Month: February 2015
Its Current Value is Obvious
Traditions are highly over-rated!
That was my take. It had always been my take, and I thought it would always be my take on the subject. I have never been a blind keeper of traditions. It has never mattered what the traditions were, but rather their current value.
Growing up I kept my opinions to myself. I come from very outspoken and opinionated family stock. This included my entire extended family as well. I learned early on that discussing politics, religion, or sport teams was guaranteed a ringside seat for a heated discussion. However, as a child, who wanted to talk about that boring stuff anyway. I had much more relevant things to do.
What I did learn from all that “stuff” was the value of asking,”Why?” Why was this opinion, or that political position important to the person? Were the people holding on to them blindly for some unknown reason? What was actually behind what they stood for, or opined about so loudly to all within earshot? I was never going to ask those questions, but it was here that I began to form my position on tradition for tradition’s sake. Survey said…”No thank you!”
Enter the big blue tent.
My dad has a goodly amount of fine qualities. One of my favorites is his intense sense of being thorough about things. He never buys anything on impulse or a whim. He researches everything. He always takes his time, and will sleep at least one night on any purchase. It’s who he is as a person. It’s what he does, and I love him for it. I am sure the big blue tent was no exception.
This was a significant investment for a family in the 1960’s. It is 20 ft long and 9 ft wide. It can be divided into 3 separate rooms and is tall enough in the center for even the tallest of people to stand easily. Made of sturdy bright blue canvas this tent was made to last for a long time.
Allow me a moment to vent here, please. You see, when our family took its annual vacation it was for two full weeks of camping at a time. The six of us rolled out of the driveway hitting the road at 3:00 am and we drove straight to the campground some 4-8 hours away. The trip home was the exact reverse except we started for home later in the morning or afternoon.
Here is where the venting starts. Once we arrived at home we unpacked and pitched the tent on our front lawn. After two full weeks of exhausted fun we now had the privilege of pitching the tent, then sweeping the tent out, and finally vacuuming the floor, walls and ceiling inside and out. Are you kidding me! Who does that? This tradition will die with my father and will not be advanced in my generation. That was a solemn promise I made to myself.
As is normal with families, we all grew up and the folks gave us their camping gear. Marm and I inherited the big blue tent among other things. It was great to have the tent since our family was growing and wouldn’t stop until there were seven of us. This tent was awesome! I had to admit, as much as I hated to, Dad was right in how he had taken care of it. It was in immaculate condition.
True to form though, I never repeated his cleaning process once we were home. We swept it out as well as we could before we broke it down at the campsite. Once we arrived home it went straight on the shelf with the rest of the camping gear. It never saw the light of day until it was pitched at the next campsite on the next family adventure.
This was how it was the entire time our kids were growing up. We did treat the tent well, after all, it was getting up in years and was a great tent for our family. We couldn’t replace it with one of equal quality, and didn’t need to. It was a great heirloom. But, as is with all families, our kids grew up too, and we gave them most of our camping gear. Marm and I had, years before, discovered a thing called a yurt. Needless to say tents for us were now passe’. We are seasoned yurt people now, and love it.
Annie and Tristan now claim the rights of ownership in regard to the big blue tent. I don’t know if my parents ever in their wildest dreams imagined that this tent would be a binding factor over three generations of our family. None-the-less, it is just that.
The last time we and all of our kids and their families were camping together the big blue tent was there in all its un-camouflaged glory. Bright blue is bright blue. Its presence is strikingly obvious no matter where it’s pitched. While we were camping we were discussing what we could get my dad for his birthday. Someone came up with the idea to have a picture taken with all of us standing in front of the big blue tent. We all thought it was a great idea and did so.
At his birthday party we presented the picture to my dad as I told the story about traditions and their value. We wanted him to know that despite my intense dislike at his thorough care of the tent in the early years, this Big Blue Tent was now a treasured possession of our entire family. Every time we see it pitched we are reminded of the man we all love. We are reminded of his quality of care and his thoroughness. We are reminded of him, and that’s a really good thing.
