The Big Tree... (Part Two)

I was driving my father to visit an old military friend a few cities away. On our way there he decided he wanted to visit some family that lived somewhere in between, so I made a little detour to accommodate him.
     It was no big deal. I know how to get there, and I know the area.
     "This does not look familiar," my Dad says.
     I continue to drive down the street I'm on. I say nothing. Between you and me, I'm on the right street.
     Out of the corner of my eye I see him looking out up and down the street. Side to side. His head must be on a swivel. 
     "I don't think you're on the right street," he tells me, his eyes bugging out. "I don't recognize the area."    
     One funny thing about my Dad I've noticed the few times we've traveled together, his eyes tend to bug out when he thinks I'm lost. I'm not lost. I've got my GPS to prove it. Only my Dad doesn't know I'm using it. Another funny thing I've noticed is that his eyes tend to bug out in direct proportion to how lost he thinks I am.
     My Dad's old school. He doesn't understand how a GPS works, so he doesn't trust it. (I don't understand how it works, either, for that matter, but, to tell the truth, all I care about is that it does work. It doesn't matter to me how.)
     "How does it know?" he once asked.
     I tried to explain to him something about satellites and car positioning, but, to tell the truth, I didn't know what I was talking about, so the fault was probably mine that he didn't understand. I have the same problem with airplanes flying. I understand, in theory, the concept of "lift" and "thrust," but what I don't understand is how a metal tube that's tens of thousands of pounds heavy is able to get off the ground and stay in the air.
     Don't judge me. My first mother-in-law didn't think we landed on the moon, because "there isn't an electrical cord that long." You probably think I'm making that up, but it's true. I'm not saying the mother of my first wife was stupid, but it took her an hour to cook Minute Rice.  ut I digress...
     "...and that's how the GPS works, Dad."
     "Yeah, but how does it know?"
     "Just humor him", was the advice my wife gave me before we left. So I do.
     "I'll stop at the next gas station, and check my map," I tell him. A map he understands, so he says nothing for awhile, but continues to scope out the area. As long as he thinks I'm going to do something, it's almost as good as my doing it. It appeases him for awhile. It buys me time.
     But not a whole lot.
     "I don't recognize any of these houses," he says, firmly. "I know the house, and I know there's a  big tree in the front yard."
     "Hey, what's that?" I say, pointing at nothing in particular. I'm just trying to distract him. He doesn't fall for it. He continues to study the houses, the streets, the neighborhoods. Fool me once, I guess.
     So I slow down to please him--going slower always does--but, trust me, I know where I'm at. The last street sign had the right name. The numbers painted on the driveways have the right numbers. He continues to look out the window.
     "Nothing looks familiar," he says. Sadly, nothing ever does. "I know that the house has a big tree in the front yard, and I just don't see it."
     I can see the house just down the block. I slow down even more, hoping he recognizes it.
     "Isn't that it, Dad?" I say, pointing to the house just ahead of us.
     "That can't be it," he tells me, firmly. "The house we're looking for has a big tree out front. That tree's not so big."
     "Dad, I think that's the house."
     "Can't be. The tree..."
     "I don't know, the tree looks pretty big to me."
     "I don't think so. I don't think it's the house."
     "I think it is," I tell him, as I come to a stop. "Look familiar?"
     Dad is shaking his head.
     "I don't think so, son. I know the house, and this is not it."
     "Let me check the address." I pretend to look at the directions my wife had given us.  nd then I pretend to look at the map. "Dad, this is the correct address."
     Dad takes a good, hard look at the house. 
     "Hmm...  ahh...  well..." he says. "I guess it could be the house. Yeah, I'm starting to recognize it. See how big the tree is? I told you it was big."
     We've been parked out there long enough for his niece to come out and see if we're okay.
     "We were worried," she tells us. "Did you get lost?"
     It must run in the family.
     We step out of the car to greet her. The rest of the family come out. Hugs and hellos are passed around like food at a family gathering. As everybody walks toward the house I can hear my Dad say: "Yeah, I knew this was the house because I recognized that big tree in the front. That's what I kept telling my son, look for the tree, it's big, but he didn't believe me. Yep, I knew this was the house." As I walk along behind them, I look up and down the street. 
     Every house on this block has a big tree in their front yards

    

Raising My Father 

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Driving Me Crazy (Part One)

Just recently, my father asked me if I would drive him out of town to visit some family he hadn't seen in a while. I told him sure, but to let me check with my wife first.

