He is, one could say, somewhat of a Renaissance man — an artist — a writer — a photographer — a philosopher — a prankster — a soldier — a gourmet cook — a devoted husband and family man. His talent and energy are only matched by his passion for life, and his quick wit is only matched by his quick step. At the age of 72, spry would not adequately describe him either — hip is more like it, and I could barely keep up with both his pace of foot or his train of thought. His mind just moves that fast, and often, the punch lines seem to have been written long before the joke was ever invented.

There is so much to him, I hardly know where to begin. If I were to ask him, most likely, he would say, “Begin at the beginning, dummy.” Did I mention that he is as wise as he is funny — a cross between Confucius, Mark Twain, and Groucho Mary, if you can imagine — a man who is a mix of perfect comic timing, whimsy, idealism, and pragmatism — an odd mixture indeed. There is no one word to sum him up. I can say, however, he not only seems comfortable in his own skin, he has a way of making you comfortable as well.

In 1934, God broke the mold when he created Ronald H. Spooner, I am sure, because I haven’t met anyone else like him — ever. The son of a milkman from Staten Island, Ron’s mother made the decision what he would do with his life. “My mother was a dairy farmer lady — smart — and she said she didn’t want my brother and I to become milk men. She wanted us to be better,” he said. “She knew I could draw and she said to me, ‘You are going to be an artist.”

Ron said he didn’t argue. “What did I know? I was just a kid and she was pointing her finger at me and telling me what I had to do. So, I listened to her,” he said. “It’s her fault I became an artist,” he said.

“I remember in kindergarten, drawing a turkey with colored chalks. My father taught me because he could draw. I drew this turkey on the blackboard, and one of the other students swiped an eraser through it, and then I fixed it,” he said. “And in one day, I had my first public show, my first vandalism, and my first retouch,” he said. His critic, Ron said with a slight smirk, was told to stand in the corner..

Thus began Ron’s career as an artist. “It’s all! have ever really done,” he said. “I had two other jobs. I delivered milk for my father and carried a rifle for my Uncle Sam,” he said. Ron was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1954 as an infantryman. “I had no choice,” he said, “but I am sort of glad that happened because when 1 meet the infantry guys now, I have somewhat of a connection with them.” The army is as much a part of Ron as is his art, a frequent subject of his paintings, and he spends much of his time being involved with the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) organizing and covering events for active duty soldiers and their families.

After his two-year stint on active duty, Ron found his calling. “When I got out of the army, I had no idea what I was going to do and within weeks, I was in art school,” he said. He attended the prestigious School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and then worked as a graphic artist for Bell Laboratories, went into the Army Reserve and stayed for 31 years where he eventually ended up working for public affairs. “That’s the best job,” he said. “It gives you the opportunity to meet so many people,” the social butterfly said.

And Ron loves to meet people. “He has more friends than anyone I know,” his wife of almost 50 years, Gracemarie, said. “Everyday, he makes a new friend.”

I know this to be true from shadowing him during a recent public affairs event on Fort Drum. If you didn’t know Ron at the beginning of the day, you did by the time the day was over. The most frequent comment: “He’s quite a character.” More importantly, though, is that you feel that, somehow, Ron knows you because he puts you at such ease, talking with him is effortless. He loves people and is truly interested in their story, and this keen ability to open people up is reflected in much of his art as it captures more than image — he captures the spirit of all he paints, whether it be a bird in solitude along the banks of the river, or the nostalgia of shiny classic cars along a parade route.

Art is in his blood. “My favorite paintings are by my great aunt,” he said, showing several beautiful watercolors. “When I was in Germany, I went to England to visit my second cousin and great aunt — she was 92 then, nearly blind, and upset that she was going to get kicked out of the Watercolor Society,” he said.

“See, in England, the boys played cricket and the little girls painted — it was a set up — it was an anti-male set up because when the men get older, they can barely hit that thing anymore because everything hurts, but the women are still painting,” he said chuckling.

“While I was there, she handed me off some watercolors and said, ‘Here are some paintings for you,’ and they must be over 100 years old and they are still looking beautiful. Maybe that’s where the talent comes from,” he said. “1 eat a lot of bran, too — that helps,” he laughed. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, a quality in people that I adore.

He said he was lucky that his talent provided him both stability and contentment. “After art school, I went directly to my first job and stayed there at Bell Laboratories,” he said. “But, I really don’t know what it is like to work,” he joked saying that doing what you love as a job is one key to happiness.

