GROWN MEN GROW UP, EVENTUALLY

Eventually, grown men grow up and get with the program.

They try to resist, but as we’ve learned, resistance is futile.

So turn your hat around, stop the online sports betting, and make someone proud.

Put on your big boy pants one leg at a time and stand for something.

But what? Let’s take a look:

Too often you hear someone say they were pushed to do something.

They were pushed to get good grades, pushed to go to college, pushed to get a real job.

Maybe they pushed themselves? If not, they pushed back at some point.

What, you don’t want good grades?

I started telling my kids in middle school that they won’t know who got good grades until they’re hired to work for them.

I knew who pushed themselves in high school a few years later when my valedictorian got on my bus coming down from Pill Hill.

She’d spent her day in OHSU medical school; I’d spent mine making beds in the VA.

We had a nice visit. (Hey Sue)

I was already a two-time dropout by then with a likely third time coming up.

 

 

That’s when I met an ambitious woman. Ambitious? How could I tell?

No matter what the topic of discussion I could tell she wasn’t getting what she wanted.

She wanted a better life. I thought she was doing fine, but I was wrong.

She was doing fine for the short haul, but the long haul was in doubt, while I was short haul all the way.

My motto was travel light and fast and see who could keep up.

I moved to NYC on a train, carrying everything I owned in suitcases in both hands and bags draped over my shoulders.

Ambitious women pass on guys who can load everything they own in suitcases and bags.

Sounds suspicious to me now, but don’t most guys pass on women who can carry all of their stuff in one load?

I left NYC on a bus with the same crap I showed up with, so that explains the fast travel part.

No cross country moving van needed, just a strong back, sturdy legs, and a well maintained Greyhound.

(Click the link to see a Greyhound review.)

 

How Grown Men Grow Up

You’ve seen a ‘bachelor pad?’

It’s either a nasty disaster waiting for someone’s mom to clean up, or some kind of lady’s man lair.

When I was single I skipped the theme part.

I had a Portland Pad clean enough to keep the bugs at bay and organized enough to find what I was looking for, or what I needed.

It wasn’t an ‘entertainer’ space with modern appliances and cupboard space for wine glasses, water glasses, coffee cups, a tea set, and dinner service for eight.

It was so small that one person was a crowd, which was part of the plan.

No one sticks around if there’s no place to stick.

My future wife didn’t see a problem, which was part of her sticky plan.

One winter day I opened my big window, the sash rope broke, the window crashed down in the pane and shattered the glass.

I called the manager who called the land lord who didn’t seem motivated to repair a broken window during a windy cold snap, which is when you need glass in a big window.

I patched it with a huge sheet of black visqueen that I liked so much I decorated the rest of the place with it.

Future wife thought it was weird and funny. Check and check. Then she mentioned the carcinogenic stink of the off-gassing.

Just like that my place went from weird and whimsical to cancer cluster apartment.

(Click the link to see which Oregon counties have the highest cancer rates.)

She didn’t push me to take it all down, but I took it all down.

After we got married and moved to the suburbs she didn’t push me to finish college, but she made sense whenever the topic came up, which was often.

With kids were in high school we talked about college, visited colleges, and urged them to go without a big push.

 

 

Me: Now is the best time to go to college. It’ll never be cheaper, and you’ll never have more time for it. But you can wait, get a job, get married, have kids, then go when you realize what you missed.

I started in 1973 as a footloose freshman and graduated in 1991 as a married man with kids, a full-time job, and a mortgage.

 

Kids: What were you doing all those years in between, boomer? Being a stoned hippie? Come on.

 

They went to college and graduated on time, mostly on time. My message got through.

 

Grow Up For Others If Not For Yourself

I remember being in Junior High and watching varsity football games.

The Bulldogs had a big lefty at quarterback who was the best baseball pitcher I’ve ever seen in person.

We had a dominant lineman who went on to play at OSU.

To us skinny kids across the field from the high school, the seniors were grown men.

I remember thinking it would be a dream to be a bone-crusher who also hugged cheerleaders.

When we were seniors there were the same skinny kids thinking the same things.

The coaches pushed us to set a good example, to grow up.

That’s what we did.

 

 

When I arrived in Portland I already had expectations on me, big city expectations.

After all, if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere, according to the song. 

(Click the link to hear Frank sing New York New York.)

Portland was my small town now, not North Bend, which had a mythical feel by then.

I pushed myself to find the kind of work specific to Oregon, having already worked in a Coos Bay saw mill and a Charleston fishery to collect my official Oregonian merit badges.

The Oregon Historical Society took a chance and I worked my way up over twenty years.

Part of the maturing process included caring for museum objects that would have been trash a hundred years ago.

If product packaging stands the test of time, it might be historical.

The same rule can apply to people who stand the test of time.

If you can’t grow up for yourself, grow up for them.

My people collection has grown larger over the years and now number in the tens of tens.

It’s a tight group with strict entry requirements.

I come from a family that doesn’t keep in close touch, so if you haven’t heard from me don ‘t worry, you’re just like family.

 

PS: When an older adult male behaves like a whiny little bitch, they need to grow the hell up.

PSS: If you’re an older adult male who behaves like a whiny little bitch? Be a better example.