THE LONG ROAD OF FAMILY LIFE

The long road of family life in the good old days started with moms and dads in the lead.

Whether they loved each other like soul mates, or hated each other like oceans do shorelines, they stayed married.

I’m not looking at statistical data when I say they stayed married, it’s just that I don’t remember any divorced parents where I grew up.

I might be an unreliable narrator, though. It’s been quite a while since ‘growing up.’

How long? Sooo long.

 

Okay, not this long, it just looks that way to the younger people out there, the ones under forty.

 

Kids: Tell us again how you walked to Oregon from Iowa.

Me: I didn’t walk, I hitch-hiked.

Kids: In a wagon? On the Oregon Trail?

Me: (Oh for fuck’s sake) Yes, in a wagon. Which makes me what, a hundred and eighty one years old.

Kids: You don’t look it.

Me: There’s hope for you.

 

Falling In Love, Again

I grew up in a rival town.

Coos Bay was the rival for North Bend, and not a very nice one.

In my time we never beat them in varsity football and it stuck in my gut forever.

The only road out of a football game against the Marshfield Pirates was the Loser’s Walk.

I live in a rival town where the kids went to high school.

They’re not very good at rivalry.

 

Me: Let’s take a walk through the park and across the river.

Kids: Why?

Me: So we can spit across the city limits.

Kids: Is that something special you did where you grew up, spit on the other town?

Me: Why do you say it like that?

Kids: You think if you spit in the Tualatin River it will somehow end up in Coos Bay?

Me: Only in the spring.

Kids: This is what’ going on in your 181 year old brain?

Me: It’s called ‘doing my own research’ boys. Get with it.

Kids: We’ve been waiting for this.

Me: It’s called science, you knuckleheads.

Kids: Oooh, science. Right.

Me: Science.

Kids: Science. You might be right.

Me: Internet science.

 

Road Visions From The Start

 

Parents: Don’t worry, you’ll be fine on your own.

Me: Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Parents: It’s a straight road, a flat road. No problems.

Me: It doesn’t look straight and flat.

Parents: Either way, hang on tight son.

 

Life On Your Own

 

What Others Think Your Life Is Like

 

What You Tell Them

 

What It Really Is

The moral of the story?

Don’t spend too much time on old rivalries. There’s so much more to live for, so much life to enjoy.

Why would a senior citizen go out of their way to spit in Coos Bay?

The answer is sunflower seed spit, not rivalry spit.

So be sure to keep a pack on hand when you decide to hock up a worthy loogie for old time’s sake.

No one needs to know, and you don’t need to share.

Take it from me. (Clears throat.)

 

Kids: What was that? A rivalry hack?

Me: Let’s try and grow up, huh?

Kids:

Me: I’m taking a walk through the park and over the river while we’re in the mood.

Kids: Take some water. We don’t want you getting dehydrated.