When I was a Younger Man

On the surface, it might seem conceited of me writing yet another article about myself. Perhaps it’ll be mistaken as some self-absorbed treatise on the wonderment of youth and the trials (slash) tribulations of growing up in the 50’s in the Midwest. Like some opening act or shadowy prelude to my oft-mentioned ‘Lost Years’ during the Sixties. In reality, it’s a sobering realization that the complexity of youth is often realigned as age and maturity gain some foothold on one’s memory.

My Mother appears in these two pictures; the first on her wedding day and the second with some skittish grade-schooler in her own backyard. Yet her presence can be felt in every picture…one vision then, another now.

I can’t say the pictures unleash a floodgate of fond memories drowning my consciousness with warmth. But nor do they harken back to a darker period in my life. Instead, the photos tell a simple story. It was what it was. That would be defined as growing up in a single parent household and raised by an emotionally-vacant woman who was just trying to survive under some very tough circumstances. And she did it with little to no support from other family members. Boyed by her Catholic faith and the resiliency of her rural upbringing this woman made the best of numerous life-changing events in her life.

My mother came from an agrarian culture, much like the woman I would eventually marry. Beneath that façade of modesty was one tough, hard-working and determined woman. With little more than her own mental smarts and street-learned determination my mother made her way through a hard-scrabble, ever-changing world…with two kids under tow and no husband at her side.

I look back at these pictures of myself now and see them quite differently than I have in the past.

I used to see a scared kid unsure of himself with no father or father figure to guide him along. Now, I see a kid heavily influenced by the work ethic and penny-wise attitudes of his mother. She started working at age five by cleaning out the chicken coop. I started working in seventh grade with my first paper route. We both always had/have side hustles going on.

I used to see a teenager desperate to find love and affection and someone to be close to. Now I see an ordinary kid just like every other kid I knew who was searching for love…only I didn’t know it at the time.

I used to see kid so proud of his ROTC training and the Lieutenants bars pinned on his shoulders even if it was only in high school. Now, I see a kid who got the message early on that education was everything and he was determined to pass that on to his own children and grandchildren.

I used to see a young man in his hippie beads trying to express himself with a mother who never quite understood why. Now, I see that same young man in his hippie beads and understand what she was smiling about.  I think I’d be smiling right there alongside her now.

Age and maturity have finally brought clarity to the reality of those pictures now. It’s too late to tell her now but if I could…..I’d tell my mother:

I’ve never said it before, Mom, but you did good. With very little help and lacking any formal education you managed to pull off what a lot of other married women and single mothers weren’t able to do.

You built your home with your own hands; making sure your kids got a good Catholic education. You even managed to finally find the joy of love later on in life. And near and dear to your heart, you were loved by your grandchildren who still treasure their memories of you long after you left for that Novena in the Sky.

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to see the whole picture when I was growing up there alongside you. It was cloudy and vapid back then…and it’s taken a long time for me to put that puzzle together. I should have told you how very proud I was to have you as my mother. I’ve never said that to you before.

But I’m saying it now.

Five Years in the Wilderness

Whether we were aware of it or not, many of us had our lives mapped out pretty clearly from the beginning. Growing up, most of us followed a pattern of education, social engagement, romantic venturing and finally settling down into a routine called married life. It’s all very conforming, comfortable for the most part and expected…..for most folks but not all of us.

When my buddies and I were young and dumb, the world was a rainbow landscape full of wonderful adventures and opportunities. Each of us set out to become whatever we thought we could/should/would become at the time. The world was our oyster and we meant to have it all…and we did. One a doctor, one a writer, and one a priest.

Fast forward five or so years and a great number of my high school classmates were gett-ing married, having kids and settling down into a lifetime of work and routine. Not me.  I was still ruminating over career choices that involved creativity and was about as far from a 9-to-5 existence as I could possibly imagine. Unlike a lot of my friends, it took me about five years wandering and wondering until my focus became clear…that is, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

My five years wandering in that proverbial wilderness (1966-1971) began right after the service, continued while living in Europe and culminated in circling around life choices that began as avocations and ended up becoming my career. Along the way, there were plenty of stumbles, detours, hurt feelings, high expectations, false hopes, and blind ambitions to fill each day.

One thing that fortified me on this journey were the friendships, abet seldom lasting, that I made along the way. These were fellow wanderers who were as confused yet hopeful as I was. It was an exciting time to be working in public television, hanging out at the Triangle Bar and tasting the silliness that only bachelorhood can provide.

