Tuesday
The Change of Life
There’s much to be said for suburban life despite the fact that it occasionally suffers from the stereotype of somehow being lame and stodgy. In fact I’d have to say that as a lifestyle its advantages are many, one of the finest being that it affords me the chance to get my hands in the soil each spring and work the garden and plant a few veggies.
Those efforts in the spring are always rewarded; as I sit here in front of my ancient Gateway Solo I can see into the front yard where I have an assorted collection of hot peppers, each of which is just beginning to ripen. (And now, with your permission, I’m going to pull the handbrake on this baby and do a screeching 180 right into the ridiculously maudlin jaws of overwrought metaphor… hold on tight...) And just as my peppers are ripening, I’ve noticed that my older boy is now making the transition from Entirely Clueless Little Kid into Refreshingly Self-Aware And Self-Confident Bigger Kid.
Truth be told, the reason I’m so excited to see him making this transition is because in many ways he’s just a little carbon copy of me. (Literally, if you think about it.) Anyway, when I was a little kid, I was always the one who got in trouble only because I had no idea what was going on. When we were supposed to be standing on line to go to the cafeteria, I would still be staring out the window. When we were supposed to come in after recess, I would still be sitting outside while I futzed with my shoelaces. In short, truly clueless.
Of course half the reason that both my teachers and parents found this sort of behaviour so maddening is that they knew I was no dummy. I had been reading voraciously since kindergarten, and an exploratory trip to a specialist further confirmed that I did indeed have all my marbles. And yet, I remained frustrated a lot of the time because I too realized that I never knew what was going on.
And then, I swear it was like magic, about half way through fourth grade everything started to feel different. It was almost as if a fog had lifted and I was for the first time in my life completely in control of my own destiny. Suddenly I instinctively knew when to keep my head down and when to speak up. I knew who to make friends with and who to avoid. I can’t explain it, but when I turned nine that year, something just clicked in my head and I became, more or less, the person I am today.
So of course when it became my turn to be a father, the Creator, sly prankster that he is, presented my Lovely Bride and I with a child who was a little copy of me. As our new son grew into a little boy I became fond wandering around the house and saying things like, "Very funny, God" and "Jeez, no wonder my parents were so damn cranky." My son, just like his father before him, was an early and voracious reader who, unlike me, is also a total math whiz… and yet he has to be called to dinner five or six times before it sticks. My mother is really pretty good and snickers at me only occasionally when she witnesses all this.
But now the boy just turned nine. He’s going into fourth grade in the fall. And I’ll be damned if he isn’t making that very same transition into a relaxed and confident kid right before our very eyes. He’s becoming engaged with the world in a distinctly mature way and his ambient level of frustration has dropped to nearly zero. The weird thing is that the change is as inexplicable as it is rapid, but that’s fine with me.
So I guess the virtue that this little tale espouses is patience. I know a lot of you other blogging dads have younger kids, and I have no doubt that each and every one of them is a budding brain surgeon. But, if you find that your little Noble Laureate is entirely and inexplicably incapable of remembering to flush the toilet, don’t worry. There’s always fourth grade.
Saturday
Balance and Moderation.
A closely examined life is, of course, just chock full of the emotional paraphernalia gained from years of experience. If you’re an emotionally healthy sort, this hard won experience is responsible for turning you into a reasonably moderate and sensible decision maker. To wit: "I’m bored, so I think I’ll wipe out the kid’s college savings, get blasted on crank and hole up in a shitty Vegas motel room with a one-legged hooker and a stash of guns.... but I guess I won’t because I don’t think it would turn out well."
Or, if you’re not an emotionally healthy sort, it’s probably a little more like: "I’m bored, so I think I’ll wipe out the kid’s college savings, get blasted on crank and hole up in a shitty Vegas motel room with a one-legged hooker and a stash of guns.... why yes, I’m sure that’s an excellent idea." We all know somebody like this guy. And if not, that’s why we have Robert Downy Junior.
In any case, I’ve always considered myself a shining example of moderation and balance, and have proven so yet again this last weekend; we did both baseball and Shakespeare. How’s that for balanced?
