Iron-Fisted Parenting

Our five going-on-six year-old, Dylan, has pretty much been a little gentleman since starting kindergarten. Although he's bigger than most of the kids in his class, he doesn't push his classmates around. We were warned by other parents to watch for profanity sneaking into his speech once his schooling started, but that didn't happen. Like his mom, he's both sweet and headstrong, but overall, he's what you'd call an "easy" kid.

That sets the stage for tonight. Rhonda and I are lying next to him in bed. He's had a bath, we've read him a story, and he's winding down. Rhonda asks, "What word do you break just by saying it?" I started to think about that one.

Dylan didn't think long at all. Immediately, he answers, "Ass and shit."

With hands covering our mouths, it took a few minutes for Rhonda and I to cease our choked, muffled laughter. Damn, it can be really hard not to laugh at your kid when you know laughing ain't the most parentally appropriate course of action. Finally, we regained our composure enough to explain to Dylan that those weren't the words to use, and why.

But sheesh, he knew we were laughing our, er, asses off. I hope we had some credibility.

Oh man. Parenting can be such a challenge.

Oh yeah. What word does one break just by saying it? Silence.

One Particular Reprieve

Thanks to my banged-up foot, my two-week break at home has been stretched to three weeks or more. We worked at getting our garden going again. Since Dylan was born, we really haven't done much with it, but now that he's into "helping," we're hoping to have fresh vegetables again this summer.

I'd been inside for awhile, elevating my foot, which had been injured by an uncanny collaboration of one woman's breasts and a weight plate. I decided to take some water to Rhonda and Dylan, busily working away in the garden. As I began climbing the steps from the driveway to the garden, I heard them laughing. I stopped and watched. They were sitting in a garden bed, throwing mud balls at each other. Finally, Rhonda lunged forward, grabbed Dylan, and commenced tickling and kissing him.

I stood there, watching them as they must often interact when I'm away at work. I felt both sad and happy. Happy to have the chance to see them together in such a way, but sad to know that my job would take me away from them again.

But mostly, I felt grateful to have them in my life.

"A Man's Left Eye Never Marries," and Sometimes That Hurts

It's an old Chinese saying, or so I've been told.

For pretty much my entire adult life, I've had one particular routine: get in shape for a year, get out of shape for a year. This is a get in shape year, so in January, I joined a gym. Since I'm used to getting up at four in the morning on my work schedule, I usually start working out at five in the morning, which allows me to get back home about the time that Rhonda and Dylan get up, on school days.

Once I get back in an exercise routine, I tend to enjoy aerobic exercise, but I've never been that enthusiastic about weight training. I've done it because the exercise gurus say it's a vital part of overall fitness, but I've done it begrudgingly.

But then, in December, while stacking hay bales at home,I pulled a muscle in my upper back. I've never had a problem with pulled muscles before, but hey, I'll be fifty years old soon, so I decided that I should give a little more attention to weight training.

So, last Monday, I'd just finished a set on a shoulder machine. It was one of those machines you actually hang barbell disks upon to get the desired resistance, and I was about to re-rack the weights. A woman approached the machine next to me and bent forward to place her water bottle on the floor. She was wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt, and when she bent forward, she exposed her breasts. Not just in a fleeting, barely noticeable way. No. Those mammaries were right there. In my mind, word balloons led to both of 'em, shouting "LOOK AT ME!"

Now, I'm not one to gawk uncontrollably at women. But sheesh, a guy just can't be expected to be on guard for exposed breasts at five in the morning in the gym. You might say I was sort of, well, startled. But, determined to avoid being a rude dork--a married dork at that--I looked away, and went back to the task of re-racking my weights. I grabbed the weight disk and pulled. It was slow to slide off. I pulled harder. Only then did I actually look at what I was doing. I forgot that I had a smaller, twenty-five pound disk in front of the larger one. Too late. The twenty-five pound disk slipped off of the bar, and fell about four feet. Onto my foot.

I'm proud to say that I didn't unleash a torrent of profanity. But owie mama, did my foot ever hurt. I finished my weight workout out of stubbornness, then hobbled out the door to go home.

When I got home, I pulled off my sock and shoe to find a small wound on the top of my foot. The broken skin was between two metatarsal bones, so I reasoned that I likely hadn't broken anything.

However, nearly a week has passed, and my foot is still swollen and discolored. Rhonda is demanding that I go to the doctor tomorrow to get it checked out. She seems duly concerned, if not exactly sympathetic. Maybe it has something to do with how it happened.

The Italian Garden of Fort Ord

Dylan wanted to watch “Walking with Dinosaurs,” so he put the DVD in the player, then sat on my lap. I told him, “I love you, Punkin’.” I few minutes later, I told him again. “Daddy, you say ‘I love you’ too much.” I laughed, a surprised laugh. “Why do you say that?” I asked. “Because I’m five years old now. I’m a bigger boy.” “Okay,” I said, “I’ll try not to say it so often.” “But Daddy, be sure to say it before I go to sleep.” I chuckled. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

________

I usually have a good memory for details, and yet, I can't remember the man's name, or the name of his establishment.

