On Parents and Pedistals

With fathers day coming up I started thinking about my father. Shortly after that I started thinking about fathers in general. This thought finally got me to thinking about both parents. Where am I going with this? Well let's start here. My father is dead. He died in 1994 at the age of 45. I was in Memphis, Tennessee when I got the call and I will have to say that it was the saddest moment of my life. The only thing that has come close in my life, so far, is the moment I realized that, because I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I could not eat endless amounts of cake and candy. Thanks Wilford Brimley and your damn diabeetus. (or I think I will just call it the beetus for now on)

I was in Memphis because I had gotten accepted into the Memphis College of Arts Masters program and moved down there to further my education (or maybe it was to avoid real life for another 2-3 years). Right before I was to leave for grad school, my girlfriend at the time, somehow convinced me that we should sneak off and get married. (I am still convinced she used a Jedi mind trick on me, maybe she was a Sith Lord!) We did elope, and I really hurt my parents (and myself as it turned out) in the process. The way we broke the news to them was also very crappy. I will probably write about this another time so I won't get into too much detail at this point.

I took a plane down, got settled in my apartment and started school. Things were going fine and then my wife decided that she wanted to come down as well, even though we had agreed that this wasn't a good idea. I needed to focus on school and that had been part of the conditions when we got married. After she arrived it did not take me long to come to the conclusion that something had to give. I had a job, was trying to go to school and trying to give my new wife the attention she expected. So I decided to drop out of school. (and now have an extra $9,000 in debt and nothing to show for it.) I'm not saying it was my ex-wife's fault I left school, I'm just saying she did not help me stay there.

My ex-wife and I had decided that we should move back to New York for a tactical retreat. It seemed the best option as I was no longer going to school and was working a crappy job testing circuit boards and for some reason she could not get a job a full time job, but I am not judging (well, maybe a little). It was about a week before we were planning on moving back when I got the call. Actually, we had shut the phone off already and I received a note from someone in the apartments office saying there had been a death in the family. As I walked to the laundry mat to use the pay phone, I was, I am a little ashamed to say, mentally running through the list of possible family members and how I would react to each of them. I figured it was my grandmother or one of my older family members. Never in a million years did I think I was going to hear my mother say "It was your father." I was devastated and I broke down right there in the laundry mat. This will be one of the few kind words I will say about my ex, but she insisted on coming with me to make the call and helped me get through that terrible moment. (and let me tell you, it was hard to even give her even this much credit, but it is only fair.)

But anyway, now that I have thoroughly depressed anyone who is still reading, as I look back, I have to say my feelings are pretty divided on my father's passing. I am not saying that I am in any way happy he is gone. I would give almost anything for him to still be here with us today, for him to be an active part of his grandchildren's lives, but his early passing has left him on that pedestal we all put our parents on when we are younger.

What is this pedestal of which I speak? Let me explain. My father will always be just my father. He will be just my dad. I never got to know him as Bob. The wonderful flawed human being that he was. He will remain, locked into this fictitious image of the father and husband who could do no wrong. Now my mother and I have gotten closer since I left my ex-wife. We lived together briefly and I really got to know her as a person. She is now someone I can swear in front of (though, I still tone it down quite a bit, some habits die hard), tell a raunchy joke or two and basically treat her as both my friend and my mother. She is not completely off the pedestal, and I think most parents will and should remain on one, but she is definitely down a tier or two from the perfect mother I always envisioned.

She has told me stories of my father when he was young, marital problems they had and even the fact that she threatened leave him if he didn't stop smoking the marijuana at one point in their relationship. The father on my pedestal didn't do things like that. Couldn't do things like that. My father never did drugs or got drunk. He was my little league coach. He helped teach me to drive. He worked hard to make sure our family had everything we needed. He was that superhero that was there when I needed him. The man that was so proud of me when I graduated college. Someone who always made me feel loved. It is hard to picture him being anything but perfect but I never got to really know him.

A good friend of mine lost his father recently and it also made me think. He had more time with his father than I did but they did not have a good relationship. His father did not approve of his life style and a lot of his life choices, or so I gathered by things my friend has said. Would that have happened to me? Would I like the person my father was? Would he like the person I'd become? Is quantity of time spent with someone better than quality? We always got along growing up, I was never a child who got in my parents' face and went toe to toe with them. I remember a few times that my father was not happy with me. I even remember him calling me up at college one year to remind me to wish my mother a happy mother's day. He sounded annoyed that I hadn't done it already. I never told him that it was a little before noon and I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet (aaah the life of a college student!). I had not forgotten. I was very lazy as a kid (Me lazy? I don't believe it!) and I am sure that drove my father nuts on many occasions. But overall we had a good relationship.

