Think about the last time you talked to your parents. It was probably to give them an update on your day, see how they're doing back home, how's the weather?...idle chit-chat like that. Over Thanksgiving you might see them and there might be political arguments. Over the holidays you reminisced about when you were little. Most of your conversations were more than likely based around that dynamic. They are your parents, your mom or your dad, and you're their child.
It's a dynamic that is wonderful, but it's also one that colors any conversation that you have with them. They aren't really...people...they're your...parents.
My parents are in town over the weekend. They live outside of D.C. now, and they wanted to get away from what's about to take place there today (that's not a political commentary, they just didn't want to deal with the traffic and the crazies...plus, it's an excuse to see their grandson). So last night, I sat down with my dad. But I didn't talk to Dad. Instead, I had a conversation with Bill.
Bill
Bill was actually born in D.C., but he doesn't remember any of his time there. His father was in the Air Force and flew a in protective wing over the nation's capital. Once he got out of the Air Force, the family moved to New Bern and Wilson, NC ("I can't really remember which one was first," Bill said).
His father sold tires for Goodyear and he hated it. "You know Papa," Bill said, "he is not a tire salesman." One day, he saw an ad in the paper that said they needed air traffic controllers. He went to the New Bern airport and talked to someone and got the job the next day.
Bill: It was a different time back then, a lot fewer regulations. He got most of his training on the job. The amazing thing is that there were call letters that each controller used whenever they logged in. Dad retired 35 years after that day, and when he did, he was so well respected that they retired his call letters at the Wilmington airport.
We started talking about his childhood (many of these stories I'd heard before). But then he said something that I can relate to when it comes to memory.
Bill: What I know is that most of the time you don't actually remember your memories as a child. Someone has told you a story, and it implants, so really what you're remembering is a family history that everyone tells each other.
With that said, I vividly remember being in New Bern, and every day I would get in my cowboy outfit and ride on my rocking horse. I really remember doing that. I would get up in the morning and ride until lunch. I was in my own little world, but I don't remember what it was. I just know that I would ride.
Once they moved to Wilmington, around 1960, Bill's memories are a lot clearer. He remembered going to his friend Lawrence's house five doors down because they had cable television, which meant they had five whole channels to choose from as opposed to Bill's one channel.
Bill: We had one channel for a long time, and on Halloween of...whatever the year was...we got WWAY. That was the ABC affiliate, and it came on the air in Wilmington. It was in black and white of course, because the world was in black and white back then. But I just remember thinking "How is it going to be possible to watch that much television...two channels?!"
I went to Lawrence's house one time to watch a scary movie...I wish I could remember what it was, something with ghosts in a castle and I thought it was terrifying. It was over around 7pm and it was getting dark. I was five houses away from home so I kept trying to delay leaving because I was too spooked to go walking in the dark. Finally, I had to go, and it took me about a second and a half to get home because I ran so fast.
Bill has a younger sister and a younger brother. "It was rare that we were at home, we were out all the time playing. I just remember playing a lot together. Combat with Vic Morrow was a show that we loved at that time so we'd play Army, and we'd crawl through the woods and climbed trees."
Bill: I remember when they built the first Seven-Eleven that I had ever seen, it was up the road a little bit from our house. And they sold icees for ten cents. So my mom would give each of us a dime and we'd go up to there and get one. Then one day, they raised the price to twelve cents and the guy wouldn't let us have them for the dimes we had. If we were smart, would would have just pooled our money and got two icees, but instead we went home devastated.
Lars: Did you get along with Debbie and Steven then?
Bill: Yeah, we got along then, when we were younger. You know, as we grew older we grew apart and had different lives, but I still love them both.
Lars: What were your parents like back then?
Bill: They were Mom and Dad, that was it. It was the 60s, and Dad worked odd hours at the airport. It was your typical situation where Dad worked and Mom made dinner. We had lunch and dinner together at the table, we never ate all through the house like some people do now. How do I say this without it sounding bad. Mom...protected me from Dad...does that make sense? She was a buffer sometimes. Dad would never do anything to us and we weren't scared of him, but there was just something about him being "DAD." Mom would cover for me.
Perfect example: You know when you do something as a kid and right in the middle of it you think "What the hell am I doing?!" Well, I was watching The Green Hornet, with Bruce Lee as Kato. And Kato had these darts that he would throw at the bad guys, and I thought they looked like needles. Mom had sewing needles, so I took one of them and tied some green yarn around them and went to work.
We had this front door that we had painted green. And I threw the needle at the door and THUMP! it stuck in perfectly. I pulled the yarn and it came right back to me, so I did that over and over again.
After about the twentieth time, I was about to throw it again when I realized that there were now all these dots of white in the door. When I pulled the needle back, it would pull off the paint. And it was at that moment that Mom walked in. "What have you done?" she asked, and I started bawling my eyes out and saying I was sorry.
"Ok," she said, "this is what we're going to do." And I remember this clear as day, she went and got the paint that they had painted the door with, and she took a little brush and painted over the dots and covered them up as I cried.
"Don't say anything," she said, "I know your sorry." I have no idea if Dad even knows that happened. It happened so long ago, but I remember thinking that my Mom saved me.
Lars: I've had moments like that too.
Bill smiled at that. "I'm sure you have."
It was funny to hear about these childhood adventures, because they mirrored so many of my own. There was a wooded area behind our first apartment in Bath, and my brother and I would spend hours back there making up stories and climbing everything. I look back on those times with the same kind of fondness that Bill does with his own childhood.
Lars: How did you feel the first time you saw your wife?
Bill: So there's a dispute here. She says it was at Crazy Zach's, I say it was at the Palm Room (both are dive bars on Wrightsville Beach). In any case, I looked up and saw her across the bar and thought oh look, there's Mary. I hadn't seen her since high school (they both went to New Hanover). She was standing with Cindy Speed...I still remember who she was standing next to. And I went over to ask her to dance, and she thought I was asking Cindy.
