Libertine: On the Prowl

Vidi, vici, veni -- I saw, I conquered, I came. _______________________________________________________________

Happy Anniversary

09:57, 2007-Dec-25 .. Posted in family .. 8 comments .. Link

Sixty-five years ago today, a young couple made their way downtown to the city's Episcopal Cathedral for a simple wedding. Sharing the couple's happiness was the bride's family: her parents, grandparents, siblings, and other assorted relatives. Though glad for the young couple, the groom's parents were unable to attend. It was wartime, you see, plus his family lived a thousand miles away and did not have the money for train fare. The interstate highway system was about fifteen years in the future and gas was strictly rationed, so taking the bus or driving were not practical solutions. I'm also guessing that domestic passenger flight at the time was irregular and spotty, and no doubt limited because of the war.

The 18 year old bride didn't plan on wearing a wedding gown. Because of the war, she'd thought that wearing a good suit would have been sufficient, and it would match well with the groom's sailor uniform. But her mother had talked her out of that, so she posed shivering in her almost-sleeveless gown in the winter cold as photos were taken of the wedding party outside her parents' home.

After the wedding, the happy couple took a short, sixty mile train ride to Boston for a whirlwind weekend honeymoon, as the groom was due to return to sea the following Monday. There was a war on, you know.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad, together in whatever afterlife might exist. Christmas isn't the same without you.

Inheriting Personality Traits?

06:11, 2007-Aug-28 .. Posted in family .. 0 comments .. Link

My son has had his new car only for two weeks now, but he's washed it at least half a dozen times. He went to Wal Mart, and bought all sorts of specialized paraphernalia meant to maximize car washing effectiveness, including a chamois, a big, fuzzy glove, some thing that looked like blue Medusa hair, and several other things.

Seeing all of this stuff, combined with the frequent car washing reminded me strongly of my brother. When my brother was about my son's age, he had a Porsche 911S that he washed almost every day with a similar variety of car washing paraphernalia. I can remember our mother teasing him, telling him that he'd wash all the paint off the car if he kept washing it so often.

Besides this, my son displays a lot of my brother's ways. Neither of them are overly tidy when it comes to general housecleaning habits, but when it comes to their personal belongings, both are meticulous. Both are fussy about how their electronic equipment is handled; I can remember my brother lecturing me about the proper way to handle an LP record and now I see my son being similarly careful with his CDs and DVDs.

Both are creative, musically and artistically. I share the musical talent with them, but I have no talents whatsoever for the visual arts. They are both rather private people, not backslapping, "one of the guys" types. They tend to take an avoidant approach to conflict -- most of the time.

But the thing is, my son doesn't know my brother, really. They've met a handful of times in my son's life and have never spent any extended length of time together. He most definitely hasn't picked up my brother's ways from observation.

We all know that physical traits are inherited. Is it possible that personality traits are in the genes as well?

Thoughts?

A Leap of Faith

01:23, 2007-Aug-17 .. Posted in family .. 0 comments .. Link

When my son first told me he wanted to buy a new car and that he'd need a co-signer, I have to admit I was quite reluctant to do so. With my precarious financial situation and without any promising job prospects on the horizon, I knew that if my son ever had any trouble making his car payment, I'd not be able to take over the payments. I knew that if this happened, the car would be repossessed, leaving my credit in shambles.

It wasn't that I didn't trust my son to take his responsibility seriously. I knew that he would; he's matured greatly over the last few years. He's been recently hired at a new company at a decent starting salary and will get regular scheduled raises for the first year or two, that will make the car easier to pay for over time. He'd also been on his previous job for six years, which shows great stability.

Unlike many single people his age, he doesn't go clubbing each weekend, nor does he drink or do drugs. He's avoided getting himself into credit trouble, declining every credit card offer made to him. Nor has he ever gotten into any trouble with the law.

My major concern was with the financial health of his new employer. In our uncertain economy, it's not an uncommon thing for a company to go out of business, so the possibility of my son's employer going belly-up was largely behind my reluctance to be a co-signer.

Nevertheless, I took a leap of faith and signed the papers for my son's car anyway.

Later, after it was all said and done, he came up to me and hugged me. "Thank you for trusting me," he said. "I love you."

At that moment, my misgivings vanished and I knew it would be all right. I could almost sense my father looking on in approval from the afterlife. Until that moment, I hadn't known how important it was to my son for me to believe in him in this way.

