A Country for Old Men

During our lives, we have times that, well, quite frankly, are a little busy. I am terrible at social stuff. I fake it. I really do. As I get older, I like to go out more often, but I don't like to stay. It's like I need to go 'touch' whatever it is then I can go home, get into my jammies, and wander off into the deep well that is the Delta sleep level during REM. This reminds me-let me take us down a rabbit trail about sleep, which I have to mention before I forget where I was going; kind of like walking into the kitchen from the den, opening the refrigerator door and standing there, forgetting what you were looking for.

What was I saying-see? I forgot-oh, wait, now I remember, sleep. A few years ago, I would wake up with the digital rolling of the clock. I could hear the alarm 'click' sound to start the music. I slept that light. Yesterday morning, I was soooooo faaaaarrrr down in the deep well that I call Delta level sleep, the music actually was part of the dream. I hit the snooze button twice. I never even knew what the snooze button was for until about six months ago-never used it. Bastards (my favorite swear word. It is always plural).

All this to take us back onto the main trail about social dancing and the thrill of just living. We can go to the mall and walk around, usually when I am in the walking 'zone' I have my hands behind my back, my brain is in neutral, like every other man of 85 or more doing the same thing, only I'm not wearing black socks with my shorts. We might get something to eat, walk some more, then come home. Sometimes the drive to the mall is longer than the walk. Like I just want to go and get out and drive around, then walk, then come home. A friend of mine was in a small band and played at a restaurant. I could sit there and listen to him, have a scotch, share a pizza or a salad or whatever, then come home by 9:00. I'M FIFTY-FRIGGIN TWO!

I also discovered recently that my running days are just about done. No, correct that, my running days are over. My knees are like two Peruvian tortillas after my morning run. Look, I'm 52-oh, I said that huh? Memory is the next thing-bastards. I've been running since I was in Pop Warner, whenever that was-ten? Now, I get my sorry ass out of bed and go for a bike ride instead of a run in the pre-dawn dark. Same cardio, better on my knees, but I had to come to grips that I wasn't the Maltese Falcon anymore. If my son and I wrestled again, which we have done extensively, I think I could still take him, but I would have to refer you to the movie of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the type of fighting I would have to resort to. I could take him, but cheating would be my middle name. He has all that Army training crap and youth and muscle on his side but I have old age and treachery. I can still hop the wall to my neighbor's house next door, but with age comes the pausing question-why not walk around to the gate? See? I think that is what we exchange our knee cartilage for, brains-if we live long enough.

The wisdom that comes from just taking more breaths than others for a longer period of time, counts for something. Sure, you could be a real screw up at twenty-five. But if you live to eighty, you must have learned something to allow yourself to not be such a screw up for so long.

See, my theory is god thins the herd at two major points; between the age of thirty and forty-five and again later. If you haven't turned a major corner in your attitude or life style by one of those time periods, a tree is going to fall on you. I don't mean you have to be perfect, nope, that won't ever happen. But how many bullets can you dodge? A Department of Justice report indicated that most gang members are either dead or permanently incarcerated by the age of 42. The herd is thinned. The next thinning, at least for men, is right around 60-70. That's when the first 'Big One' starts thumping on your chest.

It doesn't help the fact that my family can now be shown to be 'predisposed' to things like cancer and heart disease. Every physical form I ever filled out since high school I had to check the first three boxes for family history-cancer, diabetes, and heart disease the 'Big Three', geez.

My dad had his first HA at 55 and the one that put him down at 58. My brother had something like eight vessels blocked and they were taking veins from chickens to put him back together at age 59. They didn't even have a name for it like 'quadruple' or 'triple' bypass. You look at him or my dad and you would say nope, not them. They look healthy. They had other factors that played into it but the Williams line has some gene that explodes at a predetermined time, our own IED. I have them both beat with dedicated exercise for a longer period of time and I eat well but I still have no illusions of making it out of fifties without someday breaking into a cold sweat with a sharp pain lancing down my arm while I'm operating something with a spinning sharp blade before I'm 60, not a chance in hell.

So, here, two weeks after our last kid got married and the smoke has cleared, do I sit in a house that is actually pretty still. Life, right now, has slowed, at least today. I helped my son in law move and plant something like 4,500 square feet of sod in his back yard yesterday. The old man operated an old wheel borrow and could still work like a Trojan slave. Three Advil this morning helped. Tomorrow morning, I'm back on the bike, listening to NPR and riding the neighborhood in the pre-dawn. Heart disease has to find and catch me first.

I like it.

But the pessimist in me says it won't last.

