8 Things I Love About My Dad

My Dad, Thomas Martinez, turns 80 tomorrow.   I know, crazy right?  Anyone who knows my Dad, knows that he is full of energy, and is still working 3 full days a week.  They also know that he doesn't look or act 80.

I always imagined an 80 year old man to be shrunken, hunched over, walking with a cane, hearing aids, glasses, mumbling to himself.  And here we have this guy who stands  5’ 10”, good posture with no help from any kind of brace, still cuts his own grass, still works on and washes his own cars, doesn't even have a limp, has most of his hair, still sees well without the aid of glasses, still hears well again with no hearing devices.

Dad cutting my Son's hair  June 2012

In honor of 80 years, I was going to write some kind of tribute and so I settled on 80 things I love about Dad.  I realized that some folks would actually want to read this, so I shortened it to just 8.  So, each of these things represent a decade of Dad’s amazing life up until now.  However, you must keep in mind that I have only known the man for 46 years, so my experience with him is rather narrow.

So, without further ado…

8 Things I Love About My Dad

8.  Dad talks tough, but he is all about self-control  - Yeah I have Dad to thank for this.  Sometimes growing up Dad would bark at us, even threaten us within an inch of our life, but he never killed us – not once.  This led me to believe that 1.  He was either a lot of talk, or 2.  He would have killed us but there was a rational part of him that was able to reign it in so that he did not end up having to spend the rest of his life in prison.  Self-control, I learned it from him.  Thanks Dad, 1. For teaching me how not to kill my kids even when they deserved it and 2. For not killing me.

7.  He never failed to provide for us no matter what – You know in the several years that I lived at home, the country went through all sorts of economical fluctuations both good and bad.  There were the really amazing times, like the day Dad brought home an RV and told us that he bought it.  Just like that.  One day we were a family of 5 driving around in a Chevrolet Station Wagon, the next in a large fiberglass camper that slept 6.  Dad drove us all over the place in that thing.  We even took a two month vacation one Summer with the thing and drove all the way to Canada.  Then there were the tough times.  It was the big oil crunch in the late 70s.  In case you didn't know, Dad is a hairstylist and has always cut hair so long as I have known him.

In the late 70s, no one came to get their haircut anymore.  So, rather than make excuses, Dad took on some other jobs.  We never knew there were money problems, because dad never complained about it, ever.  Me and my brothers never heard him blame the economy for tough times, or use the recession to take a break from having to work or look for work.    He just, worked and worked and worked and made no excuses, because he didn't have to.

We never saw an interruption in our every Saturday pizza, and our regular weekly meals.  We always had a new wardrobe on the first day of school, except for Chris who refused to wear new clothes.  J  My Mom and Dad both cut hair to provide for us, and it worked.   They still do.  I learned that a Man does not make excuses; he makes money and brings it home for his family, period, no matter what.

6.  He loves my Mom stubbornly – My Mom is amazing don’t get me wrong, but sometimes the things she fought us for seemed silly, even ridiculous.  However, we never told Mom this, or Dad.  See, we knew that bad mouthing Mom was pointless with Dad.  Not only did we risk dying, but Dad would probably have first killed us, then in defending Mom’s honor he would have killed us again while telling us we were wrong and Mom was right and to shut up about it.

Niagara Falls June 2012

That’s right I said he would kill us twice.  Because once you have gone as far as to kill your kid, you can’t get booked for killing him again, so why not?  Anyway, not only did dad defend Mom even when she was wrong, he let us know in no uncertain terms, that Mom always came first, period.  I think he knew that once we were long gone and grown up, she would still be there with him, and she never forgets anything.  Or he just loves her that much.

Either way, I learned 1.  What love looks like in a marriage, and  2.  How the best approach to parenting is a team effort –a united front.  Thanks Dad for teaching me that.

5.  He is the life of the party - a true entertainer.  Man can that man dance.  Party after party, event after Mexican event, quinceaneras, weddings, funerals, there was Pop moving faster than the speed of light with his feet, moving Mom all over the room while everyone else was winded.  When he wasn't dancing he was cutting up with the relatives.

When my grandmother was alive, I swear dad saw it upon himself to make her laugh every time she turned around.  One liners, complicated jokes that took setting up, crazy off the wall comments.  Dad was a goofball, and people loved it.  They still do.  Today, Dad works in a large building full of hairdressers, mostly women and gay men, and he has them all in stitches most of the time.

He is a comedian alright, but he can also sing, and he can sermonize and deliver a eulogy that would bring Hitler to tears.  He is also a story teller.  Everything that has ever happened to Dad will be in a story of sorts - a dramatic retelling of the event with details that had to be slightly embellished in order to make it interesting of course.  Mom is the fact-checker in the relationship and is commonly on hand to let folks know that “it did not happen like that.”  But when she is not around, the stories are amazing.

