YOLO

“You Only Live Once” seems to be Tio’s new creed. He’s been using the concept as an excuse to do
whatever he wanted thi summer without compunction. His friends would say “YOLO” and he’d leave the skate park, he’d jump off a bridge into what could be shallow water, he’d surf the web for forbidden fruit. What he really lacked is impulse control and YOLO was his excuse to run free.

The concept of living for the moment is a tough one for a kid to understand. The moment is so immediate when you are 13. It can start as skipping classes or defying your parents and lead to reckless, dangerous or even criminal behavior. He doesn’t that living for that kind of moment can lead to paying heavily for it later on.

He asked me if I’d ever lived for the moment. I told him about a couple of brushes with death I’d had that would make surviving cancer seem like a safe bet: experiences in small aircraft and on a motorcycle. But they were hazards I met with experience and squeaked through because I had control of what I was doing, not because I was being reckless or courting trouble. I take risks but I don’t gamble. There’s a big difference and it’s hard to explain, especially to someone who is dying to take a gamble.

The boredom of youth yearning for adventure in a hyped up world where every sales pitch and movie screams of excitement is a hard one to rein in on a kid without impulse control. He’s the perfect subject to sell soda pop and expensive fashions and high tech crap to with promises of excitement and danger which makes it harder to sell him on patience and long term thinking.

The thing about only living once is true. But life is a long adventure and burning out in your teen years will be no way to spend your 30's and 40's and 50's and........

September 9 is Grandparents Day - mark your calendar!

I've been asked by Generations United to help promote Grandparents Day on September 9th. Hey, I'm down with that! Are they giving us a parade? Do I get prezzies? Will my grandsons make me breakfast in bed? No such luck. It's more of a "let's get intergenerational activities going" kind of promotion. 

That's all well and good and everything. In fact, I encourage people to get involved in promoting and understanding multigenerational families. Were are making up a strong segment of the population and growing. Tough economics are bringing this kind of family together as a matter of necessity. We all work hard at our jobs and at home to make it work. I'm not sure I have the energy to go out and promote how wonderful it is to have the little ones underfoot all day long. But there are many other kinds of relationships between the old and the small that need and can use our encouragement.

Understanding the circumstances that bring families together, helping families get along better, connecting generations and celebrating multigenerational understanding are all worthy causes. So please go to the Grandparents Day website and see what they have to offer. We can all use your support and understanding. There's lots of info and ideas on the site.

Have a great Grandparents Day on Sept 9.

Tio's Summer Project

After working on researching and taking notes and figuring out how to Google all summer, Tio did a complete paper on none other than (wait for it)...the flute. He started with no info or interest and wrote this with no hints. I think he's ready for the next year in school.
I'm a proud grampy so I'm posting it for anyone interested.
*****

The Modern Flute.

The flute has gone through many innovations over centuries. The first great innovation of the modern flute was by Theobald Boehm. What Boehm wanted to do was to make the flute louder and more accessible to the flute player. He designed a flute where you could press keys to change notes and these flutes were usually made of different metals, this meant that you could play faster and more clearer along with his success of making the flute louder and more accessible to the player . He studied acoustics with Carl Von Scafhautl  at the University of Munich after doing his part in innovations to the flute and trying to improve the steel industry in Bavaria. The player that embraced the Boehm flute innovations was Emil Prill. Prill started a school that taught the Boehm flute, etudes, transcriptions and a guide to flute literature.

          Louis Lot was the next innovator of the flute, but he made the Boehm flute better. He made the body of the flute tube thicker, enlarged the toneholes and made a bigger, more square embouchure. Lot also was the official supplier of Boehm flutes to the Paris Conservatoire on Louis Dorus's appointment as a flute professor in 1860. He also made the first gold flute in 1869. The players that embraced these innovations were Adolphe Hennebains, Marcel Moyse, Joseph Rampal and his son, Jean-Pierre Rampal. Adolph taught Moyse and Joseph Rampal about these innovations in the Boehm school of flutes. Marcel Moyse played the flute with the innovations added. Moyse was the first flutist in leading French orchestras.  The Knight of the Legion of Honours were his students, Trevor Wye, Aitken, Bennett, Debost, Graf, Jaunet and Nicolet. Joseph Rampal restored the only gold flute that was made by Louis Lot himself. Jean-Pierre Rampal went on worldwide concerts and Poulenc and Jolivet dedicated their work to him. There is also a flute competition in Paris dedicated to him.