Nope, no such luck for a husband and father who actually did pretty well as a husband and father. My family loves me. They actually like to be around me, in limited amounts. They are making no plans for me to be electrocuted in the shower with an accidental falling lamp (not that I spent any time thinking about things like this) or doing Rocks Paper Scissors to see who gets Dad when he's in diapers, the house keeps the rain off, I've found a semi-creative side, I still have a job, and I currently have my health an most of my teeth. Life, right now, just before beddy-bye time is pretty good.

Now, if I can just put my hands in my pockets instead of behind my back when I walk the mall. Baby steps.

They Don't Call for Daddy

It's an early Saturday morning and yesterday was the rehearsal of our son's wedding, taking place tomorrow afternoon in the middle of the first fairway at a golf club in south Phoenix. Travis is the last of three children to break out and start the age-old trek of germinating a family. His fiance, Tara, is a wonderful girl and the two appear in love and devoted to the common goal of the rest of their lives together. So I sit here, quietly reflecting, as not enough fathers do, on what I did or didn't do to facilitate this end.

I was watching a video this past week with my students on teen violence. Part of it was filmed in the L.A. County Emergency room. The doctor, taking a group of hard core teens on a tour of the hospital, was telling them, straight up, about the end of life which he saw so much of in those halls. He told them something that stuck, "All bad asses come in here and as they die, they all call out the same two words, 'Mommy' and 'god.'"

It hit me. Why don't these people call for their 'Daddy's'? The answer was clear. It didn't take a college professor to do a five year study. The dads had failed their daughters and sons. They abandoned them. They abused them. They made them witnesses to unspeakable crimes against their mothers or others who they, in their roll as a father, were sworn to honor and protect. Why don't bad asses, or any asses for that matter, call out for their 'Daddy's'? Because we fathers have butchered our duty.

I cried.

No, not like a Frenchman who got a paper cut. The eyes filled and when I blinked, they ran over. Crap, I get weepy at AT&T commercials now and don't even get me started with the Budweiser horses. I am sure I will be curled up in the corner somewhere during this wedding of my last child, sucking my thumb and holding a tablecloth up to my head like a binky.

The kids in the class knew why the bad asses didn't call for their dads. Why, as men, would we ever want to go down that road? Why, would we not want our child, in their last dying breath, to be thinking and calling to us as well? I lost myself in thought for a day or two.

Right before a wedding of one of your kids, you get reflective. You do the same on your birthday and Christmas. "Did my life count?"

I want my life to be one of those where, even years from now, my children or grandchildren will be able to come to my house, maybe I am stooped over some begonias in the garden (can one grow begonias in Arizona? What is a begonia?). I look up and there is fear, panic, tension in their face. Resources have been tried and for some reason, they felt a need to seek out the old Silverback. Quixada rises to a standing position, maybe helped by the child. "What can this old man do? He can barely stand," they might think to themselves.

But inside the old gentleman, still beats the heart of a lion of eighteen. Funny thing about fathers, they are capable of unspeakable horror and pain. But sometimes they get it right. And when a father gets it right-sometimes years or decades later, unimaginable healing and love happens. Which means for men, there is always hope.

So, since this damn video, I have been thinking the gruesome thought of whether my children would call my name in their last moment. Then I smiled, laughed almost. Nope, they wouldn't. They would call to their god. The one they know and who knows them.

Oh, I guess I all right.

Quixada straightens up to his child's fear. His back firms, his arms and legs tense. There is a fire that lights his eyes from the back. The child had not seen such a fire there before. Strange. He rubs his thinning silver hair and places his arms around the child. There is a transference of comfort in that arm. Something about it causes the child to believe he made the right decision coming to speak to the old man. As the fear is shared, the old man walks them into the house and they sit down. The child had not been there in a while, it was cluttered with old man things, newspapers, old gym shoes. Coffee is poured and cookies, for comfort are given. They sit at a table and Quixada listens. Counsel is asked for and smartly given. The old man smiles and says things will be better soon.

Just as the child prepares to leave, something in the corner catches their eye. There, next to stack of papers and where the old dog bed still occupies a corner. It is an old lance, a sword in an old leather scabbard, and a rusted iron helmet. The child asks about it-"Why do you have that old stuff over there?"

The old man smiles as he looks at it. "For certain times," the old man says. The old man winks and walks the child to their car. He kisses them gently on the cheek and waives good bye. When he comes back inside, he reaches under his sink and pulls out an old shoe box. In it, is a old can of rust remover, a well worn soap stone, a small tin of oil, and an old rag. He lays out some newspaper on the coffee table, takes the old helmet from its resting spot in the corner, and begins.