I grew up with “June is busting out all over” and now I live with “June gloom.” It used to be said that East Coast life was interesting and in California
My father was a beer truck driver, work was something you had to do but didn't like. Until the day he died, he never understood my work; he would ask, "You mean people pay you just for listening to them?" He thought it was astonishing that I didn't have to "work" for a living. I still hear his voice in my head, the voice of common sense, the voice of “street” with a quip, a put down, a joke. I remember feeling guilty the first time a client gave me a check after a therapy session.
Growing up in the 50's I actually believed that there were families like “Father Knows Best” where the kids had nicknames like “Kitten, Princess and Bud.” When I asked my dad, if we could have nicknames, he said sure, ”you be “Stop it Stupid” and your brother can be “Stupid Stop It”. He used humor to trivialize my ideas because he really did believe that father always knew best. There was no difference between his opinion and fact. I spent a good part of my life trying to get the validation I never got from him. (By the way, who doesn’t spend their lives looking for something they think is missing?) One of the gifts of age is now I want to be known rather than validated. Of course, now we also know that “Father” was an alcoholic and Bud was on drugs, in fact, I think we get too much reality now.
Albert Einstein once commented that the most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile. He hypothesized that your answer to that question would determine your destiny. Sadly, my father grew up with a Depression, a war and antisemitism. He saw a world that was filled with challenges rather than blessings. He was a cross between George Burns and Archie Bunker, but said he wasn’t prejudiced because everyone pissed him off equally. When I offered the idealistic world wise view of a college student that’s when he would tell me that I got “A’s in school and flunked street.” Now over forty years later I no longer flunk “street” my thoughts just create a nicer neighborhood.
I am a recovering hostile personality - I stand in the express checkout
line counting the items in the baskets of others, as if God has anointed me to make sure that they follow the rules. I take a deep breath and realize it’s wasn’t God that anointed me it was my Dad. When I was growing up there was no difference. I adored him then and now I can see and love the man - Picasso was asked if Van Gogh was his favorite because he was the best he said “he wasn’t always the best but he was always Van Gogh. “ My Dad wasn’t always the best but he was always Sidney
