Flights of Fancy

I’m going to move a bit faster through the next couple of decades because, honestly, they’re something of a blur. We welcomed twin sons in 1976 and their little sister in 1978, and the eighties was the decade they grew up in. Obviously, they all reached the age of ten in the middle of the decade, but that was the only similarity between them.

Our sons turned thirteen in ’89, the decade’s last year. One of those nine-times sincerely damned street gangs had moved into the ‘hood by then, and we lost the boys to them. At thirteen, they were incorrigible; by fourteen, they had decided that their parents were hopeless fools unworthy of paying the slightest bit of attention to. There was trouble in school, trouble with rival gangs, trouble with the police and the court system, and I don’t know how we made it and held down jobs as well.

It’s been decades, they’ll be fifty this year, and I can talk about it dispassionately now, but that hasn’t always been the case. One of them is a compulsive liar who has destroyed two marriages and a meaningful career with alcohol. He knows more than God, in fact to hear him tell it, he taught the Almighty most of what the Great One knows. We are fully estranged, and the last we heard, he was living in Texas somewhere. He can’t dump his drunken bullshirt on us from there, and that’s fine by me.

The other was the one who was genuinely tough. He has mellowed after his move to Colorado, and is still with his first wife and his adult children. Assailed by ailments in later life, he had the depth and foresight to keep his support group ready to hand, and we still have a relationship with his family, be it largely through Facebook and e-mail. Why do I even mention this? Well, these two occupied the majority of my attention throughout the decade, and the part that pertains to these posts… Well, let’s just say I got enough material from them to write a library!

Our daughter was the complete other side of the coin. Loving, supportive, mature and intelligent, she is with us yet. I can’t say enough about her, as she has basically given up her life to make sure her aging parents have everything they need. Last week I pointed out that I identify myself as a Taoist, but I wouldn’t be too disappointed if the Christians turned out to be right; she’s earning a revered place in Heaven through the way she lives her life!

So, if the sixties gave me my nautical training, the eighties taught me about rotten kids, put-upon parents, and loyalty that supports its object through thick and thin. Always my wonderful wife was the bright, shining beacon in all this, but it was hard on her nonetheless, and as I look back on the whole decade, most of what I see is just constant turmoil. But everything is grist for the writer’s mill, and these were all lessons to be learned and studied. I still wasn’t finishing anything, and that’s hardly surprising given that fact that I’d get home from a day’s work to find one of my sons in the back of a police car or standing outside drunk, challenging all comers. They were even involved in a shooting that brought family members to my door seeking retribution.

Thank God for my daughter. No drugs, no gangs, no alcohol, no unwanted pregnancies, you could say that she was downright boring, and boring has never looked better. But during this decade is when I discovered and began to devour what I call “how-to-write-books” books. Evenings of reading became the university I could afford neither the time nor money to attend, but I could read, and things were beginning to come together. You’ll see me finally begin to achieve some success in the nineties if you’re back next week. I’ll leave the light on for you!