This is not a tradition for tradition’s sake. Nope. This is a tradition worth keeping since its current value is obvious.
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Sometimes Words Simply Fail
Moments in time.
We all have them. Some of these moments are brilliant. They shine so far beyond our expectations that we wonder if we really had anything to do with it at all. Other moments are more everyday, mundane, routine, but beautiful none-the-less in their simplicity. And then, there are those moments. Those are the moments we would like to take back, or wished never happened, or worse, revealed so great a conundrum about ourselves that it leaves us speechless. Those are the times that we just shake our heads and wonder what in the world we were thinking at all. Yep. Moments in time, or shall I say, less than great moments in time.
It was such a typical day. It was just the three of us at the time: Marm, Annie, and me. Annie was just a tyke in diapers and not very old at all. We were in those early stages of being first time parents. Everything was a big deal in regard to our baby. We were the over-the-top vigilant parents. Nothing got past us. (Ha!) and nothing ever would. (Ha again!)
Everything was new and unusual. We were knee-deep in working out routines, schedules, and all those things that contribute to having your entire world turned upside-down by the smallest of people. Everything had changed forever. This was not bad, mind you, just the truth as any parent will tell you. Nothing was or ever would be the same as before.
Take the laundry for instance. When it was just Marm and I laundry seemed to be a fairly simple task. Once or twice a week there would be a couple of loads to wash and dry and that was it. Who knew a baby could change something as droll as laundry into one of the biggest time challenges of the week? It was only one small kid. How could she routinely mess up so many clothes and cloth diapers.? As Vizzini from The Princess Bride would say,”Inconceivable!”
I’m telling you. There were diapers, onesies, tops, pants, sleepers, dresses, jumpers, skirts, socks, bibs, towels, more diapers, plastic pants, blankets and the like. She was just one kid, but the piles of laundry she could produce were inappropriate. I still shake my new daddy head when I think about it.
The reason we had so many diapers was simple. We were part of the early eighty’s parenting movement known as “natural childbirth”. This meant Marm had no meds during labor and delivery, she nursed the kids faithfully rather than feed them a bottle, and we used cloth diapers with rubber pants over them. We would have none of those plastic diaper thingies on our girl’s little tush.
At that time the environment and plastic diapers hadn’t become a pop-cult item like today. We just didn’t want to use them, and didn’t want to have to pay for them. Cloth was cheaper, more natural.
Compared to the cloth diapers our daughters use on their kids today, ours were from the stone age. No deluxe shapes, snaps, colors and patterns. No fancy inserts for better absorption Nope. Simple, plain, white, cotton diapers that had to be folded after every use. These were our tools of the trade, and this brings me to the point.
I really did want to help Marm out with all the work load this little angel of ours created on a regular basis. Marm had her hands full with everything that went into being a first time mother. I don’t know if I really helped that much or not, but I would like to think I did. She could probably give you the 411 on this much more accurately than me.
What I do remember was one of those glorious moments when I did one of the stupidest things I could do. What’s so pathetic about this is that I didn’t even realize how stupid it was, and how immeasurably dumb I sounded in defending myself.
It went something like this.
“Don, please put the wet diapers that are in the washer in the dryer so I can have them ready in the morning.”
“Sure thing Sweetheart,” I said as I trotted downstairs to the laundry room and switched the diapers from the washer to the dryer.
We spent the rest of the evening uneventfully. Next morning Marm heads down for the diapers and finds them in the dryer right where they should be, still soaking wet.
“Don! Why are the diapers still wet?” she asked me.
I came down to take a look and had this sinking feeling in my stomach.
“Did you turn the dryer on after you put them in here?” she asked.
“No,” was my reply.
“Why not? You now I needed them this morning.”
“You didn’t ask me to. You told me to put them in the dryer, and I did.”
“Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed as she stood there incredulous. “I have to tell you to turn it on once you put the cloths in?”
Here would have been the best time just admit defeat, but alas I wasn’t that wise.