         Then the American flute industry started with William and George Haynes and Verne Powell. The Haynes brothers started the first American flute company, Verne Powell worked for them.  They established the silver Lot-pattern flute. When Haynes started mass producing flutes, Verne Powell left the Haynes flute company. He started his own flute company in Massachusetts as well. His flutes became very popular because every flute he made was handmade and custom.

The most recent important innovation to the flute was made by Albert Cooper. He cut the embouchure hole to change the timbre of the flute. He also developed a new note scale for the flute and is used universally today. A flute competition was also dedicated to him.

Thank you, Auntie

All summer long, we've been working on trust issues with Tio. He has a hard time doing what he's told when it doesn't suit him and it was my hope that he'd see the virtue in cooperation by the time school started so we could trust him to go places on his own. In that, Grammo bought him a very expensive scooter with the promise that he stay put at the local skate park when he goes there every afternoon.

We've had mixed results. He's been cooperating up to a point but still isn't 100% reliable (as if there is such a thing as a little bit honest). But yesterday we learned that "Auntie" (Debbie's sister) has been aiding him in being devious and lying to us. She showed up at the skate park and drove him to a different park in another town and then returned him before we picked him up so no one would be the wiser. She knew he wasn't supposed to leave and he knew he wasn't supposed to leave. Setting aside the fact that she shouldn't be driving him anywhere, what kind of lesson is she trying to teach the kid? That it's okay to deceive your parents as long as they don't find out? That it's okay to make a promise with someone and then renege on it if it isn't convenient?

Way to go, Auntie. With adults giving life lessons like this to the kids, we don't need to worry about them learning bad behavior from each other.

Buddy's new toy

There's a Porsche in our driveway. How rarefied is that? Well...not really. It's a 1981 928 model that Buddy traded some automotive stereo equipment for. If you like cars it's a diamond in the rough, an unpolished gem, a work in progress. If you aren't a car buff it's a couple of tons of scrap metal taking up valuable real estate. I guess I'm kind of in the middle on this. I can see the light in Buddy's eyes, the plans and dreams of making something of  value from this working, yet needy, piece of - I mean, slice of sports car history.

As we stood admiring it together,while the boys crawled all over it, I couldn't help but harken back many years to Buddy's 16th year. He'd been learning body work in auto class and I had the bright idea of buying him a junk car that he could play around with and learn about cars. For a couple hundred bucks we pushed an old and not so mobile Volkswagen Beetle into the back of the garage, hung some cheesecake girlie pictures on the wall along with a few tools and called it his office.

There she sat, Gozer, as she affectionately came to be known, for the next 3 years (or was it 5, or a hundred?) without so much as a fresh sandpaper mark on her dented rusty brown rump. The most use she got was bearing Buddy's weight in the front seat when he went out for a smoke or to listen to the radio. I don't think he even took the crap off the back seat by the time we finally had it hauled away.

So here we are again, figuring out how to fit the new Gozer the Gozerian into the garage. This one actually drives, will pass inspection and, to be fair, has some real value - in parts if nothing else. But if any of that will be realized remains to be seen. Over the ensuing years our driveway has been host to a number of Buddy's used cars. Some were sold, others traded. Sooner or later they all went. But this one strikes me as different. Maybe it's the twinkle in his eye at having a Porsche. Maybe it's the fact that it will run (at least for now) without needing a thousand dollars burned in sacrifice of her clutch or brakes or rotator cuff.

Yup, we may be sharing a berth with this baby for a long while. I guess everyone needs a hobby.

A couple of observations

Whenever I take Tio anywhere to pick up a friend (a guy), he sits in the front with his friend in the back. Then he calls over his shoulder, “Dude, did you see this...” or “Dude, wasn’t that sick...” and so forth. When Kit picks up a friend (a girl), he sits in the back with her and they talk head to head. Not sure what that’s all about but it’s interesting.

