Mark Twain famously observed that “when I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he'd learned in seven years.” We spend our youth differentiating ourselves from our parents, separating from them. (And then we turn into them, but that comes a bit later.)
Earlier this week I had the privilege of driving with my son Joel from NJ to Rochester Hills, Mich, accompanying him as he begins his first full time job in his profession of choice—theatrical lighting and scenic design. A quick trip: drive there, deposit his stuff and leave him with the van, fly home. Very last minute—we first discussed it the morning we left—Joel was planning on doing the drive alone and had made all his arrangements. My function was moral support and sharing the driving.
The plan emerged as I reflected that morning about the time I started law school, living in Philadelphia and needing to get to California. My father volunteered to drive with me in my car (a 1973 Mercury Montego that had taken a “bath” in a flood). And so (with a bit more planning) we attached a U-Haul to the car, filled it up with my stuff, drove with my sister to St. Louis where we dropped her off at college, then proceeded on a 5- or 6-day drive through Denver, over the Rockies, and on to Palo Alto. Drove my father to the airport, and began my law school career. (Like the horse in True Grit, the car didn’t make it—long story about its troubles, but I ended up selling it a week later to a junk dealer for $25—they had to tow it away from my apartment complex.)
Anyway, as Joel prepared to leave I suddenly remembered that trip and wondered why I hadn’t thought to do with Joel what my father had done with me. Mentioned it to my wife. She encouraged me to go, and she and my other terrific colleagues at Behrman House made it possible, with about three hours’ notice, for me to be absent during one of the busiest times of our year.
I’m so very glad to have been able to go. I’m profoundly grateful to Vicki for encouraging me to go, and to the Behrman House staff for being so capable that I could do so.
And then, as I flew home I remembered more details of my earlier trip. How nervous I was to move cross country in an era when “long-distance” calls cost 30¢ per minute and the only communications where telex and US mail. How almost all my friends and all my family were on the East Coast. And how though I didn’t know it, it was comforting to have someone more capable in the world help me deposit myself in this new place.
And I remembered the timing: it was 1978. I was 23 years old and my father was 57. As I write this, Joel is 22 years old, and I am 58. Vicki says I’m starting to look like my dad (though I still have my hair!) Maybe it’s in more ways than the physical.
I write this within a week of the observance of my father’s first yahrtzeit. He was a complicated man, and my relationship with him was complicated and filled with contradictions. I spent much of my young life (as perhaps all sons do) determining what habits and practices of my father—in fact all my family—I would choose not to adopt in my life. I hope as I approach this season of remembrance that I will also have the wisdom to recognize, and perhaps even adopt, his habits and practices that I want to embrace, even if (or perhaps because) it would make me become just a bit more like him.
