Or any of the others...
But he managed to learn this language and went to college for electrical engineering.
In a lot of ways we complimented each other, as I was growing up.
Me, I would find his tools and disassemble our lawnmower or TV...
He...well, he would come home from a long day at work and an hour long commute to attempt putting them all back together.
Not happily, mind you. In fact I do not believe that these father/ son bondings were one of his favorite group of activities, at the time.
Once or twice, I'm sure he made that clear...
Extremely clear.
He did not know that I could hear him at my little league practices, telling the other dads in the stands about his crazy son. He surely did not know that I saw a sparkle in his eyes and the smile that he managed to hide from the rest...
If he'd known, he would have put on an ever familiar frown and lecture me that nothing was funny about destroying expensive tools and appliances.
So I never told him I knew...
Next year my dad turns eighty.
It has been more decades than I care to admit, since those early days. I remember most how careful I had to be, back then, in my sneaking...
Nothing got past him. He seemed to have a nearly photographic memory and could tell immediately if anything had been moved 1/4 inch...
If the gate was not in the EXACT same position from when he'd left the house, he knew. If the garage door was twenty thousands of an inch ( I'm not kidding. He has been in quality control in a machine shop for fifty years- he can still notice minute distances) he knew. If the rear of our shed was covered with black smoke residue and part of the lawn was a different color, that did not slip by him, either...
OK, most parents would catch those; but the rest, you have to admit, should have been able to slip past...
These days, more often than not, he misses most all those things. I don't know if it is because he doesn't have to fix them anymore, he doesn't care, or that he's lost that power of precise observation he'd always had.
My best guess would be a combination of the three. What scares me most, though, is that the majority is in the latter of the trio...
And that the smartest man I've ever known, is slowly metamorphosising into someone a little slower on the uptake than a generation past, who needs to think and almost ponder questions that were so simply and quickly answered, all those years ago...
I've sat with him recently, as technical people tried to explain fairly straightforward information, and he would look questioningly at me, to see if I was understanding it...
He shook his head just like his father used to do, years ago, when he wasn't quite getting everything being discussed...
And I would give him the look that I was getting it, just like he did for his father, when his dad started missing the same things...
It feels strange in this little role reversal...
My pop is still sharp, just not as quick as he used to be.
In some ways, I think he's smarter...
Not much gets to him. He sits back in his recliner enjoying the ever present noise and squabbling of his grandchildren. He gets that same twinkle in his eye as he had on the bleachers, when he sees me flabbergasted by something one of the three McMonkeys has done, and I not overly pleased in the present father/ McMonkey bonding moment...
Maybe he's not losing anything, but just immersed in all those tiny occurrences in this daily life, that really matter...
Maybe he STILL is the smartest man I know...
I think he's tricked me, this time, pretty well...
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