Broken Dreams

I’ve recently been watching the “When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions” TV series that was originally on Discovery Channel. The series goes through NASA’s quest to put a man into space and ultimately to get a man to the moon after President Kennedy’s 1961 speech in which he said that the United States should land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. When I was a mere eight years old, I was allowed to stay up late that July night to watch Neil Armstrong be the first man to walk on the moon. Luckily for all of us, it was summer so Mom let us watch history being made.

Many moments of the different missions stand out to me, but one thing that really touched me was when the Apollo 13 Commander, Jim Lovell, spoke about the moment he realized that his dream of walking on the moon was never going to happen. Even though he had been looking forward to being one of the few men to actually walk on the moon for years, he had to let that dream go. He was disappointed but couldn’t dwell on it because he had to focus on getting back home alive.

I never had to make a decision between living and following a dream in my life, but I have had to let some dreams go over the years. After all the hoopla over the moon landings, there was a time I wanted to be an astronaut. My first watch was even a glow-in-the-dark astronaut watch, where the second hand was an astronaut floating around in space, similar to the one below:

How cool is that? However, I realized I could never be an astronaut because just spinning around in circles in my front yard practically made me sick. I mean, if doing the washing machine spin cycle in the front yard makes me puke, I don’t think I’m going to make it into space.

When I was younger, I thought it would be cool to be an actor. Then in fifth grade I decided to be part of a play and I had two small parts. One was the narrator at the beginning of the first and second scenes, and the other was a small part where I was on stage in a group where I didn’t have any lines. The narration part was easy, I just came out and said the name of the play, who it was written by and set the first scene. We did it in front of the younger grades for practice, so I came out, gave the name of the play and who wrote it and then started setting the scene and…went blank. I stood there, repeating “The setting is…” multiple times, while the little kids started laughing. From off to the side, my teacher gave me my line and I finished with a very red face. I realized then that if I couldn’t recite a few lines in front of a few little kids, I could never get up in front of a large group of people and deliver a bunch of lines.

I used to love to sing, too. I was in the Glee Club (yes, it really was called that) and really liked it. Then my voice started changing and I got really self-conscious about how I sounded and that was the end of my singing career. It was over before it even started. Remember Peter Brady when his voice was changing? I could relate. There was also the whole thing about getting up in front of a group of people and performing…with all of them looking at me.

Being on the small side, I used to dream about being tall when I got older – especially if I ended up being taller than all my brothers. When I was in about 6^th grade and was starting to get better in baseball, I imagined myself being like 6’4”. When I was in 9^th grade and most of my friends were growing way more than I was, I imagined myself being 6 feet tall. By the time I was finishing high school, I would have been happy to be 5’9.  Seeing as both my parents were short, 4’11” and 5’5”, I never really had a chance to make 6 feet tall.

Even though I wasn’t very tall, I dreamed of being a professional baseball player from the time I first put on a baseball glove. Up through 10^th grade, I truly believed I had a chance to make it to the major leagues. Then I started thinking about how I was one kid, in one small town, in one small state, and I realized I was pretty good, but not that good. That was probably the only dream that hurt to let go of. 

Not all my dreams were crushed. I have an incredible wife, two awesome kids, a good job and I live a decent life. Those are all dreams that came true. Oh yeah, I may not be writing books, but I am a writer with this blog! And I didn’t even have to choose between a dream and life.

Did It Really Happen?

A couple people have asked me if some of the things I write about really happened or was it really like that growing up. And another person asked me how the heck I remember all this stuff. OK, you got me. I’m really an only child from a wealthy family and every story is made up. I don’t really have six brothers and two sisters, and there were never card games and board games; I didn’t have to learn to get along with others, or how to share things, or how to wait for things; I got everything and anything I wanted, especially at Christmas; my yard was not the football field or the wiffle ball field where we played for hours; I went on luxurious vacations every year; I didn’t have to count out M&M’s in a Dixie Cup. Well, maybe in some parallel universe or imaginary world that is true, but not here in the real world. All I can say is, I write things as I remember them. Does that mean that everything I write is exactly how it happened? Probably not, but what I write is how I remember things and so far no one has come forward and said, “That never happened.”, or “This is what really happened.”, or “This is how that really happened.”.

I know I have a pretty good memory because there are times I bring up situations and someone doesn’t remember it, but as I fill in the details they’ll say, “Oh, yeah. I remember that!” Then we’ll talk about it for fifteen or twenty minutes and laugh about things that happened. Oftentimes it will lead to the retelling of other situations that happened, some even funnier than the original one we talked about. I don’t know why I have such clear memories of occurrences from decades ago – but can’t remember where I left my cell phone ten minutes ago – but maybe it’s because those were some great times and I drank in all the details.

