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by Stephen Fobes
October 7, Part 1 - Gerard's early, and sometimes difficult, years. October 13, Part 2 - Gerard's High School Experience (the Secret Weapon!) October 20, Part 3 - Garth Brooks and the Music Video. October 27, Part 4 - The many sides of Gerard Fobes. 
Gerard has a large variety of interests. He is never bored, always excited and always enthusiastic about his interests. When he gets a new interest, he studies it in depth. He will check our dozens of books from the library. He gets notebooks and writes his findings. When he was in high school and attending meetings with the coach and players, he checked out books on football plays, he purchased football videos and he started a notebook where he diagramed around 50 plays the coach might use in the game. He suggested to the coach that they should try the shotgun with that quarterback, and he did with great success. He was so knowledgeable about the diagrams and the plays he would sometimes correct the coach.He loves to study religion. He has dozens of videos about the bible, Christianity, and Judaism. He has 15 bibles of various versions. Some days when he is on his bed doing research, he will have 3 or 4 books opened to the pages he needs to do cross-reference. He has a remarkable memory and has practically memorized the Bible. His interest in Judaism doesn't seem to conflict with his Christianity. Whenever I confront him about the fact that the Jews do not believe that Christ was God. He responds with, "But Christ was a Jew, all his disciples were Jews". He can talk intelligently for hours about the evolution of the Christian religion, the Old Testament, and Judaism. He has always attended St. Joachim Church in Costa Mesa with his mother and sister and occasionally I also go to church. Whenever we eat at the table, Gerard says grace and it is a tradition in our family to clink our glasses together and say "Cheers" before we eat. When we took Gerard to his first mass, during the consecration, when the priest lifts up the chalice and the congregation is very solemn and quiet, Gerard yells "Cheers". There were smiles everywhere. Gerard wanted to be an altar boy since he was about six. When Monsignor and the altar boys would walk down the aisle after mass, Gerard would push past me and get in the end of the procession. I would try to grab him before he got out of the pew, but Monsignor seeing what was going on, indicated that it was ok. After mass we discussed Gerard's intense desire to be an altar boy. Monsignor said as soon as he could grow into the smallest alb, he could be an altar boy. At the age of eleven he became an altar boy. The first mass that Gerard served, he had to hold the book for Monsignor. He was so small and the book so heavy, he had a difficult time holding it high enough to be read. Monsignor had to help him hold up the book. He loves to do the incense when serving High Mass and he usually does the incense at Midnight Mass at Christmas. He is so solemn when he waves the incense before the priests and bows reverently, and then stands before the congregation, slowly raise his hand to indicate the congregation should stand and then incenses the congregation. Many of the parishinors have teary eyes when he finishes. Jeanne is very involved in the Church, but going to Midnight Mass wipes her out the next day, so I usually take Gerard. Gerard has served mass for four bishops that have been to the Orange diocese. He also carried the cross in the procession at a mass conducted by the Cardinal at the Anaheim convention center. Since it is a long walk the priest in charge wanted another man to carry the crucifix to entrance Gerard said, "He is my Simon of Cyrene he even looks like Simon of Cyrene". He attends summer camp for the disabled at the diocese. He is something of a hero at the camp as the High Hopes, the group where he was the drummer, plays at the camp for one night. Gerard plays the drums and he gets loud screams and cheers of delight. The bishop who was a constant attendant at the camp was a good friend of Gerard. We were disappointed that the Bishop couldn't attend Gerard's graduation ceremonies, but happy to have received a personal letter of congratulations that indicated he was sorry he couldn't attend the ceremonies. Gerard has been an altar boy for 20 years. The Pastor of the parish recently honored Gerard at a mass for his loyal and devoted duty as an altar boy and presented him with an icon of St. Joachim and Ann. He was especially impressed with Gerard's reverent bows. He is very knowledgeable about the Torah. One summer we went to my high school reunion in Waymart, Pa. When we visited my brother Joe, he arranged for Gerard to speak to the head Rabbi at the Jewish orthodox camp where Joe was working as a caretaker. The Rabbi asked Gerard many questions and when Gerard finished responding, the Rabbi was amazed at his knowledge of the Torah. He sincerely felt Gerard was more knowledgeable than some of his students who had studied the Torah most of their lives. Another one of Gerard's interests is the weather. He has a weather computer in his room with sensors that I have wired outside the house. He checks his weather computer twice a day and keeps a daily log of the critical elements of the weather. He also has a PC in his room where he keeps in touch with at least 50 web sites that cover the weather. Each morning when he gets up he usually turns on the weather channel and checks the latest national weather. Being so involved in the weather that changes every day is one of the best interests he has at this time. He has many storm chasing and tornado movies and videos that cover every aspect of weather. Gerard works part time at Ralph's, a huge grocery store, a few blocks away, where he bags groceries and sweeps the floor. He has been working there for 10 years and they all like Gerard. I have had to have some heart to heart talks with Gerard over the years as he has difficulty focusing. When he sweeps down the aisle, he hops and the mop is often sideways. When he first started working at Ralph's he fell in love with one of the girls that worked in the store. It was one of our most difficult times with Gerard and one of his most difficult times with love. He is not interested in any relationship with another disabled girl. He wants to marry a normal girl. When he fell in love with this particular normal girl, she probably wanted to be kind to him and that was seen as a reciprocation of his love for her. He even took Jeanne's ring to give to her. Jeanne spoke to the girl and explained the situation. Gerard was walking the seven blocks to work at that time. One day when he was late returning from work, we found him walking the nearby neighborhood where he thought she lived to see if he could find her. Gerard fell into a deep depression and that was most distressing as he has always been upbeat and excited about life. When the depression continues, we took him to a Psychiatrist and Prozac was prescribed. He eventually got out of his depression and is now back to his enthusiastic self. It seems now that he is older and so involved in his many interests that a girl friend is not that important. He occasionally talks about marriage, but I think that he understands his handicap and accepts the fact that he may never marry. He often comes out with the comment, "I want to live here all my life". | |||
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