This weekend I received a spam message from Fidel Hendricks. Finally, someone who can get even more annoying questions asked about who he’s related to.
So… are you related to Jimi?
So… are you related to Castro?
Fidel Hendricks, I feel your pain (only half as much). I just can’t figure out why you’re lashing back at the world with really crappy spam messages trying to hock MS SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition.
Oddly enough I’ve had comments posted in the past two days from family members I haven’t talked to in at least ten years. In one case it’ll be ten years this summer, in the other case I don’t know how long it’s been. I was probably a baby when I saw them last.
But I mention this more for practical purposes. I tried e-mailing them both after they posted comments, and both e-mails bounced back. The first appears to be a typical bounce back, the second seems to have thought I was spam.
So commenting family members, I’m trying to e-mail you but it’s not working. It’s not a snub! Honest!
My brother called two nights ago. He’s getting married. Not a total surprise, but a little unexpected.
The fun part is they’re talking about a Vegas wedding. I can’t help but have visions of Elvis impersonators dancing in my head, and I’m not the only one. What I’d really like to see is an Elvis officiant. And I figure it can’t be that hard. Of all the licensed officiants in Las Vegas, what percentage do you think aren’t Elvis impersonators? Most of the non-Elvi are probably booked, so the Elvis minister becomes the default. I’m not sure if my brother will buy that, but it sounds good to me.
At any rate, I feel like it’s time for another movie marathon. A few flicks come to mind, including Viva Las Vegas, Leaving Las Vegas, and 3,000 Miles to Graceland. Of course I’ve never seen any of those movies, but they all have Vegas and Elvis in common. Can’t go wrong there.
I’m writing this in Great Bend, Kans., sitting in the only home my parents now own. After more than a year and a half in re-married limbo — and owning up to three homes at once during that time — they’re finally into one home and finished with all the moving and back and forth.
Yesterday my parents closed on the house I grew up in, after almost 25 years. We moved in when I was five weeks old. While West Bloomfield will always be home, you truly can’t go home again.
The family that bought the house had two boys, the oldest named Ricky. It doesn’t get much freakier than that.
I was the last one to leave the house, after I searched the cupboards one last time and swept out the basement and the garage. It was a nonevent. I kept thinking it would be nostalgic, but it just never was. I kept wishing I had a secret place in my bedroom or in the basement somewhere where I had hidden something as a child. You know, a favorite toy hidden in the ductwork, or a piece of paper slipped into the attic access hatch. But alas, I was never that adventurous (or stupid) as a kid.
We rolled out unceremoniously and began the long carivan trip across five states with my parents’ Explorer and a 27-foot moving van packed full with less than half their crap.
My favorite road-side sighting was a billboard touting Tree of Life, “the most beautiful Christian bookstore in Missouri.” Sadly, we didn’t have time to stop.
I’m a blogging maniac today. And I guess that’s OK. I’ll be taking some time off over Thanksgiving, so you’ll just have to go without. I’m also avoiding lots of real work today. What else is new.
Aside from the job update I just gave, lots of other stuff is happening in my life. After 30 years with Ford Motor Company, my dad is retiring at the end of the year. He’s only 53 and it seems amazing to me that he’s able to retire. Then again, I have a rough idea how much he made per year, so I’m not that surprised. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be able to retire at 53. A lot can happen between now and then, but in general, teachers and writers don’t have as good of a retirement package.
Along with retiring comes selling the house I grew up in. It’s been on the market since the spring, and amazingly they’re going to close on December 23, meaning retirement and moving will happen at about the same time, making it unnecessary to pursue any kind of temporary living arrangement, which would have been lame. It’s nice how things work out like that. My dad will be retiring to his home state of Kansas, where he’ll finally be living full-time with my mom, who has been going back and forth between Kansas and Michigan. It’s all part of the extremely bizarre, yet happily ending story that is my parents’ marriage. While the move to Kansas means I’ll get back home to Michigan even less often than I do now, I’m happy to see my parents finally settling down together.
As part of this whole retirement/moving mess, we almost ended up spending Thanksgiving in Michigan. For some reason, I really didn’t like the idea. You’d think I’d love going back to Michigan. It’s home. I get to see my friends and be back to the familiar surroundings. But Michigan hasn’t been a relaxing place since I broke up with my long-distance girl friend and my parents split up. While my parents were separated, home was never home. The house I grew up in was half empty, and Dad just didn’t make you feel at home the way Mom did. While Mom made you feel at home in her apartment with lots of goodies and mothering, it was an apartment. While it was always good to be home and see friends, it was never quite as relaxing.
When we head to Kansas for Thanksgiving, it’s a different story. Part of it has to do with the summers I spent there as a child, so there’s an incredible nostalgia factor. It’s also the land of wide-open spaces, which is perfect for relaxing introspection. Most of my extended family is there, so there’s lots of people to see, and really nothing to do but hang out with them. My grandparents are there to be grandparents, and lately my mom’s been there to do the mothering. Since my parents bought their retirement home in Kansas, there’s even been a nice place to crash (as nice as grandma’s place is, you just can’t put your feet up like you can at your parents’).
Heading to Kansas for a holiday weekend is like stepping into another dimension where time is slower. You have to drive an hour to get to a Target or a movie theater, and I like it that way. You have to be more intentional. I especially like driving through Raymond, Kansas, the town of around 100 people where my parents grew up in (it’s really my dad’s home town, because my grandpa lived there his entire life — my mom grew up on a farm outside of town, which my grandparents sold to my uncle when they moved). It’s a bit sad and lonely since my grandpa died, but I still like to drive through and just see it again.
