Another fabulously written article by my buddy, Bill Stieger. Great American writer with intellect, wry humor, and ability to touch the heart and memories. Enjoy. "The Approach of Autumn and the Beginning of Manhood" By Bill Stieger My son will begin high school in a few weeks. And I attended, with the other parents, the preseason meeting with the high school football coach, who ticked off every sports cliché’ known to mankind. “Thinking you’re a special player is not team! You will be judged by your performance, both off and on the field. Coaches and players must be on the same page. Attitude is everything,” etc. The guy spoke as passionately as Vince Lombardi, though his team owns an abysmal won/lost record. Nonetheless, I marveled at seeing my son moving up into high school football. I had dropped out of sports at 13, owing to a lack of self-discipline and troubles at home. Yet, here is my son, the All American Boy. If you’d told me I’d have a son like him I wouldn’t have believed you. I always feared the kid would inherit my bad traits and semi-neurotic disposition. When the boy was a newborn, I carried this gnawing fear that some catastrophic event or development in his personality would doom him to the Fates. It’s a common dread among parents. When he was a baby he became colicky for a few weeks. A colicky baby screams perpetually, and you fear the kid has a brain lesion. Once, a bone-headed pediatrician told us his upset stomach might indicate an intestinal disorder that could prove fatal. I remember praying to keep away the panic I felt on the drive to Children’s Hospital, where tests proved there was nothing wrong with him. In third grade, his reading and writing skills were lacking. We had him tested him dyslexia, which he didn’t have, but balked at the teacher’s suggestion that he might have ADHD. We just rode hard on him about doing his homework, and some tutoring was involved. Now, he makes the honor roll. All those fears came to naught. He’s a jock and a musician. He plays baseball every summer in a traveling league. He plays snare drum in the high school band, the only freshman on the snare line. He’s a six foot-and-still-growing bean pole with size 12 feet. In fact, the surefire way I know that he’s my son is when I see his boney feet, which though larger, are definitely mine. My feet were famous in my high school locker room. In gym, my fellow sweat hogs called me “Skeleton Feet.” “Look at Stieger’s feet!” someone would say. “Those’re dead guy’s feet! Stieger’s a zombie!” But it struck me, right there at that meet-and-greet with the football coach, that my son is on his way to becoming a man. And I understood that he has the necessary traits for success in life, in whatever endeavor he undertakes. He’s a hard worker. Responsible. Smart. A good looking kid, too. Although I am thrilled by this outcome, I am also a bit sad. Because I realized—right there inside that auditorium—that I have to let go. Like sons everywhere, mine will eventually be moving on. I also have to admit that his mother, my ex-wife, has done well by him. She loves him solidly, and stays on top of his business, and ensures he’s busy and involved and out of trouble. Perhaps someday she and I will again be friends, though at present she’d rather see my head delivered to her doorstep in a bowling bag. But that’s another story. Life really is a wheel, though you only go around it once. You see where you’ve been, where you are at present, and sometimes, where you’re going. And the only certainty is that nothing remains the same. But you learn things along the way. Or else something comes to pass that connects back to a book or poem you read. And it makes you understand. The child is ( indeed) the father of the man.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 14:55:01 +0000
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