The Silence of the Dadhood

The hats and horns are put away for another year. My birthday has passed. I’ve noticed a new marker for the advancing years. It is come to my attention how little of my own birthday trappings I am allowed to pay for myself. Not bad, in fact rather gratifying.

Right now, for a short while, I have the house to myself. Feels like rehearsals for retirement. Maybe it’s only a sampling of the silence of an empty nest. Of course, silence is not silent. It’s the small noises left when the big noises are gone. Ironist that I am, I can appreciate such musings without dwelling on them overmuch.

My Dadhood has caused me to lose certain skills besides relishing a quiet house. Skills like making a meal for one. My lunchtime creation tastes like something you would eat to avoid torture. All that is missing (thank God) is liver, okra or lima beans.

Tomorrow the house will be full again. The sweet sounds of girls giggling, cats meowing for attention, CD player fighting against television for the background noise championship will resound throughout our apartment and carry out into the street. Once again, I will be surrounded by the maniacal glory of family noise.

I will savor it now as I have forgotten to before. Before I listened to the lessons of silence.

The Longest Day-Trip

My daughter’s dentist called to tell us that it is time for their 6 month check-up. My first reaction was, “Great, they don’t want me. Wheee!” My second reaction was, “Damn, I only have two weeks to put this together!”

See, the thing is, since we are proud users of public transportation, there is no such thing as a quick hop to anywhere. Every journey must be planned with military precision. Actually, more than that because soldiers know how to take orders and stick to a battle plan…

I usually adopt the persona of General George Patton planning his invasion of Sicily, though the results are more reminiscent of General Chaos and his invasion of the U.S. economy…

“Men, er, girls, um... hey, you guys, listen up! Our objective is this dental facility on the far side of the Las Vegas valley where we will rendezvous with the native group of Medicaid-friendly oral hygienic personnel. Now, as usual, transportation is to be provided by elements of the Citizens Area Transit, or CAT, bus system. While I understand that CAT bus drivers operate with wildly fluctuating degrees of temperament and reliability, keep in mind that these traits are the hallmarks of any business that has a monopoly on their services, so try not to take any attitudes personally.”

“OK, troops, ah, girls... hey, listen up already! Regarding supply lines: there are none, so each of you will requisition equipment and supplies to be self-contained, appropriate to summertime conditions in Las Vegas. Therefore, you’re TO&E will start with the following: light-weight clothing, to include clean socks and shoes that fit. Sandals are strongly discouraged because, as you may recall, the last foray we attempted with sandals caused each of you to get blisters and I had to carry everyone home. Since that incident you have all grown significantly taller and heavier, and I am sufficiently older now, so if anyone is going to be carried home this time, it will be me!”

“Next… Eden, where is Marina? To make a sandwich? You have not been dismissed for chow!”

“Marina, report back to the briefing room, you have not been dismissed! What? Ok, but I want mine with mustard and some chips on the side if we have any left, please, and some of those little pickles...”

“Alright, next men, um, girls… hey, pay attention! Augmenting the uniform of the day will be sun specific apparel, i.e. sun hats and sun glasses. Accessories will include sunscreen, SPF 75 or better, lip balm, eye drops and umbrellas for shade. Water bottles are to be filled with water. (This last instruction must be included or kids will leave the house with, 1) empty bottles, or 2) bottles filled with any beverage never intended for staving off dehydration.)”

“In addition, you will provide for yourselves the standard compliment of the following: books, writing/drawing paper, playing cards, pencils, pens, crayons, CD players, mp3 players, hand-held games and small toys. These items are important against the threat of boredom, bickering and smacking among you people; high blood pressure spikes and homicidal or suicidal ideations in your father.”

“Our objective must be attained no later than 1015 hours. We will depart the staging area no later than 0830 hours in a high state of readiness. All latrine necessities must be accomplished prior to departure. No toleration will be afforded despite any whining, crying or pleading while en route. Consideration may be extended for the most creative and vigorous potty dances only on a case-by-case basis.”

“Alright, men, ah, girls, oh hell, you know who you are, you have your orders.
May God bless us in our endeavors and may God bless America!”