“You said to put them in the dryer,” I insisted, “and, I, did.”
Her eyes turned to fire on the spot. Not only did she have a pile of wet diapers that she needed for the day, but her husband was being the hugest of idiots.
“I figured a grown man would know that when you put clothes in the dryer you have to turn it on. I guess you proved me wrong!”
I was asked to leave immediately.
I had no defense, none. To this day I still have no defense. I would love to justify this somehow. I would love to recover from this and make it seem rational, but I can’t. It simply goes down in the family history book as one of those moments when sometimes… words simply fail.
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I Was Smiling From Ear-To-Ear…
Two peas in a pod.
It’s fun to watch two friends interact when the friendship is a close one. For me, it was especially fun to watch my son Aaron and his pal David playing together as they attacked each adventure. From day one these two little-men forged a bond that would last a life time.
David and his mom Terri had come over on that first day. It was an interview to see if this was the right fit for him since day-care was needed. Both David and Aaron were less than two at the time, so no one really knew if they would actually hit it off.
Marm and Terri were busy hashing out all the business details while these two had the opportunity to hang out…and hang out they did. Instantly they clicked. No sooner were the ladies inside the back door of the house and Aaron and David were running off together laughing and jabbering like old friends. This laughing and jabbering has never stopped.
It never really mattered what they were up to, it was just that they had the best time doing it together. They were inseparable.
I have witnessed them playing inside the house, outside in the yard, and tormenting their sisters to no end. These two rascals were fun to watch. I have scads of memories from these two. (More on that in later posts.) Oddly enough, one of my favorite memories of these fellows took over twenty years to complete. The greatest satisfaction actually came at the end.
Like so many boys do when they’re young, they loved to play army. Wrong, right, or indifferent, they loved getting dressed up in all their gear. They had real and fake camo green helmets, packs, belts, and weapons: rifles, pistols, and swords of course. It never mattered one bit that the weapons weren’t accurate period pieces. They were well armed and that’s all that counted.
They would run whooping and hollering at the top of their lungs while making loops around the open yard pretending to be on a mission of some sort or another. They were fighting an imaginary foe of magnificent strength. They would yell and shout as they bravely charged in attack while brandishing their swords and waving their guns wildly in the air. Just as suddenly they would fall back in full retreat when the enemy blinded-sided their assault from the flank and the imaginary battle turned against them. Over and over and over again they would re-enact one mock battle after another.
Observing these childhood activities was more than enough for me. My arsenal of fond memories lacked for nothing. These boys were a joy to be around, or better yet, watch play.
Sadly, all of these things came to an end all too soon. The boys had grown and those cherished toys from the glory days in the army were no longer needed and were left haphazardly in their rooms collecting dust. Eventually, Aaron’s army gear ended up in a box, over in a corner, up in our attic, with all the other relics that were part of his childhood. There they slept.
As is with life, these boys became men. They had grown up and were now their own masters. They owned their own homes, had their own wives, had real jobs, real cars, real monthly payments. So, in honor of their great independence it was only befitting that we bequeathed to them their proper due. Simply said, it was time for Aaron to come get all of his junk out of our attic. We wanted the space back for our junk, thank-you-very-much!
He knew there was quite the pile of history up there, and being the bright man he is, he had the presence of mind to have David come over and help him with the move.
I was there to help too, but most of the work was going to be done by these robust young studs. They were having quite the time pawing through the mess of things when suddenly one of them stumbled across the box with the ol’ army gear in it.
It was like being in a time machine. Right in front of my eyes these two full-grown men dissolved into two little boys gearing up for war again. It…was…impressive! It was scary, actually!
In and amongst those toys the “boys” were once again pulling out the helmets, packs, belts, and weapons. They put all of it back on and were instantly reliving the glory days. It was a sight to behold. I have to tell you it actually brought tears to my eyes as I watched them. Once again they were those two little guys from by-gone years. They had stepped back in time, if you will, and were those best of best friends that only a childhood spent together could produce, and I was smiling from ear-to-ear.
Curls & Capes 