I’ve been working on Doc these past couple of days to do better with Dad “or else”. Tish and I went out for supper tonight which meant Buddy was putting Doc to bed. It was 50/50 on whether he’s make trouble. When we got home Doc had been in bed but was up taking a pee. He walked past the bathroom door on his way back to bed and gave me 2 thumbs up. We shared a hug and off he went. What relief.

I set Tio at studying flutes and flutemaking for his last summer project and he fussed and fudged for a couple of days. Finally, yesterday I said, “This may not make any difference to a 13 year old but you take absolutely no interest in anything I do. In fact you walk out of the room if it bores you yet you expect me to take an active interest in absolutely every little thing you do. You EXPECT it. You may want to start thinking about a world outside of your own self involvement. You don’t have to like what I do but maybe you should take an interest in something outside your limited scope.” This morning when I got up he was finishing writing the flute paper. He’d put thought into it and was inquisitive about some of the details. It’s the best thing he’s written all summer.

The joys of a summer morning

Woof, woof, arf, arf from 6:30 to 7:30 this morning. The puppy playing with Maddie in the kitchen. No sleep there. By 8 Tish was off to work with both dogs in tow. A bit of quiet.

Not a chance.

"Noooooooooo! Stop iiiiiiiiiiit!" Doc screamed. 
"Leave me alooooooooooooone!" Kit yelled back.
And so it went from 8 until after 9 when Buddy packed them off to the last day of day camp.

That was that. No sleep for the weary. I got up. The house was quiet and I sat down with my coffee and New York Times online. That's when Tio tromped upstairs making all sorts of mouth noises and rapping like a bad radio DJ. I'm going to have to wait until 2019 before I get another quiet morning. Even then, the dogs aren't going anywhere.

Maybe Tish's idea of building a tiny cabin on the back lot isn't such a crazy one after all.

Sometimes, one day at a time isn't slow enough

I'm at the pub on my day off. I had a great fencing lesson this afternoon and feeling pretty good. My phone went off with a text message. It was Buddy saying that Doc threw another fit at bedtime.

I guess we still have a long way to go.

Talking is better than fighting

Doc came home on Sunday night from a weekend visiting his mom and cousins in a ripe mood. He flew into a tantrum like a 2 year old for his dad at bedtime and didn’t come down from the cloud for quite some time. I chalked it up to a change in environment and missing his mom after a good visit.

Last night, I agreed to let him stay up until Dad got home if he agreed to be nice and go to bed without a fuss. We had a deal. Alas, at bedtime he went into another roaring rage over nothing. It took my best effort to bring him down and get him quiet.

Tonight I took him aside to see if I could get him to talk. Not easy with a barely 7 year old. Usually, when asked something important, he just shrugs. But there is something under his skin about Buddy that I’d love to get to and help heal.

“You let me down because we agreed that if you stayed up late, you’d behave,” I said. “Now you’ll have to go to bed early.” He looked disappointed. “However, if you can help me understand how you are feeling or what makes you get so mad, then I’ll let you stay up later.”

He shrugged. No surprise. I went on to explain it in 7 year old’s terms, the upshot being that if he could give me anything, he could stay up. He shrugged some more and we headed for supper. But at bedtime on our way down the stairs, he had something to say. It wasn’t much, it was hardly helpful, but it was an opening. A willingness to communicate rather than be stubborn. It was an important moment and I rewarded him well for it.

It can be hard getting kids to start talking. As Humphrey Bogart said so aptly at the end of Casablanca, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

A lesson in spoilage

For a while, whenever Tio felt he wasn’t getting what he wanted, he’d say, “When I have kids, I’m going to spoil them rotten. I’ll let them have whatever they want.”

“Good for you,” I always reply. “You’ll get you deserve because they’ll hate you for it.”

“Why would they hate me if I give them what they want?”

“Because it’s human nature. If you give them everything, what do they need you for? They don’t need to like, respect, or care less about you. And they won’t.”

“Not my kids,” he’d insist.

The boys were away this past weekend visiting their aunt, uncle and 2 cousins in another part of the state. I don’t personally know the family at all except to have met the parents a few times over the years.

When they came home, Tio came into my shop and said to me, “I change my mind. I don’t want to spoil my kids anymore.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“My cousins are spoiled sick and they treat their parents like crap. You wouldn’t believe how they talk to them!” He was really upset. “They call them names, swear at them and they have everything in the world.”