...Another Dad's Treasure - Part 2

...then as the day wore on and we actually started to see carpet beneath the rubble, I secretly began to dread The Trunk, and what we would find within. The Trunk is a large, old fashioned steamer trunk that I picked up at an estate sale about 20 years ago. As I began to collect more daughters and more memories that I wanted to keep for them, I dedicated The Trunk to that task. Of course, in the timeless fashion of so many projects begun with the best intentions, I had not actually gone through it’s contents since I went solo five years ago and now I was concerned about old memories, old lives, old wounds...

We broke for lunch, PB&J sandwiches, string cheese, grapes and pink lemonade (Chef Eden presiding, you see) and complemented ourselves on the fine job we had done.
“So, what’s next?” Marina asked, knowing the answer but wondering at my hesitation.
“The Trunk. It’s all that’s left.” I responded grimly, trying to keep a brave face in front of the children. Don’t think they bought it…

Fast forward one hour.

We are going through hundreds of pictures. Some are in albums, most are not. Digital photography predates these photos (except the grainy black and white ones on my childhood) but, Luddite that I am; I used a film camera for all of these.

My daughters looked exactly alike until about age 3, I notice. Marina and Eden, up to about age 7. Most of the infant pictures are of Sam because she was the first child and as parents of multiple children know, the picture occasions seem to get fewer with each succeeding newborn.

Milestone moments in their young lives. First born. First baths. First steps. First pony rides. First school days. So many birthdays, play-in-the-park days, swim days with pontoon-like floaties, swim days too-big-for-floaties-now-Dad. Watch me dive. Watch me Daddy! Singing with various choirs. Singing solos, center stage, all by themselves.
Some of daughters with Dad. Fewer of daughters with Mom.
None of Mom and Dad together.
The camera knew, it just couldn’t say.

I guess I got some dust in my eyes, maybe, so I left the girls to go through them.

“Yes, you can pick some out for your scrapbook.”

“Sure they had color cameras when I was a boy, we just couldn’t afford one.”

“Yes, if you want to. I think getting them into proper albums would be a fine idea. After all, they will be yours someday.”

I think, “No, I don’t really need to see the rest of them right now, m’loves. I hold each moment where they will never get lost or damaged and I can treasure them forever, and do…”

...Another Dad's Treasure - Part 1

“I am NOT a packrat.” So I told Marina as we were cleaning out our storage room today, “I just have a profound sense of history.”

She rolled her eyes in the manner that I’ve come to recognize as Stage 1 of the “He is Unbelievable” alert. It is a behavioral quirk shared by all three of my girls, traditionally handed down from mother to daughter to sister to sister. I have no idea how, or why, the tradition got started and no one will tell me…

We were repacking some of my books into new boxes when I noticed that she was relegating some of my favorite volumes to a growing pile next to her. I pointed out to her that she seemed to have missed the box. She informed me that these book’s bindings were broken, pages were missing, or sundry bugs and rodents had used them as a source of nesting material, therefore these books were garbage.

“Garbage!” I cried, rising indignantly to my full, fearsome five feet seven inches, “How can you call a hardcover third edition of George Carlin’s 'Brain Droppings' garbage?”

“Dad, this book has been left out in the rain, survived the Great Hot Water Heater Bursting of ’98, and been dropped into the bathtub water at least twice that I know of. It is swollen, stiff and most of the pages are stuck together. It’s time to let go, Dad. Just let it go...” she counseled with infuriating calm.

“This will be a collector’s item soon, you know, since he passed away.” I said earnestly as I bowed my head with what I hoped would be interpreted as reverence.

“And this book has gone the way of its author, Dad. Time to move on...”

Kids today have no respect for great literature.

After decimating my reading materials, we began digging through a trunk containing the souvenirs accumulated in my travels, when I was young and carefree (i.e. before becoming a permanent resident of the Dadhood). Once again, Marina began making a pile next to her of some of my treasured artifacts. When I protested, she said, “Fine then, if you can tell me what these 'treasures' are and where they came from, you can keep them. OK?”

She was setting me up. She knew it. I didn’t.

She held up one item that I remembered vaguely from the seventies. I seem to recall it had more pieces, though, when it could still be played. Or worn. Or hung from my car antenna.
Oh yeah, good times.
I just couldn’t recall why.
Hey, it was the seventies, man!