A lucky encounter one evening at work signaled the beginning of the end to my wandering.

Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying that life is like a bank account. How you use it is solely your determination. You can withdraw it in a hurry and live a very short life. Or you can be diligent with your withdrawals and live, hopefully, much longer.

It’s been forty or fifty years since many of us turned twenty-one and shed our cloak of anonymity to adorn ourselves with the costume of adulthood. Now we’re at a point in our lives where reflection is more than a glass of chardonnay framed within a sunset or a cold brew among high school buddies.

We’ve let life’s ebb and flow (call it our gypsy muse) guide us in this rhythm of life. For most of us, the process was organic and without a lot of thought. Life investments were made, squandered, lost, accumulated, divested and set aside. Some things worked out and some things didn’t. Now we have the residue of our wisdom or luck or mistakes to live with for the rest of our lives. And most of those life steps are now just a memory.

One regret is that my bank account of friends isn’t the greatest. A reluctance to make an effort back then has left me lacking in that area. Yet what I do have in the vault is now priceless. One of my aspirations is to mine those rich veins of past friendships to see if I might unearth more nuggets there. Occasionally I’ll strike gold and rekindle a long lost almost forgotten friendship from the dusty archives of my past. It’s a blast. And immensely satisfying.

Those random discoveries got me thinking about other friendships; past and future, strong and vapid, present and omnipresent. I thought about the friends I’ve had over the years. Some of them shared isolated points in my life; high school, college and work. Some were but fleeting incisions in the tenderness of my youth. Others were shared experiences like the military: isolated, vacuous, and destined to crash with each discharge celebration where inane behavior in the barracks seemed to make perfect sense back then.

The cliché that you can never have too many friends dissolves over the pages of Facebook where collecting friends can be a cyber-game for some folks, devoid of meaningful contact and concern. Having friends on Facebook isn’t the same as having real friends who care and share and actually want to be somebody in your life. Big difference there!

I am in a good place in my life now. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore! As an artist, I love creating stories in many different genres and I intend to continue writing until my pen dries up or I go blind. I’d like to take folks along this discovery of self and life and whatever else comes my way just as it began during those five years in the wilderness.

People Who Disappoint

It sounds terribly harsh, haughty and perhaps even cruel. People in your past life who disappointed you. Past friends or acquaintances whose actions didn’t live up to your expectations; real or otherwise. People who didn’t follow through or fell short of what you expected from them.

Of course, it’s terribly subjective and handicapped by a less than thorough knowledge of their motives. Were there extraneous factors, whether recognized or not, that contributed to the demise of that friendship? Was it something you did or didn’t do? Was it something you said, even in honesty, that was taken the wrong way?

No matter what the contributing factors might have been you’ve come to the conclusion that whatever you once had with these folks has now’ left the station.’ On one hand it’s sad. On the other it’s just life giving you a poke on the backside and reminding us all that nothing and no one is perfect.

Some folks can be brutally honest in terms of their relationships. They separate family (with all those obligatory ties) from friends and acquaintances (where they get to decide whom they want to be associated with.) They pick and choose their friends based on connections, associations and tie-ins all for their own self-benefit and satisfaction. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ as my boss used to say, ‘it’s just business.’

Friendships and relationships can be by their very nature a very vapid and elusive bond to attain and hold on to. Fleeting friendships based on circumstance are easy to recognize. A partnership in the Armed Forces evaporates as soon as discharge papers are served. That’s understood, accepted and welcomed for a return to civilian life. A close relationship in school can wither away and die when outstate jobs or opportunities beckon. Neighbors and neighborhoods fade from memory after the moving van has arrived. It’s all part and parcel of the ebb and flow of normal life.

Photo courtesy of Jerry Hoffman

But what about those friendships that you thought were meant for greater things. Something special you wanted to hold on to but couldn’t…her fault or yours, it doesn’t matter anymore. The clichés are rampant when describing what happened or might have happened. ‘There were promises not met or kept.’ ‘We were moving along in life.’ ‘People change.’ ‘They/she just wasn’t that into you.’ And the one that best describes them all because it tells us nothing: ‘Things happen.’ Whatever once was had become vaporous and vague. Then like the morning mist wrapping itself around a tree trunk it slowly slipped away.