     You see, my elderly father is a handful. After my mother died, in a moment of weakness I asked him if he wanted to come live with us.

     "Hello? Hello?" I said into the phone I was talking to him on.

     My father was already knocking at my front door with his suitcase packed.

     Of course I jest.

     What I didn't realize was that my father would turn out to be more work than all of my children combined. He's recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, so my wife and I have the additional sadness of watching a man who could once take apart his car and put it back together with no problem, become someone who once made my wife cry when he wondered what those little green balls were in the basket on her kitchen table.

     "Those are limes, pop," she told him.

     "That's what I thought," my father assured her, but his eyes said something else.

     And so I asked my wife about taking him on a road trip.

     "That's a good idea," is what she said.

     I could use a break, is what she meant.

    What she didn't do was remind me that I once took a similar trip with him a few years back and I swore to her and to anybody else who would listen that I would never do such a frustrating thing ever again.

     "I don't know, pop," I told him, when he first brought the subject up.

     "If you don't want to take me, I'll drive myself," he said.

     "You'd better take him," my wife told me later. "You don't want him to go and never find his way back, do you?"

     When I didn't answer, she asked me again, louder this time, "Do you?"

     You know, for a tiny woman, my wife can sure hit pretty hard.

     The interesting thing about my dad was that late into his marriage to my mom he willingly gave up driving. As he got older it was my mother who drove the two of them around more and more, until she was the one who always drove.

     I could understand that. I used to drive for a living, and, after being behind the wheel all day long, it was relaxing to sit in the passenger seat and let my wife deal with the usual gang of idiots on the road.

     My father would still get behind the wheel whenever he wanted to go someplace and my mother did not. The accident he had the last time he ever drove, was why I found myself on this particular road trip with him.

     It was night and we were on a highway that he couldn't find on the map. He was a little concerned. That happens when people get older, they worry about a lot of little things. Also, they can't read a map, especially in the middle of the night.

     Personally, I enjoy driving the highways of New Mexico in the middle of the night. Arthur C. Clarke, in his classic science fiction book 2001: A Space Odyssey, said in his introduction that there is a star in the sky for every man who's ever lived.

     On a clear night in the southwest, you can see every one.

     "Son," my dad told me, looking out the window. It was dark. Very dark. That was another thing for him to worry about. "Do you know where you're at?"

     "Sure, pop," I tried to reassure him. "We're just fine. I'm heading east, and I can only drive so far before I drive into the ocean."

     Obviously, I was joking.

     "What?" he said, jumping up in his seat. His eyes got big. Real big. "Until you drive into the ocean? I think you're lost, son. I've driven this road many times, and this area does not look familiar."

     He looked out of his window again, into the darkness, and whispered, "I don't remember this area. Nothing looks familiar, and I know this area. I've driven it many times." Louder, he said: "You're lost."

     "I'm not lost, pop."

     "I think you're lost."

     "When you don't know where you are, and you don't know how to get where you're going... that's when you're lost. I'm on the right road and heading in the right direction. I'm not lost."

     "Son, I know what lost looks like, and you're lost."

     I calmed myself down--no one can push your buttons like your parents--and then I tried to calm my father down.

     "Relax, pop," I told him. "We're in no hurry and I've got a full tank of gas. Worse case scenario, we'll just stop somewhere for the night."

     My father nodded his head at the last part. When a man gets older, he gets slower and slower to pull out his wallet to pay for anything. I had gassed up twice and we had eaten six times, but only my dad's appetite ever made an appearance.

