This is an “Uh Dad” sequel of sorts. Not the same story, just another one that came to mind.

Phones still rang in those days. No caller ID either. Mid-afternoon, some fall weekend, mid-to-late ’80s. This one’s earlier than the last “Uh, Dad.” Jim was in college, his brother Jeffrey a few years behind him, still in high school.

Phone rang. I answered. “Hello.”

“Uh, Dad—”

Oh s—. Here we go again.

“Uh, Dad. I had a little accident in the car. I’m ok, but I did some damage to the bottom. Jeffrey’s with me. We’re ok, but I need you to come get me. Oh yeah, police are here, and I got a ticket.” (Not sure about that part.)

It was raining. Streets were wet. He’d had to make a turn, going a little too fast for the conditions, and ran the car right over the median.  The car was no longer drivable.

Here’s what I thought. Self-censored a bit. What!! You little #%¥£~%^£. That’s my car. How could you be so careless?

But what I said was, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Ain’t I cool?

Luckily, the twenty-five-minute drive gave me time to calm down.

When I arrived on scene, I saw the mess. And I saw them. The fear in their eyes, and the great news that they were sort of ok, brought the parent instinct right to the front. Their recollection may differ, but I believe I became comforter-in-chief. Rather than chief punisher.

Now, this is what they told me. Can’t remember who said exactly what.  They were both talking, nervously, of course. Jim had been picking Jeffrey up from football practice, bringing him home. Jeffrey still had his uniform on, helmet in his lap.

I asked how the windshield got cracked.

They told me Jeffrey had his seat belt on, helmet in his lap, and when the car hit the island and the bottom scraped, the impact threw the helmet up into the windshield. No visible injury on Jeffrey, so I believed it.

Wrong.

About forty-five years later, Jeffrey told me that was BS. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt. It wasn’t the helmet that cracked that windshield. It was his head.

Can you imagine the “what ifs” of that situation? Scares the hell outta me to think about it. So I won’t.

I dunno the statute of limitations on lying to your old man, but I wasn’t ready to prosecute… then or now.

Rightly or wrongly, it’s all part of parenthood.

How lucky and blessed we were, as parents. Our kids grew up safely and strongly. All three of ’em wonderful adults and parents themselves now, raising great kids of their own, with all the challenges that go along with that particular journey.

We must’ve done something right.

Enuf.

P.S. I’ve got several other “Uh, Dad” stories I could share, involving Christine or Jeffrey. But this one Jim asked for himself. Now that’s enuf.

A note before we start. This one’s a little different.

Jim, my editor/son, gave me some sage advice about my blog posts. He says he, among others, would like to hear what I thought about events, rather than just reporting on events.

Not sure I can do that, but I’ll give it a shot. I won’t be digging into anybody else’s business here.  It’s theirs to tell, not mine. But my own reaction, in the middle of somebody else’s crisis, that’s fair game. And Jim tells me that might be worth knowing, someday, for the grandkids and great-grandkids. What was going on in the old man’s head.

One quiet evening, for Marjorie and me at Scott AFB, our solace was disturbed by a ringing phone.

I answered it. “Hello.”

It was Jim. His response was a bit hesitant.  “Uh Dad.”

That’s a dreaded preface. Some bad news is coming, and I gotta react to it right, because a bad verbal reaction to a crisis could damage our relationship. I’ve gotten that call more than once over the years. This is one of ’em.

So I thought, “Oh s—. Here goes.” 

“Dad, can you come to the Mascoutah jail and bring $200 in cash to bail me out. I got arrested.”

What I thought but did not say was, “You gotta be f—–g kidding me. Arrested? Never.”

What I said was, “Can I use a credit or debit card?” Again thinking but not saying, “Who the hell has $200 in cash in his wallet?”

He answered, tremble in his voice, “No, it’s gotta be cash or I’ll have to spend the weekend in an East St Louis jail.”

If you know anything about the East St Louis crime situation, you don’t want your 19-year-old son to spend a weekend in that jail.

I answered as any decent dad would. “I’ll be there within the hour.” It was about 30 minutes away, but I had a problem. This was the mid 80’s. No ATMs! Where to get $200?

I became a thief.

