On the night before my oldest son leaves for a year in South Korea, the family minus one son/brother gathers around the table and feasts. For the 2 previous nights we also feasted--meat and vegetables and wine, even dessert; I feel as though Bachus and his friends dropped by for a visit. As a group we discuss my son's upcoming adventure, and those who have considered such things promise to visit him. I might have mentioned before that I once spent several days in South Korea, where various incidents contributed to my being stuck onshore, unable to return to the ship that had been damaged by a strong storm. My then-friend Kent and I found a bakery where we bought a chocolate cake and a couple bottles of Coke. We took these comestibles to our hotel room where we found we had neither bottle opener for the Coke nor forks for the cake. We managed to open the bottles using the shower head in the bathroom, and we ate the cake with our dog tags....
Today, my son has finished packing and done everything he can think of to get ready. The paperwork is organized and in a handy place; the clothing is separated and folded; the loose ends around town are tied securely to other ends. I have offered all the advice I can (probably offered too much, for that matter), but he seems to have things well in hand as any good juggler must. A wonderfully gifted solver of problems, he will do fine with or without my advice, and he is right to stop listening to me when I have said too much. Too often, it seems, we parents forget that most of what we have learned, we have learned on our own, that lessons learned carry more weight than advice taken.
At some level we have been saying goodbye for many months, separating in ways we need to, getting closer in other ways. His brothers, I know, will miss him, for he has treated them all well and has connected with each in the best possible ways. I enjoy seeing how they have developed their own histories over the years, how they have created and lived their own experiences without their parents in the picture. (They have secrets among them, too, and they have been prudent enough to disclose none of them to me.) I even feel a bit of jealousy--being metaphorically landlocked for so long finds me a bit antsy. Maybe that little thing, that sense of being tethered to one place, makes saying goodbye more difficult.
He's a lucky bastard, and I think I'll tell him as much.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Hook, Line, and Sinker
I would guess that my father was the person who taught me how to bait a hook, and often he would take my sisters and me to one or another local pond for a few hours of fishing. Mostly we used worms, though I remember my cousin taking me out one day and we used baloney surgically removed from my aunt's refrigerator. We got into trouble for that. And this was the same cousin who persuaded me that walking down the railroad tracks one sunny afternoon was a good idea--I was 4, he was 3--we got into trouble for that too. Someone found us standing outside of a bar, crying. That was my first ride in the back of a police car, and when we got back to the apartment we lived in, our parents fed us... baloney sandwiches. Then we got sent to different bedrooms to consider our sins.
But, back to fishing. I grew up using a bobber, probably because the small ponds we fished had nothing but small fish: blue gill, sunfish, the occasional catfish. I once hooked a turtle of some sort, which frightened me when I reeled it in. And once, fishing by myself, a muskrat surfaced, looked at me, and disappeared. That frightened me, too. My grandfather, though, was a true fisherman, and he and my grandmother took me to Ontario, Canada, when I was 12, and there we pursued walleye in the morning (no bobber, just a weighted line with a baited hook), which we'd then eat for lunch. In the afternoon we went after northern pike and muskie--big fish. We used lures for these fish, and though I quickly learned the art of casting and using my thumb on the open reel to stop the lure just shore of a log or the shore, too often I'd end up with a snag in my line. This, of course, caused my grandfather no small amount of frustration; he might have been embarrassed that I was even remotely related to him. He would turn out to be one of my true heroes, someone I could call a man's man. (I'd apply this to my father later, but only after years of battles and then, even later, deep contemplation.) We did not eat the pike and muskie, though I have photographs of myself holding them onshore. We must have given them to someone my grandparents knew.
Several years ago I stayed with my cousin at her family's cabin in northern Indiana, where we fished with worms and bobbers. I was happy to see that I could still remove a hook from a catfish mouth without getting my fingers pierced by the fish's whiskers, and I was even glad to see that I still felt some sadness for the greedy bluegill that swallowed a hook that could not be removed. I have fished other places, of course: for striped bass in the California Delta, for trout in Sierra lakes. I have not, however, delved into fly fishing, something my friend Shawn continues to both enjoy and write about. Shawn (and others I have known) possesses much more poetic patience than I ever will, a much better understanding of the art of fishing. I, on the other hand, am a plodder, suited to sitting and watching the white half of a bobber ride the crest of small waves.