Dad has always been an artist when it comes to making people laugh, cry and listen.  I have always tried to mimic his ability to do so, and maybe one day I will be as good as he is at it.

4.  He doesn’t half-ass anything – My Dad is not just a hairstylist.  He is also a barber.  But not just a barber, but a licensed barber instructor.  Wait and that’s still not all.  He is also a cosmetologist.  And…  you guessed it, a licensed cosmetology instructor.  If you don’t happen to be in the know, a barber, is different than a hairstylist and the two are different than a cosmetologist.  It was not enough that Dad cuts hair for a living, he had to be the best.  He spent a great deal of time in his early life traveling around and doing shows for folks, explaining to them how to cut hair and style hair and color hair in ways that he knew best.

Aside from all of that, Dad is a carpenter, and an electrician, a plumber, an auto mechanic and an all around handy man.  He was never satisfied to pay someone to do something that he could do himself.  I spent many a Sunday under the hood of a car or under the car itself with Dad while he fixed things and I handed him tools.  Occasionally he would bump his head on something and then I would learn new words to add to my vocabulary.  Dad is an explorer, a learner and a tireless student.  A few years ago I gave him a computer, and to this day he not only uses it daily to read scary conservative political emails, but he actually gets on Facebook and posts on people’s walls.

Facebook, at 80.  Wow.  Dad you taught me that “if that guy can do it, I can probably do it too.” You taught me how to troubleshoot what’s wrong with my car and my friends cars.  You taught me how to dig a hole, mow a lawn, paint a building, pour cement, lay bricks, trim a hedge, change a light bulb in an oven, fix a dryer, hammer a nail, put up sheet rock, frame out a building, put in insulation, lay carpet, build a roof, shingle the roof, fix a motor, clean a battery connection, change a fuel filter, change oil, fix brakes on a car, pull the head off of a motor and replace the head gasket (without catching the fuel line on fire), and  the list could go on and on, Pop.  I have learned so much from being around you and from just being unafraid to try something new and then eventually master it.  That is you in me.  Thanks!

3. He can still kick above your head – in the 80s I was pretty much convinced at the age of 15 that I was going to be Rocky Balboa.  I had purchased a 60 lb body bag to suspend from a rafter in the garage and pummel on during my intense work out sessions.  I also had a speed-bag to practice my punching on.  Dad helped me hang that up by building a custom fixture for it out of wood.

One day, me and my friend were in the garage hitting the bag when Dad walked in.  He had to be in his 60s back then, and he said, “I don’t need to do all that punching, because I can KICK…”  on the word KICK he lifted his leg straight up off the ground and hit the bag right where the person’s face would have been, nearly knocking the bag off of it’s rope  “…above your head” then he brought his leg down and walked off.

Me and my friend laughed a little bit at the randomness of it all, but we were both impressed that he could do that.  My Dad can still kick “above your head.”  Not sure when that will come in handy, but if anyone ever needs a good kick above the head, just ask Dad, I am sure he has been waiting all these years for someone to need him in that way.

My Dad has periods where he works out and some where he doesn't  but he has always been strong and healthy and tireless.  I hope to aspire to that one day.

2.  He is strikingly handsome – Okay, now I understand that this is a subjective point of view here, but my Dad is pretty handsome.  I mean he must be, because people say I look just like him, so it has to be true.  See what I did there?   Yes, I always thought that my dad with his ability to use his voice, and put on an act for anyone anywhere would have made an excellent Hollywood actor.  I think he missed his calling honestly.

I have had girlfriends in the past tell me that my dad is handsome and that they would stay with me forever because I would probably look like him as I grew older.  All those girlfriends have left me for other reasons entirely, but that is beside the point.  The problem was with them really.  No seriously, they were all bad bad girlfriends.

1. He had regrets.  He made changes – okay, serious here.  My Dad has made some pretty solid decisions in the past.  He has been stubborn at times and made rash decisions.  Haven’t we all?  But, I got to see him have regrets.   He let me know when a decision he made was a bad one.  He let me see that side of him that fails, and then gets up and tries again -- tries something different this time.

He let me see the part of him that realizes that his point of view was wrong and then he let me see how he changed his point of view to accommodate for his new knowledge.  It was subtle and one of those things that we never talked about.  My Dad showed me that he could appear very stubborn, but deep down he learned from his mistakes and he did not go on making the same ones.

Because of his regrets, he changed.  This has been a major, major thing for me.  I am who I am because of this.  My whole life has been about one stubborn decision after another, and how I have had to learn and learn and learn and change to accommodate for what I have learned.

