The Wine Commonsewer™

The Boy Turns Eighteen on Throwback Thursday

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Navigating the snoring bodies on my office floor made it a little tricky getting to my desk this morning. But, I made it. Twice. Without kicking any of the early birthday celebrants in the head, or spilling coffee on their cherubic little upturned faces.

I was in my early forties when me and Mrs TWC decided to add some ankle biters to our small herd of curtain climbers. BTW, the internet is filled with advice on how to keep kitties from climbing the curtains, most of which is of no help. In a word: blinds or shutters. OK, that's two words and I digress.

When Jake was born, I peered down the road to this day and wondered how it would feel. I imagined his high school graduation. I pictured his friend's parents thinking it was cool that grandpa came to the ceremony but wondering where his dad was. Course they'd be too polite to mention it. I often thought about teaching the manly arts to a boy young enough to be a grandchild. Would he see me as an old man? Or just the Old Man?

Truth is that this day, like the rest of life, doesn't feel anything but normal. It just is. The parents don't know or care how old dad is. I'm just dad. And the Old Man. The Boy learned to shoot baskets, rifles, and revolvers. He can plant flowers and make mulch. He drives well and can change the oil. He can handle the boat at the gas dock and get it on the trailer. He also learned how to wash a car, but you'd not necessarily know he had acquired that particular skill. Jacob also learned some things that dad didn't teach him. Fishing, fine woodworking, welding, rock skipping, and mad skills in the virtual world of gaming.

Jacob's senior project was this poker table

 

The surprise turns out to be how damn fast this day came. BK (Before Kids) life is rather fluid and the markers are spread out. But children really are relentless little ticking time clocks. Their constant evolution and change reminds you of every turn of your own odometer. The nature of raising children is incessant change. One minute you can't imagine changing another diaper and then, well, they're starting Kindergarten. My friend Anne summed it up well: the days are long but the years are short.

I'm proud of my son.

As Always,

TWC 🍷

 

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Adventures At Graduation

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Sir! Sir! Sir!

By then, the first security guy was back with his boss and there were two security guards screaming at me from down below. Seems they wanted me to move along and I was pointedly ignoring them. I'd already flashed them the index finger, which was the wrong finger, and mouthed:  just one more minute. They were doing tit-for-tat, and both pointedly ignored it. 

Nobody was complaining, but security guy number one had been hassling me for several minutes. Just me, though. Not the fifteen high school kids on the steps or the woman next to me with the lens she needed to carry in a violin case like Bugs Moran's Tommy Gun. Talk about lens envy. Dude, that was a fine lens. I tried wandering from place to place, but, apparently, never far enough to suit them.

Then, *Jacob Snell! Honors!*, booms out across the stadium and I'm snapping pictures like a mad man while these two security guys heads are exploding. Click. Click. Click. Except. There was no correlation between the calling of the names and the handing of the diplomas.

AND ITS NOT EVEN MY KID. Good Lord. As I walked away I scowled at them and, in my best Curly Bill voice.....

 

For the rest of the night, a guard was posted, who blocked the view they claimed I was blocking, so as to keep any other parent from blocking the view while taking a pic of their kid graduating. Did you follow that? We're going to block your view in order to protect you from jerks who might block your view. 

At the pre-graduation dinner, Mrs TWC kept the wine flowing. She said it would keep me mellow during the ceremony. I expect she was right.

As Ever,

TWC 🍷

The Boy Turns Seventeen

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Just a few weeks ago, Numero Uno Son plopped into our world. He was born blue, so there wasn't no bonding taking place on his Ma's tummy. Like litmus paper dipped in a beaker of vinegar, he turned pink on the cold stainless steel O2 table across the delivery room. Today, he's seventeen and next week he starts his senior year in HS.

His interests lie in the manly arts: Wood. Steel. Fishing. Firearms. Boating. Competitive video games. And his GPA warrants the AAA discount.

His hand-made Metallica table earned him 94 points, a couple of blue ribbons, and a division winning trophy in the county-wide competition this past spring.