I know he wasn't a big fan of my music. The only band that he would let me play when he rode in my car was the Ramones. He did not seem to enjoy GWAR. Really? With such classic songs as Maggots, I Want to Kill You and Preschool Prostitute? There is no accounting for taste. I am not saying he was a big fan of Joey and the boys, but they did a cover of Palisades Park (he told me that was one of his favorite songs) that he found acceptable and the Ramones do have a 50's surf rock feel in many of their songs which he was all right with. It was something I felt and still feel a connection with my father for and think of him every time I play Palisades Park.

Whether it is better to have a parent remain on their pedestal forever or risk the possibility of them falling from grace and becoming someone we can not look up to is something I can not say. Part of me loves him up there in the Superdad pose, hands on his hip and cape flapping in the breeze. The other part wanted to hear all about his mistakes first hand. To find out what he would have done differently in his life as man and as a father. To have a conversation, adult to adult (as loathe as I am to admit that I am one), or should I say a father to father would have been priceless. But our time together was way too short and that conversation will never be. (unless their are any mediums in the audience? Whoopi from Ghost? Crossing Over guy? Patricia Arquette?)

A child needs to know that their parents have made mistakes in their lives and done things that they regretted. They also need to know that their parents were able to learn from them and be old enough to appreciate the wisdom that their parents received. I could tell my thirteen year old about the time I got the rental van up to 110 mph on the move from Tennessee to New York, and all he'd probably think was "I bet I could get it to 111." He would probably not say "Gee dad, that was reckless. You could have killed yourself or another driver."

I hope to be on a pedestal myself someday, maybe I already am. (though I wonder how much of a fall I took when I left their mother and, probably in their hearts and minds, them as well) If I am, I hope I will have the opportunity to step down and tell them the many tales of my stupidity. Tell them the countless mistakes I have made over the years. Let them know that when it all comes down to it, I am just a man, like my father, wonderfully flawed. I also hope to sit down with my kids when they have grown and say I love you and am proud of you, just like I am sure my dad would have done, if he were alive today.

I love you dad. Happy fathers day!

On Friends and Regrets

I must apologize in advance for this post, as it is a little more serious than my previous entries and a bit on the depressing side.

This past weekend was my college class reunion (well I graduated in 1993, so technically it should have been next year, but the school likes to lump three different class years together, so it was this year). It got me thinking about a good friend of mine who passed away unexpectedly last December. His name was Jalal and he drowned in a snorkeling accident while on vaction in Thailand.

I don't know how it happened but when I went to St. Lawrence I somehow ended up in a section called International House, which contained most of the foreign students who were lured to the college with scholarships and shiny brochures. I-House (as it was known) was not only a cultural melting pot, but it also contained students from all different years (and kick ass rooms!!). Now just imagine me, a heavy metal lovin' nerd from a small town in upstate New York, where there were more cows than people (my graduating class was like 43 people), leaving home for the first time and ending up in this diverse, multicultural environment. Talk about a fish out of water. My freshman roomate was from India and about as opposite of me as possible. My half of the room was covered in movie and Iron Maiden posters, while his contained a large Indian flag.

Jalal was from Bangladesh (a country I would have had trouble finding on a map) and ended up being one of the first friends I made at college. Jalal was very down to earth and seemed to enjoy my stupid/quirky sense of humor. We joined the campus radio station together and had our own radio show for the first year. The Big J and J Show, it was called. I still have a couple of tapes that I have wanted to convert to MP3s, but I have no idea whether they still work. Besides that, I couldn't even tell you when I last owned a functioning tape player. I was looking over the music list from the shows and boy, the music doesn't exactly flow very well, but we had a lot of fun, and that is all that counts. In the years that followed I ended up getting my own show, The Mr. Excitement Show, which was terrible. Every other word out of my mouth was Uuum, and I was trying to do a whole Steven Wright, monotone thing. (I did get better... eventually.) It was on Saturday nights and I played songs from such classic groups as Poison, Warrant, Guns and Roses, Extreme, etc. (Though I did discover The Ramones, The Descendents and the Dead Kennedy's while there as well.) My big hair band phase turned to Punk. And you can also see what a party animal I was, seeming I had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than sit in the basement and spin records (yes, we were still using records) for practically no audience. But anyways, I am getting side tracked.

