Father And Son

[poliphilo]

I find I'm thinking a lot about my father. Nothing deep, just picturing him, cap on head, as he was at weekends, Doing the things I'm now beginning to do- like digging and edging and pruning. It's how he spent so much of his free time.

I suppose that- like most of his generation- he came out of the war thinking, "That's enough excitement for one lifetime." It helps explains why the 1950s were so dull and drab- and why when the postwar generations started thinking, "Hey a little excitement would actually be rather nice," he and his lot opposed us so resolutely.

So, he'd be out in the garden, doing careful, peaceful things- and I'd be up in my bedroom- keeping out of his way- reading something like The Three Musketeers or Beau Geste or Alan Quartermain.

Have I had excitement in my life? Oh, yes. Plenty, thank you. But, unlike my father, who got more than he probably wanted in a brief four-year period, I've spread mine out over the decades...

Comments

[oakmouse]

I think you're right about the excitement issue. I remember a conversation between my dad, who was a Marine in WWII, and my great-uncle Charlie, who was in the Navy in WWI, about coming home to a postwar life. Charlie said something along the lines of "You just want life to be peaceful after that." Dad nodded and said something along the lines of "Right. And normal."

[poliphilo]

My father rarely talked about the War- and that was typical I think. Most of the people who'd been in it just wanted to put it behind them and get on with their lives.

[oakmouse]

*nods* None of the vets I knew from WWI or WWII ever talked much about it. Dad would get going on silly stories from the base in Hawaii where he was stationed, but it was stuff like the pranks the guys used to play on one another, never anything about the war itself. He never saw combat himself --- he ended up being a radio operator --- but he lost a bunch of friends; he was one of only two guys in his training unit who survived the war. Charlie just never talked about it; he'd change the subject to his pre-war hitch in the merchant marine instead.