I lost that game of show-and-tell and so watched traces of my youth dumped out among the orange peels and coffee grounds…

(To be continued…)

The Difference Between Eating and Dining

My mother began teaching me to cook when I was tall enough to see over the stovetop. Not gourmet dishes, but eggs any way you want them, even omelets, with bacon, sausage or ham. How about some homemade hash browns and biscuits with honey-butter? Yep, can do! My father, following Italian family tradition, taught me how to prepare basic Italian dishes and proper garlic bread to go with them. I may never have my on show on The Food Channel (though I do love yelling “Bang” when adding spices), but I can put together some pretty good eats.

When Sam and Marina began to show an interest, I gleefully passed along my culinary knowledge to the next generation. Both became dab hands at breakfasts, quickly expanding their repertoire into the French toast and pancake areas (though, in both cases, their omelets come out, well, unfortunate-looking). Sam has become a coffee maven, an art in it’s own self, while Marina can put together pasta dinners that, I believe, make my father look down from Heaven and smile.

Then, a while back, Eden, my little one, started asking to learn to cook. I can offered her chances to make Pasta Roni side dishes for dinner or to help with the general preparation in some respect. That was enough for a while…

Until one morning, while the rest of us were asleep, she decided to surprise us with a pancake breakfast! Hey, she had watched her sisters do it a hundred times! Just some pancake mix and some water and some oil! And some chocolate chips and some peanut butter and, hey, how about some jellybeans? Bet Dad and sisters never had jellybean pancakes!

And coffee for Dad! Hey, he likes two cups of coffee in the morning so I guess two cups of water in the coffee maker will do, and two cups-full of fresh ground coffee in the hopper and that’s ready to go!

My Lord, she was a cookin’ genius that morning…

We awoke to the sound of her singing her Cooking-Breakfast song, which she made up to go along with the beat and pitch of the smoke detectors.

Since she did not yet understand recipe-speak, a tsp. and a tbsp. were treated as the same and I later suspected that there had been some confusion about the proper place for cooking oil in the scheme of things because her major complaint was that the jellybeans kept sticking to the bottom of the pan and the burner was on “High” so as to have breakfast ready before we awoke.

In counterpoint to the oily smoke emendating from the stove, she provided a holiday atmosphere to the occasion by leaving a blanket of white pancake mix on every flat surface, inside all the burners, and on both of the cats.

I cannot, to this day, even discuss my “coffee”… syrup.

Time heals all wounds, I’ve learned. The kitchen walls and ceiling finally lost the soot. The stove finally gave up its spot-welded areas of baked jellybeans and fried pancake mix. The cats finally came out from under the couch. My coffee maker… it was never the same afterward. The event has found a place in the Varrone Family Archives. I know this because I burnt some toast last week and Eden’s only remark, with that Eden grin, was,“Well, at least you left out the jellybeans, Dad!”

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round...

There are few experiences that engender more learning possibilities than riding public transportation. The girls and I have been riding the city bus, here in Las Vegas called the Citizens Area Transit (CAT) system, for about eight years. In that time we have had the opportunity to meet more people from more places, for more reasons, sitting in the next seat or hanging one strap over during rush hour, than most cities of comparable size can claim.

For the most part, the lessons have been pleasant, even constructive, but with a small effort the most unpleasant experiences still have created opportunities for familial edification.

One early such happening concerned a man we dubbed Mr. Effity Eff, for his profound, continual and therefore repetitive use of certain four-, six-, and twelve-letter anglo-saxonisms that one would be unlikely to find in, say, your average church bulletin, and he often shared his fondness for scatology with his fellow bus passengers, without regard to gender, age, sex or social status; a true equal opportunity annoyance.

His proclivity in this area made for some interesting (read: nerve-wracking) explanations at our home, usually consisting of two parts: 1 – What a word (or group of words) actually meant, and 2 – Why it was not a good idea to use such words in your next school book report or letter to great-aunt Eunice.

My point was that the English language is the richest and most prolific in the world and that the core character of a person could be surmised from the way that person expresses him/herself. I took much satisfaction from the fact that my point of view seemed to make sense to the girls. I also took much relief that I might not have to revisit the subject again. Silly man that I was…

Some time later, Mr. Effity Eff, drunk and loud, was finally and effectively shamed into silence one day by a tiny, soft-spoken black woman whom we had never seen before. She planted her small frame in the seat next to him and in a calm voice accompanied by many gestures, transformed that large terror of a man into a “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am” machine.

As we got off of the bus at our stop, Samantha, then 12, put into perspective the outlook for any parent attempting to keep our children on a verbal high road in today's world when she observed to me: “At least someone got the f*%&@r to shut up.”

