From Which It Happened Well...

Nine seems to be turning in to a far more important year in my life than I had previously considered. I mean, what really happens at Age Nine that is so memorable or has such a lifelong impact on one's sense of the world? So far in this forum I've come up with some personally pivotal memories, including my first trip to Paris and the first time I ever heard about the ancient wonders of Greece. I'd gone to movies before in my life, certainly, but this was probably the first one that would stick with me like no other outside of the Disney classics. My fourth grade class was called to order and we marched out of the school building and down the street to the movie theater where an entirely new and unheard of world came to life before my eyes.

Charles Dickens' classic tale "A Christmas Carol" is the story of the rebirth of Ebenezer Scrooge from bitter, miserly skinflint to benefactor and loving patron following one traumatic evening involving the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. First published in 1843 the story has been adapted for film, stage and television in every format from short-reel to high art, musical, animation and Muppets. Actors as diverse as Patrick Stewart to George C. Scott, Jim Backus (as the voice of Mr. Magoo), Susan Lucci, James Earl Jones and Scrooge McDuck have added to or detracted from the role.

In 1970 the musical film was produced featuring Sir Alec Guiness in the role of Jacob Marley, Scrooge's late business partner and Albert Finney in the title role. This film is the one of the first times in my life I ever sat happily through a movie without a bag of popcorn.
Holiday films are very personal things and usually handed down from one generation to the next. Not this one; "Scrooge" is all mine, right up there with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as the only two I insist on every season. I've never seen "It's a Wonderful Life" all the way through and "Miracle on 34th Street" only once. None of the contemporary releases compare to me though I can well imagine they resonate just as strongly with the youngsters who watch them for the first time.

Why this version of the story? As mentioned it was the first telling of the story that I had ever seen but also because of the beautiful and yes, "cheeky," songs included in the narrative, most especially "Father Christmas," "Happiness," and "Thank You Very Much." I mean ask yourself, whoever heard a happier tune celebrating somebody doing them all the favor of dying? Critics pretty much dismissed the film all together but this nine year old boy ate up the over the top performance of Guiness, the seething anger of Finney's Scrooge and the completely foreign language and cadence that was Victorian English.

Name it and this version had it all: flying ghosts, kids my age, the deeply infectious optimist of Bob Cratchit in the face of insurmountable problems, the additional scene in Hell which I took to be part of the original story and always felt cheated if it was edited out or not included in other adaptations. Then there was the magic of Finney's old and young Scrooge. I refused to believe for the longest time that they simply didn't wait 30 - 40 years to film the 2nd half of the picture!

The London of Dickens' writings is gritty, crowded, wallowing in despair and poverty and yet filled with such an overwhelming joy of living and beauty in both speech and manner that I immediately wanted to see and feel this world for myself. The Victorian class structure resonates today, 160 years later. Most of the vestiges of the era are gone, the workhouses, the high collared clothes and top hats and certainly the manner of speaking but such is the power of great writing and imaginative film making. I didn't believe in ghosts but I wanted to go to London.

I got my wish the very next year.

Gotta go!

Greece: The Chase and the Dream

Three best friends raced after each other around the playground at school one afternoon, it could have been a Tuesday. One of them for a change had simply wanted to read quietly but the other two were having none of that. It was a beautiful day and the name of the game was "Keep Away." Tony had been the one trying to read a new comic book, the one time when nine-year old boys tend to retreat in to themselves, to escape in to the magical pages of full color comic artwork and fantasy. Donald and Reiner, his two classmates, did not have this particular comic and that was enough to get Tony going.

"C'mon, guys" went out the universal plea to either join the fun or in this case knock it off. The comic Donald and Reiner were passing back and forth between each other just out of Tony's reach was not a DC or Marvel masterpiece. It wasn't even Uncle Scrooge who had his own version of the story or even Archie Andrews and the gang from Riverdale. This comic told the short hand version of Theseus and the Minotaur, one of the most famous stories from ancient Greek mythology.

And what a story! Proving oneself, conquering a horrible monster, miscommunication and all to explain how the Aegean Sea got its name? Whatever it was to Donald and Reiner it wasn't Spiderman or even Captain America.

"That's weird," shouted Reiner over his shoulder, Tony in hot pursuit. Where the ear was programmed to expect one super hero or caped crusader in particular "Theseus" simply did not compute and therefore wasn't cool. And with all of those "th's" and "s's" in the name and no "-man" at the end of it whoever it was could only be described as sissy. That took the chase up a notch, the three boys a sneakers and blue jeans blur to one and all around them. "Give"-whoosh-"me"-whoosh-"back my"-whoosh-"comic!" The sun angled just a hair lower in the sky as if itself turning to watch the action.