At the office we had just had a bake sale to raise money for a Christmas party next month, for our department’s kids. There was about $300 in cash in our possession. I was the boss, you see.

I became a freakin’ embezzler for about 18 hours until I could get to the bank the next day.

Yes. I fleetingly thought, and may have voiced it to my wife, that maybe we oughta let him go to jail for a weekend to learn a lesson. Mayberry RFD, maybe. East St Louis. Never. I woulda borrowed from every Air Force friend I had to keep that from happening.

So, I drove to the Mascoutah jail with $200. Walked in and saw how scared my son was. And also noticed his busted lip and bruises.

Fact was, he was charged with underage drinking. Now, if you don’t think 19-year-old college kids drink beer, I got a bridge to sell ya. The police officer told me that rarely do they go after underage drinking on its own. It’s usually connected with some activity that attracts their attention. In this case, a fight.

My lucky Scooler son was trying to verbally break up the fight. He opened his car window to ask them to stop and was punched in the face.  Apparently, he also got out of the car to do more bruising of the perps knuckles with his face

Yay.

Bottom line. It turned out ok. I bailed him out. Paid some court fees and the charges were dropped.

It was a valuable lesson for a young man and for his dad. I had never actually been in a small-town jailhouse before.

I think my son also knows his dad will pull out all the stops to defend him, as required. Actions speak louder than words, but the wrong words at the wrong time can do irreparable damage.

Enuf.

Why am I sitting on the grass near the driveway of our rented beach house?

Why is my leg partially, and dangerously, under my grandson’s pickup truck?

Why is he looking for me, like he can’t see me? Why is he not hearing me when I’m shouting, “Don’t move the truck!!!”

Luckily, he didn’t back up over me.

The last time I fell on my butt was about 40 years ago. Marjorie and I were celebrating Christmas in NYC. Nasty, icy weather. I slipped on ice on 49th Street and Sixth Avenue, right in the middle of a busy street. I was back up in almost one motion. My main concern was, “Did anybody see me fall?”

That was then.

Now, falling is extremely dangerous for me. And I don’t move nearly that fast.

So. Back to the driveway.

I was heading to Josh’s truck to go get some Dukes BBQ from my house downtown. Got tangled up with a cement post, 2-3 feet tall, near the truck. Fell on my ass.

(Actually, I just involuntarily sat down.)

That was the first lucky part. I was on grass, not pavement. On my butt, not my face, elbow, hip, or shoulder.

No injury, except a scrape behind my knee, where I tangled with the post.

God only knows what would have happened had Josh quickly backed up that truck. Ouch.

He didn’t move the truck. That was my second stroke of luck.

‘Tis a compelling dilemma we seniors face. We want to stay mobile as long as possible, but that’s not without serious risk.

Safer to stay in the recliner all day?

Really?

Not without a bigger risk of muscle, bone, and brain atrophy.

This old man from the low country attic is gonna stay mobile as long as he can. A cane, or even a rollator/walker, are probably in the near future. Not great. But better than wasting away in a giant comfy recliner.

In the meantime, I’ve etched Rule #1 indelibly into my somewhat weakened brain.

Do Not Fall.

Easier said than done.

Sometimes a post jumps out and bites you.

Enuf.

58,000.

That’s the population of the cities like Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Bozeman, Montana. Sanford, Florida.

It’s also the number of names carved into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

58,000 Americans who didn’t come home.

This is Memorial Day. Time to honor those fallen service members and all who have fallen while serving to protect and defend the freedom of those of us lucky enough to call ourselves citizens of the greatest nation on earth.

Nha Trang, Circa 1966

Vietnam was a primary focus of about 10 of my 30 years in the Air Force. 1963 to 1973.

In 1966 I witnessed something that made me fervently wish that conflict would end. Quickly.

I was the navigator on a C-130 aircrew, grounded in Nha Trang, waiting on some maintenance. I walked out to the flight line.

Another C-130 was loading body bags for transport home.

The stench was terrible.

As I approached, I saw the tags. These are not the real names but names like these:

Sgt. Charles Smith, 23, St. Louis, MO

Pvt. Joey Jones, 18, Charlotte, NC

Cpl. Sammy Cohen, 22, Newark, NJ

The ages.

The ages struck me to the core.

