Category: Relationships

The man on the train

Like many adults from dysfunctional families, I was angry with my father for years over his failings as a parent. With counseling and a one-time encounter with him 35 years after he died, I found peace.

My father, Bill, drank and was emotionally and verbally abusive. Much of the time, it seemed he wanted nothing to do with his wife and kids. For as long as I can remember, he slept in a camper parked in the backyard.

As a teenager, Bill left an impoverished home in Cleveland during the Great Depression and road the rails. He bummed his way around the country and was on his own for years when he got drafted. While AWOL, he met my mother in a bar back home. Married her, and after the war, he went back to Cleveland to pick her up and take the train out to California.

The newlyweds landed in Los Angeles with a little money saved up and bought a corner store that sold candy and cigarettes. Bill ran the store, and Mom worked in a bank.

Bill was notorious for closing the store and going to the movies or hanging out in bars. My mom went to check on him during a lunch break and found a stranger behind the counter. The man said Bill gave him the store, and it turned out to be true. That is when they headed for the suburbs, where he started sleeping in the backyard.

I happened to mention the camper to my counselor.

Why do you think he slept out there?

He was a ramblin’ man.

Dad rode the rails and struggled to accept the responsibilities of family life. Sleeping in the camper made him feel unbridled.

Counseling helped me forgive my father, who died when I was in my early 20s. I saw him for the first time not as a broken child but as an adult, and I saw he had many wonderful qualities. Not that his behavior was justified, but at some point, you realize people can only do so much with what they have. Still, I wondered how my life might be different if I had felt a father’s love.

I left California shortly after high school and only came back about five years ago when I thought it was safe. I used to ride the bus to work. Most mornings, I walked to the Caltrain station to catch the early bus, which left at 5:30 a.m. A handful of us would gather in the dark at our stop near the train tracks and wait for the bus to pull up.

One morning, a freight train zoomed by headed south, toward Los Angeles. I looked up to watch it pass. As the last car pulled into view, I saw a young man in clothes that looked to be from the 1940s, sitting on the back smiling and waving at me.

It was my father, and I suddenly felt engulfed in his love.

 

The Cellulite Wars

Note: My sister-in-law is vacationing with us. Our first post-retirement visitor! We’ve only had one truly warm day, and we spent it by the pool. I wore my new bikini and watched her float, which I found quite relaxing – like other retirees watching birds only with people. Later, we went shopping, and she steered me toward one-piece swimsuits. I was reminded of this story, which I wrote a few years ago.

We lived in Alabama in the late 1980s. My sister-in-law came down from Maine to visit us. She had never been anywhere exciting, so we hopped in the car and drove to New Orleans for a weekend. We stayed in a room with two double beds.

I didn’t know her very well then, but we were getting acquainted fast. I discovered she has no filter — she says whatever she thinks.

It had been a long day, and we were chilling, getting ready to go out for dinner. My husband was in the bathtub. He often used to hang out in the tub and read. We called him Marat, after Jean-Paul, a notable of the French Revolution who had a skin disease and frequently soaked in medicinal baths. He was ultimately murdered in his bathtub. This fact will become relevant as the story unfolds.

The door to the bathroom was propped slightly open to let out some of the steam. My sister-in-law and I were trying to get dressed before Marat got out of the tub to avoid the awkward scene with his sister and his wife partially clothed.

I was naked, looking for underwear, when my sister-in-law popped her head up and said, “You know, Donna. I am amazed with all the walking and exercise you do, you still have so much cellulite on your butt.”

Marat’s ears perked up, and he realized no good could come of this. The tub was conveniently right next to the bathroom door, and he was facing the door, faucet down by his feet. He put the book down on the bathmat outside the tub. He s-l-o-w-l-y slunk down as low into the water as he could, and then s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d his left leg until he touched doorknob.

I heard a tap and then a slam! Mission accomplished. Marat had successfully barricaded himself from whatever was about to take place in the bedroom. This could get ugly.

Here’s the thing. I was pissed, and even though I remember the scene vividly many years later, sometimes my reactions in real time are almost stunted. I tell this story occasionally and everyone wants to know … what did you say? What did you say when she said you were packing a lot of cottage cheese for a so-called athlete?

I said, “I know. Go figure.”

And The Cellulite Wars were over. Marat was not murdered in the tub, but interestingly, he doesn’t take baths anymore. My sister-in-law and I went on to become good friends. She is a delightful person but still has no filter. I still walk and exercise, and I still have cellulite.