     In the meantime, his head was on a swivel, turning left and right, left and right. His eyes were all bugged out like a wrinkled Roger Rabbit as he strained to see a landmark, any landmark.

     "I don't remember any of this area," he said. "Nothing looks familiar. I think we're on the wrong road.  I've traveled this road many times, and I'm familiar with all the landmarks."

     He forgot that I'm looking out the windshield, too. If I couldn't see any landmarks, I know he couldn't see any landmarks. Apparently, my father must have had night-vision goggles implanted in his corneas because...

     "Now, that tree over there, I don't remember it. I also don't remember any 7-11s when I last drove out this way. I know this area. I think we're lost."

     "We're not lost, pop," I repeated, and then I tried to change the subject. "When did you last drive out this way?"

     My  father thought a bit.

     "Hmmm...  ahh...  drive this way. Now, I was born in 1919--or was it '20? Joined the service. When did I last drive this way? Had to have been 1945, right after the war, and again in 1953 (or was it 1954?). Maybe it was 1954, because I had a '54 Chevy. Great car. I drove it back and forth many times."

     I was trying not to fall asleep from his stroll down memory lane, when he suddenly snapped out of his nostalgia. "Hey, I don't remember a Wal-Mart out here! Now I know you're lost."

     "Hey, look at that!" I told him, pointing out my window. He looked out his window.

     "Look at what?" he asked.

     There was a fish truck passing us on the left, but in those few seconds it had moved in front of us and all that was left of it were two red dots in the distance. I've forgotten the name of the company, but the motto on the side of the truck was: "If It Stinks, We Have It."

     "That's a funny motto for a company," I told him.

     "What?"

     I told him again.

     "What?"

     And then I told him several times more.

     It was time for drastic measures, so I changed the subject again.

     "Hey, Dad, what's that?" I told him, pointing out his window this time.

     He looked out into the night. A night so black David Chase could have ended The Sopranos with it.

     "I don't know," my Dad told me, and then shook his head sadly. "I don't recognize anything."

 

to be continued

 
 

Raising My Father 

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Out Of The Kindness Of My Heart...