 

As I write this, my office, which lies between Jake's bedroom and The House Blond's bedroom, is littered with sleeping bodies, empty Pepsi cans, and computer equipment. Nobody is snoring, so the occasional shout-out from somebody's phone gives me a startle. DROID(!) Nobody stirs.

Jake's birthday party ends up a three day extravaganza of gaming, BBQ, and tom foolery. By day's end there should be some seventeen kids here at the Casa and I'm Fat Clemenza, cooking spaghetti for twenty guys who went to the mattresses.

BONUS:

BRINGING JAKE HOME

Like a dork, I bought this child seat designed for an obese ten year old. Keep in mind that Californicate is way ahead of the Nanny Curve, so even back then the hospital had been pressed into service by the social polezei and the child welfare department. Their job? Walk the baby out the glass doors and carefully strap him into the awaiting child safety seat. After that little Candy Striper saw the size of the car seat and finished with her brain hemorrhage (stern lecture followed) there was a group conference to determine if we would be allowed to depart with our child.

Shut up you idiots (on the inside). I50 million of us rode home from the hospital in the front seat with our mother's arms wrapped around us. Before that babies were born at home under less than ideal conditions (boil some water and bring me some clean linens, Harriet).

TWC's favorite aunt and uncle with his favorite son. 1997.

As Always,

TWC

The Boy At Sixteen

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

What sticks in my mind most, besides my son being born blue, was the oppressive July heat in the summer of 1996.

At zero-dark-thirty the RN's marveled at the rapid progression of Mrs TWC's first delivery. Your first child? Murmurs and knowing glances. At mid-morning the baby was to arrive momentarily. By noon the anesthesiologist shuffled in and spent the next couple of hours handicapping the second half of the season with the OB/GYN, Dr Byrne, who is likely related to Jacob's mother. The significance of Doc Ether was entirely lost on moi. Nobody knew the cord was wrapped tight around his neck and it was an eternity before Jacob plopped into our world and the nurse plugged him into the oxygen. I watched him turn pink, feet to face. I think. 

That was sixteen years ago and I'm not entirely clear on how that works since it was just a couple of weeks ago that he started junior high school and next week he starts his junior year of high school. 

We celebrated at home with T-bones and marinated spicy shrimp. 

You think money can't buy happiness? There was a fifty in that card.

Happy Birthday, Sonny Boy. 

As Always,

TWC

Jake's Candle Holder

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

The Boy has an ongoing interest in the manly arts. His latest creation is a rod iron Christmas candle holder for the house. Sometimes rod iron is called wrought iron, which I mention so as to remain clear on the particulars.

Last week, after he zipped through his literature final, the teacher cut him loose and he moseyed over to metal shop where he won five bucks in a friendly game of poker. I suppose it should bother me a bit, but it doesn't.

Oddly enough, in public school's crazy, zero-tolerance, alternate universe, where no student has any rights worth respecting, playing cards are tolerated. Back in the days of my vagrant yoot, a pack of Bicycles would get you the boot as quickly as a pack of Marlboros. 

Don't get me started on pen knives, random drug searches, or ibuprofen. Did somebody say it's a free country?

As Ever,

TWC

Jacob's Project

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

My son Jake has taken an interest in making things with his hands. He was stymied for a bit by the semester-long, mandated health class that is inflicted on all incoming freshman. However, once he proved he could wash his hands unassisted and understood the difference between the various anatomies, he was free to move on and he chose wood shop as his second semester elective class (replacing health).

This fully functional gumball machine was Jacob's first effort in wood shop. Simply rotate the schnoz to the right and a gumball drops out of the mouth into your waiting hand. Slick.

This seems a bit more complex than the ashtrays the wood shop kids were making in the days of my vagrant yoot. Seemed like every boy's first project was an ashtray.

In modern Amerikka, I reckon making an ashtray would earn you a three-day suspension. Perhaps even a stint at Continuation School, a term invented to disguise the real nature of Continuation School, which was to warehouse troublemakers, who were formerly known as Juvenile Delinquents.

As Always,

TWC