Krewe of Muses will fete autistic girl jeered by drunken louts on parade route

As one of the earliest members of Muses, I am incredibly proud of this organization for doing this.


http://www.nola.com/mardigras/index.ssf/2012/02/krewe_of_muses_will_fete_autis.html

By Gordon Russell, The Times-Picayune



A heart-rending yarn posted on the NOLAFemmes blog yesterday has gone viral on social media, and it has inspired the Krewe of Muses to schedule a special event this morning. In short, here's the story: Author A.L. Mueller and her daughter, who is autistic, attended the Muses parade last week. Mueller's daughter had been looking forward to the parade for a month, even designing a calendar countdown.

Once there, they found themselves next to a group of drunken jerks, including a college-age man who referred loudly to Mueller's daughter as a "retard." Her daughter, crestfallen, asked to leave the parade, and says she "doesn't want to do Mardi Gras. Not ever again."

It's a story worth reading, and many have -- the story already has more than 300 comments, many from other parents of special-needs kids.

Among the readers: members of the Krewe of Muses, who have decided to stage an event this morning in the girl's honor. At 11 this morning, the krewe is opening its den on South Claiborne Avenue at Clio Street, where the girl will be invited to climb into the group's signature shoe float.

And here is the post from the girl's mother:

http://nolafemmes.com/2012/02/23/litupparade/

Lit Up Like a Parade

Thursday marked the end of a countdown my daughter started on January 6: Muses.

Each night, after she listed her daily gratitudes and wrote in her diary, she would find the countdown calender drawn on pink paper and dressed in white, silver, purple, and red glitter. With her very special pen, she would carefully cross off one more day, informing me of the new countdown as she called out wishes of sweet dreams. As the countdown slimmed from a month, to a week, and then to days, her excitement grew.

“I don’t know if I should wear a costume this year or not, Mama,” she contemplated in the middle of a lesson on polygons for her sixth grade math class.

“Mama. do you think I will get a shoe?”

The entire blog post can be found at the link.