My father likes honey in his tea.
     Today, out of the kindness of my heart, I went to a farmer's market and bought him some raw honey, straight from the bee hive. I even bought him a flavor I knew he liked, Orange Blossom. I didn't know honey came in different flavors, but that's neither here nor there. Well, that's not quite true. The honey's here, and my money's there.
     Later that evening, as my wife is making his tea, she tells him how I drove to the farmer's market just so he could have a local honey for his tea.
     "You'll like it, dad," I told him. "The guy I bought it from harvests the honey himself, and it's a lot sweeter than store bought honey." The honey contains no extra ingredients, and it's not cheap. It's also supposed to be good for your allergies. I tell him all that, and more. Except for the "it's not cheap" part.
     And then I have to repeat myself several times after that.
     My father picks up the jar of honey, and looks at it with interest. I wonder what he's looking at. Is he looking at its dark, rich color? This raw honey is not the clear, amber color you get at a grocery store, such as Walmart or Albertson's. Is he looking at the honeycomb inside? It's a pretty cool thing to see, but then I'm a kid at heart. Kind of like the worm in a bottle of mescal. (Ahem... so I've heard.) Then...
     "So," he says, "you bought me a small bottle, huh?"
     It's not that my father is ungrateful, it's just that he shows his gratitude by being ungrateful. Actually, "ungrateful" is the wrong word. Let me get out my thesaurus and try to find out what the right word might be.
     Hmmm... Unappreciative? Ingratitude? Thanklessness? Nope, nope, and nope.
     Let me try to explain it with more than one word, then: It just doesn't occur to my father to be grateful, and when he tries to say something nice about something you've just given him or done for him, it comes out, ahem, not so nice. 
     Back when my beloved mother was still alive, my wife and I took them on a nice cruise to Ensenada, Mexico.  It cost a pretty penny, true, but it was one way to pay my parents back for all those peanut butter sandwiches me and my friends ate when I was a kid.
     As we were walking along the beach, my father looked out over the ocean, took a deep breath of that salty sea air, and said, "You know, I've been to beaches nicer than this one."
     "Honey!" my mother said, in her I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that voice.
     Criticizing the beach we were on was my father's way of telling me how nice the beach was. Does that make sense? Yeah, I didn't think so either. It's true, though.
     One thing I've learned about my father since he's started living with us, I've learned he likes to eat a salad every day for dinner, along with the main course. He especially likes carrots in his salad.
     Unfortunately, one day we were out of fresh carrots. All we had was a bag of those miniature ones. Personally, I like them. They make for a nice snack without any of the hard work. My dog likes them, too. All miniature carrots are, are large carrots that had a few bumps or bruises on them, and can't be sold. Not even to Walmart. So the carrot company will shave them down to smaller sizes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. They're carrots, for gosh sakes.
      So my wife puts a nice salad, topped with the miniature carrots, in front of my father. He looks at it, as if he's never seen a carrot before in his life. He picks one up. Examines it, leaning it this way then that. Lifts it to his nose. Smells it.
     Sniff, sniff.
     "Hmm..." he says. "Huh...  well, I don't like these carrots. They just don't taste right."
     I couldn't help but notice he had made that declaration without tasting them first.
     "what, dad?" my wife asks, pretending not to have heard him.
     "They just don't taste right," he repeats. "That's the problem with growing small carrots, they don't taste as good as the large ones."
     My wife and I look at each other over the salads we're eating. I eat a carrot. Yep, it tastes just like it's supposed to.
     "Good salad, sweetie," I tell her. "Thanks."
     It's my way of apologizing for, well, you know.
     "You're welcome," she answers.
     It's her way of saying she accepts my apology.
     Meanwhile, my father hasn't heard a word we said. He's still looking at the carrots like they're what our dog leaves in the backyard for us to pickup in the morning. It's our dog's way of telling us he has nothing to apologize about.
     "Well, I'm not going to eat them," my father pouts like a 2 year-old. He looks to my wife. "You should buy the regular carrots," he tells her.
     "Yes, Dad," my wife patiently tells him. She's a saint, I tell you. "The next time I go to Costco, I'll get some."
     I think about explaining to my elderly father how the carrots are made. And then I think better of it.
     And then I finish my salad.
   
 

Raising My Father 

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The Very Next Day... (Part Three)