What the hell were we doing?

When will this war end?

It Did Not End There

Not for me.

I flew several more airlift missions. Then I served a full year in-country, summer 1969 to summer 1970. Over 100 recon missions as navigator on the venerable C-47 “Gooney Bird.” The oldest aircraft in the USAF inventory.

I followed that with four years at the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center in Denver, administering pay accounts and helping the families of our POWs and MIAs.

The most rewarding and entangling assignment of my 30-year career.

The Price

58,000 lives was only part of the story.

Over 300,000 service members were wounded. More than 150,000 needed hospitalization. About 75,000 were permanently disabled. And Lord only knows how many of us came home carrying some form of PTSD.

We also burned billions of our national wealth on a lost cause.

Then came 1973. The end of hostilities. The return of our POWs.

A highlight of my career.

The war itself didn’t end until 1975. Hardly any of our MIAs have ever been found.

Korea

As brutal and tragic as Vietnam was, there is another war, nearly forgotten now, that was even more deadly.

Korea. About three years. Over 36,000 American lives lost.

The 58,000 we lost in Vietnam came over fifteen years.

Korea took 36,000 in three.

Let that sink in.

May God bless and protect all of our fallen military brothers and sisters, our first responders, and their loved ones and families on this Memorial Day.

In our great nation.

Amen.

The show was outstanding. Every performer on that stage earned the standing ovation they got.

I just couldn’t give them a proper one.

At eighty-seven, with a potful of arthritis, standing up after two-plus hours in a cramped theater seat is its own performance. I gotta hold on, with at least one hand, to the seat in front of me, or I’ll fall back into my own. Or worse, between the two rows. Yay.

Which means I can’t clap with the hand that’s left. I had to settle for hollering “Bravo.” Or slapping the seat in front of me.

Not a pleasant discovery. But quite natural, I’m afraid.

That was Hadestown, the Tony winner that’s been packing Broadway for years, and my daughter Christine was the one who got me there.

I learned two things watching that show. First: Hades wasn’t just a place you went, as in “Go to Hades.” He was a dude. God of the Underworld, played in his Broadway debut by Gary Dourdan (he stole the show!).  Christine recognized him instantly as Warrick Brown from CSI. I had no idea who he was. I’m a little ignorant on some things these days.

The second thing I learned was (as you read above) what it sounds like of one hand clapping.

This was my first trip back to New York in a long while. Marjorie and I used to come up regular, always to catch great shows, go to iconic NY restaurants, visit with my cousin Nancy. We did it right.

Then Marjorie’s mobility issues became too much, and that put a stop to it. The subway-shoving stories on the news didn’t help either, if I’m honest. Marjorie’s mobility was the real reason. The news just gave us an excuse.

So it had been a while.

This time, I had Christine.

She was my crutch, the one I hung onto when I felt a bit wobbly.  We stayed close and didn’t need taxis or subways, but with her I could’ve if we really wanted to.  I think I coulda done the e-ticket and e-reservations with the dang apps if needed, but I had her as backup.

That’s the only reason I made it back to this city at all.

I can’t do this city the way I used to. But I can still do it.

Christine made sure of that.

“Bravo!” will have to do.

Enuf.

OK. Here I am, a gawky, skinny 15-year-old walking into where he was talking, not nicely, to my mom.

There he is, way bigger than me. He coulda easily killed me.

I said in my high squeaky voice, “Frank, you’ve had too much to drink. I think you’d better leave.”

He looked at my mom and asked, “Do you want me to go?”

She answered, “You heard him, didn’t you.”

I was so proud of her. He left without further incident.

Let me back up.

My mom was an attractive “widder lady,” as they would say in some small towns. But we lived in the biggest “small” town anywhere, New York City. Ergo she had lotsa suitors, and I had lotsa uncles that weren’t really my uncles.

One such “uncle” who I liked a lot was Uncle Frank.

When I first met Uncle Frank, he was part of a pair. Uncle Frank and Aunt Emma. Yes, he was married. Aunt Emma wasn’t with him when he visited frequently, apparently on his way home from work. He and my mom would usually sit on the sofa and talk. He would send me out a lot to bring home ice cream. I was never gone more than 30 minutes, and they would still be on the sofa talking when I got back. He was always kind and generous to my mom and me.

