Chris Whitfield was born on February 29th.

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Chris Whitfield was born on February 29^th.  

This was a difficult concept for him to grasp.  He had always celebrated his Birthday on February 28^th.  I made the mistake one Leap-Day to mention to him that this day (the 29^th) was his actual birthday.  Our conversation went something like this:

• ME: Hey Chris, isn’t it fun to have your birthday on the actual “date” you were born?
• CHRIS: My birthday is February 28^th.
• ME: Well, I know you celebrate it on that day but the day you were actually born was the 29^th.
• CHRIS: My birthday is February 28^th
• ME: You have your party on the 28^th but technically you were born the 29^th
• CHRIS: My birthday is February 28^th  
• ME: The reason we have your party on the 28^th is because that day comes every year but the 29^th comes every 4 years, it’s called “leap year” because we get an extra day on that year and that happened to be the day you were born…on the 29^th. But we want to celebrate your birthday every year, not just once every 4 years so that’s why we celebrate your birthday on the 28^th.
• CHRIS: My birthday is February 28^th

·        ME: Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) – to circle once around the Sun. However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days! It just so happened you were born on one of the added in (or compensated) days, the 29^th.

• CHRIS: My birthday is February 28^th

·        ME: Yes Chris, you were born on February 28^th. Happy Belated Birthday.

• CHRIS: My birthday is February 28^th

Chris was an interesting kid.  He was about 6-feet tall, skinny, lanky, dark black skin, with teeth jutting out of his swollen gums. He had taken dilatin for many years because of seizures and his gums had swollen drastically.

He loved 80’s Hair Metal bands.  He considered himself white.  For Christmas he would always ask for leather clothes and a long blonde wig.

Chris’ best friend was also named, “Chris.”  Chris Cook was about 5-feet tall, was very white, thought he was black (he literally thought he was black, he would tell people he was black, he would mark “African American” on job applications, etc),  He listened to Rap Music and constantly played basket ball. (Take THAT stereo types!)

The two of them would make “Hate Lists,” that is, they would list everyone and everything they hated at that moment. It might look like this:

The HATE List

1.      Mr. Geil

2.      Minter Willis

3.      Jeff Lomax

4.      Maryellana Jenson

5.      Beans

6.      Swimming

7.      Jeff Lomax

8.      Light Bulbs

9.      Tenderloins

10.  Old Main

(These lists could go on for dozens of items.)

We eventually had to forbid “The HATE-List” as well as the subsequent “Do Not Like-List”, “Not on the Love-List, List” and “The Unlabeled-List (of things I hate but I won’t put the word ‘HATE’ on the list because I’ll get in trouble)-List.”

Chris W. loved MTV because at that time MTV was dominated by videos from White Snake, Guns -n- Roses, Cinderella, Dokken and other ridiculous bands.  Chris would give me a list of every band who played on MTV’s “Hard-30,” a program that showed Hard Rock videos from 3:30 to 4:00 every day. “You gonna watch Hard-30 with me today Mr. Geil?” Chris W. would often ask.  Some times I would go over to the day-room and watch Hard-30.  The way Chris W. would watch videos is that he would sit next to the TV facing away from the screen and write down every band that played without ever looking at the screen.

In the mornings he would give me a list of the previous evening’s sports scores…just the scores, no team names or even what sport they were from.  Chris would come in the morning and hand me a paper, “Here are the scores Mr. Geil.” And the paper would look like this:

102-98             78-72               83-94               28-22               3-2                   89-101

There would be line after line of pairs of numbers. “What game did you watch last night Chris?” I would ask.

“I think I saw 102-98 and the first half of 83-94.” He would reply.

Chris was also a master insulter without using swear words. He mostly liked to insult people a.) with food b.) with the prefix “ole’’” c.) the suffix “lookin” and d.) usually with a reference to one’s “head.”

For instance:
“Pumpkin”
“You ole’ Pumpkin”
“You ole’ Pumpkin Lookin”’
“You ole’ Pumpkin-Head Lookin’”

He could rattle off some doozies when he got angry enough:
“You ole’ ski-ball-lookin’ knocky-headed biscuit! Biscuit Head!”

Chris W. went to live in an adult group home after he turned 22. It was run by an older Black couple who really lived Chris. He had his own room, own music, his own TV and he worked at a small sheltered workshop.

One Saturday during lunch at his group home, Chris took too big of a bite from his peanut butter sandwich.  He began to choke and then went into a seizure (his seizures were always grand-mal.)  He couldn’t breathe and his Group Home parent attempted to give him a tracheotomy right there on the dining room table.

It was a sad funeral.  Many of the KDS staff was there.  His group home parents were crushed. It was a sad day.

I do think of Chris and Chris often when I drive because I use one of there phrases to yell at other stupid drivers “You ole’ skiball lookin’ knocky headed biscuit! Biscuit Head!”

chris