Holiday TV commercials are filled with images of happy families reveling in scenes of peaceful contentment: joyfully opening perfectly wrapped presents under perfectly decorated trees; rushing out in fresh snowfalls to beam at new, non-snow covered, perfect cars; et cetera ad nauseam. The holidays joyously serve as the yearly crescendo to their perfectly peaceful family lives.
All this peacefulness seems odd to those of us who are members of actual families. That’s because we know family life is far from a peaceful idyll. In fact, having a family is life’s wildest ride. If you’re looking for hair-raising adventure, forget lion hunting in Africa or running with the bulls in Pamplona and try paying off a thirty-year mortgage with one hand while raising kids with the other.
Soon after your first baby arrives, you realize you’ve permanently strapped yourself to a runaway rollercoaster. It quickly becomes clear that you’ve lost all control because your focus has permanently shifted from your own life to your child’s, over which you have frighteningly little control. So, your goal becomes to keep driving forward despite being unable to steer, which often lands you in a ditch. Here’s one vivid example from a personal catalogue of hundreds.
Due to the higher IQs of all the other parents, I became a Cub Scout Den Leader in 1999. I scrupulously avoided any further leadership positions for the rest of my life.
After having to be airlifted from our first meeting, I realized these seven, ten-year-old boys were far too rambunctious for any ordinary meeting format. So, I decided to bust out of our meeting room and take them to an Astros-Cubs game at the Astrodome.
It was the year after the great home run derby between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, and Sammy was on another homer hot streak. My plan was to have the kids witness baseball history and, also, catch the attention of national TV cameras by having us wear eight, single letter t-shirts which together spelled out, VIVA SOSA. I borrowed a new Suburban from one of the parents and headed for Houston from Corpus Christi with all seven kids onboard.
I knew that cooping the boys up in one vehicle for the seven-hour roundtrip was sheer madness, so I’d picked the Suburban mainly because it had a video player. I’d carefully selected several movies guaranteed to hold the attention of ten-year-old boys, leaning heavily on the Star Wars trilogy.
Thanks to George Lucas, the drive to Houston was largely uneventful. However, on the long walk from the parking lot to our cheap seats, I looked like a man trying to herd soap bubbles in a high wind.
The game itself was completely lost on the boys who spent the whole-time eating cotton candy and wrestling with each other over preferred seats. And, despite my frantic efforts, the closest we got to spelling out our tribute was VISA VOSA.
After the game, I somehow managed to herd them through the sellout crowd back to the car. Jerry had proven to be the rowdiest boy, so I put him in the passenger seat next to me for the long drive home. As we passed two teenage girls in the parking lot, Jerry suddenly rolled down his window and yelled at them, “I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch.”
The girls were shocked that a ten-year-old boy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a large “V” had yelled at them. I was shocked that a ten-year-old boy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a large “V” had already developed a fashion sense.
“It’s from a song,” Jerry explained as I rolled up his window.
We stopped for fast food on the way home, and – nightmare of nightmares – the video player broke. The last thing I remember was Jerry yelling, “Food fight!” as the air filled with ketchup covered french fries.
It’s undeniably true that raising kids is the most exasperating, excruciating, and exhausting thing you can do. So, someone please explain to me why, while taking my oldest child to her freshman orientation at a faraway college, I suddenly started crying uncontrollably while speeding along the freeway in a driving rainstorm. Trying to hide my emotional collapse from my family, I stupidly opened my window so the raindrops would mask my tears. No one, not even my teenage son who was getting drenched in the seat behind me, said a word.
Tag Archives: Father and Son
HOW TO SURVIVE A BAD BABY, VOLUME II
Sooner or later, it occurs to every dad that this whole having a baby thing might not have been the greatest idea. That thought occurred to me pretty much every day because my son Matt was the worst baby who ever lived.
His specialty was waiting for my more vulnerable moments and then striking suddenly like a submerged crocodile ambushing a wading wildebeest. For instance, in restaurants he’d always wait until the food was actually served before making his move. Until then, other customers would gurgle over my cute, smiling, seemingly innocent baby. But I knew the truth: he was waiting for the trap to be baited.
As soon as the waiter would set the plate in front of me, Matt’s eyes would lock on mine. I’d pick up the fork, and he’d just stare. It wasn’t until the first forkful was an inch from my mouth that he’d let fly with one of his screaming, Tasmanian devil tantrums, and I’d have to rush him outside.