It was 1976. I'd just graduated from Army flight school in Alabama. I was shocked when I learned that I'd secured my dream assignment after graduation: Fort Ord, California. Five hours from home.

My dad had been stationed at Fort Ord during the Korean War. He never saw overseas duty. In basic training, his company commander noted that he had talent as a boxer. So, after finishing basic, he was given an assignment as basic training cadre, and joined the base boxing team. He fought in several bouts, undefeated, until he faced a man by the name of Zora Folley. Folley knocked Dad down three times in the first round. (“I didn’t even see half of his punches coming,” Dad related.) His enthusiasm for boxing cooled after his encounter with Mr. Folley. (Folley went on to a rather lengthy professional career after leaving the Army, and had the distinction of being the last man to fight Muhammad Ali before Ali’s three-year ban from boxing commenced.) Leaving the boxing team meant orders for Korea. However, Dad contracted rheumatic fever before shipping out, and nearly died after having an allergic reaction to penicillin. The Army gave him two options after his recovery: he could get out of the Army with a medical discharge, or he could complete his stint in a non-strenuous job such as a clerk or a cook. Bitterly disappointed that he wouldn’t see action in Korea--he considered it a patriotic duty--he nevertheless chose to remain in the Army and become a cook.

I sat at the kitchen table with my dad, drinking coffee. Dad could be hard to read, but there was no mistaking the wistful look that came over his face. "There was a pizza place outside of the post, a couple of miles down from the town of Marina," he began. "It was the first place that I ever ate a pizza. The guy who owned it was old even then. He'd come from Italy to the U.S. in the twenties, and had a son serving the Army in Korea. Man, we sure had some good times out in his garden." He went on to tell me about some of his beer drinking buddies who would meet him at the pizza place. "Sometimes I'd go there when it was quiet, and talk to the old man. His kids didn't have much to do with him; I think he was kind of lonely."

A couple of weeks after arriving at Fort Ord, I decided to look for Dad's pizza place. I drove down a road bordering the military post, and sure enough, there was the place my dad had told me about, set back from the road a good bit. I drove up the driveway, and saw there were no other cars in the dirt parking lot. I walked in, and at first thought that perhaps the owner had forgotten to put up the "closed" sign. There was nobody there, or so it seemed. But then, I heard coughing from the back room, and an elderly man walked out to the counter and asked, "What can I do for you?" I ordered a pizza and a beer. When the man set the beer in front of me on the counter, I said, "You know, my dad came to your place during Korea. He said it was the first pizza he ever had." The man looked at me strangely. What was that expression? Sadness? Bitterness? Resentment? "I had to turn away customers in those days," he said. "The soldiers like your father loved to eat my pizza and drink beer in my garden. The soldiers don’t come any more. They like Shakey’s and Round Table.” He paused, and looked far away for a moment. Then he came back. “It’s for the best. My kids don’t want the place anyway."

I sipped my beer and skimmed a newspaper, hoping to talk to the man, but he didn’t seem open to conversation. When I saw him take my pizza out of the oven, I walked to the counter to pick it up, and he made eye contact. Sheepishly, I asked, “Do you remember my dad? He was a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy. His name was Ken.” An expression came over his face, an expression I hoped was a measure of recognition. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his expression hardened, and he said, “I told you there were lots of soldiers that came here. My memory isn’t so good these days.” He turned from the counter, and toward his back room. He stopped. He turned back toward me, and looked as if he had something to say. Then he snorted, waved his hand dismissively, and retired to the back.

I felt a strong and surprising disappointment. But really, what did I expect to hear from the man?

I picked up my pizza, and began moving back to my table, but then I remembered the outside garden. I walked to a side door leading outside. It was stuck; I had to put down my pizza and shove against it to get it open. I stood there, mouth agape, looking at the hanging garden. It was so much like I’d envisioned it, based on my dad’s stories, that it was downright spooky. Unlike the rest of the establishment, it had been lovingly maintained. I retrieved my pizza and beer, had a seat at one of the picnic tables, and imagined my dad and his buddies, drinking beer and joking, my dad the center of attention. I could almost feel my dad’s presence.

The old man's voice startled me out of my reverie. “You need anything else? I don’t feel too good, gonna close early.” I told him no, drained the last of my beer, and picked up my half-eaten pizza. Perhaps it would make a better story I told you that I was amazed at how good the pizza had been. The truth was that I’d had better frozen pizzas from the supermarket. Come to think of it, my dad had told me that it was the first pizza he’d ever had. He’d never mentioned whether he liked it. He’d liked the Italian garden, though. Although my dad wasn't one to wear his heart on his sleeve, it was plain that the pizza place had been a special place for him.

I turned to leave, then stopped at the door. I looked back, and imagined my dad standing there, holding court and laughing. He looked so young and carefree, and so hopeful, as if he could conquer the world single-handedly. The pain of being raised with an unloving mother and abusive father was nowhere in evidence. He was the star of that night’s show.

“I love you Dad,” I whispered. I walked out, got in my car, and drove away.

I never went back to the old pizza place.

My dad died in 1991. I never actually said “I love you” to his face. We didn’t do that.

But that's okay. I tell him now.