Aaron
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.
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Popcorn Anyone?
Five kids. Count ‘em: one…two…three…four…five. Our personal handful.
Each amazing in their own right, and each starkly different. The uniqueness of each of our minions has been both fun to watch, and challenging to figure out. Any of you with kids know that what works with one, doesn’t mean it works with the others. That would simply be too easy.
Sometimes this “uniqueness” causes happenings that are beyond description. Sometimes it’s the source of scenarios that otherwise would remain innocuous. Sometimes, well sometimes….
Aaron is our only son. The male heir with four sisters. This young man has endured an abundance of estrogen charged young ladies most of his life. I think he has navigated this marvelously well and has managed to maintain his “manliness” throughout. What he has put up with from these blonde siblings while growing up has been more than entertaining to watch. However, sometimes it wasn’t his sisters that got him, but he himself.
One of AJ’s quirks is an acute abhorrence to secondhand food. Maybe this is changing now that he has his own daughter. We parents all know what it’s like to nibble from their plate, or finish off their leftovers; providing the leftovers are still recognizable of course. Time will tell. But suffice it to say, his daughter’s food withstanding, there aren’t too many things that gross him out worse than pre-nibbled and picked over food. Bleck!
On the day of the ill-fated event Annie, Aaron, and Abbey were in our living room lounging around after their movie had finished. No one was in a hurry to go anywhere and the atmosphere was extremely relaxed. Aaron spotted the bowl of popcorn peacefully resting atop the coffee table where it had been placed sometime during the movie.
Aaron loves popcorn. Do any of you remember the scene from Finding Nemo where Nemo is in the fish tank at the dentist office? One of his fellow inmates spots the bubbles rising from the open chest and goes berserk shouting, “Bubbles! Bubbles!” That’s Aaron when he spots popcorn. “Popcorn! Popcorn!”
He snagged the bowl and quickly peaked at its contents. No popcorn left in sight, just the “old maids” that didn’t have the nerve to do what was right under heat and pressure. Did this daunt this young man? No way! He picked up some of those biddies and popped them in his mouth. He was busy swishing them around with great satisfaction when Annie piped up and said, “Abbey already sucked all the salt off of those earlier.”
You could audibly hear the world stop spinning at this point. Aaron momentarily froze. Recognition of what he had done quickly spread across his face. His eyes widened appreciably, while his brain’s synapses were making the necessary connections. Then it registered. Secondhand food was not only in his mouth, but he had been swirling it around with great relish. Out came the full length of his tongue as he quickly flapped it around trying to get rid of those defiling “old maids”.
His gyrations and obvious disapproval for having “those things” in his mouth sent his sisters into immediate hysterics. Who knows what he actually did once they were out of his mouth because they were too busy laughing their backsides off to notice. He may have wiped his tongue on something or ran quickly out of the room in search of some liquid to rinse away this abomination in his mouth. I have no idea, but surely the look on his face must have pleaded, “Tell me it isn’t so. Please tell me it isn’t so!”
Popcorn anyone?
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I Sayed it!
Lost Lake has been our family favorite since Marm introduced it to me shortly after we were married. All of the kids have grown up on its shores, and innumerable adventures and escapades there have dotted our family timeline.
This pristine lake is a magical place where no boat motor touches it. It’s water is crystal clear and COLD if you venture in too early in the season. Mt Hood towers as its backdrop and it’s encircled by beautiful Pacific Northwest forest and fauna.
There is camping, hiking, fishing, swimming, and boating with various non-motor options. The best for me however, is snorkeling. Almost from the first time I saw the lake I wanted to snorkel in it. I had never snorkeled before, but I did here. Boy howdy, did I snorkel here! (More on that in future posts.)
