NOTE: Please forgive my absence and not being able to post on my blog while I am working for a week in Japan. As soon as I am back I promise to share with you some more. In the meantime, go back to some of my older posts and send me a note with a comment if you have the time. I would love to read what is on your mind too.
On September 16, 1985, 24 years ago, I started working here in Southern California after driving my one week old Toyota SR5 long bed blue pickup truck and towing a 5' x 10' UHaul cargo trailer which contained all of my worldly possessions all the way from Tennessee. During that summer I had been working two jobs, one converting an analog inventory system into a digital one at the Dupont plant in a town called Old Hickory in Tennessee, and the other programming sales computers for the People Express airline. Two and a half months of working two jobs for 16 hours a day had taken it's toll and motivated me to go job hunting for a better future. The job market for engineers on that year had been a tough one, making the task of getting a descent job pretty much like having a third job. I applied to 98 different engineering jobs all around the United States and had promised myself that the first one to make me a reasonable offer would get me instantly. I still have a log book in which I kept track of everywhere to which I sent a resumé, any letters that they sent back, and any interviews that were offered. Out of the 98 tries, only two made the effort to hire me. The first letter that arrived with good news was from the job I currently and since have held here in California. The other one was an even better offer, but I had already accepted the previous one and felt committed to my first choice. I have been fortunate enough that even though budget cuts have come and gone, reduction in force once took almost half of the people working at my location on the street, and our military command has been on base closure lists twice, God has blessed me with never having to do the job hunting ordeal again. For this I am extremely thankful.
I realize that I have been all over the place in my posts with respect to my opinion on modern technology and science advancements. If you know me in person you might even think that some of what I have written almost contradicts my lifestyle because of how much I am involved in advanced technology because of my job, my skills, and if you think about it, even this blog. Well, rest assured that I am not an advocate to turning off the switch of progress. I rather you see my opinion more as a brain teaser to stimulate our ability to influence technology in a healthier direction particularly with respect to matters of personal development or sociological and cultural significance. The way I see it, if it does not contribute to making us healthier physically, mentally, or emotionally, then whatever the advancement might be it should probably be revised to do so in some way or another.
I have learned through the process of black hair turning into gray that nothing in life is necessarily simple. In fact, the things that we sometimes take for granted because we are so used to dealing with day in and out are many times the same ones that freeze us in place when they change. I never gave a second thought to my ability to lift something heavy until one day while lifting something heavy I got stuck in the "what happened" position. For years I was perfectly capable of picking up things that were heavy because I prided myself of being a relatively strong man. Then one day I was downloading some hardware out of the back of a van at work and on the last trip to the storage locker as I was lowering a 55 pound container when my back screamed "UNCLE" with four letters instead of five. Enough pain killers and muscle relaxers and eventually I went back to normal, but that little voice in the back of my head now whispers "be careful" every time I consider trying to be too macho for my own good.
I have been trying to figure this out for a very long time and I am still not able to understand how it is that in the end I always come out to be the "bad guy." If you are also a parent I am sure you know exactly what I am talking about. I have shared this subject with many other parents and I have learned that this is not unique to my parenting situation. In fact, even though in divorced households the "good guy" versus "bad guy" scenario plays itself out much more frequently, many times the same thing happens in intact families. If you think that as a parent you have some control over this, think again. It is not only rare that both mom and dad will unite at the same level to enforce discipline, it is almost impossible unless the parents upbringing was pretty much identical. As soon as one parent was raised differently than the other, the imbalance of disciplinary enforcement will reveal itself almost by default. It is probably even worse when in our parents upbringing their own mother and father held different ideas as to what good discipline should of been. In this case the role model behaviour of our parents could be so confusing that then we ourselves as parents are not so sure which one was right and how to proceed.
