OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER? A FAMILY TIMELINE

Old enough didn’t matter when I bought a switchblade knife in Mexico.

I was a twelve year old with my parents on a family car trip. After driving across Texas we stopped in El Paso after the Carlsbad Caves, then a day trip across the border to Juárez.

After proudly showing my mom my new switchblade, flicking it open with the push button on the side, she took it for safe keeping and I didn’t get it back until I was thirty five.

I asked about it between the years of twelve and thirty-five and always got the same answer.

“You’ll get it back when you’re old enough.”

When I was old enough to legally run for President of the United States, I got my knife back. In the rearview mirror of life, it seems fair.

It also seemed fair when I got an answer to one of the questions she’d asked for years. I gave the answer ‘when she was old enough.’

My parents, mom and dad to baby boomer sons, got married in the early 50’s after my dad had spent a few years in the Marine Corps. One of his tours of duty was the Korean War.

He looks a little shell shocked in his wedding photos, but maybe it was booze.

After their first son was born in a Navy hospital, things improved and I was born in an Army hospital. That I eventually joined the Army is a coincidence.

In the ways of military deployment, after I was born my dad drew sea duty about the Boxer, an aircraft carrier, leaving my mom to fend for herself and her two young sons.

From all the evidence, my first year was spent in a Quonset hut, which I’ve milked ever since the day I learned about it.

The half-barrel design is all over the place once you start looking.

Old Enough To Ask

The question my mom asked when my folks got divorced after twenty five years was, “Did your father volunteer for sea duty after you were born to escape his family? Or was he just following orders?”

Fair question to both family men and service men. I wanted to know, too.

The question grew in interest after I got married and was soon the father of two sons. If it was available, would I have volunteered for a six month cruise, or stuck it out in a cramped Quonset hut with a couple of screamers?

Seems like an easy answer, so I asked the old man one day during a visit to his new place and new wife.

“Dad, did you volunteer for sea duty after I was born?” I asked.

“I’d always wanted to get my sea legs, and the opportunity arose,” was his answer.

I took it as a yes to the volunteer question. I was excited to know, and excited to share with my mom.

Visiting My Momma

We sat together in her Eugene living room one afternoon with the sun coming through the glass doors behind her recliner. Her new husband was working and we had the time to ourselves, so I brought it up.

“I finally have an answer to your question,” I said.

“The big question?”

“No, but the one you asked about dad volunteering for sea duty after I was born, or was he just following orders.”

“How did you find out?” she asked.

It was a fair question given the communication problems that former couples share before they become former couples.

“I asked him, Mom.”

“What exactly did you ask?”

“I asked if he’d volunteered to ship out on the Boxer, or if he had orders ahead of time.”

“And he told you?”

“He never told you? Did you ask?”

“I knew he volunteered. I didn’t have to ask,” she said.

“I wanted to hear it from him, so I asked.”

Mom: . . .

Me: . . .

“What did he say?” she asked.

“It’s not important,” I said. “It was a long, long time ago.”

“But you asked, so what did he say?”

“I’d like to tell you, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I said.

“Why is that?”

I slipped my switchblade out of my pocket, flicked it open and cleaned a fingernail.

“I’m not sure you’re old enough yet. These things take time.” I folded the knife blade into the handle and put it back in my pocket.

“Son, I believe I’m old enough. What did he say?”

“We can wait. You seem a little anxious.”

“Fine. You didn’t ask him and he didn’t tell you anything.”

“He said enough to clear the mystery up.”

“Then what was it? Did he volunteer, or get orders.”

“Are you sure you want to hear it? It might not be the answer you expect.”

The Final Word

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t ask you. I think you know me well enough to know that,” she said.

From most accounts, my mom was not a typical Marine wife. She didn’t want to raise her family on base. She didn’t want her kids running wild with other base kids.

I didn’t ask why she and my dad got divorced, and didn’t want to add anything one way of the other.

If I told the truth, that the old man took to the sea because he always wanted to be an ocean going Marine, it might hurt her feelings. Those feelings were already hurt about being abandoned by her husband with two young children, and anything adding to those feelings would be the wrong addition.

Because he was a Marine, an E6 with a Silver Star and Purple Heart in combat, he could do things Marines do, things wives don’t always appreciate. Like gong to sea.

But this was my mom starting a new stage of her life with a new man and a new attitude. She needed the truth.

“He got orders to ship out on the Boxer. He didn’t tell you because he knew you didn’t like Marine wife life.”

“I didn’t. He was right. And it’s orders like sending a new father out to sea that made me determined we wouldn’t be a Marine family any longer than we had to. His brother Rex stayed in for twenty years after his wife pleaded with him to get out. He’d come home after a night out with his guys and tell her he’d reenlisted for six more years. That happened a couple of times.”

“I guess you’re old enough to know now, like I’m old enough to own a switchblade.”

“I don’t know about that, but it’s your decision.”

“Same with me, Mom. I don’t know either,” I said.

“Don’t know what?”

“If we’re ever old enough.”

“I’m glad you told me, glad I finally know.”

“That’s good. I’m glad, too.”