One night, we went out to eat at a nice restaurant with some visiting friends. I was starving, so, rather than take howling Matt outside right away, I quickly choked down several mouthfuls of food. It couldn’t have taken two minutes, but already the other customers were glowering at me. And as I reached across the table to pick up Matt, I knocked over a glass of red wine onto the white table cloth, which prompted the smirking guy at the next table to applaud. My friend sprang up and rushed toward him shouting, ”Yeah, you like that? You want me to knock over your wine glass?”
Just another fun-filled, relaxing night out with the family.
On airplanes, he was Mr. Charm until we were wheels up. As for what happened in the air, suffice it to say that when we finally de-planed every passenger took extra time to give us an angry glare, I had a Mount Vesuvius headache, and my wife was usually crying.
But it was on our road trips to visit my parents in Houston that Matt would paint his masterpieces. It was three hours trapped in our tiny car with a blaring air-raid siren in the backseat.
One late night, there was only one empty intersection with one last red light between us and my parents’ house, and I couldn’t take it anymore; I took a gamble and ran that light as big as Dallas.
As I watched the police officer walk slowly toward our car, I was sure Matt would stop crying in order to avoid giving me any advantage in the coming negotiations. But, because we had stopped and we weren’t immediately letting him out, he started crying even louder.
I rolled the window all the way down – to give the officer the full air-raid siren effect – and handed him my license. He grimaced, and then looked up at the sky, swinging his head around as if on the lookout for dive bombing Stukas. Then he shined his flashlight through Matt’s window and stared for several seconds as Matt struggled to rip apart his car seat straps like a hysterical Superman trying to free himself from kryptonite restraints.
“How long has he been like that?” he asked.
“All the way since Corpus,” I told him.
Still staring at Matt, he handed me back my license, told me to drive carefully, turned, and hurried back to his cruiser. Score one for dad.
All grown up now, Matt left home for good a couple of weekends ago. Ever since, the silence has been driving me mad. More than anything, I hate it when the world is round.
Why I Hate Alzheimer’s
He was a tall, good looking seller of printing supplies with a killer smile, a joyful laugh, and a quick, self deprecating wit. He grew up on the unforgiving streets of NYC, served honorably in World War II, married my mother, and raised the four of us. He lived a long, happy life with the exception of one dark cloud that dogged him: He had no mechanical ability whatsoever.
Our possessed garage door opener was a frequent recipient of his inept ministrations. I’d often see him standing on a rickety wooden chair puzzling over its latest malfunction, multicolored wires dangling down around his head, the tip of a table knife (he didn’t believe in screwdrivers) being ground into a Celtic cross as he tried to loosen a factory tightened screw. He’d always get it to work, for a while, but his faith in the power of shoelaces to hold metal objects in proper alignment and the inevitable loose and “extra” wires created the impression of a large, inverted New Years party favor presiding over the garage.
We moved from New York to Houston in 1973 when I was 13. My father took us to Lake Livingston to show us the wonders of the greater metropolitan area. We rented a very small boat with an outboard motor to tour the lake. My younger brother and I sat on either side of the motor as dad tried to start it. For some reason, the starter rope was very hard to pull. We could see that dad sensed there was something wrong with the motor and would have loved to attempt a quick repair, but, having no table knives aboard, he grabbed the rope with both hands and gave it a mighty heave. My brother and I watched dad fly overhead and pinwheel into the water as our boat shot out from under him: He’d started the motor in gear.
One Christmas Day my parents were visiting, and my wife gave me an electric drill. My father, who’d never held one before, hefted it wonderingly and held it up to the light at various angles. He asked me if I had any projects we could try it out on. His eyes lit up when I told him the latch on the fence was broken, and I’d recently bought a new one to replace it.
They were long screws that would have to be driven deep into the fence post, a two hour, three table knife, miserable job if ever there was one. My father held the screw in place with one hand and fitted the phillips head drill bit into the screw head with the other. He pulled the trigger and an instant later took a step back in mute bewilderment. From the expression on his face, you’d have thought he’d made the screw disappear. He turned to me, his eyes still wide, and said, “So that’s how they build all those big buildings and bridges.”
A few years later, the inevitable slide began to take its toll. He wound up in an Alzheimer’s facility. The first time I visited him there, he didn’t know who I was, but he knew I was someone he cared about very much. He wept and said over and over again, “It’s so sad.” I was basically in shock when I left and wound up in a Houston mall walking in a zombie-like stupor. Eventually, a kind security guard checked on me and led me to a fast food place where I sat for a long time thinking about how sad it was.