Ron’s passion for his craft and his talent led him to success as an artist and he has received much recognition and he has won many awards from the army for cartoon illustration and for his photography — something Ron said he thought was ‘pretty cool,’ an idiom I hardly expected to hear from the septuagenarian, but Ron is an eclectic dude who also loves the rock bands Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead, and that made him even ‘cooler’ in my book.

Cooler still is his art, much of which covers the walls of his and Gracemarie’s home. The themes vary from nature, honest portrayals of everyday life, and some, not surprisingly, are deeply ingrained with patriotic themes.

He has an emotional attachment to all of his work. They are like children that he labored to create — many of which he refuses to part with. “These are my babies and I don’t want to lose them,” he said of the ones on the walls. Many of his subjects deal with the simple and the quiet — common things we often overlook. “I paint what I want to paint, but I try and put something in the painting as a hook,” he said. “I really do get inspired by things — like cattails. I really like cattails, The other day, I was taking pictures of an osprey and I turned and looked, and the way the sun was on the cattails and the reflections, and I took the picture. That will be a painting someday,” he said. “I will then use the photograph as a reference. If Rembrandt and the old masters had a Nikon, they would have worked from pictures,” he joked. “There is nothing wrong with that if you use them as background material and after a while, you can look at a photograph and see colors and shadows — see things that maybe someone else is not looking for.”

There is a touch of whimsy in many of his titles. “This one is called, ‘Omar, Where Impalas Go to Die,” he said of a portrait of a junk car. “And this one is called ‘Terrorist in Fur,” he said of a portrait of a wolverine.

Of course, many of his works are specific to the area such as Rock Island, a rendition of the Ice Storm of ‘98, and antique boats, but all his paintings show Ron’s fascination with color and how light plays on a subject.

Ron has also designed a line of labels for the Thousand Islands Winery in Alexandria Bay. “I did the label for the blueberry and a rose,” he said. “There is one that is the Seaway Blue, and this is one of my paintings turned blue, and there is a guy with a saxophone,” he said. “The rose is called, ‘Alex Bay Rose.” In addition, in keeping with his support of the U.S. Army, he designed labels for the winery for a specialty line of wine honoring the military for the 10th Mountain Division Association. Ten percent of the sales of those wines is donated to that association.
The mad-capped adventure of Ron’s creative process takes place in an artist’s loft above his living room. It is organized chaos — somewhat like I imagine his mind — paints, easels, photographs, matt cutters — all the tools of the trade. But, there is nothing frantic or frenzy about him, despite his working environment. Maybe he does so well at his craft because he puts his paints and his canvas at as much ease as he does those around him.

He said he doesn’t paint all day long but only for a couple of hours and he does not work on commission. “I hate that. I want to paint my painting, not yours,” he said. For him now in his so-called retirement years, art is for art’s sake alone and he no longer feels a need to work under a deadline. He does have some of his work exhibited and for sale in several galleries around the North Country, but he paints mostly for pleasure and because it is such a part of him.

When Ron isn’t painting, making friends, or spending time with the soldiers, he is creating new culinary delights with Gracemane, pulling pranks on his family, and finding new ways to protect Old Norm.

“One summer, our niece, Kim, came from Rhode Island and kidnapped Norm,” he said. “When she left, I discovered a ransom note on her bed. It led me to another in the garage. Now these notes were also in a riddle format so I had to solve the riddle to find the next note. Darn Kim,” he said. “I was up by the road finding a note on a tree and ultimately found Norm in the live well on our pontoon boat where the smell of perch still lingered. Now I hide Normy when she comes,” he said. “Last summer he was ‘safe housed’ in the fertilizer spreader in the garage. This year I may put him on the roof just outside her room, and the day she leaves, he will be hanging there for her to see when she opens the blinds.”

That is very clever, Ron, but I feel I just gave your little secret away, snicker, snicker. Sorry, pal, but it’s no secret that I hate garden gnomes.

Note: Ron’s art can be seen at the Riveredge Resort and the Riverbank Gallery in Alexandria Bay and the WaySeeker Gallery in Lowville and Fort Drum.


Copyright to -- Sharie Derrickson. I just wanted my friends and family worldwide to be able to read this. I tried to get to you but the emails kept bouncing back.

Brilliant, accurate portrait of my cousin Ron -- one of my fondest memories is of drawing with him both of us working on my horse, Princess. I admired his work, then asked him to put a bridle on her. He responded by drawing on a veil, a bouquet between her teeth, then added a "groom" horse cheerfully chewing on some of her flowers.

My son, also, paints and draws, passing on the family tradition. : D

JulieB