My oldest son named this photo that he took "Desolation." The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines desolation as grief, sadness, loneliness, devastation, ruin, and barren wasteland. At the time he took this photograph I can only imagine what he must of been going through. I remember being at a certain age in which I dragged myself around in a somber mood too. Maybe it is just the age, all teenagers have their ups and downs emotionally. Hormones are raging in a constant struggle to control body and mind at that age. The challenge for me is that I personally believe that it is a self portrait that speaks of his mental state. As his father it brings to me a mixture of sadness, pain, and most of all fear. Why should someone so young have so much sadness in his heart? When he posted this image to share with others he also wrote down a song from Agalloch titled "A Desolation Song." Here it is to share with the rest of the class:
Everything that we experience in life is somehow packaged and filed away inside of our mind. The wrapping materials that we use during this keepsake process is mostly made out of our different senses. We unknowingly use our tactile, hearing, visual, smell, and taste senses to create a sort of cypher lock from which the correct combination will later be required to be used in order to retrieve these memories that have been filed away. If you don't believe me, just walk down the street and across an opening door of a bakery, let the smell of freshly baked bread suck you in. I guarantee you that the aroma in itself will remind you of how delicious this treat is with melted butter and a fresh cup of coffee. I have experienced this when I am driving and suddenly I see at a distance another vehicle that appears to be like the one my dad used to drive and we loved so much as kids, his red Hillman. Instantly my mind goes to work unlocking memories of sitting in the back of the station wagon, playing with a toy monkey on the way to church. I was only three years of age, and still I can remember what it smelled like to be inside that car, and even the feeling of the cold metal against my skin when riding in the back.
During my first two years of college I was still living at home in those days. Just like most teenage kids I found that living at home had it's advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side I was not required to pay rent, laundry was just a couple of doors from my room, and the refrigerator always had something in it to appease the munchies. On the negative side, finding some privacy when I was with my girlfriend was pretty difficult, so I did what most of us did, I snuck around trying to figure out parental schedules in order to have some "quality" time with my girlfriend. You all know what "quality" time really meant of course, in those days it basically meant "sex" time. Now days it is "sex, porn, drugs, and alcohol" time. Just like kids today, I too was dumb enough to think that my parents were clueless as to what would go on in the absence of parental supervision. It says a lot about the ignorance of the teenage mind to somehow believe that our parent's childhood and teenage years had been magically erased from their memory banks rendering them totally non suspicious of our actions. In that sense nothing has really changed. My oldest son in particular will ask me in less than a 60 second interval, when I am leaving, and then at what time I will be back, as if I could not figure out that my absence is being monitored for the benefit of him planning some "quality" time. For this same reason I simply lie to him most of the time. If I am going to be gone for an hour, I will say 15 minutes. Sometimes I'll mix it up and say two hours, and be back in 10 just to mess with his head!And finally, the last one I've gotten it twice so it must be double the truth...right?
Thank you for reading. Actually typing these silly fortune cookie quotes has made me smile...I hope it does something for you too.
Dad
It can safely be said that us humans, no matter the upbringing and personal background we are in essence emotional beings. Regardless of how tough we are and how bitter life might have turned us, deep inside there is and always will be a child that is waiting to be loved. The most macho man in the world will turn into melted butter when the right woman unlocks his heart and touches his soul. The same is true regardless of gender for the any loving relationship. In fact, gender is not a prerequisite for admittance to this club of sentimental interactions, male and female alike are both in various degrees honorary active members. We might build walls and bury our feelings deep down inside of us in order to protect ourselves from emotional manipulation or abuse, but in the end, the correct person comes along and we eventually reveal our true selves.
Today has been a particularly rough day. Anytime you have to leave work early because of having to deal with police showing up at your home while you are not there, well let's just say it is not a good day. What is it that I did to deserve such an action packed life? I somehow keep thinking that I am paying for a past life that was extremely devious of my part. Well, who knows, maybe I'll wake up one day and realize it was just a nightmare and I will be eternally grateful for whatever cards have been dealt to me then. It is days like today that instead of rambling about the drama that unfolded I feel compelled to just escape into somewhere else in my mind. Please understand, I am living it, so sometimes writing about it too soon is like having to live it all over again way too quickly. I need some air.
