The Liberty and Tragedy of Greatest-Generation Parents

Allow me to rephrase that. He was a man with graying temples and emerging crows-feet invisible on the other dads in our living room for a meeting of “Indian Guides,” a pre-Cub Scout troupe that played on Native American stereotypes and corny getups to promote youth camaraderie. I briefly wondered what this meant, him being a virtual grandfather against a backdrop of late-thirty/forty-somethings, until my curiosity exhausted its half-life. Then, it was back to the night’s agenda: father-son teams threading beads and, black, plastic “bear claws” onto rawhide strings for the least ferocious, battle necklaces mankind has ever produced.

Around ten, transitioning obsessions from action figures (G. I. Joe, Major Matt Mason) to team sports, I asked the 6’1 all-knowing presence in my life to throw the pigskin around. That was an age-gap shocker by itself. My dad didn’t lob spirals like the younger, springy-armed fathers down the block so much as heave noodle-armed balls tricky for my runt arms to catch. Switching to basketball, supposedly his “best” sport as a second-stringer on Caltech’s notoriously crummy squads, I watched him shoot free-throws underhanded.

Underhanded? In the 1970s? Abe Lincoln, to my mind, probably last used that humiliating form.  

Click here for the full essay in Suddenly Senior

#greatestgeneration #olderparents #SuddenlySenior #magazine #chipjacobs #laterdays #babyboomer #genx #novel #fiction #losangeles #pasadena #lacandada #flintridge #prepschool #comingofage #brotherhood #grief #forgiveness #supernatural