Thoughts?

Grandparents

10:34, 2007-Jul-8 .. Posted in family .. 0 comments .. Link

A child needs a grandparent, anybody's grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world.
~Charles and Ann Morse

In most ways, I consider my childhood to have been superior to that of my son. I grew up in a better time and place, with more affluent surroundings, and for most of my childhood, I had a larger immediate family. But there is one factor of his childhood that was largely missing from my own.

Grandparents.

Yes, I had both a living great-grandmother and grandmother (mother and daughter) when I was born, but they always lived several states away, so they were more a concept than a reality when I was growing up. I met the great grandmother, born in 1879, once or twice when I was very young. She died when I was seven, so I have only the vaguest, most fleeting memory of her.

Her daughter, my father's mother, lived until I was nearly 30. Up until my mother died when I was thirteen, I knew her no better than my great grandmother. I met her a couple of times during family vacations, but she was not a part of my everyday life.

Both my grandfathers died before they were as old as I am now, so I have no concept whatsoever of having a grandparent of my own gender.

All my childhood friends had grandparents who lived nearby that they saw often who, more likely than not, were a source of gifts, cookies, patience, and understanding. I have to admit I'd be more than a little jealous about the attention my friends received from their grandparents, especially at Christmastime.

As a preteen, I got to know my mother's young aunt, only ten years her senior. She was everything my friends' grandmothers were to them, so she quickly became a grandmother figure to me. But though I got to see her more often than my real grandmother, she did live sufficiently far away that she was not quite an everyday part of my life, either.

After my mother died, my grandmother came to live with us for a year, so I got to know her then, though I'd preferred to have done it when I wasn't grieving for my mother. But I am grateful for that year, because my grandmother became a reality for me, rather than a concept.

My son had a grandfather and later, a stepgrandmother, living near him from the day he was born until nearly fifteen years later when my father died. They were an integral part of his everyday life for those years; he spent as much or more time at their house as he did at mine. Much of who he is today is because of their influence.

I think one of the greatest gifts I gave my son was that of grandparents.

However, I have no desire to become a grandfather myself. Just as I preferred being a child to being a parent, I prefer being a grandchild to being a grandparent. I just don't think I have it in me to be one of those ideal patient, generous grandpas. I know it is bound to happen sooner or later, but my son seems in no hurry to reproduce.

Thoughts?

A Bittersweet Memory

12:44, 2005-Dec-4 .. Posted in family .. 0 comments .. Link

While at the mall today, I passed the Santa Claus village in the center court. I hurried by, averting my head, as I crossed behind the line waiting to see Santa. I can’t bear the sight of a store Santa during the holidays, as it brings back too many memories.

During the last year of his life, my father mentioned several times that he was going to get a job as a store Santa that Christmas. He was the right age, he had the right build, and even better, he had his own white beard. Though he normally kept his beard closely trimmed, he’d let it grow that year, in anticipation of being Santa later in the year.

Not only was he a good physical match for Santa, he had the right personality. In April of 1995, I’d gone to the grocery store with him one day. While shopping we passed two small, crying children, with their grandmother. They had seen a display of diecast trucks for twenty dollars apiece and had asked their grandmother for one each. As we passed nearby, she was quietly trying to explain to them why she couldn’t buy the toys.

My father looked at them and saw that the children, though clean and apparently well cared for, wore shabby clothing and were obviously from a poor family. Not saying a word, he quietly picked up two trucks and paid for them. Walking back to the family, he wordlessly handed each child a truck. He didn’t make a big fuss about it, as he had no wish to embarrass the grandmother.

The children looked up at him with wide eyes. With his white beard, they thought he was Santa Claus. He let them think so, telling them that while he was here, he wanted to make sure they had their Christmas, and that they should be good and mind their grandmother.

As we walked out of the store a little while later, he told me that those kids reminded him of himself as a child. As the oldest of eight children growing up in a poor family during the Depression, he never had many toys, and he knew just how those kids felt. He said he couldn’t bear to see them cry. He knew that life would no doubt continue to give them hard knocks, but he wanted them to know something different, even if just for once.

Three months later, he had his fatal heart attack. Christmas never came for him again. And that year when I saw the Santas in the stores, I remembered his wish to be a Santa, and choked up.

I’ve remembered every year since when the Christmas season rolls around. And I still choke up.

(originally posted on 11 December 2004 at Blog City)