spokesNspin

What goes around comes around, You reap what you sow. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. These are all sayings that lead us to believe that some how, what we receive in life is based upon what we do. Put these along with a couple of others like “A chip off the old block” or “Nuts don’t fall far from the tree” and you get the foundation of what I think is a fundamental truth of life. That is, you can’t really appreciate your parents until you become one yourself.

The problem facing most parents is, what do we tell our children about mistakes we made in the past? Many years ago, I caught one of my sons playing with matches. What is it about pyromania and boys? I believe the tendency comes on the Y chromosome. I found out about Tommy playing with matches from his older brother. It turns out he was out behind the lawn tool shed lighting some fires. We had a talk about not playing with matches and I thought we were okay.

Sometime later we get a visit from Usha, our neighbor. It turns out that her son Veejay, Jason, another boy from across the street and my son, were at her house engaged some pyrotechnic work. This time I got really wound up.

“Tom didn’t we talk about his already? I thought you said you wouldn’t do it again.”

You never get much of an answer in situations like this. As the issue unveiled itself it turns out the activity involved, flammable liquid of some type, a bottle, matches, cloth. I am not sure I wanted to know exactly what they were up to. There were many rumors and versions of the story. Supposedly Jason had a book on bomb building. They were trying to build a lamp. Could it be they were building a Molotov cocktail? What ever it was, I was not happy.

“What in the world were you thinking? Did you want to burn down Usha’s house?

Mostly to these questions you get him looking at the floor, shuffling his feet and mumbling “no”. I guess these are stupid questions anyway. Is he going to tell me that his intention was to try and burn down the neighbors house?

“How about yourself? Do you realize what could have a happened to you?”

“What would you do if you had been hurt? I went to school with a kid who did this sort of thing. He ended up in the hospital. He had scars for the rest of his life. He had nicknames like “flame on”, “flash” and “crispy critter”. Is that what you want?(another stupid question). “Look at me when I am talking to you boy! Don’t you dare look at me that way!”

What can a parent really say at times like this? When I was young I went through a period of trying to improve my pyrotechnical skills. I had a cousin from California who used to come visit for one month each summer. Bring your out of town cousin into the picture with your brother and you have three boys, a recipe for disaster.

One day we decided to build a little fire in an A-frame building. Before long we had a roaring fire and it was out of control. This was just a little building used at times to give calves or pigs a little shade. It really was just an A-frame about the size of a really large tent. As the flames grew larger and started licking bracing going from one side of the shed to the other, we got concerned. At least I was concerned. I think Kevin and Jim had already given up.

They stood outside and watched the disaster unfold as I frantically fought flames. I would come out gasping for air and run back in to try and put out the fire. My father was on a tractor in a field adjacent to where our fun was taking place. On one of my trips out from the building gulping air I looked up at the smoke billowing from the A-frame.  Coughing and choking I managed to yell,  ”Do you think dad can see the smoke?” It could be seen in the next county. Just then I looked up to see my dad come over the fence with a shovel in his hand. He made it in one stride and he said “You’re damn rights I can!” He had the fire out in about 30 seconds and saved the day and the shed.

Of course, my dad didn’t ask stupid questions like I did when my Tommy built a fire.  Dad was a man of action, not one to lecture.   He pointed out that the fire could start up again. It would be a good idea if the three of us, my brother, my cousin and I put some more water on the dying vestiges of our fiery pit.

“How do we do that?”

“There is the livestock trough, and there are some buckets”.

“How much do we put on?”

“I’ll let you know when it is enough.”

With that, he left and went back to work.

We spent the rest of the day hauling water in buckets and dumping it on what was gradually going from the fiery depths of hell to a mud hole. We trudged, arms aching back and forth and back and forth from the trough in one corner of the farmstead, to the old A-frame in another corner. I think we did it for the rest of the day.

So what do you tell your own son when you catch him building fires? You can rant and rave and act self righteous but the back of your mind is thinking back to when you were a kid. You’re thinking “Man wasn’t that cool”

I don’t know the correct answer. I do know that I have done some things in the past that I don’t want to tell my children about. Not that they are all that serious but some times it is just better to let sleeping dogs lie.

I like cowboy poetry.  A poem by Wally McRae tells it the way it is for most of us.

Clint

He sometimes turns his horse’s tail
Wrong-ways to a cow
He still can’t tie a bowline
Though I have showed him how.

Once he took a brace and bit
And drilled it in the dirt.
He left his boots out in the rain,
And yonder lies his shirt.

He tried to take his saddle off,
Forgetting the back cinch
And somehow kinked the cable
On my calf-pulling winch.

Once he filled my water jug
Plumb full of gasoline
Wore a groove into my grindstone
At school, said words obscene.

He lost a brand-new Crescent wrench
Nicked a new hoof nipper.
Took my pinchers from their pocket’
And “fixed” my new chap zipper

Spilled grease upon my welding rod.
Broke eggs in my felt hat.
Then in the lot at weaning time,
Sicked the dog upon a cat.

When we were corralling cattle, once,
He met us on his trike.
Scratched his name upon my saddle
With a mar line-spike

My boy has done’er all my friends.
He’s constantly in trouble.
Yet, folks who knew me as a kid,
Insist that he’s my double.

Their recollection’s faulty.
I dispute it with a curse.
I wasn’t like him, growing up.
I was a whole-lot worse

So why do I write this story?  It seems Tommy has never out grown pyromaniacal tendencies of young malehood.  Yesterday he made a belated comment on a post here from several weeks ago that contained an even more belated confession.

I admit that as a young boy I even played with shot gun shells.  They really are irresistable due to the ease of  taking them apart and getting access to gun powder.

I guess the lesson here is this.  Parents probably shouldn’t tell their children about all their youthful mischief.   What they can come up with on their own is sufficient.  And as a parent maybe I am glad that I didn’t always know everything my kids were up to.  I would probably have earned more gray hairs than I already have on my head.

I do wonder though what my parents may have done in their youth that I haven’t yet and probably never will know about.   And I can hardly wait to see what my grandkids do while their parents aren’t watching. 

To James and my grandchildren  yet to be born.  Remember that grandpa won’t rat you out.  Maybe that was why my grandpa used to sit in his rocking chair with a grin on his face.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.