As I succumbed to the lesser of the “not just right” ones, a woman had asked me if I was “Robert Kovacs who worked at the Y almost fifteen or so years ago”, with a smile on my face I positively acknowledged her .
I put down the boxes of shoes that quickly where building a fort around me, stood up and acknowledged this woman with a handshake. As I stood and saw her eyes, her hair and her mannerisms, it instantly flashed me back to when I was a counselor when her son was in my program.
“Ms Evans?” I questioned my own memory but her eyes as blue as the sky, hair blonde and her confident yet quiet mannerisms immediately confirmed to me she was indeed Ms Evans. How could I forget her name? when she strikingly looked like the actress in the 80s prime time soap opera, “Dynasty”, Linda Evans. How coincidental? She too nodded, confirming her name with a beautiful smile that flashed my years in rewind mode instantly.
The YMCA administration and youth services team felt Ryan’s enrollment in the program was critical to provide him a full scholarship, in which the YMCA, through the generosity of the donors would fully underwrite the cost of him attending the program. I was baffled to think, a child, like Ryan would get a free ride, when there are probably 10 children who would appreciate and overwhelmingly enjoy the chance to partake in YMCA programs. Having Ryan enrolled in the program I felt would jeopardize the safety of other participants or compromise the quality of programs what families have come to expect from the YMCA.
Her son, Ryan, in the eyes of my staff and I was Satan. Making his presence known on earth, or more specifically, the YMCAs school-age child care and camp programs. When Ryan had enrolled in the program, he was maybe six or seven, red hair, freckles, green eyes and rather short chunky and frumpy and with a continuous runny nose. He definitely aged beyond his six or seven years through all that he’s been through in his short life. I eventually found out his father was an abusive alcoholic and mother was going to school and working a part-time job to find the means to start a new life for her and Ryan. Ryan’s wiry unkempt red hair and piercing small green eyes oddly resembled Satan and coupled with his size and appearance only corroborated this was totally true. The continuous runny nose naturally gave birth to Ryan’s nickname, Booger Face.
Back in the day, staff and youth participants were given nicknames, some may have seemed demeaning while others where more uplifting, but in the eyes of staff, none were intentionally done to emotionally embarrass or to humiliate anyone but to build a distinct bond with staff and youth participants. By knowledge gained, present laws and hypersensitivity to emotional abuse and bullying the practice of nicknames phased out over one summer. Retrospectively, calling each other nicknames was inappropriate even as much of the staff thought of it as an endearing way to build a connection with the youth participants. Despite the urge to use his nickname, I opted to use his birth name to reiterate the importance of keeping with the spirit of treating everyone with respect and not propagate bullying.
Since my patience and even keel personality was much greater than my peers, I always managed to get Ryan in my group, not for just a season, but for the reasons aforementioned. I had Ryan in my group for several years and I insist each and every year he managed to somehow out do the previous year in terms of his behaviors, his actions left an everlasting imprint on me. Somehow, my group became the group which other staff sent their behaviorally challenged participants for day, week or permanently. I swear that when its my turn to have children, I’ll never have children named Ryan or Paige. A Paige in Time and Lessons Learned shares my experiences I had with a child with special needs several years later.
Ryan’s legacy has been permanently engraved in the memories of all those who had any contact (both figuratively and literally) with him. The few instances I remember when Ryan was good, he was really good. Not only did he follow directions of staff but was able to encourage others to behave appropriately. Using a teacher’s report card voice, ‘Ryan lacks self-esteem but makes up for it by being well received by his peers when he behaves and interacts appropriately’ and ‘Ryan is quite aware his inappropriate behavior’s consequences and manages to allow his emotions often take over and to distract him from completing tasks resorting to unacceptable means of getting attention.’ Best way to describe his behavior is what I learned many moons ago in a child development class, positive attention is great – but negative attention also is great as its better than no attention at all.
Some of these recollections of Ryan’s attention getting behaviors, I believe, triggered a domino effect on staff turnover and loss of program participants. I’ve seen more than the usual number of staff come and go during the years Ryan was in YMCA programs. Most staff felt they weren’t compensated adequately to put up with him and his extreme behaviors. Same was to be said of program other participants, once a child went home and told their parents “You wouldn’t believe what Ryan did today…” Sadly, explaining with compassion and maintaining confidentiality staff did their best to retain participants but more often than not, families didn’t want their children exposed to Ryan. I’ll share a few of the extremes, which ultimately affected my choice to never name a male child of mine, Ryan.
On a winter break camp field trip to the Miami Sequarium, a good 45 minute bus trip on a good traffic day. School bus drivers are trained to torture themselves and all the other adults on a school bus by extending the trip’s duration by driving at least ten miles or below the speed limit when on the expressway. Ryan started off the trip, quiet and subdued (my guess, he was scheming what he will do next). As the bus accelerated to get on the expressway, the shrieking of children became louder than usual and overhearing words I was not accustomed to hearing from youth. Seated in the middle of the bus, I stood up and proceeded to stand up and as I did, Ryan just deliberately delivered a “hot meal” onto my seat. Pardon, the disgusting definition for those who may not be familiar with the term of “hot meal” but its projectile vomiting. In this case, it was purely intentional and the sole purpose was to get attention from the staff. Not, just one instance but not less than half a dozen times grazing a few participants and staff. I didn’t realize you could vomit so many times, but Ryan proved me wrong. Once we arrived at our destination Ryan, and few others had to be hosed down, needless to say he enjoyed his moment to shine.