The N.J. Jackals were playing on Saturday evening, so we tossed the boys in the back of the van along with one of their friends and made our way to the hallowed grounds of Montclair State University where resides Yogi Berra Stadium. I always have a great time watching minor league ball; all the seats are great, they’re cheap, parking is free, the quality of play is almost always excellent, and, perhaps most importantly, 24 oz. Yuengling Lagers are a mere $4.25.
It really is a great stress-free family activity, even if you don’t have any particular love of sports. In short, the weather was beautiful, the Jackals won it six to five, and the kids had really great time, in a Norman Rockwell sort of way.
The next evening my Lovely Bride and I left behind the homey Americana that is our national pastime and made our way up to Garrison to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival for a performance of the Scottish play. There was, as promised, murder, madness and mayhem aplenty. And blood. And witchcraft and sword fights. What’s not to love? And, just as they were the previous night, the performances were fine and the weather beautiful.
So I’d say that was a healthy, balanced weekend. One night of cheery sports-related beer swilling surrounded by mildly sweaty salt of the earth types, and a second night of cheery drama-related Chardonnay swilling surrounded by mildly pretentious J. Crew types. Nope, no shitty Vegas motel rooms for me.
Tuesday
7/22/04
Responsibility and Relativity.
I’ve been told, all too frequently, that this is a new age of "personal responsibility." I’m not really sure just what that means exactly, although I do rather enjoy the fact that my boys are now old enough to reach the paper towels and take care of their own all too frequent spills. Spills of Biblical proportions, I might add.
And even more heartening was yesterday’s admission by Stephen Hawking that he had it all wrong about black holes and their apparent annihilation of matter and its information. What a nitwit. I mean for heaven's sake, anyone with any sense at all could have told him that it was obvious that rather than trapping and annihilating matter, black holes release "mass energy" in a mangled form. Sheesh.
You know, just between us girls, I’ve always been a little worried about Stephen. Even during our undergraduate days together at University College at Oxford he only seemed interested in frat parties and chasing skirts. And boy could he pound beers! Yup, old Steve-o, as he was known around campus, could do more beer bongs in one night than anyone! And boy could he score with the chicks; when the Steve-meister turned on the charm, the girls were like putty in his wizened little hands.
Of course all that crazy partying eventually took its toll and killed a lot of brain cells; by the time he was doing his graduate work at Cambridge he had taken to wearing a fez and referring to himself as Kaiser Buckminster the Benevolent. From there it wasn’t long before he was publishing work that read as if he was having flashbacks:
The event horizon , the boundary of the region of
space-time from which it is not possible to escape, acts rather like a one-way
membrane around the black hole... One could well say of the event horizon what
the poet Dante said of the entrance to Hell: "All hope abandon, ye who enter
here." Anything or anyone who falls through the event horizon will soon reach
the region of infinite density and the end of time. *1
What a loon. Anyway, in retrospect it seems that our falling out was inevitable; by the mid-seventies he had taken to shooting peas at me through a straw whenever we lunched together at the King’s College Social Club. It was a very sad turn of events indeed, and I can only imagine that his increasingly erratic behavior was due to a growing inferiority complex that was fueled by my superior intellect. What a duced waste of a fine mind.
In any case, if any of the old Oxford gang should happen across Stephen, give him my warmest regards and let him know that I harbor no grudge against him. Deus Servo Regina!
Perfection in Simplicity.
I find that one of the greatest pleasures in life is stumbling across something that personifies the notion of simple, elemental perfection. The Mona Lisa. Homemade apple pie ala mode. Dire Straits' album Making Movies. Things that speak for themselves.
Well, this very morning I was lucky enough to make just such a serendipitous discovery in the form of a little bit of dialogue that is so telling, so striking, and so perfect in its simplicity that it deserves to be shared. Please enjoy this exchange that occurred on Monday between reporter Helen Thomas and White House press secretary Scott McClellan. It speaks for itself:
Helen Thomas: Q Prime Minister Blair took full personal responsibility for taking his nation into war under falsehoods -- under reasons that have been determined now to be false. Is President Bush also willing to take full, personal responsibility --
MR. McClellan: I think Prime Minister Blair said that it was the right thing to do; that Saddam Hussein's regime was a threat.