I’m not sure why that attraction to place is so much stronger in Kansas. You’d think I’d want to go to Michigan for one last Thanksgiving. With my parents moving to Kansas, my brother is the only relative left in Michigan. I have plenty of friends there, but without my parents living there I just won’t get back very often, if at all. But somehow the sense of place and home is stronger in Kansas. Maybe it’s a different sense, maybe it’s the holidays and my sense of family is winning out, I don’t know.
In some ways it feels like Michigan is where my parents marriage is broken and failed, and Kansas is where it’s coming back together again. That really has no bearing on reality, since my mom actually moved to Kansas when they got divorced, and it’s not that simple, but somehow that seems to make sense.
All I know is that I’m looking forward to a few days in Kansas. It’s a long drive, but I don’t mind. I like being behind the wheel and letting my thoughts drift all over the place. It’ll be good to be with my parents and see my extended family again. It’ll be good to have some time off. You’d think the unemployed wouldn’t need a vacation, but then most people don’t know what the unemployed do all day. I think part of it is working out of the home – it means even on a vacation day or a weekend the computer is sitting there and work needs to be done. Sometimes you need to disengage from the office, and a home office makes that difficult. Especially when you’re a computer freak like me and work and pleasure are so inter-mixed.
I think I’m also blogging a lot today because I want to clear my mind of some of the thoughts I’ve been swimming with lately, because I know I’ll fill up again on the long, long drive. 670 miles is a lot of thinking, and it makes it easier if I’ve got a full mental tank.
After my thoughts on family life this morning, I came across a few quotes from someone who could possibly be the extreme opposite of model parenting, Ozzy Osbourne. The Osbourne’s son Jack recently checked himself into a drug rehab center, which has caused Ozzy to reconsider a few things.
“I used to think they should legalize pot, but you know what? They should ban the lot,” he told MTV. “I’m 55 years old, and I didn’t get off scot-free. I have to take medication for the rest of my life because I’ve done so much neurological damage to my body.” Of course we knew that, but it’s good to hear Ozzy admit it.
“The mistake that Sharon and I both made, and we both agree on this, is we never set any boundaries,” Osbourne told MTV in another interview. “We never said, ‘You must be in the house by a certain time.’ We just let them have the freedom. Sharon and I are still learning. We’re not the parents that say, ‘We’re always right,’ because we’re not.”
“One thing I noticed is that he never cried,” Osbourne said. “He never showed. He just locked it in, you know. I think what families should do more often is have family meetings and talk: get around the table and say, ‘What’s up? How you doing?’ Every day I say to my family, ‘I love you,’ you know. And I do love my family. People forget to say ‘I love you. I care for you. Are you OK? Is there anything you need?'”
Family can be an amazing thing. A bunch of people who stick it out together, whether they like it or not, for the simple reason that they’re family. Well, that’s the basic idea anyway. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Seems like more often lately it doesn’t work. I wonder how much of that is simply our selfish, individualistic attitude at work. Half of all marriages fail because we don’t really understand the commitment required. We’re more concerned about our own happiness than our spouses, which is really the goal of a marriage. Relationships rip and pull as selfishness rears its head, and the family comes tumbling down. Children learn by example, and when they seek their own gain, you shouldn’t have to look too far for the cause.
Family is just hard work. Which is another thing we’re bad at. Not only do we look after ourselves, but we don’t want to do a lot of work. We want the easy way out. The easy way is my way. The easy way doesn’t include putting up with the irritating little foibles we all have. The easy way doesn’t want to have the hard conversations that come before a shouting match. The easy way would rather hold a grudge than talk it over and let it go.
I’ve seen families fall apart, I’ve seen families stubbornly stick together — no matter how painful it may be — and I’ve even seen families come back together. With all the possibilities and with failure so prevalent, it makes me wonder about the future of my own family. There’s so many stupid things that can get in the way: tiredness, bitterness, laziness. A simple clashing of schedules or interests can make things impossible. Washing the dishes or doing the laundry can so easily sow discord, and while a kind word can do so much, the slipped word can do so much worse.
I’m not looking to be a TV family where the kids do cute things and the grandparents stop by for special holiday guest appearances. I want a family where we love each other enough to do things for one another. A family that isn’t selfish. A family that isn’t bound by intergenerational barriers and can actually communicate. Maybe that’s not possible. Maybe it requires more sacrifice than I give. Maybe that’s exactly what I find so difficult.
And sometimes I wonder why I’m even thinking about my future family. It’s a strange, not-quite-real concept, like recordable DVDs or hybrid vehicles. I know they can exist, but I haven’t seen them for myself, and it doesn’t seem quite true.
“Mercy,” my mother comments while walking into an antique store ahead of me.
“Oh, mercy,” my grandmother repeats from behind me. That’s what I’d say after two days of antique shopping. Oh mercy.
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone antiquing with my mom, though I certainly have a lot more patience than I used to. Some of that old junk actually fascinates me. Some of the prices also fascinate me. Who would pay $200 for a coat rack?
Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day.
This is my dad, smoking a pipe and reading a magazine, sometime in the early 1970s. Those sideburns are an essential part of Hendricks family history, and I’m proud to say they’re now electronically preserved.
But seriously, for Thanksgiving my wife and I traveled to the flat state of Kansas for turkey dinner with the fam. Part of the holiday included rummaging through a box of family history stuff, including photos from the 1920s-70s and two journals from my great-great grandfather, dating 1908-1910 and around 1920. Very interesting stuff about going to market and the “elegant fine weather.” I’ll have to go into more detail later. The sideburns and pipe photo will have to tide you over for now.