Pictures came and broke your heart, put the blame on VTR.

That's a lyric from a classic song. And since I'm feeling generous, first person to tell me the name of the song and the artist will win a Georgia prize pack, including a map, a crappy key chain and maybe a snow-globe from Savannah. If I'm feeling really generous I'll find find a copy of the Lady and Son's Cookbook.

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who took the time to comment yesterday. As far as a diagnosis, nothing formal has been done. However, both our previous pediatrician and our current pediatrician had already suggested a possible autism spectrum disorder, with Asperger's at the top of the list. While I'm understandably worried, I'm not really surprised that the school psychologist brought this up, either. TFYO has shown symptoms for quite some time. Eye contact has been the biggest flag. It makes her very uncomfortable, and she gets very anxious if you try to look her in the eye. She has sensory issues as well, whether it's tags on her clothes, people touching her ears, or how some kinds of food feel in her mouth. More than a normal four-year-old. She's also a compulsive counter, and likes to count things like fence posts, and ceiling tiles. Perhaps the Count from Sesame Street was an Aspie! At any rate, she will have a formal evaluation and then will likely have play therapy to help her learn how to interact with her peers. She doesn't have too much trouble with adults, but regular play with other kids is sometimes a challenge for her. But as Jennifer noted in the comments yesterday, by the time she's ready for regular school, she'll be mainstream, and probably just continue to see a therapist once or twice a week.

And I meant to post all of that in the comments last night, but our cable was out for the better chunk of yesterday.

Which led Ray to tell me about when they first got cable in his hometown of Trenton, Ga. I've mentioned his hometown before, it's the county seat of Dade County, located in the northwest corner of the state. Here's some info on Dade. The most interesting thing about Dade County, is that there was no direct road that linked it to the rest of the state until almost 1950. If you wanted to head over to Dalton, you had to drive up into Tennessee, and then back down. Likewise, if you wanted to head to Atlanta, you had to drive southwest into Alabama, and then back into Georgia to get there. The picture is of Cloudland Canyon, right next door to Trenton. Hang gliders love it.

Ray said cable finally came to Trenton when he was about seven or eight years old, so it would have been 1978 or 1979. Some of the local preachers opposed it of course, but it came nonetheless. I don't know how many channels they had, but the local cable access channel was in black in white. And all it showed were little typed hand held placards announcing church events, high school football games, and specials at the local restaurant in town.

Then, just as suddenly as cable came, it went. They had city wide outages within just a couple of weeks of firing it up. No one could figure it out until they went out to check the junction boxes placed around the town.

And they were all shot up.

Someone had been using them for shotgun practice. Now I don't know it was target practice for a fact. It could have been some irate preacher annoyed b y the presence of HBO. This was the town where a local preacher led his flock to the top of the ridge so they could cast their "devil TVs" off the mountain. The eventually had to stop because they local sheriff threatened to fine them for littering, since the people who lived halfway down the hill were tired of finding smashed up televisions in their back yard. They now content themselves with the occasional Harry Potter burning, and stomping of rock CD's.

Finally, they managed to get the boxes all fixed, and presumably newly armoured.

And on the little black and white cable access channel, this placard appeared:

"Dear Trenton,

We apologize for the recent spate of cable outages. Someone has been shooting the cable. We have taken steps to prevent this from happening.

Sincerely,
Trenton Cable Company"

And as far as I know, no one ever shot the cable again.