Well, April Fool’s has come and gone – and I didn’t try to pull a prank on anyone (though Giti did try to pull one of her “lame” jokes on me). I was probably unusually serious because I was headed to my folk’s home in North Fort Myers Florida for a few days. And that’s all I can do: a few days – because just like Confucius (or some wise fisherman) said: Family like fish, begin to stink after 3 day…
And the folks and I tend to get straight into our philosophical arguments…while they don’t raise their voice to me like they used to when I was young – I have no qualms about raising my voice in their quiet, retirement community (with my father pushing 90 and my mother, 78 – I was definitely in an old folk’s home). And even though he is pushing 90, my father remains a staunch Republican and avowed racist (I tried to warn him that watching Fox News is bad for his mental health) – but he will take Obama bashing wherever and whenever he can find it.
Most other rightist, Obama bashers won’t acknowledge their racist feelings, but not so my father, who has always had trouble with his crass honesty. Like other brainwashed Foxies, my father believes that the American economy has been compromised by illegal aliens (mainly from Mexico). He’d like to see all 34 million of them (at least that’s the figure he gave me) rounded up and deported. When I suggest that recent incursions into the Middle East have cost the American tax payer at-least-as-much: he is nonplussed. When I suggest that making “them” legal and giving them “cards” (social security or green) will allow the government to tax them and keep track-of-them – he is not-swayed-one-iota from his vision of mass deportation.
But I shouldn’t expect more from the fellow who disciplined me old-school style, and then apologized for it when he was 60-something – but then forgot both the apology and the old-school disciplining sometime in his 80s. Hell! He even tells me that I am a lousy father to my boys and that he was a-way-better-father-to-me…and perhaps he is right…since I stay in touch with him and my boys only call me when they need something.
My mother also believes she was a superior parent for me and my siblings. To which I respond: “How can my psychology major and teaching experience mean so little?” I mean, how did my mother get it so right with her children and I got it so wrong? Because she wants to go to her grave thinking that she was a phenomenal mother (and she was a VERY good mother) — and because my siblings and I have discussed the matter ad nauseam — I want Mom going to her grave believing that she was the best possible parent; even though I pardoned both parents: telling them that we all do the best we can with what we know.
And speaking of pardons or forgiveness or whatever, my mother still believes that Jesus is the son of God and is her savior. Oh my. I try to logic her out of this one – but Christians are like Foxies – once brainwashed, always brainwashed…I often wonder if the Foxies borrowed from Christian brainwashing techniques to get their mission completed doubly well!
Ah well…at least I can visit the old folk’s home without having anymore anxiety attacks and feelings of low self worth. Is it because I am now a senior citizen and Grandpa by proxy?! So wherever I go I’m an old age home?