“It’s human nature,” I repeated. “Moderation is a learned trait. Kids don’t understand it and need limits. Spoiling them is the worst thing you can do.”

“I see that now.” This morning he got up, did his chores first thing, asked about his studies before he asked about going out. I guess something woke him up to the balance in his life.

What's so bad about a boy who wants to wear a dress?

I read a magazine article today in the New York Times about transgendered boys.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/magazine/whats-so-bad-about-a-boy-who-wants-to-wear-a-dress.html?pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210_20120812

There were stats and anecdotes from parents raising what they called "pink boys". Most of it fit Kit to a tee. How many parents handled it was different, and a lot of the boys referred to grew out of the behavior before they reached puberty. No one said if they were homosexual as adults or not (The stats said 80 to 90% were gay - but not including the group that stopped dressing up). It was interesting, and informative in letting us know we're not alone, but didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know. One curious fact that I hadn't really thought of was that young girls 'cross dressing' and behaving like boys is much more acceptable and always has been. Tomboys have always been a part of society and those girls are allowed to express themselves much more freely. The reasons they gave for this were interesting, if a bit murky, but the subject of a different blog.

What was more interesting were the online readers responses to the article that went on for so long I finally gave up reading. They went everywhere from "I wept, the article was so good" to "if we don't make the kids conform and society continues down this path our future Chinese overlords won't be so accepting". The biggest thrust of the readers was compassion on the one hand from people who were involved or those who could empathize, to bigoted dismissal from those who had never witnessed it. Some consider it bad parenting to let a child dress up like girls. Some blamed the environment (DDT and pesticides) as if this hasn't been going on for thousands of years, some felt overbearing and protective mothers share the blame, the media took some heat, along with any other excuse like calling it a birth defect rather than acknowledge that it simply exists and always has.

A big sticking point seemed to be whether boys should be allowed to go to school in girl's attire. We deal with that every day with Kit. We draw the line on it being a distraction to other kids and the learning experience, not because it doesn't conform. To read some of these comments you'd think parents are destroying the human race with their promiscuity. What gets me most is the absolute ignorance with which some people will cast an opinion. Of course that's the case with most subjects, but it's clear that those who have no experience with this (or tolerance of differences) shout the loudest about how dangerously misguided it is not to force these boys to be "boys". As though Kit ever had a choice. None of them do. Who wakes up at the age of 3 and says to themselves "I think I'll start behaving like the sister I don't have"? But when you don't see it with your own eyes, it can be very tough to comprehend.

The striking thing about these comments wasn't really that little boys wanted to dress like girls. Very few comments said that in itself was wrong. 'It's a phase', 'everyone experiments', 'clothes don't have a gender‘, they said. But when they want to go to school or out in public it's a different issue. Now they're abnormal, the parents are weak, they're disruptive, etc.. So, to sum up - there's no problem with boys having cross gender issues, we just don't want the neighbors to know about it.

Transgender issues are about 1 percent of the population. As far as I can tell in this town, Kit is the only one exhibiting them. If these comments reflect a cross section of public opinion - we are in for a very bumpy ride. Good thing we're in it together and he doesn't have to stand alone.

The American Dream

All this summer I’ve been working with Tio on his studying. It’s been okay for the most part. He’s been cooperative, if not enthusiastic (who can blame him) and done what was asked. We’ve covered topics like inventions, rap & jazz music, differences between the sexes and whatever I could dream up for about an hour a day.

Last week we were working on what it takes to succeed in college, and what it might take to get into a good college. I’m working hard to get him to understand how important it will be to do the best when he gets to high school. So we’ve been reverse engineering from a good career, backwards to what to study in college, to what it takes to get to the college he wants. I think it’s finally sinking in that the next few years are not going to be a breeze if he really wants to get a job and career that will pay.

When we talked about people who got ahead without college, Bill Gates and a few other entrepreneurs came up. Exceptions, I said, not the norm. You need an original idea, original plan, and some serious talent to be the exception.

“What about flutemaking?” he asked. “You’ve always gone your own way with success. I could learn to make flutes and take over your business.”

