Very few people know that when I was in junior high I took a cartooning class.
It was taught by a retired cop named Van Curler who always struck me as a soft spoken man, at least until I saw him chase a couple of guys who tried to steal some bikes from school.
That was the day we learned Van Curler had an edge and that some old men could still run.
I was first introduced to Van Curler when I took an oceanography class as an elective in 8th grade. I thought he was a nice guy and since I thought it might be cool to learn how to draw comic strip characters I figured why not.
I should have known the answer, should have accepted that I wasn’t particularly good at drawing more than a stick figure and stuck to writing, but I am hard headed and determined to figure things out on my own.
Anyhoo, I heard Howard Stern interview Jimmy Iovine today and they talked about the Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty which coincidentally is what made me think of Van Curler and cartooning.
Sometimes People Do More Than Disappoint You
My soon to be 17 year-old son and I had a hard talk about people and I told him no one gets through life unscathed.
People we love and trust disappoint us and some do so more than once.
And when you are hard headed and determined sometimes you go back for more and find out Lucy can’t wait to pull the ball away from you.
When he asked for a different description I told him there are times when I stood in the fire or grabbed a hold of the electric fence and just took it.
“It is not something I recommend and it hasn’t always served me. Sometimes people changed their behavior because it woke them up and sometimes they ran away because they thought I was crazy.”
He laughed and told me he already knew I was crazy and I nodded my head.
“The people who really love you accept your craziness. They accept you for who you are. Keep those people close and let the others go.”
He looked at me and asked if I had always done that.
“No. Sometimes I hung onto people because I was convinced that it was my place to do so. Because I had promised to do it because I am built to take whatever comes.”
And then I looked at him and told him he needs to think carefully about doing everything his old man does or has done.
“Your path doesn’t have to be exactly like mine and it won’t. Some people have gotten away with things I would never let anyone else do. I have suspected them of sharing secrets with people who never should have known certain things, but I didn’t confirm.”
“Why not dad?”
“Because people fool themselves into thinking they act logically and rationally, but they don’t.
Sometimes we say and do things that are stupid and we need to give people room to walk away from their mistakes. Sometimes that means remaining silent when you want to ask them why they would tell some dumbass things they shouldn’t have.”
One day I need to give him some background on Fleetwood Mac.
What About Trust
A while back someone made a crack about me as a father and I cut them loose.
It wasn’t the first time they had said something that made me think they had no respect for me and I didn’t feel any need to try to determine whether it was fact or fiction.
Didn’t feel a need to figure out if I was just being sensitive so I stopped talking to them and deleted all contact information.
I am done. They blew my trust and that was enough.
It is not the first time I have done that, probably won’t be the last but it takes some doing.
Hell a girl and I once repeatedly told each other that we didn’t trust each other and yet somehow that didn’t kill things between us.
I like to think it was because there was amazing chemistry and that what killed it was her being irrational and crazy, but I could be wrong.
There is a chance it could be something else, hard to say because there never was a conversation.
And that dear friends leads to another quote I shared with my teenager.
Playing around with inserting some commentary around Better As A Memory, In The End or Whiskey Lullaby.
But I have used them all and at least another 49 songs so I might pass on each and every one.
What I know is almost 49 years into this crazy daily life is the simplest things are the most complicated and the best.
You know why people quote this line from this movie and why it never ends?
Because this is the one consistency of life, boys and girls trying to figure out who they want to be with and then hoping they’ll find that one person(s) and that they’ll say yes.
The best part is that once you figure out you don’t know a damn thing about it you’ll have a teen ask you for advice and or help.
And the best part is if you are really honest you can tell share examples of adults who supposedly figured it out and a million others who haven’t.
Ain’t life just peachy. 🙂