When I was growing up the question was not whether or not I would be going to college, the question was which college was I going to attend. According to how my mother tells the story, when my father went to ask for her hand in matrimony her dad asked him how was it that he intended to take care of her if he was just a college student. The back pocket reply was that he would be joining the United States Air Force and come back to marry her once he was able to maintain a household. At the time he was enrolled in college to become a Civil Engineer, but he dropped everything and joined the military to make a career out of it and be able to marry his beautiful bride. In my opinion he made the right choice, if he had not done so I would of never been born.My mother being the oldest of nine brothers and sisters had already taken to work as a teacher in a small public elementary school in the countryside. She says that sometimes when he would come and visit her while at work, some of the kids would jump out of the classroom window because his white guayabera shirt made him look like a doctor and they thought he was there to administer shots. Both of them had a vision, and in their vision the future looked bright and full of hope. The military life meant that they would have to pick up and go in what almost seemed like a moment's notice, to continue their lives wherever he would be sent to do his job. First Florida, then England, then Arkansas, and Arizona. One by one of us sons and daughters was born throughout that continuous in motion life, where the only common place would be when he was sent back to Puerto Rico in between new duty stations. Sometimes she would be alone, as when he was sent to Guam, and later it was all of us that would be left back while he did his tour in Vietnam. Vietnam, what a scary place to be sent to. Just recently I saw the most amazing three hour show on the National Geographic channel, giving a detailed account for political, military, and human aspect of the Vietnam war. I think I learned more in those three hours than I had in all of my years so far with respect to what really happened in Vietnam. So much was lost, so much was taken, and worse of all so much was never gained back. Almost 60 thousand American soldiers died, and several million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were also lost. I have such a difficult time wrapping my mind around all that death. The conflict lasted close to 16 years. All of the nations that in any way participated in this devastation are still paying a price one way or another due to their involvement.
Prior to leaving to Vietnam my father bought two audio cassette recorders. I can only imagine that it was a significant financial investment of his part because in those days they were probably considered state of the art. The idea was that instead of sending letters to the family he would send audio cassettes with recorded messages. He took one of the recorders with him when he left, and left the other for us to use to listen and reply to his own sent voice messages. On one side of the audio cassette it would be labeled "Para toda la familia", which translates to "For the entire family." On the other side of the cassette the label read "Para ti solita", which translates as "Just for you" and was meant for my mother's ears only. How cool was that? So, when a tape would arrive from overseas we would all sit down together and listen to his joyful voice tell us some kind of story, ask about each and every one of us, and tell us how much he missed and loved us. Afterwards, my mom would retreat and listen to her side of the tape in private. As the curious and nosy child that I was at the age of five, one day I decided to listen into what he might of had to tell my mom that we were not allowed to hear. It has been a very long time now, my memory is not as clear and I do not remember the details, but one thing I do remember...there was a lot of sadness in his voice. In that particular tape he would talk to her about the horror of never knowing if friends would make it back once they left the base he was working at, how bodies were delivered in truck loads, and although they were not in the middle of all the action, you could never be far enough of it either. On one side of the tape his beautiful happy and loving portrayal of positive thoughts to his children, on the other the ugly sad reality of what it was like to be in such a scary place.
We do that all the time. We shield our children from our pain, our fears, and our sadness. I have spent the last seventeen years of my life doing this almost every day one way or another. I try not to let my boys know how much things really hurt, how scared I am of so much that is happening in my life, and mostly I try not to show my sadness in an effort to keep their spirits high. Is it right of me to do this? Today, while I was at a funeral, I was asked about my sons and how they were doing. I sometimes try to not let it show when I am having a hard time with my older son, but lately the situation has been more frequently than not very painful for me to deal with and a bit of my reality wiggles it's way out of me. It must be more obvious than I thought because I was told that lately I seem more preoccupied and mentally absent from the rest around me. My typical answer is that it is not easy raising teenage boys. My Side B must be playing too loud because others can hear it.
I really try not to, but every once in a while I break down and am not able to control one of those emotions that I fight so hard to keep under check and away from my children. Afterwards I feel guilty for mildly having inflicted my own state of mind on them. It is rare that I do this, but unfortunately I am human too and as strong as I try to be, I just can't always win the battle between smiling and not being able to for a little while. However, most of the time I am and try to be the Side A of the audio cassette that shows the bright side of things. I remember all too clearly how scary it was to hear my father share his Side B and what it did to my mother afterwards. I wonder why love is such a powerful yet draining emotion. It is not easy to always be strong enough to protect the ones we love. However, I am their father so I will try to do my best.
Dad
When I was a child the concept of there being any other planets besides the ones contained in our own solar system was a theme left to science fiction. In fact, I remember reading books that described our universe with the content of a single galaxy, ours, the Milky Way. All the other specks of light in the sky were considered to be either contained within our own galaxy, or being part of strange formations called nebula. The current description in present time of our universe contains hundreds of other planets orbiting other stars, and our galaxy is only one of billions that in themselves contain hundreds of billions of stars and most likely planets too. How we see ourselves now compared to how we saw ourselves less than 40 years ago is so different that science textbooks have been rewritten over and over again in this short amount of time to correct for what we now know about our universe.
