The Father / Son Competition Never Ends
On December 4, 2015 my age numbered exactly 84 years, 10 months, and 2 days. While that number, 84-10-2, does not usually call for celebration, it bears great importance to me. My father lived 60 years, 10 months, and 1 day. So on December 4, therefore, I beat the “old man’s” longevity by twenty-four years. (For those attempting to do arithmetic on their fingers, I will be eighty-five February 2, 2016.)
Each year since 1991, when I tied and then passed Dad’s days, it has led me to take stock of my life and examine where I have been, what I have done, and, to some extent, what I should have done, as well as what I should not have done. Frankly, I avoid the latter searches because history is history and while we may alter the telling of the facts, those facts remain what they are—like it or not. As the years pass, I have become more and more introspective.
My mother died at 73. On my upcoming birthday I will have outlived her by 11 years, 5 months, and 29 days. Mother/son relationships, however, differ greatly from those of father/son. Freud, of course, would call the nurturing mother and competitive father relationships “Oedipal.” Whatever one calls it, I do not mark the time of my mother’s death the way I do Dad’s.
After two years in the Army, three in community college, and three to get my B. A. and teaching credential, I was just two months into my first full time job, teaching drama and English in high school, when he passed away. I deeply regret that he did not get to share any of my achievements and successes that I experienced as a professional adult.
He did not live to see me obtain an M. A. then a Ph.D. He did, however, get called to schools to ascertain why Edwin, that’s me, scored so highly on standardized test scores while doing average, at best, work in school. Nor would he ever have predicted that I would author eight books, two full length plays, and I do not know how many short works of research, opinion, and literature. Would he appreciate that I became Principal of an American school in France, as well as Chair of the Academic Senate at a major university? He had just a sixth grade education, so he probably would have had difficulty understanding my literary pride and academic success.
He did not get to see the joy I found with my wife, two children, and five grandchildren. He did, however, get to be exacerbated and frustrated by my surly, introverted, angry, and unresponsive attitude as a teenager. (Can you imagine a surly, introverted, angry, and unresponsive teenager? Never!)
As a four year-old child he emigrated from England to Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was in his fifties when we as a family moved to California. He did some, but quite limited, travel. How would he react to my having visited every country in North and Central America, as well four countries in Asia, three in South America, two in Africa, and fifteen or twenty in Europe, plus Israel which is in the Middle East?
After immigrating he lived in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and California. How would he relate to my having visited forty-nine of the fifty states, missing only ND? I also had mailing addresses in eight states: PA, NJ, CA, GA, WA, MI, IN, and VA.
He might have understood and related to my high school and university teaching, writing, and administrative work. He knew about the twenty or so part time jobs of my youth, but how would he relate to my falling into the greatest “gig” in history; lecturing about American Musical Theater on cruise ships (eight times), as well as teaching it as a full semester course at Purdue, at the DVC Emeritus Program and at Elder hostels?
My favorite all time job—actor—required great energy, devotion, and dedication. Pop always regarded acting as a complete waste of time and energy and insisted that I should have a profession or career “to fall back on.” He was 100% right on that one, as I later learned. Still, I would like to have shared some of my better, and even the not so good, performances with him.
Pop and I did share one great passion: Baseball. He had played what was then called semi-pro ball. When I was a teenager I heard from people who had seen him play that he was an excellent hitter. Hitting was the weakest part of my game, but he would never teach or help me improve. Instead, he would ridicule. That hurts to this day, but it was what it was.
My proudest and happiest moments, however, concern my wife, two children, and five grandchildren whom he, of course, never met. I will not bore you with stories about the grandkids. (It would take at least twenty-three pages.) I choose to think that they would have given him a great deal of pleasure; especially the boys who played soccer, baseball, and basketball.
The song “My Way” states: “I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried, I’ve had my fill, my share of losing.” It would have been nice to share both the winning and the losing with him as adult to adult. That, however, was not to be. Instead I count the number of years that I have outlived him, “outlived” in longevity, but also in the sense of the delight a rewarding life can bring. So instead I count years, months, and days in a meaningless, one contestant, long-since decided competition. Suffice it to say that on February 2, 2016, I will be eighty-five years old. Let’s leave it there.
So now you know almost everything about the relationship between my father and me, or at least what parts I am willing to put on paper. Will I be around to beat to beat by 25 my father’s life span of 60-10-1 years next December 4? Twenty-six in 2017? Obviously, none of us, fortunately, knows. I hope I shall, of course. I also hope that anyone who has the gumption to read all of this will enjoy life as much I have and still do. I wish Dad were here to read and discuss it with me.
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