Meet the Sisters Varrone

Samantha was born with the sunrise in late March, 1990, in the same hospital where I had been born 35 years earlier. Sam was my introduction to the Dadhood. Everything I first learned about my inner Dad-ness, I learned with her on my knee. Sam’s 19 now and shares a two-bedroom apartment with three co-workers, one of whom, David, is also lucky enough to be her significant other…

Sorry. Had a Dad moment there…

She moved out almost a year ago, an event I still refer to as when she ran away from home, teasing to let her know she is missed. And to get a rise out of her. And it does.
More on Sam in future posts.

Marina arrived in late April, 1992. Not in the same hospital as I, but near the same time of night. ‘Rina became the baby of the house, much to Samantha’s chagrin. She was the one that taught me that I had a capacity for expanding the capacity of my heart. Marina is 17 now. She was under a lot of pressure when Samantha moved out, but made the job as big-sister-in-residence her own. Due to be a high school senior in the next school term…

Sorry. Another Dad moment…

She made the decision, quite firmly, to come with Samantha and I during The Great Parting Of The Ways (TGPOTW) of five years ago when she was asked to make a choice. I don’t believe she ever looked back. More on Marina in future posts.

Eden came along in late June, 1998, on a warm afternoon, back in the same hospital as her eldest sister and I. Because the new baby of the family was six years younger than her next older sibling, she seemed forever to be running after her sisters since the day she realized she could. Eden is 11 now. She lived with her mother for over a year after TGPOTW. Finally, I was asked to take Eden to live with us by her mother.

There was much joy and festive dancing in the Dadhood (to The Beatles, I believe).

Eden is the most sociable of the four of us and the one most asked after by friends. She is beginning Middle School this year…

Sorry. You guessed it; Dad moment…

Eden is my last redo. Therefore, I try to encourage her on her journey to find the best Eden she can be. A deceptively simple parenting plan that has produced most excellent results twice before. More on Eden in future posts.

So there are the Sisters Varrone, without whom the Dadhood wouldn’t be and I'm so glad, is.

I’m glad that we are big on hugs here.
-Kisses good-night and good-bye.
-Conversing more than we yell.
-Laughing more than we cry.
-And there is much joy and festive dancing

Even with all the Sudden Realizations I must endure, I’m blessed.

Walking the Walk

I used to love pro wrestling. One of my favorite wrestlers was “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Besides being a great showman, he was known for creating great catch phrases.

One was: “If you’re gonna talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk.”

This is a good credo for life, but it is mandatory for single parenting in the Dadhood.

When my three daughters and I began reorganizing our lives around the new theme of “Life in the Post-Mother World”, one of the first items on the agenda was establish a program for sharing household duties.

To this point, it had been a slip-shod affair at best that had degenerated into a form of indentured servitude. This produced a lot of resentment, usually in the form of daily loud and tearful protesting, and not just from me.

I realized, for the new regime to succeed, a new order had to be established.

First, I amended the “Do as I say, not as I do” edict to the simpler “Do as I do” and we began a rotating schedule of responsibilities to address the household jobs that, let’s face it, nobody likes to do but must get done.

And I became the point man in this new and daring social experiment.

Quickly, my daughters realized that Dad never shirked his turn, so they didn't either. They noticed that Dad never pled “Unfair!” when there were more dirty dishes or more dirty clothes on his watch than on theirs. It was just the luck of the draw. So the daily weeping and gnashing of teeth faded away. And they learned that if one was truly sick, the next in line would pick up the slack, yet it always, eventually, came out even in the end, so no one felt put-upon when they had to put out an extra effort.

Mostly they noticed that, with regular application of our duty schedule, there were always clean dishes, glasses and silverware when they were needed. There was always a ready supply of clean clothes. Even our two cats were happier because their litter box was well tended to and they showed their feline appreciation for this by not peeing in the girl’s sneakers anymore (well, less often, anyway).

And the cries of “Huzza!” and “Ain’t this Cool!” resounded throughout the Dadhood and there was much joy and festive dancing (to the Spice Girls, as I recall).

The most enduring benefit though, was a quiet one. My girls learned that teamwork was more than the abstract subject of a lecture and the secret of mutual support is keeping it mutual.

Yes, Dad talked the talk but he would always strive to walk the walk, so they could too (still do, proudly) and so our journey was made lighter for us all…