In the earlier years when the kids were small I would spend hours in the water finding crawdads. I would search up and down the shoreline poking under the rocks in the shallower warmer water, or dive down as far as 20 feet to overturn a log on the lake bottom. It was here on the bottom that the monstrous leviathan dwelt. I would bring back the best prizes of the dive and show them to the kids. They would clap and cheer, squeal and run up to see them more closely. They wanted to hold them, but would scream and run away when they wiggled their legs at them. Once I caught one that was as big as a small crab. No fish story here. It was huge. I had a serious aversion to getting pinched by that big boy. No… thank you!
One summer we stayed a full week in the cabins during our family vacation. Like usual we were all spending the day together down along the beach in one of our favorite spots. The water had warmed nicely from the weeks of summer sunshine and I was out snorkeling around in search of the elusive creatures.
While the kids were playing on the beach, Annie and Aaron kept looking into the old metal coffee pot where we housed the captive crawdads. Annie was five and Aaron was almost three at the time. They kept taking peeks at the two or three wee beasties that were all meshed up together in a churning ball of pincers and antennae inside the pot. They were obsessed with them and couldn’t leave them alone.
While they were taking their peeks in the pot, Annie had been trying to get Aaron to say “crawdad”. For whatever reason he would not or could not say the word. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, he mumbled his toddler version of it.
He looked up with the biggest, sweetest grin on his face and shyly proclaimed with glowing three-year old pride, ”I sayed it!”.
That was it for us. That was the moment of the day. Everything else paled in comparison and those three words have been immortalized in our family ever since.
“I sayed it!”
Yes son, you surely did “sayed it”.
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Set Depth at 350 Feet
“Sonar contact bearing 010. Orders Captain?”
Like a familiar smell that triggers a distant memory those words plunge me back in time. Huddled around a small 14″ color TV hooked up to the 5″ floppy disk drive and in turn to the keyboard, we sat mesmerized. We were guiding our Seawolf class submarine loaded with Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles and a full complement of Mark 48 torpedoes into enemy waters. It was dangerous and required complete concentration. A single misguided command, or worse, a wrong keystroke and we were headed to the bottom. Here we sat side by side for hours at a time; father and 10 year old son shoulder to shoulder searching the ocean for enemy targets.
I’m certain that when author Tom Clancey wrote his novel Red Storm Rising he didn’t have my son and me in mind. I don’t know if he had envisioned a Commodore 64 based video game built around his story either. Regardless, this game was the source of endless hours of fun for us.
I can still see us laying on our bellies or sitting cross-legged on Aaron’s bedroom floor while staring intently at the TV screen. I remember us being hunched over the computer when it sat on the desk in our dining room . We peered into that screen like it was going to talk back to us at any moment. We were entranced by a different world.
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to play several video games with my son . Some I liked, some I tolerated, and some I won’t play again. Red Storm Rising however, is different. This game holds a very special place in my heart.
It wasn’t so much the game itself, though it was full of excitement, tension, and moments of sheer panic. It was mostly that we were spending time together and having fun at it. The game controls were complex enough that we had to divide the responsibilities between us. Without knowing it at the time we were having to depend on one another in order to stay safe in those hostile waters. Both of us were busy with our respective duties and yet had to work together to accomplish the mission.
Here in open waters it was more like two friends playing together than it was me being the dad and Aaron being the son. There was no strain in the relationship; just a simple ease we had together as we spent the time. We would laugh ourselves silly when we couldn’t keep the sub from being sunk . Oh, we would try frantically to keep her afloat, but to no avail. Then we would look at each other with those questioning eyes and eager faces that said,
“Let’s do it again!” And off we would go on a new mission.
Those years are gone now. The game for the most part is ancient history. What isn’t gone is the ease we still have when we are together. I’m grateful for that. All that time spent on his bedroom floor has helped pave the way for our relationship today.
Aaron is a grown man now with a wife and baby daughter. Yet in spite of all our current adult responsibilities and life challenges there’s still that little twinkle that comes into our eyes when we hear,
“Sonar contact. Orders Captain?”
“Son… set depth at 350 feet,”
What’s a favorite time you’ve spent with your children?
Curls & Capes 