Uncle Frank was a big man. An electrician, plumber and general handyman, who worked at several big factories in the NY area. One he mentioned a lot was the Breyer’s Ice Cream factory in Long Island City. The iconic, gigantic Breyer’s Ice Cream sign was a fixture on my many subway rides from my hometown, Flushing, to Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.

Uncle Frank enjoyed a drink now and then.

One evening near Christmas, he arrived after having several drinks somewhere. After a short conversation with my mom on the sofa, he became verbally abusive. Since they weren’t whispering and our apartment was small, I could hear every word from the kitchen. I heard her ask him to leave. He didn’t start to leave right away.

So, I walked in.

As scared as I was, I still think I kinda became a man that Christmas, at that moment.

But that wasn’t the only moment.

I’ve been thinking about when a boy becomes a man. Not the legal stuff — the voting age, the draft age. I mean when does he start behaving like one. When does he accept responsibility. When does he understand the impact of his behavior on the people around him.

For me, that incident with Frank was the first.  Here are the other two.

The Draft Card

At age 18 in New York in 1957, I received my Draft Card, formal documentation of manhood. With a Draft Card at that time, I could buy booze.

The day I received it, I entered a local liquor store and bought my mom a pint of Imperial, an inexpensive blended whiskey. I knew she enjoyed a very occasional highball. That’s a shot of whiskey in some Club Soda and ice. She couldn’t afford it normally, so this would be a well-deserved treat for her.

First legal booze purchase… went straight to my mom.  Yes, we had a unique mother/son relationship.

The Dentures

From about age 12 to 18, we were dirt poor. We were squeezing the nickel so hard, the Indian was ridin’ the buffalo. (Google that one, young folks.)

My mom needed a set of dentures bad. Her front teeth were terrible and she was embarrassed.  She often covered her mouth with her hand while talking. But the $$ were not available for the dentist.

Then things started to get a little better. I was working part time with the Post Office. My pay went from $1 an hour, as a porter/dishwasher, to $2 to sort mail. For you math majors, that’s double. My mom had a decent paying job at Family Circle Magazine. We were paying our rent on time.

So I saved enough to help her get a set of dentures.

How often does a young man buy a set of false teeth for his mom?

Enuf.

I was four years old.

My dad was on a gurney, on his way out the door to the hospital after a heart attack. He looked up at me and said, “Take care of your mom.”

That was the first quote that never left me.

These are the words that hit me to my core. The ones that made me who I am.

I did the best I could.

In Second Grade: Welcome to Wurtsboro

I was seven years old, starting second grade in Wurtsboro, NY. A little hick town 75 miles north of “The City,” where my Aunt May and Uncle Ted had a tiny chicken farm.

We were there because a housing shortage in NYC had basically made us homeless. My mom, my sociopathic older brother, and me were there long enough that I had to go to school somewhere.

One of my “homey” classmates greeted me on the first day, welcoming me to the “Waltonesque” town of Wurtsboro.

“We don’t like city slickers around here.”

So much for the stereotype of friendly people in a friendly small town.

What I took from it: the world doesn’t roll out a welcome mat. You find your own way in.

And I did. Those same summers, age 12 to 16, I couldn’t wait to get back up there to spend time with Aunt May and Uncle Ted, my cousins Richard, Marjorie and Nancy, and the freakin’ chickens. Thank heaven for my good pal named Peter, who lived across the street and whose folks had a nice cabin in the woods near Yankee Lake. Lotsa swimming and canoeing.

I found my way in just fine.

In High School: Mr. Vessa Speaks

“Mr. Scooler, you’re too damned sensitive.”

That was my high school Latin teacher, Mr. Vessa. He was soooo old. Probably about 60. (Ooh! Sorry, kids.)

I had just given him “what for” because of something he said that I felt mocked my intelligence. Instead of sending me to the dean, he just laid that one on me.

He was right on.

I was too sensitive. Thin-skinned. Ready to fight over a slight, real or imagined.

What I took from it: I hadn’t yet met my wonderful wife Marjorie, who later showed me the art of ignoring an idiot (me) who says something mean in a bad-temper moment. You don’t need to engage in a stupid, unnecessary argument. Mr. Vessa planted that seed. Marjorie harvested it on the regular.

