False Phrases

Recently I was thinking about things my parents used to say when I was a kid to make me feel better, or get me to do something, or pump me up to attempt something. There were a lot of things that turned out to be true, but there were a lot of things that turned out to be inaccurate or flat out wrong. Every family had their own sayings, but I’m guessing that many of us heard the same ones.

Here are a few sayings that were supposed to teach us life lessons:

• Good things come to those who wait. Mom told us this to cheer us up when we didn’t get something we wanted. We heard this one a lot in my house. Somehow this was supposed to make me feel better about not getting something, when in reality I would have felt much better getting what I wanted right then. Now that I think about it, nothing comes to those who wait.
• Work hard and you’ll get ahead. Mom and Dad told us this so we’d do our homework and do well in school so we could go on to college. I think it was supposed to motivate us to give our all to tasks and persevere. Sadly, in today’s world you work hard and you get a pat on the back. That is, if your company is being downsized, in which case you get shown the door.
• The cream always rises to the top. This goes along with the previous phrase. It was supposed to teach us that if you do your very best, you’ll magically rise to the top. I’ll tell you what rises to the top – dead bodies…unless they have a pair of cement shoes.
• Cheaters never prosper. Ha! Professional athletes and politicians have turned this one on its head. We heard this one a lot, too, because Mom and Dad wanted us to always play fair and follow the rules. As with most kids, we didn’t always live by this rule.

Here are a few sayings that Mom and Dad employed to get us to eat stuff we didn’t like:

• Carrots are good for your eyes. Which was followed by “Have you ever seen a rabbit with glasses?” I have to admit, I never did see a rabbit with glasses. However, I did see a lot of people who ate carrots and still had glasses, Mom and Dad included. I didn’t eat carrots much and I never needed glasses. That is, until I hit my mid-40’s and now I can’t read anything without my goggles.
• Eat all your vegetables and you’ll grow up big and strong. I am Exhibit A that this was false. We had vegetables almost every night with dinner, along with salad, and we had to eat all that we were given (or took) and I never did make it to six feet. I know, I know, some will say I did grow up big and strong – big headed with strong B.O.
• Fish is great brain food. I’ve never been a big fish fan and yet I was still pretty smart growing up. I still remember Moe telling Larry, in response to his declaration that fish was great brain food, that he should fish for a whale! I heard that one from my brothers a few times, too.

Lastly, here are a few sayings that Mom and Dad used to get us to stop doing things they didn’t like:

• Your face will get stuck like that. Mom seemed to always catch us making goofy faces at each other and said this to get us to stop. Guess what? It didn’t work. We still did it and our faces are perfectly normal, some may even say handsome. Though I must admit, in a few moments of insecurity I did check my face in the mirror just to make sure I wasn’t cross-eyed with my tongue hanging out of my mouth.
• If you sit too close to the TV, you’ll ruin your eyes. Since the advent of TV, kids have sat as close to it as they could. In my house, we sat close to the TV so we could hear it because someone was always goofing around and making noise – many times it was me. However, I don’t think there was ever a scientific study that proved that if you sit too close to the TV, your eyes are adversely affected.
• If you listen to music too loud, you’ll go deaf. There was only one reason for this, and it was because our parents, mine included, hated the music we listened to. My brothers and sisters and I listened to rock, from the Beatles to Zeppelin, until a couple of family members lost their minds and went disco on me. There was only one way to play it and that was loud! Meanwhile, Mom was playing her Englebert Humperdinck and Tom Jones albums pretty loud herself.

There you have it, things our parents told us that weren’t true. Maybe in twenty years my kids will have a list of phrases that my wife and I told them that weren’t true. That is, if they can come up with any.

Playing Games, Telling Stories and Singing Songs

My wife and I spent the weekend on Martha’s Vineyard and were on our way back to our car on the shuttle bus when a Dad and his kids caught our attention. This man was great with his kids and was fully engaged with them, something you don’t see enough these days. Pretty much from the time the ride started, he was playing games with the kids, especially a young girl who was probably about five-years old. They played thumb wars, they played I Spy, and they played Simon Says (no small feat in a dark vehicle, I must say). However, what truly impressed me was when the little girl asked to play the Quiet Game.