Ryan often decided it was his job to “wash the Ys dirt away” down the hall by urinating on areas he appropriately deemed dirty. Sadly, if you were in line of spray, you were showered – thankfully, he would only do this in front of staff, never his fellow participants. Lastly, his artistic talent was exhibited throughout the building by finger painting the walls with his own feces. How he managed to do this, is still beyond me, but all it took was an adult turning their back for a split second. The punishment was usually our custodial staff would make him clean up his own bodily fluids. Back in the day, over twenty-five years ago, universal precautions was just beginning to surface outside the medical world. Gloves and proper cleaning supplies where always available but the biohazard disposable gowns, masks, clean-up kits, etc were still years away in child care programs.
Ryan’s behavior was truly one of extremes as I’ve mentioned. Over the years, Ryan’s behavior improved in a trivial fashion – one step forward, two steps backwards but at times he managed to surprise staff. The sense of accomplishment and success was written all over the faces of staff when a positive behavior permanently became part of Ryan’s character and personality. During my time with Ryan, I was ecstatic and filled with pride when Ryan greeted me by my real name, not some derogatory obscenity, he self-corrected himself more often than not and picked the healthier choices how to behave and lastly when he willingly offered to surrender a much coveted treasure box ticket. With each change in behavior, I saw Ryan’s self-esteem and self-control grow, albeit at a sloth’s pace, it was truly encouraging.
The morning of camp when Ryan greeted me at the sign-in desk, “Good morning, Mr Robert” as opposed to his typical offensive grumble was the first noticeable change in my last summer working with my summer with him. Each and every morning for the entire camp, I was greeted appropriately, pleasantly with a sense of sincerity. Throughout camp, I witnessed his ability to make the right choice in a difficult situation became increasingly more common and the other participants began to befriend him. About half way through our camp season, Ryan was rewarded the much coveted treasure box ticket. The treasure box ticket was a camp-wide initiative which the camper who demonstrated the best camp spirit of the week was permitted to pick a prize. The prizes varied from having lunch with anyone in the YMCA and their choice meal, tickets for the family to attractions camp did on a field trip, a gift certificate to a toy store, and other highly valued prizes. Without hesitation, Ryan gave up his treasure chest ticket to another participant who was moving out of the area and was his best friend. Reasons be known to Ryan alone, this selfless act had staff beaming in elation.
So, as the evolution of Booger Face has begun, with a broken heart, I had to tell Ryan that I would be moving, not in the physical sense but in terms of my job. I explained how proud I was of him, but time has come for me to take on a new position that will have me leaving the YMCA. I am not sure whose tears flowed harder and longer that day. My last day, I hugged Ryan tightly and wished him all the best and hoped he continued to do the right thing at the right time. With a smile filled with tears in his eyes that he didn’t want me to see, I left the YMCA building.
As many years have past, I always wondered what happened to Ryan. In his eyes, to know him deeper than most was to understand him. To understand him was to love him unconditionally. In turn, he did the same and trusted me fully. Probably the only adult male he didn’t have to fear and could be himself, despite the challenges we faced.
“Robert what have you been up to since you left the Y.” and all the sudden I am awakened from my daydreaming of days past, asked Ms Evans.
I explained, I never really left the YMCA, just moved up and about and now work in the corporate association office. She gleamed a smile and asked if I was married, did I go to university and other questions to fill the voids of years past. I found out from my own questioning, she managed to complete her nursing degree and remarried a few years after my departure. With anxiety resting in my throat, it took all the strength I had to muster out, “So, what has Ryan up to now days?”
Ms Evans face glowed as she expressed her gratitude for the patience, endurance and compassion the staff at the YMCA had during Ryan’s most challenging years. She was proud to share Ryan had managed to survive the middle school years with nothing out of the ordinary issues a hormone induced and imbalanced pre-teen male youth would go through. His 180 turnaround transformed him into a respectable, well-mannered teenager by the time he started high school. She continued to share, Ryan graduated high school with a grade point average strong enough to earn acceptance in an undergraduate program with a partial scholarship. Her eyes swelled with tears as she shared, Ryan worked at a larger YMCA association out of state as an Alternative Youth Services Director. The program oversees high school students who have been suspended or expelled from the school district and are provided an alternative option to get the record written off by successfully completing the program at the YMCA. Ryan at the time had completed his undergraduate in Education and was pursuing his master degree.
Unpredictably, the YMCA center Ryan was at, I knew the Executive Director quite well, as did Ryan, but he didn’t know it at the time. My supervisor, when I had Ryan in my group, so many years before, was now Ryan’s immediate supervisor. I shared with Ms Evans how Mike and I remain friends and how he is an Executive Director at the very center Ryan worked at. We both shared a warm-hearted laugh, as being revealed we were on Candid Camera after a strategic practical joke was revealed. As Ms Evans talked and reminisced the past and seeing the future Ryan has in his hands, time escaped us before we knew it, over two hours past. As we parted ways, we made an effort to promise to keep in touch. I told her, once I get home, I will give a call to Mike and share with him the happenings of this exciting day.
Later that evening, true to my word, I called up Mike, and only received his voice mail. “Hey Mike! Hope all is well. Question for you, do you ever wonder whatever happened to Booger Face back from the days when you were a Program Director and I was a Counselor? You know where to find me!” Several hours later, Mike returned my call, and we did indeed catch up, just as Ms Evans and I did earlier in the day, and to say Mike was beyond words and a whirlwind of emotions was an understatement, he remained speechless for the first moments of our conversation. He even questioned if I had the right Ryan Evans as his staff’s last name is not Evans.
In Mike’s parting words to me: “I hope you are right, because tomorrow, I will go up to him and watch him squirm as he did when he was a child, when we called him Booger Face.”
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