 

Bacon of the Month Club

During the first couple of months after I retired, my husband and I were driving each other nuts, what with me wanting him to eat healthier and live longer and then his raging indifference to my loving intentions. So, I thought, fine, you want to die, let’s get this show on the road, and I gave him “Bacon of the Month Club” for Christmas.

He would receive a monthly shipment of bacon for three months courtesy of Zingerman’s. I would have done the whole year, but that seemed too obvious.

I like bacon, but most of the time, I’m like, no thanks, I’ve already had cancer. Until delicious specialty pork products started arriving at the door, I wasn’t even tempted. But now there was pressure.

The first shipment was a pound of Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon from Wisconsin. The package included a keepsake binder with articles about bacon and the people who make it, “A Pocket Book of Bacon” and a pig magnet for the refrigerator.

Nueske’s was by far the best of the three we sampled. The article in the binder described it as the Platonic ideal of bacon, the one against which all other bacons are measured. And it’s true. I’m not good at describing the positive qualities of bacon after so many years of pig-shaming, other than to say Dale cooked it to perfection, and it was crispy, smoky and succulent.

At first I would only eat one piece, and I said we can never have this more than once a week. Then I said, oh, two pieces won’t kill me, but never, never more than once a week. And then I said, oh, what difference does it make if we eat it twice a week? We’re all going to die anyway.

In hindsight, I can see bacon helped us bond through a challenging transition in our lives. Whatever was going on – me in bed at night, worrying about what happens if the North Koreans bomb us and ruin my retirement and him worrying about me being awake worrying about North Korea.

But then it’s morning, the sun is glorious, the birds are chirping and wait, what is that other sound? Could it be the siren call of bacon?

One morning I took a picture of two simple slices of bacon on a plate and posted it on my Instagram account. I don’t get tons of Instagram traffic, but bacon is my most popular post to date. I look at the number every couple of weeks, and I report to Dale that bacon, of all my posts, is still in the lead. He laughs every time. The picture of me bald after chemotherapy is a heart-tugging second, but it’s not bacon.

We’re adjusting to our new lifestyle. I gave up pestering him about what he eats. Besides, he kind of came around on his own. Our membership in Bacon of the Month Club had expired, and one day he said, you know, that was fun, but we shouldn’t eat so much bacon.

I let him think it was his idea – a trick I learned at work.

A new opportunity to annoy your partner

Consider me the canary in the coal mine, dutifully sharing dispatches from the dark recesses of retirement so you can learn from my best practices and perhaps a mistake or two.

As for mistakes, it appears I’ve been annoying my husband.

A friend suggested it might happen with all this new-found togetherness. I said don’t be silly, we won’t be spending that much time together, because I will be playing golf. However, moving to a new home, performing my duties as House Elf, writing and a lack of cooperation on the weather’s part means I have not played as much golf as I had planned.

Instead, we’ve been holed up in the house passing notes to each other through the cat. The fundamental problem is he needs to be more like me, and I need to be more like him.

I’m a driver – sometimes known as a Type A. I like to keep things organized, and I like to get things done. Dale, on the other hand, is a wee bit sloppy and pleasantly laid back. I have, in a moment of weakness, called him lazy. He said lazy is such a harsh word. He likes to think of himself as differently motivated.

Normally we balance each other out, but it seems I’ve been using my bonus retirement hours to try and make him more like me. Well, why not? With my astute powers of observation, I’ve identified key shortcomings, and who doesn’t love a good list?

It was a healthy discussion.

  • He admitted to being lazy. I admitted to being possessed controlling.
  • I agreed not to criticize his driving. He agreed to park inside the lines.
  • He said he’d try and get more done. I said I was aroused by a guy with a few chores under his belt.
  • I conceded Vietnamese and Thai fish sauce are both tasty, but whoever is cooking gets to pick.
  • He is not required to eat oatmeal if he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.

We renewed our vow that we can’t afford to NOT love each other. In a deeply romantic moment, I believe I said, “Dance with the one who brung ya.”

Love morphs over 40 years, but it does not fly out the door in a matter of months. Retirement changes the dynamics, and we’ve learned it’s important to keep the lines of communication open now more than ever. We each owned up to our part in this drama, and I believe our ability to duke it out rationally is one reason we’ve lasted this long. That, and being soul mates.

If I had to do it over, I might suggest one retire in the spring, so one could have a long, warm period of adjustment. As for your trusty reporter, the weather is improving, and I have every confidence it will improve fast enough to get me out of the house before you find me strapped to a lie detector screaming, “Yes! It’s true! Almond milk is not real milk!”