I miss fishing. I miss watering the garden at night and getting up early the next morning to ply worms from the soft earth, and I miss casting a strand of filament out onto the water, hearing the plop of hook, line, and sinker as they begin their work, then feeling the first dip of the pole's tip as a fish samples the bait. And, I've come to miss watching my father remove fish from my hook, listening to my grandfather's admonitions as I sat in the boat, and watching my sons' faces when they, too, learned to fish. But, more than anything? I wonder just what the hell I was thinking a couple years ago when, on a quest to dispose of anything in the garage that was not being used, I disposed of a tangle of fiberglass poles and fishing line that had done nothing more than get moved from shelf to shelf for many years. Oddly, though, I did not dispose of my grandfather's homemade tackle box, which must be half a century old, or one of the open-face reels we used on that trip to Ontario.
But, back to fishing. I grew up using a bobber, probably because the small ponds we fished had nothing but small fish: blue gill, sunfish, the occasional catfish. I once hooked a turtle of some sort, which frightened me when I reeled it in. And once, fishing by myself, a muskrat surfaced, looked at me, and disappeared. That frightened me, too. My grandfather, though, was a true fisherman, and he and my grandmother took me to Ontario, Canada, when I was 12, and there we pursued walleye in the morning (no bobber, just a weighted line with a baited hook), which we'd then eat for lunch. In the afternoon we went after northern pike and muskie--big fish. We used lures for these fish, and though I quickly learned the art of casting and using my thumb on the open reel to stop the lure just shore of a log or the shore, too often I'd end up with a snag in my line. This, of course, caused my grandfather no small amount of frustration; he might have been embarrassed that I was even remotely related to him. He would turn out to be one of my true heroes, someone I could call a man's man. (I'd apply this to my father later, but only after years of battles and then, even later, deep contemplation.) We did not eat the pike and muskie, though I have photographs of myself holding them onshore. We must have given them to someone my grandparents knew.
Several years ago I stayed with my cousin at her family's cabin in northern Indiana, where we fished with worms and bobbers. I was happy to see that I could still remove a hook from a catfish mouth without getting my fingers pierced by the fish's whiskers, and I was even glad to see that I still felt some sadness for the greedy bluegill that swallowed a hook that could not be removed. I have fished other places, of course: for striped bass in the California Delta, for trout in Sierra lakes. I have not, however, delved into fly fishing, something my friend Shawn continues to both enjoy and write about. Shawn (and others I have known) possesses much more poetic patience than I ever will, a much better understanding of the art of fishing. I, on the other hand, am a plodder, suited to sitting and watching the white half of a bobber ride the crest of small waves.
I miss fishing. I miss watering the garden at night and getting up early the next morning to ply worms from the soft earth, and I miss casting a strand of filament out onto the water, hearing the plop of hook, line, and sinker as they begin their work, then feeling the first dip of the pole's tip as a fish samples the bait. And, I've come to miss watching my father remove fish from my hook, listening to my grandfather's admonitions as I sat in the boat, and watching my sons' faces when they, too, learned to fish. But, more than anything? I wonder just what the hell I was thinking a couple years ago when, on a quest to dispose of anything in the garage that was not being used, I disposed of a tangle of fiberglass poles and fishing line that had done nothing more than get moved from shelf to shelf for many years. Oddly, though, I did not dispose of my grandfather's homemade tackle box, which must be half a century old, or one of the open-face reels we used on that trip to Ontario.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Ch-ch-ch-Changes
Look out, all you rock n' rollers....
Thanks, David Bowie, for giving me a starting point.
Thanks, David Bowie, for giving me a starting point.
* * *
Maryanne was the first woman I ever made cry. It was the day I left for bootcamp, and she had driven me to the recruiter's office. Unsure of what else to do, I let her sob against my should for a few minutes as we sat in the front seat of her car, then said I had to go. She was still crying as I walked away, and just as I'd seen in so many movies, I didn't look back--something like that happens and you know what's going on behind you. Maryanne and I had been dating since we'd graduated from high school a few months before, and we pretty much were approaching the point of hot and heavy. (Sidenote: A few nights earlier we'd double-dated with my then-best-friend Gary and his girlfriend, and as we were driving back to my house for cocktails in my parents' Ford Maverick a dog committed suicide by running into the front bumper of the car.)
Before heading to the recruiter's office that morning, my sisters and parents lined up in a sort of receiving line to give their goodbyes. My sisters were eagerly waiting for me to get out of Dodge so one of them could take over my bedroom, and I remember that after I hugged my mother, my father said, "You can hug me, too." I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't said that--kind of a male-thing, I suppose. At least for us.