Listening to them brought back a lot of memories from when my kids were younger and we were on the road. We used to play games, tell stories and sing songs when we drove. Obviously, we didn’t play thumb wars, that would be hard (and dangerous) to play while driving a car around town. We did play a lot of I Spy and finding the alphabet on license plates and signs along the way. However, the Quiet Game was not one we played too much. I think it worked the first few times we played and then they caught on to the real reason my wife and I wanted to play. My kids never asked to play the Quiet Game.

Telling stories was always fun for us and the kids. We did it a couple of different ways. Sometimes we took turns telling a story, each one of us getting our own few minutes to weave a stunning narrative. Sometimes, one person would start a story and go on for a few minutes, say “and then…” and the next person would pick up from there. We usually went around the car once or twice, but there were occasions we went around three times if the story wasn’t fizzling out. On longer trips, after telling stories for a while and saying we needed a break, the kids would ask for one more. I’d say okay and let them know it was going to be a short one and then proceed to tell them this amazing tale, “Once upon a time. The end.” There would be howls of protest that it wasn’t even a story and I’d usually give in and tell them one last good one. 

Singing songs was another great way to pass the time in the car. We’d sing songs from the kids’ classes at church, oldies but goodies that everybody knows (B I N G O and Bingo was his name O!), songs from their CDs (yes, even at five or six, they had their own music), and other songs the kids and my wife and I liked. I preferred them singing Beatles’ songs than most of the stuff that was played on the radio. It also helped that my wife and both the kids are musically gifted. Heck, the kids even made up some songs of their own that were pretty good – and they both still write songs today.

As we got close to the parking lot, the little girl yawned and then said to her Dad, “I think I’m going to sleep in the car.” Her brother agreed shortly after and gave a hearty yawn himself. I thought that was a perfect ending to the night. They obviously had had a lot of fun and now they were spent. There were so many times on longer rides that our kids were laughing and singing and suddenly there was silence. One of us would take a peek back and they’d both be out cold, safe and secure, sleeping in a car like only kids can.

I hope that Dad enjoyed his ride home, realizing how special it is that he has a great relationship with his kids and realizing that there will come a day when they won’t think he’s the most awesome Dad in the world, a stage all kids go through. I’m sure he occasionally took a peek back at his sleeping kids just to make sure they were okay, and probably smiled as he thought about when they were babies and how quickly they had grown. I remember those days like it was yesterday, because in some ways it was. It doesn’t take long for them to go from sleeping in the back of the car, to asking if they can use the car to go over a friend’s house. I just hope my now grown kids have as fond memories of their younger years as I do.  

Father's Day Thoughts

Last Sunday was Father’s Day and I desperately wanted to pull out something from my younger days to share with everybody. However, I couldn’t find anything that I wrote as a kid for Father’s Day. I guess that when I was a kid we didn’t do stuff like that for our Dads. It was definitely a different time. Let’s face it, back then most of our fathers were not very engaged with us and our lives. It was mostly the mothers that raised the kids and Dad was only brought in when the heavy artillery was needed. Still, I was hoping to find something.

Then I thought about a poem I wrote for my Dad for Father’s Day a couple of years before he passed away. I looked high and low, and couldn’t find a printed copy. I looked on old 3.5 inch floppy disks (yeah, I still have a few of them) and came up empty. I looked in the attic in some storage boxes and it was not to be found. So, I have nothing to share with you about Father’s Day from when I was kid. However, I can share some things I always think of when I think of my Dad:

•  I always knew when Dad was coming home because I could hear him whistling as he came up the walkway. I don’t know the songs he was whistling, but I’m sure they were classics from his life. That is something that was not passed down to my kids; I can’t imagine going around whistling Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, or even the Beatles.
• Whenever we sang “Let There Be Peace on Earth” at church, it brought tears to Dad’s eyes. When you’ve been in a war and seen things that you just don’t talk about, I guess singing about peace has a little more meaning to you. My son is in chorus at school and when they sang it for a show I, too, had tears in my eyes thinking of my Dad.
• On Sundays, Dad always made breakfast for us – bacon, eggs and toast. It was awesome to wake up after a nice, long, fun Saturday and smell the bacon cooking in the kitchen. Even if most times he overcooked it (unless you like it dry and rock hard), it was awesome to not have to make it myself.
• On Sunday afternoons, Dad always made hamburgers for lunch. He didn’t make little, scrawny, slider-like burgers; he made big, beefy burgers that took two hands to eat. The Burger King Whopper had nothing on Dad’s burgers!
• On Saturday afternoon, Dad would watch Candlepin Bowling, a local bowling show. He really got into it, and when a pin was wobbling he would yell “Get over!”  I tried that once when I was bowling and the people in the next lane did NOT appreciate it.
• Even though we weren’t very well off when I was a kid, my Dad was always willing to serve others and help wherever he could. When he tried to refuse a Thanksgiving turkey one year, we were all a little ticked off. However, now that I’m older I get it – there’s always someone who is in greater need than you and he thought someone else should have gotten it.
• When I wanted to learn how to play Cribbage, Dad patiently taught me, even when I made the same mistakes over and over. He took the time to explain what I could have done that would have been better. I, however, did not have that same patience when my kids were kicking my butt playing Trouble.

Maybe someday I will find a copy of that poem I wrote for my Dad. Even if I don’t, I still have a lot of great memories of him and the many things he taught us growing up. I hope that my kids have fond memories of me when I’m gone. I’m sure they’ll tell their kids how they kicked my butt playing…well, just about every game we played. I also hope they'll remember the good things I taught them.

I Got the Music In Me

I went to take a shower late Saturday afternoon and saw that my son had left an iPod dock in the bathroom. So I grabbed my iPod, plugged it in and cranked some tunes while I was taking a shower. I haven’t listened to music while in the shower in years and it made me feel happy and kind of like a kid again. Afterwards, I felt a little silly for getting a bit giddy from just listening to music while taking a shower and it sounds kind of stupid now that I’m writing it down, but music holds many memories for me.

A song can sometimes bring me right back to a place I was when I heard it the first time, or when something important happened in my life. Sometimes a song will simply remind me of a time when I was feeling down and it changed my mood or made me feel better. And yes, there are even songs that kind of bum me out a bit as I mentioned here. But I remember cranking up the tunes before I went out on a Saturday night, setting the mood for my evening. That’s what I was remembering while in the shower and it made me smile.

I’ve always loved music, even if I couldn’t play it. A few of my brothers played the drums, but I figured out fairly quick that I was not a drummer. I always liked the bass and the guitar, but I never was able to get one. I hung around with a few guys who played guitar and I’d pick it up some times, but I didn’t spend enough time on it. One friend taught me to play the first three notes of “Smoke on the Water”! That’s right, three notes was the extent of my guitar playing. 

Hopefully, it doesn’t seem from my other posts that my older siblings always gave me a hard time, because they didn’t. They actually taught me about a lot of good things growing up, especially music. I got to listen to a lot of good music when I was a kid, courtesy of my older brothers and sisters. We had just about all the Beatles albums, early Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad and a lot of others, too. I still remember the first record I bought; the single “Victoria” by The Kinks. I was definitely influenced by what they listened to. When I got to be a little older, like early teens, I wore out Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin II, The Who’s Tommy and Chicago’s Chicago Transit Authority. We had what I consider to be some of the best music of the 1960’s and early 1970’s. I still listen to a lot of classic rock today.

Today, I still want to learn how to play guitar. In the meantime I can listen to my kids, who are both incredible musicians and singers, and my wife who is an incredible singer, too. Or, I could just crank some classic rock tunes on my iPod. Even if it’s not Saturday night.