In College: The English 101 Gut-Punch

“Mr. Scooler, your essay is perfect. Correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It’s clear and concise. But it’s the most boring piece of crap I ever read. Put some life in it, man!!”

And he didn’t say “crap.”

That was my English 101 professor at Queens College. I was a college freshman who had gotten a lot of A’s in high school compositions and thought he could write pretty good.

It stung.

What I took from it: put some life in it. Humor. Color. Something that makes a person want to keep reading. I’ve really tried to do that ever since. (You be the judge.)

The other lesson: I listened. I didn’t argue. I didn’t sulk off and decide he was wrong. Maybe Mr. Vessa had gotten through to me after all. Somebody told me a hard thing, and I believed them. That doesn’t come naturally to this prideful kid from Flushing, Queens.

But it’s a helluva gift when you finally figure it out.

In the Air Force: Rebel

“Get the hell off that GD bus, you freakin’ idiots, and get down on your haunches and walk like a duck.”

He didn’t say “GD” or “freakin“ either.

That was “Rebel.” A 6’7”, 250-pound survival school sergeant with tattoos and a big snake wrapped around his arm (not a tattoo, a real freakin’ snake!). He succeeded in scaring the hell out of us 20-year-old AFROTC cadets attending a Survival School in Nelsonville, Ohio.

But then there’s me and my big mouth.

As we got off the bus, he yelled: “I said, walk like a duck. Now say, ‘Quack quack.’“ I was doing the duck walk but not quacking. He yelled at me. “Say quack quack, you idiot!”

I retorted stupidly, “Quack quack, you idiot.”

I can’t remember how many push-ups I had to do. But it was a bunch.

Of course, if it had been a real POW camp, I would have gotten a rifle butt in the mouth. Or been shot. Luckily, I was not in Korea or Vietnam at the time.

What I took from it: know when to keep your mouth shut. It took a snake-armed giant and a few hundred push-ups to drive that one home. But I got the point. Thirty years in the Air Force, and I never forgot it.

Training succeeded.

And so here I am.

A seven-year-old city slicker who didn’t belong. A high school kid who was too sensitive for his own good. A college freshman who could spell but couldn’t write. A young airman who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Every one of those people had something to say to me.

Every one of them was right.

And underneath all of it was a four-year-old boy standing in a doorway, watching his father leave on a gurney.

Take care of your mom.

Did I do ok, Dad?

Enuf.

My freakin internet connection doesn’t work.

To fix that problem my gigantic corporate internet provider sent me a new cellular modem. I had to ask what the hell that was. A cellular modem is air internet. Wireless. I’m a computer dinosaur, so that’s a redundant sentence.

Anyway. Guess what? It doesn’t work.

For three days, Jim (my son, a computer savvy engineer), Jerry (my local IT professional), and I tried numerous methods following the provider’s directions (and good ol’ Google) to connect. To no avail. A red light continued to mock us.  I think something is amiss. We weren’t sure if it was the modem or something not operating correctly in our neck of the woods, like a tower. The evidence pointed to the new modem being defective.

Sooooo. The ignorant dinosaur had to make the dreaded phone call to the giant corporate provider’s “Customer Service.”

Why “dreaded”? Primarily because it usually kills the better part of a day trying to get a human who speaks good English to help you. AND when you get one, he/she will ask you questions you can’t answer.

So here’s how the “dreaded” call went.

At about 1:30 pm I nervously dialed the 800 number. The friendly robot said all service reps were busy helping other “nervous” customers and I had a choice. I could wait on hold for God knows how long, or ask for a call back. I opted for the call back, expecting maybe an hour or so. The robot said 10 minutes.

Sure ‘nuff, my iPhone sang nine minutes later. I answered and identified myself to another robot. It/he/she said all reps were busy and someone would be with me shortly. “Ain’t this where I came in?” After a short wait, Leo answered. Leo was a human and he spoke good English. I was pleased.

“What can I help you with today?”

Oh Lord. How do I recap three days of frustration succinctly and tactfully for Leo? I did my best. He started remotely troubleshooting their local equipment, towers, signal, the works. Finding no significant problems on their end, he moved to my modem.