Through the section where the girls jumped rope, played hopscotch and skipped jacks and across the field where kickball, fuss ball and football were going on at the same time they ran. Tony was the faster runner but generally only in a straight line or wide turns. Rabbit cuts were not his specialty but eventually he did catch them. It was all a big game as they stood and caught their breath, Donald handing over the cherished comic while Reiner happily clapped Tony on the back who smiled and rolled his eyes at his two goofball pals. Tomorrow Donald or Reiner would let his guard down enough to be the patsy and so it would go.

"So who's Theseus?" Donald asked? As they answered the call of the whistle and walked, slowly, back to class, Tony told his friends what he knew which at that point was only what the comic book had illustrated. Recess was over and the Three Amigos laughed and giggled amidst cries of "Wow!" and "Cool!" as they rejoined their classmates, arm in arm in friendship, jovially congratulating each other on another good game of "Keep Away."

As Tony trudged the stairs to his second floor classroom, though, a question stuck in his mind. "Where was this place?" he mused as the door closed and silence fell once more upon a worn but relieved schoolyard.

Gotta go.

Greece: Theseus and the Three Amigos

"Stop it you guys!" the young boy cried. "Give it back!" It was another day in the playground, maybe a Tuesday in the Spring, as Tony chased after his tormentors. It was his turn to be "It" so he knew eventually they, his friends, would let up on him though he much preferred like anybody else to not be the victim. They were "The Three Amigos" of the schoolyard, though so each of them got it twice each week except Sundays it seemed. The sun was high and a few small clouds glided overhead as if chasing the kids and leading them with fleeting bits of shade while they chased each other around the grounds.

Recess for Tony was not always about pick-up games of tag, kickball or marbles. It was also a chance to catch up on his private reading. Sometimes in the midst of pigtails being pulled, muddy knees and teachers' whistles he just wanted to be alone, off in another world. There was always playtime after school at home before dinner.

Try as he might every now and then to have some quiet time and stay out of trouble, though, his buddies could always be counted on to stir things up. Tony was never one for being quiet all that long anyway and they knew it so what could be more fun and natural than targeting him for a quick game of "Keep Away?" And today the focus was the thing Tony happened to be reading. It looked like, felt like and was drawn like a comic book only it wasn't one most other fourth graders would be reading and thus began the game.

"Whatter ya readin'?" asked Reiner as he snatched at the comic.

"Theseus," replied Tony, quickly drawing it away from one line of attack. That question never came without a grab at the prized possession.

The world in the pages of this comic was unlike any he had ever seen, read or heard about. All of the names were strange, both the names of people and the names of places. Every rock, plant, river and body of water had a name which belonged to someone who fell in, fell off or was transformed to preserve their memory. Even the stars, planets and constellations had an angle. Were they kidding?

"Who?" challenged Donald, deftly snagging the book from Tony's unsuspecting hands and turning it over, peering at it suspiciously.

Never the fastest reader around, Tony just the same could not turn the pages fast enough as the story unfolded before his eyes and in his mind. This one had strange animals with still more strange names and gods. Lots of gods and all of them with strange names, too. And they were just as flawed and vengeful as the humans and heroes who built temples for them, fought wars because of them and went to the ends of the earth to find or get away from them. This stuff was better than Superman!

"Theseus and give it back!" Literally rising to the challenge, Tony was on his feet, bored with the ritual of it yet eager to get back to his story. Tony liked Donald and Reiner. They were his best friends in his fourth grade class. Like any friends, though, sometimes they weren't always in sync. They wanted to play and Tony was always a part of that play. Today, however, Tony just wanted to read. That didn't matter to Donald and Reiner.

Ancient Greece would have to wait - this was, after all, an elementary school playground. The chase was on.

Gotta go.

The Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park

This part of Hiroshima was once where the upper class lived. It was the center of a thriving city at the northeastern headwaters of the Inland "Seto" Sea; everybody who was or wanted to be anybody in pre-war Hiroshima society lived, worked and shopped here. To most of Western Civilization Hiroshima did not even exist before that fateful day in August of 1945. It's been around since the late 1500s, first as the stronghold of a regional warlord who built for himself the Hiroshima Castle at the center of town. After the Shogun and Imperial periods and the switch to heavy industry, Hiroshima found itself to be a densely packed and buzzing urban metropolis of roughly 350,000 people.

I stepped off the T-Bridge crossing the Ota River and on to the first contemporary "Ground Zero," an island at the Ota River Delta with the Inland Sea just to the south. The clang of the streetcars behind me seemed to dim by half while the birds themselves hushed in favor of a slight breeze whistling through the trees around me. As any tourist would I looked up in to the blue sky above and tried to imagine what a resident might have thought had they seen the formation of three B-29s high overhead with no fighter escort and, more ominously, no fighter protection racing to meet them. Few in the immediate area lived to describe the sound of the explosion some 1500 feet above at 8:15am so for me, the dead calm teleported the senses to that morning of August 6th.

