I don’t know anyone who is isolated, but I have recently observed that many of the people around me are getting older. This may not strike you as such a perceptive thought, but I mean getting older as in affecting speech, hearing, sight and memory. I guess this could isolate them. Take my two younger sons, Brian and Russell. The products of my later propagation period, they are testimonials to the argument against second litters. They have every right to age, of course, but at 22 and 23 respectively, it seems a bit premature. Their speech, for example has suffered recently. Never particularly articulate, they now speak in a subdued mumble. This is a problem that’s become progressively worse.
Their hearing is also a problem. When I tell them to speak up, they don’t appear to hear nor repeat louder. This doesn’t prove hearing loss, of course, and I can’t discount a certain contrary streak. It seems to run in their family. I know a lot about this streak, I mean hearing, as I have had several hearing tests over the years. I think they have lost the ability to enunciate their s’s and t’s so important for speech intelligibility. I have repeatedly urged them to emphasis these consonants, but to no avail.
This brings up the problem of sight loss. They don’t seem to see the wisdom of my advice. And what was the last point? Oh, memory, they are losing their memory. I forget when they first started losing it, but it was about three years ago. They don’t seem to remember who’s in charge and on our recent trip, they have definitely forgotten who owns the truck. They think of the truck as a collection of parts. They own the radio, driver’s seat and the right to determine where it goes. I own the gas tank and only have sole ownership if parts are needed or if stopped for speeding. I have warned them before, I’m going to speak to their parents.
Well, I’m not giving up on them. Even at their age they still have some potential. So when they approached me again about a camping trip, I acquiesced, feeling it could be a teaching moment. They suggested Glacier National Park or Alaska remembering our camping trip in Yellowstone years ago. but I felt we might start with Virginia.
So on Monday, Russell, Brian and I packed the tent, canoe and some camping equipment in the old truck and headed west. We had a small window before Brian went to NY to start his first job as an engineer and Russell began graduate school in architecture. There was a lot of discussion as to whether we could make it. I assumed they were talking about the truck. It was old and often wouldn’t start. I heard them remark it might just die along the way. That’s when Brian gave me a measured look and suggested bringing a large ziplock bag. Even as I pondered the ridiculous notion of bagging a truck, I recalled the black humor often employed by my sons.
Our trip was a meandering drive through Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, with both the truck and I doing better than expected. We survived to tell of “The Rodeo of the Ozark's” and of watching a guy herd buffalo into a high platform on a truck to be driven out of the arena. I guess everyone has to do something. We saw big brown trout in the White River that had no appetite for our lures, the stainless gleam of Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch reflected in the Mississippi and canoed the rapids below the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia.
Our camping took on a sort of routine with Brian taking charge of tent erection, developing such pride in his speed and efficiency that he rejected all my suggestions for further improvement. He even became somewhat resentful. This gave me the opportunity to concentrate on Russell. He was the guy that unpacked the truck and generally set up camp. Once he got my chair placed, I was able to give him much of the advice that Brian was rejecting. Now Russell has always been more receptive and for the first day I felt we were making real progress. But then I sensed through body language and the occasional baleful stare that his receptivity might be waning. Now I can take a hint, as their small minds are still developing. Perhaps they just need more space. So I determined to continue give advice, just at a distance. We returned relatively unscathed and still speaking, I, giving advice and they, suggesting I shut up.
In retrospect I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS. Children do not necessarily make good traveling companions. As previously explained, mine are generally poor conversationalists, refuse to heed my advice and kept making me sit in center seat. They are OK; just seem to lack good genes.
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