Excuses

If you are a parent of teenagers, you know how hard it can be to get in touch with your kids when they’re not at home. Even with cell phones it can be difficult at times to just have a brief interaction. Three of us Dads with kids between the ages of fifteen and nineteen were talking about this at work one day last week. We’ve each had instances where we needed to get in touch with our kids and were unsuccessful. Part of the reason we got cell phones for our kids was so that we could get in touch with them and they could get in touch with us.

We all agreed on one thing, which is that our kids will never answer a phone call from us. I’ve wanted to talk to my kids quickly about something and didn’t want to text back and forth, so I called them. Seems simple, right? Have a quick conversation so everyone is on the same page and you’re done in, oh, 30 seconds. Well, it isn’t so simple, because they very rarely answer the call. I think the three of us all got the same excuse when this happened: “I had it on silent.” When I’m out somewhere, like at a mall, I hear phones ringing everywhere, and it’s not all the parents with the latest, coolest ring tones, so how come all our kids have their phones on silent?

Here’s what I consider somewhat amusing. You can call your kids five times and they won’t answer their phone (possibly because after the second call they’re ticked off), but text them and they get right back to you. At least mine do. One of the other Dads said his kids don’t always get back to him via text either. When he talked to them about it, their excuse was that their phone was on one floor of the house they were at, and they were on another floor. Because his kids never even go to the bathroom without their cell phone (OK, so that is a slight exaggeration), he wasn’t buying it. Another time he was told that their phone had died and they didn’t have a charger with them. The third Dad said he was told by his son that his friend’s house doesn’t get any reception on his phone, so he never got the text until he left. I guess those last two are possible, but we all agreed they were just excuses.

I’m not down on my kids or other kids for making up excuses for not wanting to talk to their parents. Most of the time it will probably mean the fun is over, or they forgot to do something, or something else they don’t want to hear. I know, because I remember when I was a teenager. The worst thing to happen was to be at someone’s house with a group of friends hanging out and having a blast, and the Mom would walk in and tell one of us that our Mom was on the phone. If it was my Mom, I would immediately start thinking about what I could have forgotten to do or if I was in trouble for something. Most always the call meant that person had to go home, which was bad enough, but then they had to take the razzing from the guys about “running home to Mommy.”  

We didn’t have to make up excuses back then because we had built in excuses, back in the days before technology made our lives “easier”. Here are a few of them:

• There was no call waiting back in the 70’s, so if someone was on the phone at your friend’s house, your Mom couldn’t get through. You weren’t telling a lie if you told your Mom, “Mrs. Smith was on the phone the whole time I was there!” Of course, sometimes we just took the phone off the hook so we wouldn’t be disturbed.
• There weren’t answering machines, caller ID or voice mail back then either, so if we didn’t answer the phone there was no way to know who called. Saying “I didn’t know you called” was not a lie. Without these modern conveniences, it was like the phone call never happened.
• When we were out and about, the only way to call home was to use a pay phone. However, pay phones weren’t on every corner and sometimes they were broken. So, we weren’t telling a lie if we said, “I couldn’t find a pay phone.” Not that we looked too hard, but that’s a different story.
• Once we had our licenses, saying that whoever was driving wouldn’t stop for you to make a call might work once or twice, but that’s about it. What’s that quote: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”?

If you can’t get in touch with your kids, it isn’t something new for parents. It’s been going on for decades. Teenagers have never liked getting phone calls from their parents. It’s just that as the technology has evolved, so have the excuses.

Feeling the Heat

We’ve had some really hot weather here in the Northeast lately and I have to say I just can’t take the heat like I used to. I feel like I’m always hot when it’s not even that hot outside, so lately I feel like I’ve been melting. I’m hot at work, I’m hot at home and I’m hot outside. Constant sweating makes me a dull boy. I get grumpy, I get edgy, I need to change my clothes twice a day. Well, not really, I just feel like I should change them a couple times a day. The deodorant just isn’t doing its job these days.