But first, he had to make sure I was me.

He emailed me a security code and asked me to read it back. I’m on my iPhone with him. How the hell do I check my email without losing him? Well, I tried. I swiped him away, went to email, found the 6-digit code, and trusted my memory to carry it back.

Bad idea.

I told him what I thought the 6 digits were. Uh uh. “’Rong.”

Sheeeeit. Swipe, hunt, write it down this time, swipe back, talk. Worked the second time. He now knew I was me. Good Lord!

Now that we’ve established that I y’am who I y’am, Leo gave me my first physical challenge. “Can you unplug the modem and move it to a completely different room near a window on the opposite side of the house? I can wait.”

I thought: that’s what I’ve been doing for three days. But ok.

At my age, I don’t run anywhere, so I walked briskly into the bedroom. No socket near the window. There must be one behind the big-ass bureau (high boy) because there’s a lamp on top. I succeeded in moving it a bit.

Murphy lives. The socket was on the opposite side.

I couldn’t reach it without risking a hernia and causing the stuff on top to fall and break. I opted for a socket in the bath and sink area near a bright window and replugged the freakin modem. Believe it or not, Leo patiently waited through the whole scramble. He was still there.

This was the fourth location we’d tried. We’d done all this before I made the dreaded call.

We waited about 5 minutes. The red light came on again.

After running me all over the house and overworking my pacemaker a bunch, Leo confirmed what I told him up front. The modem’s defective. They’ll send me another one.

I have my orders. Wait for the new modem, hand it to my IT guy Jerry, and ship the inop one back UPS with my account number. Leo gave me that over the phone too, because I forgot it.

Will the new one work? Hope so. But I ain’t bettin on it.

I was exhausted after the dreaded phone call. They did a good job. Of course, I still have no wifi. My iPhone on cellular is my workaround for now.

The “dreaded call” gave me a decent sitcom story. I hope y’all can visualize “the Old Man in the Attic” hunting for a socket to confirm for the bureaucracy what he already knew. That’s also my wifi network name, as it happens. Which I currently cannot access.

As my buddy Macbeth would say, it was another example of “Life’s but a walking shadow. The poor player struts and frets his last hour upon the stage, then is heard no more. ‘Tis a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Enuf.

“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

That’s Hamlet. And I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.

I am lazy. Ergo, I don’t read Shakespeare very thoroughly. But I love several of his lines. I recently wrote about his Macbeth characterization of life as a “tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Especially important when I foolishly thought I was indispensable.

But “Nothing?” I don’t buy that.

So here’s a question that comes to mind from Hamlet’s line:

Was I a good kid, or was I just scared of getting caught?

From the ripe old age of 10, I was a latch-key kid. Very little supervision. Mom worked. Dad passed away when I was 4. I “coulda got away wit moida,” as a New Yawka would say.

And yet…

I stayed outta trouble. Mostly. When one of my “buddies” tried to talk or shame me into doing something “naughty” (Halloween tricks, for example) something stopped me. Never even thought about mooning the PTA. Lol.

Was that conscience? Or was it Mom?

Mom had a line she repeated so often it got wired into my brain:

“Whatever you do, don’t bring disgrace to the family.”

Now. Was that good upbringing? Or was it the very specific guilt that Moms are so expert at aiming at you?

Part of me thinks it was the “Scooler luck” theory. If I misbehaved, I’d surely get caught. No doubt that thought occurred to me more than once. But I think Mom’s warning had already done its work before the temptation even showed up.

She planted something. I’m just not sure what to call it.

The question followed me into adulthood.

Why did I choose a life of government service? Thirty years in the U.S. Air Force. Ten years as a teacher and program director at Trident Technical College.

Was it a drive to serve my country, my state, my fellow man?

Or was it my need for a secure, monthly paycheck, the kind I needed to adequately support my family?

Why not aim higher in terms of economic achievement? Make a lotta money?

Desire to serve, or fear of failure?

A little bit of both, I surmise.

Mom’s voice in my head. Hamlet’s line on the page. Eighty-seven years of evidence.

I stayed outta trouble. I served. I supported my family.

Maybe it doesn’t matter why you take the right road.

You just do.

Enuf.