You know
there is just no way around it; while born male, I clearly am not and have
never been typical. Being raised by a single handicapped mother, I never learned many
of the things that most of your average boys learn.
I never got into
sports, and at the age of (almost) 53, I still can’t throw or catch a football
to save my life.
I think I
went fishing twice, once with my alcoholic father. We spent the day floating on
a lake with him drinking beer after beer. I don’t recall if he caught anything
or not, I just remember being horrified when he told me that I either had to
pee over the side of the boat, or pee into one of his beer cans and then pour it over the side. Most little boys
would have been golden (pun intended) with just peeing off the side of the
boat, but as I said, I wasn’t your typical boy.
“Rough
housing?” Not so much. Never had a father or father-like individual around that
wanted to rough house, toss each other around, etc. The closest I had to this
was my big brother, but most of the time that we tussled with each other, it
really wasn’t in fun; it was brothers giving each other shit. I’d give him hell
with my mouth and my words, and he would reply by knocking me on my ass.
I never went
camping as child but the US Army made damned sure that I experienced that
particular past time to the fullest. When I was stationed in Germany, my unit
would watch the weather report, and when the weather was going to be cold, wet,
and absofrickenlutely miserable, we would pack all of our gear up and go live
in the woods for a few weeks. I grew to absolutely hate these field events, and 30+ years later I still flat refuse to
go camping. Some days I’d swear that my toes are still cold from my last field exercise. I actually do enjoy time in the wilderness and
am happy to spend the day out in the dirt, dust, and bugs, but by God when it
comes time to call it a night, I want a shower and a clean bed to sleep in. If
you really wanna make my A-list,
throw an air conditioner into the mix. I aint sleeping in the dirt anymore. No.
Nope. Done with it.
So fast
forward lots and lots and lots of years and here I am, the father of three
beautiful children. I’ve had zero role models for being a good father and pretty
much my main plan for dealing with fatherhood is to try not to suck at it as
bad as mine did. So no real plan to excel at it, just the desire to not totally
screw it up.
Recently my
wife has become almost obsessed with a fitness class based on self-defense that
is given in a neighboring town and she goes pretty much every night. I’m
delighted for her as she is clearly profiting from it, both physically and
mentally. She was so impressed with the way that this class made her feel so
much better about herself that she enrolled our 8 year old son in a similar
class in the same building, where he is just beginning to learn the very basics
of martial arts. I absolutely love the way it is changing his attitude! It is
giving him confidence and teaching him both respect and some self-discipline.
It also has the advantage of getting him off of the couch, out from in front of
the TV, and gets him doing something physical.
A few weekends ago, we watched him test for his next belt, and it was a
serious pleasure to see the smile in his eyes, and just to watch him be a
little boy. At one point I looked at my wife and told her that I thought this
was one of the best ideas that she has ever had.
“I know!” she replied
“I know!” she replied
“I think
hanging out with Anthony (the instructor) is good for him. It gives him the chance
to hang out with guys that . . .” and
here she paused and got that look on her face that after 30 years I’ve come to
recognize as her looking for a way to say something without hurting anyone’s
feelings.
“Guys that
act like guys?” I finished for her with a laugh.
“Well, yeah.
Sort of.” She agreed with me.
There was
nothing mean or ugly meant here, and she certainly wasn’t trying to hurt my
feelings. It was just a simple statement about the way that things are. Still,
it left me more than a little depressed and I probably spent the next two weeks
obsessed with the thought that I’m not doing right by my son. Not sucking as
bad as my father did is not good enough. Sigh . . .
I’m off to
see two customers and my big sister
this week. A small perk of my job is that on rare occasions it takes me to
where it is feasible for me to see family and friends that live thousands of
miles from me. In this case, I’m off to the University of California at
Berkeley, which just happens to be only a two hour drive away from my big sister.
I’ve scheduled the flights so that I will get to spend Saturday with my sister,
and then head straight from there to Indiana for my next customer Sunday
morning. My sister and her husband will be taking two of their grandchildren to
baseball games that they will be playing in. You know, one of those things that
most fathers probably do with their sons? Maybe I’ll learn something from the
experience – who knows?
I wasn’t
feeling quite so pretty anymore. . .
Anyway, I made
my way off of the bus, found a quiet place to sit down, and pulled another pair
of heels out of my suitcase. Being a multi-color plaid-like pattern, they don’t
really go with the outfit, but that’s pretty irrelevant at this point as I can
at least walk in them.
Having my
shoe dilemma resolved, I then made my way through the TSA inspection point
where I received a mixed blessing. The inspector looks at my ID for a moment,
then he looks at me in confusion.
“Matthew?”
he asks relatively loudly, “I’m sorry – where is Matthew?”
I looked at
him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was messing with me or if he was
serious, but I was absolutely certain that he was sincere. I was just about to
explain exactly who ‘Matthew’ was when it apparently clicked for him.
“Oh!” he
said quietly, then initialed my ticket and handed it and my ID back to me. I smiled at him as I took my documents back,
then raised my finger to my lips.
“Shhh!” I told him softly, winking at him as I walked by.
“Shhh!” I told him softly, winking at him as I walked by.
When I got
into my rental car, I connected my phone to the cars Bluetooth, and was soon
listening to Vikki Carr as I was making my way to the exit. For just the
briefest of seconds, I found myself thinking “Hey, I’ve got to call mom and
tell her about the new Vikki Carr albums I found!” The thing is, my mom died
years ago, but I still catch myself
thinking things like this from time to time.