It would have been rush hour; crowded streets, clanging trolleys, lots of bicycles; few cars since by then what little oil made it to Japan was largely reserved for defense and government ministries. It would have been hot and sticky as any Japanese late summer day would be. It was definitely crowded as people started their day weaving in and around each other and through the city itself, some 90% of which was made of wood.

Hiroshima was first on the list as an alternate in part because the weather was supposed to be perfect for "delivering the device." The intended target city was Kyoto but heated debate in the U.S. government saved the cultural capital of the country. Despite a leaflet and broadcast campaign prior to the attack the people of Hiroshima never knew what was coming. Other Japanese cities were bombed with regularity; Hiroshima was to be left untouched, the better to measure the effects of the bomb.

As I walked through the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park, fashioned from the wasteland created by the attack, new grass, young trees and landscaped grounds were on all sides.

In nearly every nook, crook and cranny was a memorial. This one was for the minority Koreans who would have lived had their country not been brutally colonized and cheap labor imported for menial work on the Japanese home islands. Another one, the center of great ceremony every August, is the Memorial Cenotaph which contains the names of all identified victims of the attack. A mound nearby contains their collected ashes, all 70,000 of them. That one over there, at the entrance to the park, featured a "Peace Bell" which visitors are encouraged to ring with feeling for an end to all wars. The "Industrial Promotion Hall" is across the river but it is easily still the centerpiece of the park, it's skeletal dome still standing and looking as it did the day of the attack.

While the "A-Bomb Dome" draws the tourists in, the Children's Peace Memorial leaves one and all flat cold. Sadako Sasaki contracted leukemia as an after effect of the bomb. Swearing she could beat the disease through faith and hard work, she pledged to fashion 1,000 paper cranes by hand in offering to the gods who would grant her wish to be cured.

The story goes that she only made it to Number 644 and thus inspired all Japanese children since to make paper cranes in her honor and place them at the memorial in Hiroshima. This memorial is never without small children visiting and paper cranes laid all around.

Little Sadako is at the top, her arms flung wide as if launching the crane above her to the heavens.

Gotta go.

Teaching the Unexpected

I'm famously known as the "Bad Uncle." That means that I am the one who comes over to the house, flops in to the floor and winds the kids up to a fever pitch before tossing off a casual "good night" come bedtime. In my wake is a house upside down with small, revved up children squealing with delight and running or spinning in delirious circles trying desperately to both work off their adrenalin rush but still keep the buzz going! They're either dangling in mid-air from the rafters or their ankles by shell shocked parents who typically love and appreciate me but at that moment would rather see my chestnuts roasting over an open fire. The kids can't wait to see me again while the parents are either in therapy, cackling maliciously as they drop off their brood the next day with a bewildered day care attendant or off applying for N.R.A. licenses.

More and more I've discovered in the latest trends of positive parenting that I, along with other previously spontaneous experiences, am being "scheduled." I have to be doled out in manageable doses as part of an all-encompassing rhythm or set routine so as not to upset the delicate nature of sensitive youngsters or the carefully crafted balance of the family household. I've often held that it has little to do with "upsetting" the child so much as not completely destroying any chance of the parents' getting a decent night's rest!

I just returned from a business trip to Los Angeles where the weather was uncharacteristically wet and rainy over three of the four days in town. L.A. being an "outdoor" kinda city there wasn't much to do other than the Getty Museum which held little interest for myself or my colleague. Somehow or other on the way back to the airport we got to talking about adult routines and our individual comfort levels in deviating from the expected.

The project we had just wrapped up required a lot of fast thinking and flexibility which, for my part, I explained as coming from my background in operations but also from my upbringing in the military. Relocation was a given and a constant, learning to adapt quickly expected and accepting the unusual to be expected. Did we have a "rhythm" in the midst of all this? I'm fairly certain not a soul in my generation did unless they worked on farms.

My colleague doesn't describe his household as the strictest in the world but when I asked him how he teaches his two sons to deal with adversity he said "Oh, we schedule free time in to their routine." Right. That, I told him, sounded about as spontaneous and unexpected as a half-day city tour of Rome with "the rest of the day at leisure."

I was being light-hearted but serious. I couldn't help imagining in my mind an entire generation of children so ingrained in to a set order of events that when real adversity hits they become initially paralyzed, incapable of working through the problems on their own. Just as bad, they will become so programmed to only expect and appreciate everyday routine that it may inhibit any sense of adventure or willingness to experience the new, the undiscovered or the extraordinary.

Eventually all people learn to cope with issues on their own but I am left wondering how much of that coping skill set is being left out of child development and whether or not that is a good thing? Even more worrisome to a wanderer like me is whether or not this anti-septic upbringing is unintentionally dulling the reasonable desire to dream, explore and push beyond one's own boundaries?

My colleague hates traveling away from his comfortable life in the southwestern desert. I'm sure his two sons get in to more than their share of mischief as well. Still, for me though, if it's a choice between tennis or Paris...?

Gotta go!