by Anita Lesko
Mark continued, “When we did that study about the hair whorls, we discovered that the higher the whorl—and it’s the same for horses and cattle—the higher their nervous system reactivity. That reactivity controls how keen their senses are. That increased sensitivity to the environment predisposes them to being fearful. Those ‘flighty’ traits also correspond to intelligence. If you raise them correctly they can turn out to be the very best horses, but if you raise them incorrectly, people call them crazy and stupid because they’re slow to learn due to being preoccupied with fear. All this research brought Temple and I together, and that was back in 1993. We did research for about five years, and then she taught me to draw and design facilities, and I’ve worked for her company (Grandin Livestock Handling Systems, Inc.) ever since. I do a lot of design work, and I do a lot of international work in China, Mexico, and South America for her company as an animal welfare consultant. A big job I just did in Mexico had multiple feed yards, and I helped them understand what it was going to take to get a European import license. They wanted to sell their beef to the Europeans, but the Europeans have animal welfare guidelines that you have to meet to export into Europe. These are the kind of things that I do.”
He went on to share more, “Temple has been far more than a boss, she’s been the best friend I could have ever had. As far as friends go, she’s the kind of friend I’ve always wanted. I have a few other friends, but I really don’t like to hang around with them and talk about football or stuff like that. I’d rather spend my time with Temple talking about serious things like our work, or current events. Temple can really let her hair down around me, whereas around many others she’s so politically correct and careful in her words. I admire her not only because of all she’s done for animal welfare, but how she is as a friend, and how she takes care of those who are close to her: friends, students, and mentors. She shows that she really cares. People with autism are not known to be like that. I’ve wondered about that for years. I think her friendship comes about from routine and experience, and the more she calls you, the more experience she gets, the bigger the photo album in her mind. The more information she stores about you from tying it to experience, the more intimate she can appear.” I thought this was an extremely important concept that Mark put very nicely into words. I see it apply to all ASD individuals building friendships and relationships from routine and experience. It also shows the need for patience with this population. Mark went on, “Where now, Temple’s not ‘on the spectrum’ to me. Temple is just Temple. Everybody has their own idiosyncrasies, and Temple’s are just a little bit different than other people’s. Temple is so straightforward and honest. She’s the kind of friend anybody would like to have, and she’s there for you if you need her. I can tell you a funny anecdote, without going too personal. I was in the hospital once. So, you know, when something happens to a friend, and you call them to see how they’re doing, they might say, ‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Well, you know they’re not, because they were just in a horrible accident. So then you say, ‘Oh come on, man, I know you’re not doing well, it can’t be easy, so if you want to talk about it, I’m here.’”
“With Temple, if you say, ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she’ll say, ‘Okay,’ then go on to the next subject. She takes it literally! Once you understand this, you can accept it. Now, if I were to have been honest right away and responded, ‘Oh, I’m in a lot of pain, and they gave me some new medicine that makes me feel horrible,’ she’d go into problem-solving mode! She’d go on for the next hour, problem-solving the situation. She doesn’t quite understand that you might just want to talk and vent your feelings regarding your accident.” Yes, ASD individuals can and do take things literally. That’s why being honest and straightforward with us is crucial. We can’t read faces or guess what you really mean.
Mark shared another event, “All those years ago when we first met, I had never, ever been around slaughter plants. So, the first time I went out, I saw a bloody mess. This was in the mid-1990s, before audit by large buyers forced the industry to improve. It was horrible; I came away from that with a mild case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and I couldn’t understand it. For a few days afterwards, I was feeling pretty down. I was having dreams about it, and all the classic symptoms of PTSD. It was Temple who recognized that in me and asked me, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ So I told her, ‘It was that whole experience at the slaughter house. That’s just so wrong!’ She then asked me, ‘Well, what would you do differently?’ I said, ‘I’d just let them all go!’”
Laughing, Mark proceeded, “And then she said, ‘Mark, you’re a pretty smart guy, but that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said! Just think of what would happen if you let them all go. They’d be better off in that slaughter plant than running all around starving to death, getting chased by dogs, or getting hit by cars!’ She was right. Then, she asked me what else I thought was wrong with the slaughter plant. Well it seemed to me, that after they shoot the cattle, they have a reflex where they kick. When they pull them up on the rail, they’re still kicking. I figure it’s them venting their anger at just getting killed! So I had gone way, way off the emotional deep end. Little by little, Temple used her logic to talk me out of the irrational fear that was underlying my post-traumatic stress. She said, ‘Mark, the cattle were calm going up into the center track restrainer. You’ve seen them struggle in a feed yard just for vaccinations.’ And I thought, as a matter of fact, that’s right. I’ve seen cattle getting vaccinations and becoming stressed out, but they were calm at the slaughter plant. What got me so upset there was the volume of animals, over two-thousand a day! That’s two hundred and forty in an hour! I was up on the restrainer all day, I mean, I was covered with brain splatter and blood, and it was the most horrific experience. I think I’d have gone off the deep end if Temple didn’t grab me by the hair and pull me back up to the surface. I went on to learn a lot about what goes into these processes; I became an expert on death to overcome my fear of being around it. I look at it all differently now: like changing the oil in your car, without an emotion to it.” Mark had a lot more courage than I, as I’d have fainted the minute I saw all that taking place!