Flattering as it would be to consider the possibility, I had to pour water on the idea. “First, my company is me and me alone. People buy what I do because I do it, not someone else. Second,” and this was the real pill that I have to accept, “American flutemaking is a dying industry. All the mass manufacturing has folded and the handmade companies are moving their production overseas. They make their signature instrument here and the rest in China. In the next generation, there will be no American made flutes. You’d have to learn the trade, establish a small plant with a few employees and then go to China to build a factory. That’s where the money is.”

I would love nothing better than to have someone in the family learn my trade and carry it on. But that’s not the world we live in anymore. Flutes, like every other manufacturing industry, go where the jobs are cheap so the product can be less expensive. Even if you just get your parts and basic assembly done elsewhere, it’s essential to keeping costs down.  My overhead is low because I work alone - but I can never really grow. A choice I made many years ago, but not a choice an ambitious young man starting out wants to make.

It really illustrates how much tougher it will be for Tio and his brothers to find their way. It’s a global world wrapped in a local market. The competition for American jobs is fierce and getting fiercer. The choices he starts making soon are going to narrow the choices he has later.

I tell ya. The American dream isn’t out there waiting to get plucked. You gotta want it bad.

The hunger to be right

After I wrote yesterday's post, things didn't go according to the plan I described. We got home from the skate park and Doc had a headache. It turned out he didn't eat his lunch and his stomach was empty as a balloon. I had the fixin's for subs and figured we'd solve everyone's problems with an early supper. Not so easy. For some reason Doc decided that he wasn't hungry.

Suddenly, I was stuck with a connundrum. The kid is queasy with lack of food and he won't eat.  Now, most kids will accept the idea that filling their tummies will make them feel better. But Doc is no ordinary kid. He's more stubborn than an oak plank.

This turned it into a whole other issue: I'm not going to eat because I've been told to. Now, when Doc gets like this, he can last longer than most teenagers. Once last year, at the age of 5, he stood in the middle of the room, where I told him to stay, for two hours refusing to admit he was wrong about something. So now, instead of resolving a gut ache and moving on we were in a battle of wills.

I couldn't just send him off because his hunger was giving him trouble. Besides that, giving in to a kid this stubborn is a huge mistake. Not a precedent I want to set. There he sat for an hour, refusing to eat a thin sandwich. He moped, cried, whined and shifted but wouldn't bite. I made it look like I could care less so he didn't think he was getting to me. The truth is, besides how pathetic it was, it was sad to watch him be so self destructive.

I explained why he needed to eat and, like flu medicine, you have to take it to get better. He acknowledged that he was just being stubborn but still wouldn't eat, all the while whimpering about his gut ache. He finally swallowed most of it, went downstairs and took a nap. When he came up an hour later, he was feeling fine and wondered if there was any dessert.

This boy is going to be a handful.

Meet the new normal. Same as the old normal.

I went for a big family grocery shop yesterday for the first time since last December. It felt good meandering up and down all the aisles thinking about what we needed, getting the boys new toothbrushes, and buying ice cream and potatoes. It felt really good. As though I was walking for the first time after an accident. Wierd.

I've gone back to work late nights down in my shop pounding and shaping silver into art. I love silver. I love its feel and look and how it forms and shares the light. It's been part of my life for so long that I miss it when I can't work. My fingers haven't been this dirty in months!

Right now, I'm at the skate park watching the boys ride and play, another normal that I missed. Tio's showing Doc some tricks on the new scooter he got for his birthday. And so goes a summer afternoon.

I have a supper planned. Tish will get home soon and the evening will stroll in. I'll read Doc a bedtime story while Kit settles down to computer time, Tio plays video games and Bud drives in from work. The dogs will bark as though they'd never seen this before.

This is as it should be. Nothing profound. Not really mundane, either, even though it is the height of ordinary. Amid the bickering, the meals, the mutual enjoyment are lives led and lives shared. Times and history that will be remembered as pivotal through this next century by all of us.

A child's vs. adult perspective

For those of you who don't know, my profession is a flutemaker. I've been making professional silver and gold flutes since I was 17 years old. That's 37 years now but who counts, right? Okay, now you know.

A couple of nights ago, Tio played a YouTube video of "beatbox" music for me where one guy uses his mouth and vocal chords to imitate percussion and horns and whathaveyou to make a mishmash of sounds. It was interesting and it took a fair amount of talent and practice to accomplish it. I said so and added, "But it seems kind of pointless."
"Yeah, well flutes are pointless, too," Tio retorted.
"You might think that," I replied.

