What'll It Be?

 How much do early childhood experiences shape the adults we later become?
You tell me:

     Bob’s dad was in a band while he was growing up.  He played the drums.  From what I was told, the band members never quit their day jobs, but got together most weekends and sometimes during the week to jam.  Bob grew up living and breathing all the things I knew nothing about:  smoking, drinking, drugs, parties, loud music, and fights.  Most of the fights were just casual disagreements between band members- artistic vision, maybe.  Too many times it was his dad shoving his mom down when she said he’d had quite enough to drink already and no, she wasn’t going on a beer run.

            Bob told me this as we lay in bed in the middle of the night, with the moonlight streaming through the window.  We shared all our stories on that mattress on the floor, my head on his chest and my long blonde hair covering him like a sheet practically to the waist.  Sometimes we held hands.  When he asked me about my childhood, there wasn’t a whole lot to tell.  Not a lot had happened, really.  So I talked about being made to go to church and how I didn’t like it.  I talked about my much older sisters and how I was practically an only child since they’d all moved out by the time I was old enough to remember.  And I talked about my parents, especially my dad.  I was nothing, if not a daddy’s girl.  He was the best man I knew.  He was kind and smart.  He was quiet, but funny.  His blue eyes sparkled as he made me fried bologna sandwiches and salmon patties when mom wasn’t around to complain about the smell.  He was the one that made me a reader.  He took me to the library every week.  He bought me two books every payday.  He talked to me for hours on end out in the garage, while I handed him tools or just kept him company.

One rainy Saturday afternoon when I was about eight, Dad took me to the store and bought me a set of watercolor paints.  For the rest of the day, he sat with me at the kitchen table, making of all things… Kleenex butterflies.  We spread out newspaper, made a grand mess, and basically drove my mom nuts.  Once they’d all dried, I must have had 20 butterflies made of Kleenex with cardboard bodies and little antennae.  Each had its own colors and unique pattern.  They were made out of Kleenex, so they were very fragile, and had to be handled with the utmost care.  He showed me how if you picked them up just right, moving them up and down gently, they appeared to flutter their wings.  Dad suggested I stack them carefully in my wooden jewelry box and put them back each time I was finished.  I played with those things, and added to my collection for weeks on end.  He was just as delighted as I was with each new addition.   As long as I live, I will never forget that time with my dad.

            I asked Bob what he remembered best about his dad when he was little.  He gave a dry little chuckle, shook his head, and said, “Not butterflies.”  He told me what he remembered best was his dad teaching him to mix drinks.  His dad took him aside and showed him how to measure a finger of whiskey, how it mix it with whatever was on hand, and how to carry it carefully so he wouldn’t spill a drop.  Bob said he could remember how important it made him feel.  He felt like a grown up because he was in charge of the grown up drinks.  They got drinks measured in fingers, while he only got regular old milk or maybe apple juice.  And that just got poured straight into his Flintstone cup.  Nobody measured it.  Most of all, he remembered making his dad happy when he brought him one of those drinks.  His dad smiled and laughed, even rumpled his hair, and told all his friends, “I’m training him up right, this one.”  Bob was so proud he could bust. 

 He was five.  Five.