Mark learned everything from Temple, obviously. “When I go down to a big slaughter plant in Mexico, I’m very responsive to the level of fear in the animals and the people. Twenty years after Mark’s first experience in a slaughter plant, he visited several plants in Mexico and was horrified to learn that the employees on the kill floor, and the managers, believed that reflex kicking was a sign that cattle were still alive, and they were skinning live animals. Nobody had told the employees that brain-dead cattle can have kicking reflexes for five minutes. This lack of understanding was prevalent and the psychological effects on the employees was probably devastating.
“In the time before they are going to die, it’s our moral and ethical obligation to make sure they’re not fearful. When the people balk at that concept, I then tell them there’s an economic benefit and there’s meat quality issues that are involved in killing low-stress animals. You make more money if you treat them better. That goes all the way from the slaughter plant back to the home ranch. The happier they are, the healthier they are, and the healthier they are, the better they grow, the less likely they are to get sick and need antibiotics or vet care, and all the labor involved in treating sick animals. There’s a lot of economic advantages to it, and that’s a really good selling point. These are the issues Temple and I focus on the most. Many people can’t focus on the ethical aspect, because to them it’s just stupid animals and it doesn’t matter. However, the economic aspects do matter to them. That’s the magic of Temple, the logic of her: she sees the big picture.”
So, would you like to meet me at a steakhouse for dinner tonight? At least I order my steak super well done—absolutely no pink.
CHAPTER 22
The 9/11 Disaster
I bet every person can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on th
e morning of September 11, 2001. It is something that I still am affected by, and thought I’d ask Temple about it.
I started out, “Temple, let’s talk about the 9/11 disaster. Where were you on that day?” Temple stated, “On 9/11, I was at home. It was a Tuesday. I was at my desk, and Mark called, exclaiming, ‘Go turn on the TV! A plane just crashed into the World Trade Tower!’ So, I jumped up to go put the TV on, and just as I did, I saw the second plane crashing into the second tower, live. I said ‘Oh my God, that’s a jetliner!’ One side of me was horrified, the other side of me, the engineering side, was impressed that the building held when the plane crashed into it. Then I had to go to my class, but it was just a short class. The towers collapsed during it. Once out from that, I was wondering why those buildings collapsed. They absolutely should not have come down.”
Those on the autism spectrum can easily get obsessed with something, myself included. Temple was heading in that direction. Here she goes, “I then started playing every video I could find of it, over and over again, trying to figure out why it collapsed. One side of me was just horrified about it, about all those people dying, but my engineering side wanted to find out why it happened. I knew that something was wrong with the design of that building, so I started watching all the channels to see pieces they were picking up out of the rubble pile. I saw they were picking up beams with plates on the end of them with bolt holes in them. I saw that none of the plates were deformed. What that tells me is that the fasteners sheared off. The New York Times never printed a diagram of the building, but about two weeks later, the Chicago Tribune printed a drawing of how the building was built. When I looked at that I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ I can tell you exactly why it collapsed: there was no vertical concrete in it. They took trusses, like you’d have in the ceiling of a supermarket, and put a thin concrete slab on them to make the floors. When that type of truss gets hot it becomes a wet noodle, and so it just yanked the fasteners out on the side. I also think there weren’t enough fasteners.”
I thought I had read everything about that disaster, but I never saw this. She went on, “Two years later, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) came out with a study showing there weren’t enough fasteners, and they all just pulled out. Those concrete slabs just started coming down and pancaked. They should never have collapsed. If they had been built like the Sears Tower, they never would have collapsed. No one will ever build a building with that design again. They had designed those towers for ease of fabrication, and cheap cost. If there had just been a fire in one of those buildings and the sprinklers had failed, it would have come down. That shows a lack of visual thinking. See, when I looked at the trusses, I immediately envisioned a supermarket when it’s burned down. The roof is collapsed because as soon as the trusses get hot, they bend. That building was strong like a cardboard box, but when you wet cardboard, it’s all soft. When the trusses started sagging, the concrete slab literally slipped down and smashed onto the floor below it. When I saw all the plates and none of the holes were deformed, it told me that the bolts sheared off. A mathematical mind doesn’t see these things. There’s a difference between cheap and safe, or that which kills a whole bunch of people. There’s a difference in how unethical it is.”
“I know you were up in the World Trade Towers when you went to the Windows on the World restaurant. Have you been to the World Trade Towers 9/11 museum?” I inquired. Temple replied, “No, I’ve never been there.” I continued, “I was there a few years ago. It’s pretty emotional. I was there with my husband. We both felt the presence of all those souls that died that day in the museum, especially when we were in the lower level where the steel beams are housed; the section where the plane flew into. It took us days to recover from being there.”
CHAPTER 23
Recent Trips
Between our talks, Temple continued to make her frequent trips all over to speak, either for autism or animal handling. She had just returned from Ireland, where she visited two beef plants.