Q Those were not the reasons he took his country into war. It turned out to be untrue, and the same is true for us. Does the President take full, personal responsibility for this war?
MR. McCLELLAN: The issue here is what do you to with a threat in a post-September 11th world? Either you live with a threat, or you confront the threat.
Q There was no threat.
MR. McCLELLAN: The President made the decision to confront the threat.
Q Saddam Hussein did not threaten this country.
MR. McCLELLAN: The world -- the world, the Congress and the administration all disagree. They all recognized that there was a threat posed by Saddam Hussein. When it came to September 11th, that changed the equation. It taught us, as I said --
Q The Intelligence Committee said there was no threat.
MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, it taught us that we must confront threats before it's too late.
Q So the President doesn't take full responsibility?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President already talked about the responsibility for the decisions he's made. He talked about that with Prime Minister Blair.
Q Personal responsibility?
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, go ahead.
Priceless. Wake up, America.
7/19
Priorities.
As I continue that inexorable journey towards what might be referred to, however inaccurately, responsible maturity, I find that it’s more important than ever to hold on to a childlike sense of what’s really important in life. My boys, of course, have that whole "well obviously we posses the innate ability to cast aside the chaff of irrelevancy and focus solely on what really matters" thing going on.
Practically speaking, what this means is that my younger boy will neglect wiping himself after a visit to the bathroom because he realizes that it’s critically important to rush back outdoors lest he miss even a few precious seconds of, well, being outdoors. Now that’s having your priorities straight.
So, in that very same spirit, I’m glad to report that not only did our little family jaunt to the City of Brotherly Love go off without a hitch, but we focused all our attention on the fun goofy stuff in the science museums and learned not a single new thing about our Great Republic. Not one. (Well, all right, that’s not actually true. During our tour of Independence Hall I learned that U.S. senators weren’t directly elected by the people until 1913; before that they were appointed by their respective state legislatures. Who knew? And, as long as I’ve gone to the trouble to use a pair of parentheses, I should also admit that, when quizzed by our tour guide, I found that I had the number of constitutional amendments wrong; it seems that there are twenty seven, not twenty six. As it turned out, however, I didn’t have to worry much about my little mental faux pas as I was lucky enough to be standing next to an older gentleman who, without hesitation, called out "sixty!". I’m not sure which I enjoyed more, his bright green foam and plastic mesh cap that read "Gone Fishn", or the impenetrable backwoods drawl in which he ventured his guess. Either way, I think it’s nice that God populates the planet with just enough of those sort of folks to keep my self-esteem reasonably intact. Ooops, did I say that out loud?)
But I digress. If I still remember it right, the point of all this incoherent rambling was that despite the innumerable distractions offered by Philidelphia we managed to stay focused on a few fun gift shop goodies that are as cool as they are sublimely weird. The first is a conceptual oxymoron: an Einstein Action Figure. I would imagine the TV ad goes something like: "That’s right kids, now you can pretend to think! Thrill as he sits around wearing brown sweaters! Relativity has never been so hugable!"
Even better is the weirdly lame Park Ranger Adventure figure. Although she’s impeccably dressed in olive-drab pants and sports a rigid plastic hat, I suspect that most of her adventures would consist of picking up gum wrappers and telling tourists not to feed the bears.
I did also have a completely unrelated but historically important doll revelation: while at the Independence Seaport Museum I discovered that Rosie the Riveter of WWII fame was actually Jennifer Tilly. And now she lives on as a bobble-head doll. Weird.
And finally, such a collection wouldn’t be complete without an action figure of history’s most egregiously shameless self-promoter: Benjamin Ubiquitous Franklin.
Anyway, I’m just proud of myself and the boys for keeping our prioritiesHey kids! With the Ben Franklin Action Figure you can pretend to make up endless bon mots and trite sayings! Don’t forget to involve yourself in
innumerable public undertakings… make sure everyone knows that you invented everything… and have fun while dispensing manufactured homespun, humble wisdom! (In stores now, ego not included.)
straight and staying the course on this vacation. Despite being tempted by all
the rich historical heritage that Philadelphia has to offer, we instead reached
for the brass ring of the sublime, and, by god, we ended up with a fistful of
fun that is as entirely unproductive as it is satisfying. Or something
like that.
