Perspectives

I marvel at all the things that can “getcha.” The list is endless. Perhaps, my favorite piece of fiction, Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” best captures that quality of life in all its many ironic variations. Something, indeed, will bring each of us, as “they” say, low.

While watching yet another TV commercial for yet another malady that I only vaguely knew existed but is apparently so prevalent as to warrant national advertising buys — think: there has to be a sufficient market (created?) for a “medicine” to warrant expensive TV rollouts — on comes a serious chap who looks painfully into the camera and plaintively whines out a “I have this deep radiating pain that ….”

And I shout at my television, “Yea, it’s called life.”

My father was a tough guy. In every good sense of the word. He boxed Golden Glove contenders while in college because he could take a punch. He once upon a time worked 2,555 days (seven years) without a day off because he was the sole proprietor of his small enterprise. He fathered four children and saw to our welfare within a loving yet contentious marriage (aren’t they all?). He was unabashedly an intellectual elitist. He read voraciously all his life, and his elite consisted of any blood relative whose name ended in Jepson.

Christian Frederick changed his mind (albeit reluctantly) when facts/circumstances warranted. He was big in the chest yet much bigger in the brain. He had a lawyer’s training with an anarchist’s perspective (Boy, that’s covering the bases!). He disciplined with the “look.” Please Dad, please, anything but the “look” of disappointment.

In the 18 years I lived in his home, he touched me exactly once in anger or in frustration — he pinched my cheek at age 6. I had been with my sisters, frolicking up to our chests in a rain-flooded farm pond (hogs and runoff just a fence away). Too funny today to think how utterly disgusting that was! And, of course, he drove by during that delightful summer moment!

I had at least two “light bulb” moments with Father. A light bulb moment is when events coalesce (the planets/stars align) with awareness and the string of personal illumination is pulled just as the curtains of your mind open and you inwardly, mentally acknowledge, “Yesss! I so get that. I do.”

My father was a mink rancher when he wasn’t a lawyer, and one day, while walking bare foot around the ranch (as if eight acres were a ranch), I cut my middle toe down to the bone. Bones are, indeed, white! It was a nasty, gaping gash, bloody and painful. Huge scar today. A visit to the ER (stitches) would be de rigueur, but that wasn’t happening that day. I swooned. I’m on the ground wailing, and Father is preparing to clean the wound and wrap-it-up nicely, thank you very much. In between my sobs, sniveling and howls, Father leans over, secures eye contact and asks matter-of-factly: “Do you need an ambulance?”

What he was asking and what I immediately understood was 1) I wasn’t going to die, it wasn’t the end so, 2) Shut the front door! Quit sniveling. Man up, boy.

Of course, I did not require an ambulance. And by implication, understood years later, we’re all dying, so quit whining.

He wasn’t being harsh or insensitive, he was suggesting that I accurately assess my situation and respond accordingly.

Yeah, it’s called life.