That's when Buddy jumped in. He was making supper for the boys while we were doing all this. "Flutes are not useless!" he said emphatically. "Flutes put food on this table. Flutes put a roof over your head. Flutes put me through school and allowed my parents to stay home so I could come home from school for lunch. While other kids were eating bagged lunch and coming home to an empty house after school, I had someone there to make something special and say hi when I got home. Flutes make it possible for you to live here."

Way to go, Buddy! I sure didn't expect that. Neither did Tio. I don't think kids really do realize the connection between their well being and their parent's work. Buddy said more but the gist was clear and it hit home how strongly he realized that his world was always connected to mine, even when we were at a distance.

Sometimes I've wished that one of the kids might take an interest in flutemaking and the art I create but I don't see it happening. Buddy and Sugar didn't and these boys don't even ask about the stuff that goes on in my shop, even when they're standing there.

Tit for Tat

Sometimes I wonder if it's better to let the boys fight or to break it up and help them get along. I don't mean fist fight, I mean verbal abuse and taking advantage of each other.

This afternoon both Kit and Doc exhibited their own version of meanness towards each other. I don't suppose it matters what it was over because it's always something. I could hear them way up the street screaming at each other. I didn't stop them but had to straighten the mess out when they got home. It's always over something stupid and could easily be avoided if they...if they...if they only...

The thing is, I think they could actually be friends. There are times when they get along, even play together. But not this summer. I suppose when I don't hear about it, I should ignore it. But they don't keep it to themselves. They always rat each other out, somehow imagining that they were innocent in the fracas. As if.

I understand losing tempers and feeling like things are unfair. I get it when someone is teasing and pushing your buttons. But these guys get downright nasty just to watch the other dangle and sometimes deserve to have it come back on them.

Maybe I just have to live through it the same way they do - one day to the next. 

Dude

When Tio is at home he speaks like most other ordinary people. But when he’s with a friend, it’s a whole different trip. Yesterday, I picked him and a buddy up from the skate park in the Jeep.

“Dude, did you see the bry double flip I did?”
“Dude, that was a triple tail whip.”
“Dude, nuh huh.”
“Dude, uh huh.”
“Dude, nuh huh.”
“Dude, uh huh.
“Dude, it was a sketchy bry.”
“Dude, sick.”

Maybe we should update our literature so they can understand it better.
“Dude, what big ears you have.”
“Dude, the better to hear you with.”
“Dude, what big eyes you have.”
“Dude, the better to see you.”
“Dude, what big teeth you have.”
“Dude, the better to eat you!”
“Dude!”

Serendipity of a lifetime

I moved to the USA thirty-three years ago last month and landed here on a Friday afternoon with nothing but a suitcase and a job waiting for me on Monday morning. I didn’t know a soul and had fifty bucks in my pocket. I thought I had a place to stay but I was wrong so my cash was spent that first night on a motel. With the classifieds in my hand I went in search of a rooming house. At the first place I stopped I met a woman raising her daughters and renting out the rooms her sons had vacated for - one off to college and the other the armed services. I moved in that night.

Those people have been my American family for 33 years now. We’ve all grown so much older and there are lots of children in the mix now. Every summer they rent a summer house near here so that all the cousins and siblings can get together from across the country.

It’s a great opportunity for our boys to get to know everyone. We went over there several times this week to swim and mingle as we have done a couple of other summers as well. Their kids are similar ages ranging from 7 to 16 and it as close to cousins as they have on our side of the family.

When I think back to the summer of ‘79 when I left Canada, barely 21 and totally alone, it was an adventure I didn’t think would last 2 years let alone a lifetime. But here it is a million years later and another generation is growing up friends.

Hiring Gramma to be your nanny

Today we're going to take a field trip to another blog. I received this link from Sandra McAubre at hireananny.com and thought it would be an interesting diversion. It doesn't address the "live in grampy/nanny" situation, but she makes some good points to think about. So click on over and check it out.

 “10 Things to Consider Before Hiring the Kids Grandmother as Their Nanny” (http://www.hireananny.com/blog/10-things-to-consider-before-hiring-the-kids-grandmother-as-their-nanny/).