He died in April 2004. People had told me that his long illness would make his death easier on the family. It might have been easier, but it was nowhere near easy. I was in bad shape at the funeral mass.
Afterward, as his hearse was pulling out into lunch hour traffic on Bellaire Boulevard, it crashed to a stop when the driver cut the curb and the right rear tire fell into a large rut. It was such a sad sight that not even Houstonians could bring themselves to honk their horns as the hearse blocked the right lane of traffic.
Several of us grabbed the bumper and, with the driver gunning the engine, futilely tried to lift and push it out of the hole. Others ran to get large chunks of concrete from a nearby construction site to put under the tire, but that didn’t work either. Finally, someone driving by in a large pickup truck stopped, hooked up a tow chain to the hearse and pulled it free. As I watched it drive off, I whispered to myself,” My God, how he would have loved this.” And then, I swear, I heard him laugh for the last time. That is, until we meet again.
How To Survive A Bad Baby, Volume I
Erin, our first, came along as welcome as a spring rain and as gently as the morning dew. She slept through the night, rarely cried, and gave us a smile when we needed one. Matt, our second, not so much. Among the many long, horrible nights he put us through, one still haunts my fading memory.
I was torn from a deep sleep at 4 a.m. by the blare of a 7-month old mini-siren and the mournful sound of my wife crying. Claire was standing beside the bed holding Matt, who had begun wailing when the obstetrician smacked him on the rear and hadn’t stopped since. Tonight, he was really rocking the house. When he was like this, we both knew the only way to calm him down was to take him for a drive. But I was too exhausted to get behind the wheel, and a co-worker had recently shared a brilliant scheme that she swore always worked with her baby.
I got out of bed, threw on some shorts, staggered out to the Subaru, returned with Matt’s car seat, put it on top of the clothes dryer, put the screaming kid in the car seat, and turned on the dryer. Miraculously, he immediately quieted down. I stared in prideful wonder at the vibrating baby, like Edison at his glowing bulb. Claire gave me a little hug, and we smiled contentedly at each other. Matt instantly saw that for the first time in his life he’d done something to make his parents happy, so he reared back and doubled the previous volume and intensity of his screams. Just then, our long-suffering neighbors in the apartment next door began banging on the wall.
Resigned to my fate, I carried Matt in his car seat to the Subaru and strapped him into the back seat. The tiny car’s acoustics gathered and focused the kid’s screams like a funnel; it felt like he was shrieking inside my skull. I cranked up the AC/DC- to make it a fair fight- and drove aimlessly through the moonlight.
I was dreaming of soundproof rooms and sleeping pills when I dimly perceived a tapping sound growing louder and more insistent. Squinting in the bright sunlight, I slowly woke from a perfect sleep the likes of which I hadn’t known since Matt arrived. A police officer was rapping on the driver’s side window. I quickly turned around to check on Matt; arms and legs splayed out, snoring softly, the little guy was sound asleep. I turned to the officer, put a finger to my lips, made a shushing sound, and rolled down the window.
The cop very softly whispered, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Uhm.” I had no idea. I looked around, discovered I was in a Whataburger parking lot and, staring straight ahead, answered, “A Whataburger parking lot?” After hearing the whole story, the officer strongly suggested I take Matt home.
Pulling out of the parking lot, I realized I had absolutely no memory whatsoever of pulling into the parking lot: a clear-cut case of sleepdriving.
My sympathies to those dads being driven to sleepless despair by their own mini-sirens. But, if you can resist the natural impulse to head for the hills, in 20 years or so they may, as Matt did, grow into one of the finest people you’ve ever known.
Golf Is A Genetic Disorder
Heaven knows we can’t help what we love, and my father was helplessly in love with golf. He naturally assumed that his teenage son would be too. But, as much as I liked being with him, I’ve always loathed the game, and it showed in the quality of my play. Of all our misadventures on the links, one lives on in my most vivid nightmares.
For the thousandth time, I stood forlornly over the ball as dad began his tireless litany, “Head down, eye on the ball, left arm straight, hips loose as a goose (then he’d shimmy like Shakira), backswing low and slow, swing through the ball.” It was like driving a car while reading the owner’s manual and resulted in a herky-jerky swing that produced a ball flight consistent only in its absolute unpredictability.
