Dinner With A Midwesterner

Someone asked me during a meeting if I could tell them where I was from because they couldn’t place my accent. I shrugged my shoulders and responded with a harder drawl to take a guess.

That threw them because they said a moment before I sounded like I could be from somewhere in the north but that drawl made it sound like maybe I was a native Texan.

I shook my head and told them I am a Californian who grew up having dinner with a Midwesterner and native Angeleno.

Thing is I have never thought of my mom having anything like a Chicago accent and if she did it is long gone. Not sure any of it matters any more than whether people think I have any sort of accent.

Been thinking again about One Week Later Everything Is The Same But Different and how more changes came in the days following it.

Especially given news I received today and events from earlier in the week…it is different.

It Wasn’t Ever Extinguished

I could tell about flames and fires and give you a vaguebook type comment about how some fires you think were put out were not.

It is true, it wasn’t ever extinguished and the parties know damn well the truth of that even if they ignored it. Wouldn’t take but a few minutes for it to be proven so.

Thought about it during the Michigan State shooting as I texted with a nephew who was locked down. Thought about it when I got news about a contest that I lost even though I expected to win.

Thought about what we do during challenging moments and who we go looking towards for support. Thought about what we do when things are really tough and we’re not sure how it is going to end.

Thought about how many relatives of my father died right around my current age or slightly younger and how growing older is a privilege.

I don’t expect to die any time soon but it’s becoming more evident that I am close to entering the last third or so of life. That could be quite a long time and that is my plan, but some of my plans have changed so who knows.

Monday night I heard my father’s voice inside my head and remembered his last request and shook my head because I felt it pinballing around the melon.

Some people complain that it is impossible to get me to do things on a timeline other than my own, especially if I am not convinced it is important, relevant or significant.

Yet that last request was grinding my gears even though I knew I couldn’t do exactly what he asked. I told him he was going to have to accept my best and just deal with it.

He didn’t answer which was a good thing because if he had that might have freaked me out a bit.

****

Been a part of several conversations about what it is like being part of Generation X and laughed a bit. My generation is absolutely built differently than some of the others.

Once we left the house there was no telling where we might go, what we might do and who we might do it with. We were out wandering the neighborhoods with our friends from a very young age and adept at entertaining ourselves.

We drank from water hoses, jumped from roofs into swimming pools, poured gasoline into barbecues that we lit, rode our bikes for miles and played on steel playground equipment.

If we weren’t the kids who got disciplined with a belt we knew more than a few who did and we knew that could happen in public or private.

This isn’t going to be a post about all the Gen X stuff, just taking a moment here to think out loud and recognize we really are built for survival. We know how to take care of ourselves and are pretty good at problem solving.

It was a great childhood that had so many good things, a bunch of which I miss and am sorry our kids didn’t get in the same way we did.

We absolutely were more self sufficient than so many. Had our problems, challenges and issues like everyone does, but we got pretty good at managing.

Parenthood

I watched Parenthood on Netflix while pushing through a workout on the elliptical and thought about how some of it was so familiar.

Some of it didn’t age well, the scene with the college shooter is hard to laugh at now and has been for a while.

Watched an interview with a professor from Michigan State who said that his students in some ways were better prepared for the shooter than he was.

That chapped my hide for a variety of reasons and made me kind of sad.

My children don’t know what it is like to have a real fist fight. I had a bunch. It was part of growing up.

I had a teacher tell me he let me get in an extra shot on a kid in high school because he thought the guy was a jerk.

We didn’t get expelled for fighting, at worst the school would suspend you. It is different today, that is not acceptable.

My kids may not know what it is like to get punched in the head (that is a good thing) but I don’t know what it is like to go through a lockdown drill and or hear teachers say they will do the best they can to protect them.

Something is broken, maybe we’ll finally get the courage and will to fix that.