You might think I drink a lot of coffee.
     That's because I do.
     I don't have a lot of bad habits, but if drinking coffee's a bad habit, then that's one of them. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. But put a cup of coffee in front of me, and I'll make it disappear like my paycheck in the hands of my ex-wife.
     So, after dinner the next day, my wife serves me a cup of coffee. I sit at the table. I look at the patio. I look at my wife. She looks at my Dad and asks him, "Would you like some ice cream before we go outside?"
     "Uh..." he said. He was trying to be polite.
     My wife cuts him off at the pass. 
     "It's new ice cream," she tells him. I look up from my cup. I didn't know my wife had gone out to get any ice cream.
     "What?"
     "It's new ice cream."
     "What kind of ice cream is it?"
     "It's new."
     "New?"
     "Yes, new."
     Now, before you think my dad's a senile old coot, let me assure you, he isn't. It just takes him awhile for the point to sink in. It may be because of some hearing loss due to old age. Or it may be that nothing we say is of any interest to him. Or he may just be yanking our chain and fooling with us. Or it may be because he has a relaxed brain that's worked hard most of its life, and, now that it's retired along with his body, it would rather be soaking up rays on the beaches of Miami, checking out the itsied-bitsied, teenied-weenied, yellow polka-dot bikinied babes.
     Or maybe that's something I'd like to do.
     I get confused.
     My dad, on the other hand, doesn't.
     Every month, when his bank statements come in, he goes over them line by line, looking for any kind of a discrepancy. All of his investments, all of his savings, all of his expenditures...  he's right on top of them. It drives the people at the bank nuts.
     On the other hand, it does give my dad a social life.
     "Sure," my Dad says, referring to my wife's offer of ice cream, "I'll give it a shot. It can't be any worse than what you gave me yesterday. But just give me a little. You always give me too much."
     So my wife goes over to the freezer, and takes out the same container of ice cream she had used the day before. She gets his favorite bowl, and serves him...  just a little.
     He gingerly takes a spoonful.
     "Hey!" he says, with enthusiasm, "now this is what I was talking about!  You can give me a little more."
     My wife looks at me, and our eyes meet. We're both smiling. She takes his bowl, and serves him a couple more scoops of vanilla ice cream.
     As she puts it down in front of him, he says, "Where'd you get this ice cream?  It's good." Smack, smack. "I like the flavor." Smack, smack. "Much better than yesterday's ice cream."
     Smack!
     "Your son bought it."
     "Who bought it?" 
     "Your son."
     "My son?"
     "Yes, your son. He went to Ralph's this morning." Ralph's is a large grocery store chain, along the lines of Safeway, Albertson's, or the Piggly-Wiggly. "He went to the store to get you this ice cream, because you didn't like the one from Costco."
     "Yeah, that one from Costco wasn't very good," he said. Then his voice soften, and he shook his head a bit. "My son bought me this ice cream?"
     I guess he couldn't believe it.
     "Yes, he went to Ralph's this morning, and bought this ice cream."
     Smack, smack. "Yeah...  hmmm...  good ice cream." Smack, smack. "I can tell the difference right away. This is better ice cream."  Smack, smack.  "Yep, this is good."
     "I'm glad you liked it, dad," my wife told him, and put the container of Costco ice cream back in the freezer. That's why I love my wife. Because she's smart. She thinks on her feet.
     And she gives me all the credit.
     As my Dad finished up the last of the "good" vanilla ice cream in his bowl, he drops the spoon into the bowl, and makes a final smacking sound.
     "There weren't any other flavors?" he asked.
 
 

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I Apologize... (Part Two)

"This ice cream's not very good," I heard my Dad tell my wife.
     Let me stop right here and formally apologize to my Mom and Dad for my ever having been a kid.  I can't begin to tell you the times my Mom served me a perfectly good meal, sometimes even perfectly delicious, and it didn't meet the standards of a kid who used to eat dirt.*  And then I had kids of my own, and, no matter what my wife cooked, they wanted to eat something else.**  So when my Dad told my wife that he didn't care for the ice cream she had just served him--and which he enthusiastically ate, judging by the speed with which he ate it--I figured he had the right not to like it.  So...
     "This ice cream's not very good.  Where'd you buy it?"
     "Sam's," my wife tells him.
     "Sam's?"
     "Yes, Sam's," she repeats herself.  Sam's is one of those Warehouse Stores, along the lines of Costco and Price Club, where you have to buy a membership to shop there, and where you don't just buy something, you buy A LOT of something.  But they do sell quality goods, and one of those quality goods is their ice cream.  It's not just good, it's very good.  Even the vanilla.
     My Dad wasn't sure. 
     "Oh, huh...  hmmm..." he clarified.  "You said you bought it at Sam's?"
     "Yes, Sam's," she said.  "They sell some of the best ice cream."
     My Dad still wasn't sure. 
     "Sam's..." he considered, and then considered again.  "Hmmm...  Sam's.  Huh, yeah...  well, I didn't like it.  It didn't taste good.  The PX sells the best ice cream."
     Because of the time he spent in the military, he was able to shop at the PX at the Army base.  In fact, after he retired from the military, he even worked at their PX for a few years after that.  If anybody would know that the PX carried the best ice cream, it would be Dad.
     "We'll have to buy some there next time," he continued.  My wife patiently listened to him, like a good daughter-in-law.  And I (Remember me?  I'm the guy sitting outside with an empty coffee cup, waiting for my wife to join me.), I couldn't see her, but I could imagine her nodding her head and making eye contact.  Big mistake.  I've learned in life that if you make eye contact with someone it just encourages them to continue talking.  Which he did.  "I don't like the ice cream from Sam's.  It just doesn't taste good."
     Now he was stepping on MY toes.  I happen to like Sam's.  They have enough of my money to prove it.
     "Yes, Dad," my wife said, politely.  She likes Sam's, too.  "Next time we go to the PX we'll get some ice cream."
     I thought she handled that rather smoothly, since we never shopped at the PX.  My Dad may have been retired from the military, but I wasn't.  I had to pay for MY exclusive shopping memberships.
     "Sam's..." I could hear my Dad say.  I could visualize him shaking his head as he said it.  "Sam's...  hmmm."
     I had to laugh.  I was shaking my head, too.
   