I try not to make it sound like everything was wonderful when I was a kid, because it wasn’t. We weren’t The Brady Bunch or the Huxtables on The Cosby Show. My family went through some hard times, especially trying to feed, clothe and provide for nine kids. I could focus on the struggles I had as a kid, or that we had as a family, but as I look back on my childhood I don’t see the tough times as much as I see how those times taught me something about life, myself or family. In many instances, those tough times taught me what was really important as opposed to what just seemed to be important. That doesn’t mean I always made the right decisions, I made enough bad ones in my life to last ten lifetimes, but I’d like to think that I learned from my mistakes and grew and changed because of them.

My parents and family were by no means perfect. However, my parents raised nine kids, all who are reasonably successful adults. Not one of us is a criminal or a derelict. Trust me when I say that there were other families we knew that had as many, or almost as many, kids as we did and that cannot be said about them. I’m not bragging or trying to put anyone down, but it would have been easy for any of us to turn to a different lifestyle than we did in order to get the “things” many of our friends had. That we didn’t is a testament to our parents and how they taught us to live.

So did this stuff really happen and was it really like I say it was? As far as I remember, yes and yes. I remember it from my perspective and through the lenses of 30 – 40 year old glasses. Things may be a little fuzzy around the edges, but the main part is very clear. I had parents who loved me, and brothers and sisters that I loved (well most of the time anyway). As my Dad used to frequently say, we always had “a roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes on our backs”, despite some fairly hard times. It’s not all flowers and rainbows today either, but I often think that if my parents got through challenges with nine kids, I can do it with two.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

New Kind of Family

My wife and I were talking to some friends the other night about the content of TV shows for kids today and about how family is portrayed in general on TV. These days, family is mostly portrayed in a negative way and usually as dysfunctional. Family members don’t even try to get along with each other, they talk rudely to each other and they are totally disrespectful to one another. There is also disrespect toward the parents and between the parents. What’s a parent to do? Unless you want your kids to hate you, you can’t just ban TV.

Well, there is a cable channel called ABC Family, so they must have family shows scheduled, right? Not so much. ABC Family is nothing close to a family station. Here’s the titles of some of the shows you can see on ABC Family: Pretty Little Liars, The Lying Game, The Secret Life of the American Teenager and 10 Things I Hate About You. When you read what the shows are about it is plain to see that not one family is even semi-normal, and I wonder if any character on any of the shows are well-adjusted. Yeah, it’s “A new kind of family” alright. I’ll stick to the old kind.

I’m not even going to try and convince you that my family always got along with each other. There were nine kids in a fairly small house, including seven boys. Even if I just think about the times I remember most, when the three older ones were married and there were just six of us, there was conflict. However, when there were arguments or fights (not a fist fight, but a war of words) the expectation was that we would work it out. If we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, work it out and get along with each other, Mom had her last alternative – sitting on the couch and facing each other until we were ready to get along. Talking rudely to each other was not allowed – at least not in the presence of Mom or Dad. Disrespect toward our parents? Ah, no, that would not have been tolerated.

We did stuff together, like playing games or playing cards, so we had lots of fun times. But Friday night was a special night in my house when I was growing up. We sat together as a family (maybe after arguing slightly over who got what seat) and watched The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. These were two good shows about families where people truly cared about each other and yes, even loved each other. They had their fights and arguments and didn’t always agree with each other, just like in real families. But by the end of the show, they had resolved the conflict, made up and moved on. Is it any wonder that people still love the Brady Bunch today?

While we watched the shows, we were munching on M&M’s. We must have gone through a ton of M&M’s! Each of us got a Dixie cup and Mom would count out a specific amount of Plain M&M’s and a specific amount of Peanut M&M’s. It may seem silly to count them out, but it was the only way to make sure that we all got our share. I say specific amount because I’m not really sure how many we got. It may have been 15 plain and 10 peanut, or 20 of each; we’ve talked about it at family parties and there is some disagreement as to the quantities. I don’t remember if the older guys got more than the younger guys, or the same amount. However, we all still remember eating our M&M’s while watching the Brady Bunch.

The hard part was making them last as long as we could. I divided mine up by colors and ate the color that had the most first. I’d eat them one or two at a time and I didn’t chew them, but would let them melt in my mouth (not in my hand!). I have to admit that I had a habit that most people would think is pretty disgusting. When I ate the Peanut M&M’s I would let all the chocolate melt off, then I would put the naked peanuts back into my Dixie cup to be eaten after I had finished all the M&M’s. Pretty gross, I know, but I never had to worry about anyone eating any of the peanuts!

Today, M&M’s are a necessity for any family party or gathering. Of course, there are more than just Plain and Peanut these days, but those are the staples, along with Pretzel. Mom doesn’t count them out for us anymore, but anyone who is taking more than their fair share gets some good-natured ribbing. Nothing disrespectful or rude, just a little reminder that there’s a bunch more of us who want some, too.

It may seem corny or old-fashioned that we sat around together on a Friday night and watched a TV show together, and the Brady Bunch at that, but we all have fond memories of those times. We weren’t the Brady Bunch where everything always turned out just right, but we actually liked each other and being together. We got along with each other for the most part, and when we didn’t we worked it out. I’ll take the “old kind of family” over the “new kind of family” any day.