I thought as you get older, you’re supposed to get colder. I see plenty of elderly people walking around in 90 degree heat wearing flannel shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts, and wearing pants. The amazing part is they don’t even look warm, forget about hot. I’m in shorts and a tee shirt and I’m sweating. Not that I want to get older too fast, but I actually kind of look forward to the day I need a second layer in the summer. Heck, it would be nice to just not sweat for a few days. You’re probably thinking, well what about the winter when it’s 20 degrees and the wind is howling? If I’m outside, sure, it IS cold. But if I’m inside, I’m probably hot. This is how it works: if most people are feeling comfortable, I’m hot; if most people are cold, I’m feeling comfortable.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have any air conditioners. We had a couple of fans, but that was it. I remember we had a big blue fan that we put near the front door to create a breeze. When it was on high, it put out a lot of wind and it did actually cool down the living room. It was fun to stand in front of it and talk into it, because it made your voice choppy and sounded cool. Of course, after about 30 seconds of that we were told to get out from in front of it because we were blocking all the cool air. It was also pretty annoying to everyone in the room who wasn’t talking into it, but that was part of the fun. Singing into it was double the fun.

I think we tried putting the fan in the hallway where all the bedrooms were in the hope that it would work as well as in the living room, but it didn’t. Unless we could have made the air bend, there was no way to get the breeze into three different rooms. Even being at the end of the bed closest to the hallway didn’t work. Kids being kids, we still somehow managed to get a good night’s sleep despite the heat. It was so awesome to be lying in bed, windows wide open, listening to the crickets, and feel a breeze, however small or brief it was.

To help alleviate the heat, sometimes we’d go for “cool off rides”. We didn’t have air conditioners in the cars either, but when you drove with all the windows all the way down, it was a nice breeze. Sometimes we just drove around for a while, maybe even on the highway for a short time. Going 60 miles per hour with our heads hanging out the windows was not a pretty sight, but it sure did cool us down. Sometimes we went to the beach and sat on the sea wall or on a bench and enjoyed the breeze off the water. If we were really lucky, the ride included a stop for an ice cream cone. There was nothing like a Dairy Queen ice cream cone, the ice cream dipped into the chocolate that hardened up on the outside. There was always the delicate balance of taking your time to savor the cold treat without taking too long and having a melting mess running down your hand and onto your arm all the way up to your elbow. Hot and sticky – not a good combination.      

That’s about how I’ve felt lately; like a hot, sticky, melting mess. Maybe I should go for a “cool off ride” and go to the beach or get an ice cream. That is, after I change out of my sweaty, smelly clothes.

Happy Fourth of July

Quick, what comes to your mind when you think of a hero? Is it a 6’4”, 250 lb., heavily muscled man, with perfect shiny white teeth and a cleft chin? Maybe you thought of a super hero, like Superman, or Batman, or Thor. Maybe you thought of a burly fireman, running into a burning building to save someone. My apologies to the women out there, but I usually thought of a man like the ones mentioned above when I thought of a hero.

Now picture this: a 5’5” 150 lb., wiry man. You’re probably not thinking hero, right? How about if I told you that this man was part of a gunnery team in World War II that was comprised of three huge cannons, who were told that they had to keep firing no matter what happened? How about if I told you that two of those guns took direct hits and were out of commission, and that this man was part of the one gun left? Further, this gun kept firing even though they were also under heavy enemy fire and because of that, the objective of that battle was met. What are you thinking now?

The United States Army thought this man and his fellow soldiers were heroes, because they awarded him the Silver Star. According to Wikipedia, “The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy.” Valor; now that is a great word. One definition of the word is “boldness or determination in facing great damage, especially in battle; heroic courage; bravery.” It also says, “The Silver Star may be awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the armed forces, distinguishes himself or herself by extraordinary heroism involving one of the following actions…” and it lists three actions. The point is they don’t just give these to anybody.

The amazing part of all this is that the unlikely hero was my Dad. I don’t think I even knew this about him until after he died. It just wasn’t something he talked about. Growing up, I knew he was in World War II. I saw him march in parades with the VFW and he always stood when the flag went by if he wasn’t in the parade. I also knew that he sang the words to the national anthem when it was played. I always thought of him as a patriotic man, but I didn’t know that he was awarded a Silver Star. It kind of blew my mind when I found out about this.

The final piece to this mini puzzle was that Dad died on the Fourth of July. To me, it was fitting that such a patriotic man, and a war hero, would die on that day. So the Fourth of July is a bittersweet day for me and my family. I appreciate the history, and the fight for independence and freedom, but I also pause to remember that it was that day that my father was taken from this earth.

Dad wasn’t a 6”4”, heavily muscled man, with perfect shiny white teeth and a cleft chin. He wasn’t the Hollywood version of a hero. He was just an ordinary guy who “distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism.” For him, and a lot of other guys like him, I say, “Happy Fourth of July.”