Then, I was gone for 9 weeks, returning home for 2 weeks before heading out to my technical school in Pensacola, Florida, a pit of a place if ever there was one. I learned to drink beer there, however, so maybe even the worst pit has value. Bootcamp wasn't much of a challenge, really--I was used to people telling me what to do, so I fit right in. In many ways that's all a person has to learn in the military: do what you're told, tell people what to do. Maryanne and I must have said goodbye another time, but I don't remember the details. I do know that it would be years before another living creature would run into the front bumper of my car.
But I do remember most of the flight to Pensacola on a Continental Airlines jet, how deeply sad I was as, conspicuous in my dress blue uniform, I turned my face away from the person next to me and stared into the darkness. I had a pen with me, and I found a scrap of paper and wrote new lyrics to Rod Stewart's "Mandolin Wind," lyrics I planned to show to Maryanne one day. I was 18 and immature and leaving home for the first time, and I was not especially happy. Months later when I flew to Japan where I would spend over 2 years, I didn't feel half as much sadness. Perhaps I was more confident and mature, and perhaps because Maryanne and I had finally parted ways meant I had less to feel sad about.
Of my many regrets is never asking my parents how they felt when I left. They had let me ride and walk and hike without overly protective supervision for most of my childhood, so I had a good foundation of independence. Still, I have often wondered if they wanted to talk to me about what it felt like to watch their only son walk out the door--not just to college, not just to his own apartment, but to someplace a good way around the world.
In the next few weeks I will try to imagine what they felt: soon, my oldest son will be heading out to nearly the same part of the world I went to. He's older than I was when I left home, probably smarter and more self-confident. He is approaching this journey with excitement and external confidence, and he, too, has been raised to be self-sufficient and free thinking. I want to tell him how he'll feel at different points: sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, isolation--most at different times but now and then all at once. But just as I was concerned only about myself and my sadness aboard that Continental Airlines flight, now I am imagining how I will feel as my son walks through the security checkpoint in San Francisco's airport--walking through a type of portal that takes him both literally and figuratively from one world to another. At that point he'll truly be on his own, and I can only hope that his mother and I have succeeded in giving him what he needs.
Before heading to the recruiter's office that morning, my sisters and parents lined up in a sort of receiving line to give their goodbyes. My sisters were eagerly waiting for me to get out of Dodge so one of them could take over my bedroom, and I remember that after I hugged my mother, my father said, "You can hug me, too." I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't said that--kind of a male-thing, I suppose. At least for us.
Then, I was gone for 9 weeks, returning home for 2 weeks before heading out to my technical school in Pensacola, Florida, a pit of a place if ever there was one. I learned to drink beer there, however, so maybe even the worst pit has value. Bootcamp wasn't much of a challenge, really--I was used to people telling me what to do, so I fit right in. In many ways that's all a person has to learn in the military: do what you're told, tell people what to do. Maryanne and I must have said goodbye another time, but I don't remember the details. I do know that it would be years before another living creature would run into the front bumper of my car.
But I do remember most of the flight to Pensacola on a Continental Airlines jet, how deeply sad I was as, conspicuous in my dress blue uniform, I turned my face away from the person next to me and stared into the darkness. I had a pen with me, and I found a scrap of paper and wrote new lyrics to Rod Stewart's "Mandolin Wind," lyrics I planned to show to Maryanne one day. I was 18 and immature and leaving home for the first time, and I was not especially happy. Months later when I flew to Japan where I would spend over 2 years, I didn't feel half as much sadness. Perhaps I was more confident and mature, and perhaps because Maryanne and I had finally parted ways meant I had less to feel sad about.
Of my many regrets is never asking my parents how they felt when I left. They had let me ride and walk and hike without overly protective supervision for most of my childhood, so I had a good foundation of independence. Still, I have often wondered if they wanted to talk to me about what it felt like to watch their only son walk out the door--not just to college, not just to his own apartment, but to someplace a good way around the world.
In the next few weeks I will try to imagine what they felt: soon, my oldest son will be heading out to nearly the same part of the world I went to. He's older than I was when I left home, probably smarter and more self-confident. He is approaching this journey with excitement and external confidence, and he, too, has been raised to be self-sufficient and free thinking. I want to tell him how he'll feel at different points: sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, isolation--most at different times but now and then all at once. But just as I was concerned only about myself and my sadness aboard that Continental Airlines flight, now I am imagining how I will feel as my son walks through the security checkpoint in San Francisco's airport--walking through a type of portal that takes him both literally and figuratively from one world to another. At that point he'll truly be on his own, and I can only hope that his mother and I have succeeded in giving him what he needs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