It seems to me that some folks go through life on auto-pilot. They never stop to question anything that life throws at them. Instead of designing their life as they would want it or like it or wish for it to be they simply accept what is lying there on top of the morning covers. I think that’s what happens to a lot of friendships. They’re taken for granted until those innocuous bonds that held it together have slowly unraveled and broken apart, leaving nothing but memories where a welcoming smile used to be.

A mental-meandering trip back in time usually reveals little. So what happened to those folks?

Did they change or did you? Whose expectations weren’t met? Was it your baggage or theirs? Did they move on or did you move on with your life and in the process leave behind what once was or might have been. Did they disappoint you or did you screw up and lose what might have been a wonderful friendship or relationship?

Like most mysteries of life, there are no easy answers…if any at all. What once was is no longer relevant and if that bothers you then the onus is on you to make it better the next time around.

As the saying goes: “To have a friend you must first be a friend.” They’re still out there…those wonderful folks who could be your friend. You just have to be generous in kindness and spirit.

I guess we (or perhaps just I) have to make the effort and accept the fact that we might be disappointed. 

Riding Shotgun with Peter Pan

Saturday mornings were very special for my kids and me.

I’d start to pack the car with tools for work at the buildings and both kids would run out of their bedrooms, eager to start the day with Dad. It meant breakfast at some dive in town, work at

the buildings for more than minimum wage, lunch at some other dive and then free shopping at the Ax Man (The Ax Man Cometh) on University Avenue.

First one to reach the car would always shout “Shotgun” and claim the right to ride up front with Dad all day or at least until the arguing got enough for me to relegate one of them to the back seat. For some reason, riding shotgun with Dad always had this special appeal to my kids. Now things have somewhat reversed themselves and I’m riding shotgun with Peter Pan and loving every minute of it.

I was reminded of that episode in my life awhile back.  We had season tickets to the Pantages Theater located on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. It’s in the heart of tinsel town, that wonderful enclave of smoke and mirrors that cloud youthful dreams for harsh reality. The play was about never growing up; quite appropriate in the land of eternal youth where beauty is really an oxymoron for chemically-induced plastic infill and libido. The sidewalks there reminded me of Venice Beach without the beach.

We saw a wonderful theatrical production of Peter Pan. First written in 1902 by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie, the story of a mischievous boy who refuses to grow up has struck a chord with readers and audiences alike for decades. While Peter is an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy, he does evolve, nevertheless, the joy and excitement of youthful discoveries of self and surroundings. It really is a wonderful metaphor for questioning the old archaic benchmarks of old age.

The story of  Peter Pan still resonates with me because I’ve decided that since I missed my opportunity to grow up when I was a younger man, I’m not interested in doing so at this latter stage in my life. It’s far too interesting maintaining a  zestful curiosity for the sublime and unordinary in everyday life.

Many of my colleagues seem quite content with their aging process, embracing it as the inevitable next step.  We all grow old but some seem to be getting ahead of themselves while others are right on track. I guess I’ve always been adult-delayed.  Life is too short to be taken so seriously.

I probably first felt that at the Presidio of San Francisco. Young Heart by the Bay.

Then when I was living in Europe for the first time.  Snow White and the Seven Seekers.

And the second time.  Europe; the Second Harvest.

And on a few of my misadventures as a middle-aged rambler. 

And Then the Vultures will eat you.  

Ditching my son inthe Amazon. 

What I Learned from Howling Monkeys.

So while my colleagues in genealogy are counting their coins, calories and health care providers, I’m focusing on my writing, further adventures with Brennan and Charlotte, trips to Colorado and  the magnificent trio there and other sundry acts of self-discovery.

Growing up is a metaphor for growing old and I love my denial. My grandchildren have become a wonderful excuse to roll in the dirt, get sand in my trunks, hang like a wild man on the monkey bars and challenge muscles I never knew I had.

It’s a return to my limited youth as I watch Maya balance on my bogie board and imitate Gidget or Spencer defy gravity on his scooter and Samantha doing pull ups on the rings.

Listening to Brennan and Charlotte play their banjo and guitar is like watching two drunken sailors playing music badly with wild abandon. They’re having a good time and I’m having a great time watching them destroy the purity of folk music.

It’s an epic smoke and mirrors exercise that keeps me young and involved and totally in denial. If it worked for Peter Pan for all these many years, I figure I’ve got a chance to make it work for me as well.