That afternoon, Roger and I arrived in Kremling. It was still pretty early in the day and pretty hot, so we decided to get a motel room and take naps. When we woke up, it was time for dinner, so we walked downtown and found a bar and grill to eat at. While waiting to sit down for dinner, we sat at the bar as the place filled up with people coming in at the end of their work day. Roger turned to the man standing next to him, drinking a Budweiser, and asked "what do people do for a living around here?"

"Don't know, not from around here. I live over in Granby, about 40 miles east, but I do come through about once or twice a week though, driving my truck. Actually, nobody really works around here. Some folks work in the restaraunts and shops, but I think most drive south everyday to Breckinridge to do construction. Ain't much to do around here, some ranchers, but mostly construction both roads and condos. What do you do?" he asked Roger.

"Retired now, used to work in prison education up in Minnesota. Now I'm spending the summer biking across the country."

"Biking across the country?! Not me, no way. Only way I'm getting across this country is in an rv. I've got a converted van right now, but when I retire, I'm getting an rv. Of course, first stops would have to be to see my grandkids. Already I'm getting grief from my daughters that I don't come by frequent enough, but it's tough cause my wife and I have to keep our son with us 24x7, he's ill with Angelman's disease. Do you know what Angelman's disease is?"

Roger and I both shook our heads no. "Well, it's just like cerebal palsy, but just slightly different. They discovered it about 6 years ago after they started looking at the DNA maps of the people that are afflicted with cerebal palsy. You see, cerebal palsy patients have mutated chromosones, but when you have Angelman's disease, you're missing your 15th chromosone. About four years ago, my wife and I were taking a walk with our son in San Diego when a womam came up to my wife and asked her if our son had Angelman's. My wife said 'no, he's got cerebal palsy.' Then the lady said, 'I hate to disagree, but I've been watching you walk around and watching your son and how he moves around. My son has Angelman's and I'd be willing to bet anything that yours does too.'"

"So, we took our son to get a DNA test, which we were about to do soon anyway, since you can't really do them until you're fourteen, and sure enough, his 15th chromosone was missing. So my wife and I had to then do all kinds of research on Angelman's disease instead of cerebal palsy."

Rather taken by the fact that this man just opened up to Roger and I about his son and spoke with such passion, I asked "How does your son communicate to you? Can he speak at all, or does he use a computer?"

The man's deep blue eyes and tan face began to shrivel up into a painful grimace. "He doesn't. Hasn't said a thing for 18 years and can't use a computer. About all he can do is point at things and hand us his sippy cup when he wants something to drink. But he knows that we respond to his sippy cup, so he's always trying to hand it to us, even when he isn't thirsty. Usually the minute I come home, he comes up to me and hands me his sippy cup. He knows that I almost always have some pop in the truck and wants me to fill his cup. So I go out to the truck and get him his pop, he likes Coke the best. Man that kid is spoiled. Whatever he wants he gets. You should see his DVD collection. Everytime we go to Wallmart, he goes straight for the movie section. I think he's got every movie that ever came out, but that's okay, that's what he really loves. He just likes to sit in his room and put in a movie."

"Does he show emotions?" I asked.

"Oh yes, very much so. He's always smiling and laughing. I'd say probably 95 percent of the time he's having the time of his life. He has so much energy. We mainstreamed his education a few years back. Of course academically, he's not very far, probably at a 3 year old level, but he goes to all of his classes and mingles with all of the kids in school. The kids love him because he's so happy. I figure he's probably the luckiest kid in the school, he gets to ride his cart around the halls, all the girls push him around and he goes on every field trip there is. Who knows if he knows where he's going and what he's seeing, but he seems happy with all of the stimulation.

"Man, would I not give anything in the world to find out what's going on in that kid's head, though. You just look at him and you know he's processing something. There's got to be some kind of thoughts going on, something, anything. I tell my wife she's lucky that she's ten years younger than me. I say that I'll probably be dead when they figure out a way to find out what he's thinking, but she'll be around. She just looks at me kind of sad, but I'm serious. One day they'll figure out how to find out what he's thinking. Boy, would I love to know.

"Lots of people come up to me and ask how we do it. They think it must be so hard to raise a severely disabled kid, and it is, but do you know what? We don't think about it. We just do it. You would too. Anybody would. When you're given those cards to play with, you just do it and don't ask questions or think about how hard it is. You just go about doing what you need to do. My wife and I belong to different groups to help us learn more about the disease and how to live with it, and I do lots of research on the internet. There are lots of groups with parents out there going through the same thing as us. It's real good to talk to people who can really understand what its like. We also go to some conferences, its kind of like a little community.