“Hi, Temple. How was your trip to Ireland?” I anxiously inquired. I heard papers shuffling around in the background as Temple replied, “At one of the plants, the cattle wouldn’t go in the stun box. You know how we fixed it? Turned out there were six holes, about an inch in diameter, that had been drilled in the gate, and the cattle could see movement through them. We covered them up with tape and then it worked just fine. I still get a thrill out of figuring these simple things out.”
“I know that you really enjoy figuring stuff out, simple or complex,” I added.
“What did you do at the other beef plant you went to?” I asked. She replied, “I showed the other beef plant I went to that they were bringing too many cattle up at once and letting them turn around. I showed them how to only bring up a certain amount of cattle and keep them moving along going forward. Then it worked just fine. This was just a small plant, only processing thirty-five cattle an hour. The big plants process around three hundred and fifty an hour. But I really like figuring out how to fix things, especially something simple like that.”
“I don’t think I’ve asked you this question yet, but where have you traveled around the world?” Temple thought for a moment, then began firing off the list of where she’s been. It was quite an impressive list. Here’s what she had to say: “I’ve been to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, El Salvador, Costa Rica, everywhere in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. My favorite place is Australia, because they have lush pastures and I love the countryside.”
“What was the most unusual thing you experienced while traveling abroad?” I wanted to know. I was sorry I asked after I heard the answer. “At a dinner in China, they served big sea slugs. Nobody ate them, they looked like big, slimy dog poo! There was no way I was going to bite into that. You’d have to just pick it up with some chopsticks and just pop it into your mouth! I can also remember going to a meat science meeting in Finland, and the meat was terrible!”
I think I’d be looking for a restaurant nearby.
CHAPTER 24
Looking Through the Lens
I’m sure you’ve seen those beautiful photos of Temple sitting with cattle, the ones with her black shirt and red scarf, and endless others. Have you ever wondered who took those great shots? Well, you’re going to find out! The photographer is one of Temple’s great friends, Rosalie Winard.
“Temple,” I asked, “how did you first meet Rosalie?” Temple replied, “Years ago at an autism meeting, she was doing a documentary on a man with autism who was nonverbal. That’s where I first met her. I’ve been over to her house a whole bunch of times. She’s really into photography. She had a beautiful art exhibit on bird photography. Rosalie has taken a lot of photos of me, like those photos of me in the red shirt with all the cattle. She’s taken some of the best pictures of me. She took the pictures of me and Oliver Sacks, like the one with our arms around each other in his office. I needed to have pictures taken of me, so I had her do it. It sort of evolved from there.”
I asked how long Temple has known her. “Oh, about thirty years!” she replied. “That’s a long time to be friends with someone,” I observed, “I think because you are friends with her, you were relaxed in front of the camera, and that shows in all those photos.”
“Oh, you’ll like this story,” Temple shared, “Rosalie had this cat named Earl Grey. He was a big, blue-point Siamese cat. He was a tool-using cat. He would wad up a towel, or shirts, and hump them!” She burst out laughing. “I’m not kidding!”
By now, I was laughing too. “I’ve never heard of a cat doing that! Good grief! Was he neutered?” I asked. Temple replied, “I think he was neutered late. If they get neutered late, they keep some of that behavior.”
Temple continued, “When I was a kid, we had a Siamese cat, and he was neutered late. He’d see his reflection i
n a framed picture that was leaning against the hall wall. We had just moved in, so things weren’t hung up yet. So when he saw his reflection in the glass, he’d back up to it and spray it. He must have done twenty pictures, and it went under the glass in some of them!”
“Oh, that must have smelled great,” I added.
“Rosalie told me that sometimes she’d come to visit with you and travel together,” I said. Temple replied, “Yes, Rosalie has traveled with me, yes, we’ve gone places together. She’d come to New York and we’d go to dinner with Oliver Sacks together, several times, and that was really nice. That’s when she took those photos of me with Oliver. I’m really glad to have those photos. Rosalie and I also went to see Avatar together. That’s such a wonderful movie.”
I went on to say, “When I was talking to Rosalie, I mentioned that I went to your seventieth birthday celebration. She said when she went to see you the next day, you were packing your nose. She said your nose was broken and you were tending to it. That’s what I was afraid of,” I stated.
Okay, let me fill you in on what happened the day of Temple’s party. She and I were heading out of the Animal Sciences building, on our way to the parking lot to go to the farm. We were walking pretty quickly. The front entrance of that building is basically a wall of glass, from the ceiling to the floor, with doors that are glass, too. I was looking straight ahead, walking next to Temple. All of a sudden, wham! Temple had walked right into the glass wall, full speed, and smashed her face into the glass. She bounced backwards, and I reached out to catch her, thinking she was going to fall. I actually heard a loud crack, which turned out to be her nose as it hit the glass. I went into a silent panic. I thought in that instant that she’d suffer a concussion from that impact. “Oh my God! Are you okay?” I blurted out. Without missing a beat, Temple replied, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” I was worried about it, though, because I knew how hard she smashed into the glass. We then continued to walk to the parking lot and were soon on our way to the farm. Every little bit I’d ask, “Are you sure you’re alright?” I kept watching her closely for any signs of a concussion. What else would a medical professional do?