24
As I had started during the nights when I first went to bed at the
age of thirteen, I would reflect on a part of my life as I waited to
fall asleep. Often it would be about the events of the day and what
meaning they might have on my unfolding life. In the case of my
third full year in Colorado, I decided to consider what were the
three best things I had gotten from my father. In the case of my
mother, it seemed pretty clear: Honesty about my mixed race
background, Gutsiness to go out and try something new, and Resolve to
continue on a path even if the day-to-day isn't fun.
While my mother and her father had kept their Native American
ancestry a secret and denied it whenever their background was
questioned, mother raised me to be accepting of my mixed race
background and open about it. I had. And on the whole
it had been a good choice. While a very few had made fun of that
heritage, being open about it only gave them a specific label to use
when they would otherwise have made fun of me for something else.
It's better to be made fun of for something that is true rather
than for something that is false, isn't it? Also, not being in
denial about it never lead me into the trap of trying to prove to
others that I was less accepting of mixed race people than them thus
assuaging any suspicion about my own ancestry.
While I had not always been thrilled with my mother's choice to move
to Colorado, leaving my New England childhood environment behind, I
had to admire her courage. Her first move out of the family home
during my parents' separation had been to a nearby town that was
closer to where she already worked, not a big change in the scheme of
things. But to move to Colorado in her mid-fifties without any job
lined-up, no friends to welcome her here and help her get settled,
that was inarguably gutsy and I had to admire her for
it.
So too, for the resolve to see it through. I could tell by August of
her first few months in Colorado that she was having second thoughts,
fantasizing that someone from New England would come out and carry
her back to the only homeland she had ever known. But as she had
made the choice to move to Colorado, she steeled herself to stay and
make that new life work, even if it didn't seem like the best
decision during the first couple of years. Sure enough, after years
of perseverance, she had found herself a better job than she had ever
had when it came to pay and benefits, she had made new friends to
replace the ones she had left behind, and had even had a string of
new lovers, though ultimately none ever panned-out to that second
chance of a lifelong relationship she had hoped for.
And now for my father, what had he given me...?
As I lay in bed racking my brain, I realized just how much of a
discounted role he played in my life, with the negatives easily
overshadowing the positives I was looking for, but then came the most
obvious: A love of Science Fiction. While never
intentionally introducing me to it, I grew up in a home with plenty
of exposure. From science fiction television shows which tickled the
imagination, to the many books on shelves of possible future lives,
some aspirational, some forewarning, some simply an escape from the
daily grind of today. All called to me and my heart answered back.
And a second thing?
I had to acknowledge one day in my later elementary school years when
my father had taught me a valuable lesson. My friend Pete and I were
practicing shots at the basket ball hoop in my family home's
driveway. As we did this, Pete was teaching me a new rhyme he had
learned at camp the previous summer that we could say in rhythm to
the bouncing basket ball as we got ready for our next shots. I don't
remember it now, but it was something about the relationship of
whites and blacks and used the N-word as part of the rhyme. My
father was home that day and bustling about the yard and over-heard
this and called me over. He quietly explained to me that the N-word
was a racist putdown and I shouldn't use it, even casually as part of
what seemed a playful rhyme. It was not simply because it was a put
down, but by using it and other racist terms in my life, it would
limit the people I would meet and come to know and I would be the
poorer for it. When I returned to Pete he asked me what that was
about and I simply told him that we shouldn't use the rhyme anymore.
Yet, following my father's advice, I've kept use of racial terms to a
minimum, only when discussing matters of those terms with friends,
but never casually for fun and never as a put down to anybody.
But what was the third lesson I had gotten from my father which
had the most impact on my life?
I could only think of the time when I was with him at the ski area
during the off season and he was discussing some new ideas with his
boss. While my father managed the day-to-day activities at the park,
he actually did have a supervisor of his own, appointed by the owner,
to keep an eye on things and consider ways of enhancing the property.
As his job wasn't hands-on, this supervisor was rarely there on
site, at least during my years passively observing the operations
of the ski area. I would hear about him from time to time, right
down to how my family's first home had been across the street from
his own before I was born. But his office was almost always vacant
and I saw him maybe a total of five times in ten years. This was one
of those times as he was in and wanting to discuss an
idea he had for expanding the use of the ski area.
My father would listen to his idea, the pros & cons he had
thought of on his own, and then asked my father for his thoughts. My
father just reflected back the pros & cons the supervisor had
already stated and asked the supervisor what he
thought. I was surprised as, when asked for his opinion, my father
had ended up adding nothing and tossed the question right back like a
hot potato. The supervisor juggled the returning balls of the idea
and the pros & cons he had already thought of for a bit, but then
really wanted to know what my father thought. This time my
father talked at length about the pros & cons the supervisor had
expressed, debating each one in the same way the supervisor had then,
after a thorough recounting, asked the supervisor what he was
thinking, again adding nothing at all to the debate. I was appalled
as my father seemed to lack either any original thoughts of his own
on the matter, or lacked the courage to express them. Either way,
even if the supervisor was holding his cool, I was feeling the
frustration for him. He again restated his idea and how it might
help or hurt the park and again asked my father for his thoughts on
the matter. My father simply again waffled, rephrased, and
ultimately gave nothing back.
I concluded at that moment that I would never fear giving my
opinion about something I was asked about and to always
be decisive and not wishy-washy when I had enough facts in front of
me and a decision needed to be made. And I have stuck to
that tenet and never regretted it.
Though I have since learned discretion...
While the three best things I had gotten from my mother were positive
if sometimes hard learned examples, I've always been haunted that to
get three out of my experience with my father, I've have to include a
lesson I learned despite
his example, not from it.
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