Freshman year, when I heard that Jalal and my roomate Aranya had no where to go for Thanksgiving I invited them down to share the holiday with my family. My dad had come and picked us up and the ride, which usually took about three hours took even longer due to traffic and some really crappy weather.

It was a great visit and I enjoyed myself, though I often wonder what he thought of the tour of Argyle, NY and our little house in the woods. I had met up with some friends and we played some football. Jalal and Aranya did not join in, but instead wandered up to downtown, I believe. (Downtown consisted of a bank, gas station, hardware store and a grocery store.) I think Jalal would have played, but Aranya did not seem very interested, and I don't think he wanted to leave him out. But this is just speculation.

Jalal and I were also on the I-House intermural soccer team, which was not the best team in the league, but I don't think there was a team that had more fun than we did. I also remember a certain talent show that we had for I-House one year, where Jalal and I decided to sing Judas Priest's Ram it Down, a cappella. I don't even think we rehearsed it at all, just stood up and read the lyrics off of the tape's jacket. Now I must confess, I cannot sing to save my life, but love to do it. I have several Rock Band games for the Wii and love to rock the mic, but good lord, I pity anyone in earshot! If you believe in reincarnation, I must have been a great singer in a past life, but treated people like crap, because I can not imagine how someone can love to sing as much as I do and be so bad at it.

Another Jalal story I remember is from a time we went up to Canada for a field trip. Here is a picture and let me explain it.

First off, with the sweater I am wearing, it is probably pretty understandable why I didn't get my first girlfriend until Junior year of college. I say this because this was me "dressing up" for the trip. Jalal and I were posing for this picture when the guy on the left started to cut in front of the picture. I, being the idiot that I am, insisted he get in on the photo with us. Then, right before the picture was taken, I put my arms around him. Thus the guys reaction.

I remember many trips with Jalal and my I-House friends. Though I must admit, they probably saw my ass on way too many occasions. At the time, I thought mooning was the pinnacle of comedic expression and dropped my pants with the least provocation. I have many fine memories of Jalal and the time we shared at SLU, although we did find different groups of people to hang around with as the the years progressed.

Graduation came and we all went in different directions. I ended up keeping in touch with a few people, but for the most part, I lost touch with most of my old college friends. It didn't help that I ended up marrying a controlling evil bitch who didn't seem to want me to have anything to do with anybody but her, including my own family. Not that I am in any way blaming her for not calling, writing or e-mailing people, but my life was not going the direction I wanted, and I, like a lot of people, was wrapped up in my life.

But then came something that really changed everything, in terms of communicating with the friends that I had lost touch with: Facebook. Some people hate it, and refuse to join for various reasons. I, however, love it. Like most people, when I first joined I was a slave to FB. Between the time management games such as Mafia Wars, and the constant updating of my status (I was sure everyone really wanted to know that I was at home eating a roast beef sandwhich). I befriended a lot of my old college friends. I found out what some of them had been up to and sent some of them brief messages to catch up. With Jalal, unfortunately, I never did this. I would comment on a post of his every now and then, and I found out some of what was going on in his life. I saw he became an associate professor at University of Massachussetts Boston, got married and was doing some amazing things with his life (he even had a Wikipedia page about himself). But I never sent a message to reconnect.

That is the thing I think that upsets me the most, when I think back upon it. I kept saying to myself, "I'll send him a note one of these days." All in needed to do was just click on <create a new message> and type his name and then add a message like "Hey, I have thought of you often over the years, and was wondering how your life was going." That was it, and I never did it. And now he is gone and I will never get the opportunity. It is and will always be a big regret of mine. And regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. Sorry, went all Frank there for a minute. But it would have been such a simple thing to shoot out an email and I let the opportunity pass me by. So if there is any point to my ramblings here in this post, it is simply to beseach you not put things like this off. Life is way too short and too unpredictable. And Jalal, wherever you are, here is one more chorus for you...

Thousands of cars and a million guitars
Screaming with power in the air
We¹ve found the place where the decibels race
This army of rock will be there
To ram it down, ram it down
Straight through the heart of this town
Ram it down, ram it down
Razing the place to the ground
Ram it down.