   

Raising My Father

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*Don't judge me for eating dirt.  As a kid, I had a friend who used to eat his own boogers.  The gaggle of kids I used to hang around with were repulsed, but also fascinated. 

"What do they taste like?" we'd ask him.

"Salty," he'd say.

We'd offer him our own boogers--freshly picked--for a snack, but he thought that was gross.  I always found that funny.  Eating his own boogers was fine, but eating the boogers of others was not.  I would have thought he would have enjoyed the variety.  And, hmmm, now that I think about it...

I wonder if HE was picky about what his mother cooked.

**I don't know about your kids, but my kids only wanted to eat food we had to pay for.  If it was free, they wouldn't want it.

    

My Wife's A Saint... (Part One)

My wife's a saint.
     When I first asked her if my dad could move in with us, she said, "Sure, why not?"  Her own father had passed away a few years earlier, and she had always gotten along with mine.  Besides, he was a grown man.  Self-sufficient.  He used to be in the Army, for gosh sakes.  During World War II.  How much trouble could he be?
     The house we live in has a guest house in the front that is separated from our house by a nice patio.  The guest house is where my father now lives, and the patio is where I enjoy drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the morning.  It's also where I enjoy drinking coffee and talking with my wife in the evening.
     Did I mention that I enjoy drinking coffee?
     That's because I do.
     When I sit there, the kitchen is directly behind me.  On the evening he moved in, I was enjoying coffee by myself, and I could hear my wife talking with my father.
     "Dad," she said, trying to be nice and make him feel at home, "would you like some ice cream?"
     "What's that?" he answered. 
     "Do you want some ice cream?"
     "Do I want some ice cream?"
     "Yes, Dad.  Do you want some ice cream?"
     "Ice cream?"
     "Ice cream." Pause. "Or would you like some later?"  She was already trying to cut her losses.
     "What about later?" he asked.  Changing the question was a bad idea.  Now he had to mentally shift from first gear into reverse.
     "Would you like ice cream right now or later?"
     "Hmm... ice cream. Right now, you say?  Hmm... okay, it sounds good.  What flavors do you have?"
     "Just vanilla."
     "Just what?"
     "Just vanilla. I have to go to the grocery store to get more, but right now we only have vanilla."
     "Only vanilla...  hmm...  ah...  well...  you don't have any other flavors?"
     "No, Dad, just vanilla."
     "Just vanilla?"
     "Just vanilla.  We ran out of the other flavors."
     "You ran out of what?"
     "Other flavors."
     "Did you say you have other flavors?"
     "No, Dad, we only have vanilla."
     "You only have vanilla?"
     "Yes, Dad, that's all we have," she said, a bit more firmly this time.  It worked.
     "Well, if you don't have any other flavors, I guess I have to have vanilla, but just serve me a little.  You always serve me too much."
     I don't know what he was talking about, since this was the first time my wife was ever serving him ice cream, but she didn't reply. Instead, she took the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer, and served my father a nice bowl of it.
     Meanwhile, my coffee's gone cold from waiting for my wife to join me.  I could hear her put the bowl in front of him, and then I could hear the clink of metal against porcelain.  I finished the last of my coffee, and got up to join my wife inside.
     "This ice cream's not very good," I heard my Dad tell her.
     I sat back down
     My life's just become an Abbott & Costello routine.
   
   

Raising My Father

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