IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME, back in the summer of 1964. One afternoon, my older brother and I didn’t have much on our itinerary, so we decided to play that time-honored game called “Stretch.” A rather ordinary diversion for boys in our neighborhood.
Here’s how it works: You borrow a steak knife from the utensil drawer in the kitchen and go find a decent piece of turf to begin. Then you and the other player take turns throwing the blade to alternate sides of both feet. Perhaps a few inches or maybe a foot. The goal, of course, is to make the other spread their stance to the point where they topple over. If you fall first, you loose. But there was another strategy; alternate the distances between long and short. Really gets into your opponents head.
If you were a true gladiator, you played “Stretch” barefoot. I have a few scars on the top of both feet to prove it.
Our game was going fine until one of us speared the knife into a hard surface and the blade broke. Uh-oh. We got some serious explaining to do now.
So my brother – never one to be short of creative ideas at the spur of the moment – devised a humorous way to defuse the potential wrath we faced. Within moments, the plot unfurled.
The two of us staggered up the driveway, my brother’s arm wrapped lovingly around my shoulder and appearing to support me. I was the “Igor,” clutching the knife handle in one hand with it’s broken blade pressed against my gut.
Mom!!! Mom!!! Come quick!!!!
And so she did like any good mother who responds to the distress call of bellowing babies. She flew out the backroom door and saw our specters staggering up the gravel, my eyes rolling in feigned pain and an anguished look on my brother’s face. If I recall right, his stellar one-liner was something to the effect, We was playin’ and it was an accident!
I could use that tired cliché that my Mom’s face turned white as a sheet. In reality, there was no color whatsoever, and she transformed into a grimacing mask of translucent fear. Her heart rate must have surpassed the drum solo of Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida as her sad progeny shambled toward sanctuary. And I am certain it added much to the rhythm our younger sister’s heart, who was about two months shy of delivery.
Then came a scream from the horrendous depths of Hades from a distraught Mama.
Great drama requires a surprise and quick ending, especially when a mother’s reaction is involved. If you’re a kid, you got to think quickly on your feet.
Just kidding! one of us yelled, as I pulled the bogus shank from my belly, grins spreading our faces, expecting a thankful response. But kids’ expectations sometimes are a bit distorted, light years away from their parents’ perceptions.
As varying shades of gray returned to my mother’s face, they were accompanied by some damn serious thunderhead clouds. Storm’s a comin’ boys, better head for shelter!
There’s a good reason why the Almighty included willow trees in his vast creation. They’re pretty to look at and have inspired much poetry. Yet, the branches of this tree have other uses. Sometimes grown for instructional purposes or attitude adjustments.
Me and my sibs have since become adults, parents and grandparents. Sorry to report that my brother and I still share that twisted sense of humor, later finely honed on the ragged stones of journalism. Happy to report that our sister – who has a devilish sense of humor on her own – is one of the most giving, patient souls of any person I ever have met.
PARENTHOOD, IT SUCKS SOMETIMES. There’s no instruction book that comes once you have joined the ranks of being a parent. And for good reason: it wouldn’t work. The simple rules of the Garden of Eden didn’t prevent that spat Cain had with Abel and subsequent generations. And there’s that Dr. Benjamin Spock thing that never worked so well, either.
I have witnessed my two adult daughters suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune of their own offspring doing what kids do best: Being goofy. These girls seem to cope with it infinitely better than their old man ever did. Yet, like any good, old sea captain, they deal with their challenges, making course changes whenever needed. They make me proud.
For some reason – and I don’t know why – they don’t find it so hard to envision their old man stumbling up a driveway with their goofy uncle, offering up lame explanations for stupidity.
But then again, as parents, they know what kids do best when they're at their worst.
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