I was just about to hit my drive, when I noticed a course employee had stopped his maintenance cart on the path about 100 yards ahead of us. I waved him on, but he motioned for me to go ahead and hit. My father told me to swing away, there was no way I’d hit him.
Like a dimpled laser beam, the ball’s trajectory varied nary an inch in any direction. The worker dove head-first from the cart, like Pete Rose sliding into second. There was a loud clang as the ball hit the metal fender inches from where he’d been sitting. He quickly got to his feet, yelling and angrily gesturing at me.
I’d fallen to my knees as I’d watched the horror unfolding before me. Dad and I looked at each other in wide-mouthed wonder. I slowly collected myself and said from my knees, “If I’d wanted to hit him, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him.” My father, the astonished look still on his face, nodded in mute agreement to the absolute truth of what I’d just said.
Cynics say that parents, like my father, who push children in the direction of their own broken dreams are trying to live through their kids. The truth is, they want their kids’ lives to be perfect. And those childhood dreams of playing centerfield for the Yankees, dancing on Broadway, or playing on the PGA tour are still our ideal of perfection. So, push them we do. I ruined tennis for both my kids when they were little by doing just that.
And then one December day when he was 15, my son, Matt, announced he was going to try out for his high school golf team, despite the fact that he’d never played a round of golf in his life. I went into full parent freak out mode and bought him a specially weighted, caution-tape yellow, training golf club I’d found on the web. When I proudly gave it to him Christmas morning, he looked at it like I’d just handed him a new algebra book.
The next day, I dragged him to a driving range. As he stood forlornly over the ball holding the ridiculous yellow club, I heard myself, as if from a far distance, instructing him, “Head down, eye on the ball, left arm straight, hips loose as a goose (and then I shimmied like Shakira), backswing low and….” I stared out at the horizon for a few seconds, told him I wasn’t feeling well, and walked slowly to the car where I sat and watched him flail happily away at the whole bucket of balls using my old clubs.
To Change A Tire
Like Alice through the looking glass, the real world is disappearing through our computer screens. Work, play, education, shopping, dating, banking, books, letters, and conversations are all vanishing around us; all shoved aside and replaced by their cold, spindly, digital avatars.
And because of the increasing scope and power of the digital world, we’re becoming conditioned to pay more attention to it than to what’s actually happening around us. Just try having a meaningful conversation with someone holding a smartphone. Or try sitting next to them at the movies. This also helps explain why so many of us are suddenly insane enough to text and drive.
This mass migration to the digital frontier is also widening the divide between those of us who pondered the mysteries of building blocks in our playpens and those who surfed the web in theirs. Millenials seem largely unaware that they live in Wonderland, and they appear to prefer it there. That’s why I was almost glad one sunny summer Sunday morning to discover I had a flat tire.
Have you noticed cars don’t break down as often as they used to? Their onboard computers do a much better job keeping things going than the brainless vacuum and gravity fed contraptions of the past. And for reasons probably related to automated manufacturing techniques and computer-aided design, flat tires are also a relative rarity.
As I stared down at the flat, I felt young again. I’d rolled through the 70s on retreads, and every time I was late or on a hot date I’d have a blowout. I got to where I could change one blindfolded. So, here at last was a chance to teach my millennial son one of the hallowed rituals of the pre-digitized world: we’d change a tire together.
He emerged from the house blinking in the analog daylight and in a hurry to reinsert himself back into the matrix. “Where’s the spare?” he asked. I had no idea. We eventually found it, cleverly hidden by the manufacturer underneath the car.
I’d been looking forward to showing him how to work a big old bumper jack, until I noticed the car had no bumper. We eventually found a teeny toy jack, cleverly hidden by the manufacturer behind a seat. But the dinky little crank that turned the teeny toy jack was nowhere to be found.
It was hot outside by now and the siren song of ESPN was calling me back to my recliner. “Where in the world are we going to find a little crank like that?” I whined. My son whipped out his smartphone and, after a few finger swipes, said, “It will be here Tuesday.” So much for my lesson plan.
Two days later, we jacked up the car and unscrewed the lug nuts, but the wheel wouldn’t come off the hub. And each time we yanked on it, the car rocked perilously on the teeny toy jack. Hot and frustrated, my son ran to the garage and came back with a mallet. He proceeded to maniacally whack away at the tire until the wheel broke loose and fell off. I looked at him and smiled proudly: If all the lights ever go out some crazy day, he’ll be fine.
Family Means Funny 