We danced and had a great time, so later on I asked her out to go see a movie. Mary suggested On Golden Pond...which I had already seen with another girl. I couldn't tell her that so I said sure, that would be great!
After the movie, we met up with my idiot roommate, Jerry Kelly. He asked what we had done, and I'm trying to tell him with my eyes to not say anything and making the cut it off sign with my hands.
"We saw On Golden Pond," Mary said.
"Wait a minute, I thought you saw that with someone else?" Jerry said...because he's an idiot.
After the second or third date I knew. I went to pick her up at her second floor apartment off of Wrightsville Avenue. And several of her sisters were there, which I thought was weird, but now I know it's because they were there to check me out.
It's just kismet. No one hands you a card that says this is the one you'll be with, you just know.
Lars: Were you nervous about becoming a dad or getting married?
Bill: Nope, not for one moment. You looked nervous on your day, and maybe it was just because you were excited. I was just calm, it was just a day. I looked up and saw my beautiful bride walking down the aisle and I knew everything would be ok.
That day was nothing. It's the 33 years later that you have to focus on. There have been tough times and I've made mistakes, but we've made it through them, and I couldn't be more thankful for that or for your mom. I love my wife.
What's your favorite joke?
Bill: I was thinking about this one, and it's a two part answer. The first is a simple joke, and it's a Steven Wright bit because I love him.
I accidentally put my car key in my house and my house started. So I drove it around the block.
The second will have to be a few links that you need to share because I don't want to degrade the story. I'm a boy raised in the South by a man raised in the South. I love long, rambling stories that you have to follow and they twist and turn but they pay off at the end.
Those stories are...
"What it was was football," told by Andy Griffith.
"A Coon Hunting Story," told by Jerry Clower.
"Six to Eight Black Men," told by David Sedaris.
What's the meal that reminds you of home?
Bill: Mary's fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy she's made from the chicken, lima beans, and Mary's homemade biscuits with butter. If I have a last meal, that's it, and I pity everyone that has never had it.
Lars; I can never make it as good as hers.
Bill: Neither can I and I have tried.
If you could bring back one musician, who would it be?
Bill: I'm a huge classical music fan, so I'd have to say Mozart. He died so young and penniless and if I could bring that brilliance back there's no telling what he could have done.
But I don't mean bring him back now. I just mean let him live a full life. What else could he have written with that? It would have changed everything.
To think that Mozart and Beethoven and all those composers wove all of those instruments together, it's incredible.
Lars: But if he didn't die the way he did we wouldn't have Amadeus.
Bill: That is a great movie.
What's the most significant thing that happened this last year?
Bill: We moved back to the US. I loved living in Denmark. It was an eye opener for me for how things could be. I made a lot of friends, and their society is interesting and I agree with it for the most part. But I missed my family. We were a long way away from everyone Now we are in the same time zone, and that's great.
Will the world be better or worse in 20 years?
Bill: That's a question that can be answered in like twenty different ways. There's different levels to that, it's probably the hardest question that you ask in these.
They say change for the sake of change is bad. And that's a fallacy. Change is good, no matter what. The only way to get better is to change, you have to in order to move forward.
On an environmental level, we have to really be careful because it's not a joke. It's fact. And we have to take politics out of it, we have to separate that from scientific fact and find an answer to this so there's a planet for Elliot's great-grandchildren.
Lars: I think that can be said for everything. Now it's better to be wrong but support your side instead of being right and going against them. And we need to take that out of so many issues.
Bill: Exactly. Everything isn't red and blue. There's a right and wrong that goes above that. So, we need to do that, and that means that at the political level, all bets are off.
At the personal level, each year for me has been better than the last, so it's going to be better. I'm an optimist. Politics don't drive me, my family does and because of that it will be better.
At the family level...it's only going to get better. It's been so wonderful watching you and your brother find Elizabeth and Victoria. And now Elliot is here. I just love all of you, it's really going to be great in 20 years because of that.
Towards the end of our conversation, we got to talking about my own family that I've started with Elizabeth. And here's where Bill became Dad again (also where I got a little choked up).
Lars: The best thing you did for me and Lukas was that we never doubted that you loved us. You were always very affectionate and very quick to tell us and show us that you loved us. Not every dad is like that, and I want to pass that along to Elliot.
Dad: We have always big huggers and kissers in our family. And I always appreciated that you were never shy about that either. I remember one time, when you were in high school, you were heading out with the guys. And you said goodnight and gave me a hug and a kiss in front of everyone, and you weren't embarrassed by it or anything, it's just what you did.
And Zach said "Can I get a hug too?" and we laughed and hugged, and I remember that vividly. I loved watching you all grow up, and it makes me so thrilled to see people I knew as little kids grow up and be happy.
My dad was never that affectionate, but lately he says it more, he'll whisper it to me when we hug. I wonder if it's because he's in his late 80s now and he wants to make sure he says it. I just never wanted to wait that long, I never saw the sense in holding back from telling people that you love them.
Dad and I hugged at the end of our talk, and it was really great to hear more about a man that I've known my whole life, a man that I've seen through a very specific filter. He's a man with his own opinions and thoughts and dreams and hopes. Many of these I knew about already, and many I did not. That's what makes having these conversations so valuable and so important.
So much of who I am is because of how he and my mom raised me, and I'm endlessly thankful for that. No, he's not technically a stranger like most of the people that I've interviewed this month. But in some ways, I hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to Bill before, and I appreciate knowing that there's more to the guy that I call "Dad."
And it makes me look forward to Elliot meeting "Lars" sometime in the bright future my Dad and I hope for.
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