Because I was younger I got to see Dad raise kids, make decisions about money, about drinking alcohol, about morality and  culture.  I saw him change from a guy who bad mouthed one group of folks, to a guy who praised those folks later.

Dad, thank you most of all for making mistakes and not being afraid to admit when you were wrong about something.  Thanks for teaching me how to accommodate and change based on my knowledge of the world around me changing.  I know you don’t agree with me when it comes to politics, but the reason I am who I am today is because of what you taught me.

I love you Pop.  I hope your next 80 years are just as amazing as these have been.  Happy Birthday!

 Your son -- you know, the hard-head…

Me (in my diaper) and Dad (In his barber smock)

Jesus is For Losers

(Song written by Steve Taylor)

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. "Yet  it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. "And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -  "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,  but to serve, and  to give His life a ransom  for many." (Matt 20:25-27)

The Opposite of Winning
Part of getting older for me has been dealing with loss in many big ways.  There is the loss of my children as they grow old enough to not need my protection, my income and my wisdom; the loss of respect that folks seem to get just for being over 40.  There is the loss of youth, virility, strength and time.  Likewise, there is the impending loss of mobility, health, and eventually life iteself to be concerned about.

So no, I do not find myself at the age of 46 saying victoriously the word “WINNING” like the equally old Charlie Sheen most recently.  Instead I can say with much certainty and conviction loudly that I am “LOSING!”

Every day I stand to lose more and more.

So what happened?
I mean really, this is not the glory story I was told as a teenager in my Jesus-freak youth group.  Certainly it does not smack of the usual optimism.  I mean, that would suppose that you believe the same stories I did.  You are special.  You are important.  You will do great things.  You have a special purpose. You can be a winner.  You just have to work hard and be good and everything will work out for the best.  This lack of optimism may be taken as negativity or worse still, morbidity, but I find myself just wanting to be very honest here.

No, you do not get everything you ever wanted in life.  No love does not stay the same and never change. There is no happily ever after and the sun WILL NOT come out tomorrow most days. If you find something good, I mean really awesome, in your life time you will most likely lose it, and probably in a horrendous way.

However, when I look at the Christian church and most Christians these days you would think they missed the memo.  They are all about winning and claiming the victory.  They seem fixated on simply emoting happiness as if being a Christian has somehow fixed all of their problems.  There was a while there when I played the same game.  Regardless of what happened to me I would simply praise Jesus and of course neglect to tell any of those other smiling happy Christians who never experienced problems about my woes.

We are all Losers
But, the truth is they are all losing – we are.  Right now, in fact you too are losing… something.  It could be love, money, time, friends, family members; other loved ones, life itself, health, longevity. Seriously, the list goes on.  A case could be made that each of us are losing far more than we are winning and will continue to lose even in the midst of winning.

Jesus on the other hand was a Master loser.  He knew how to lose and how to lose big, with little dignity and little saving face.  He demonstrates to us how we can go on with life even after losing so much.

Don’t believe me?  Show me a scripture where Jesus tells us to “Play the Lotto, because you can’t win if you don’t play.”  How about just one that says “Build a big nest egg for your self and constantly defeat your enemies.”  How about one that says “Amass a great big happy family, or obtain a large lovely home, own the most cattle, win, win, win?”

You won’t find it – I looked.  Instead if you truly reflect on the words of Jesus, you will find a common thread among just about everything he has to say.  Here’s a hint – it’s not about winning.

Jesus says “the last shall be first.”  Loosely translated this means that the biggest losers will actually be the winners.  In the upside down world of Jesus and his Kingdom of God, there is value in being last.

Jesus goes on to say things like:

“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 1:18-19)

Really?
As “Followers” of Jesus aren’t we supposed to be like him?  What would it take for us to value other people’s successes over our own?  This is antithetical to just about everything my parents, church, and school taught me.  Isn’t it all supposed to be about victory, success, winning, building a mansion in the sky, achieving more for myself?

I have this tattoo on my left arm that I have had now since October of 2004.  It is a stern reminder of this message.  Often-times I forget the tattoo is even there, but when I look at it for more than a few seconds, I quickly sober up and remember this mandate.

The tattoo says “Ars Moreindi” in a Gaelic script.  The Latin words simply mean, “The Art of Dying (Death).”  My Mom would think this was awfully morbid and has voiced her opinion of my tattoo on a few occasions, but I continue to try and cling to this message in selfish moments – moments when I want to hold on to my life too firmly – times when I reign supreme and no one else matters — times when I am pursuing the American Dream at the expense of other people and in spite of those that are not doing so well, times when I know I am right and the other person is dead wrong.

A year ago, just after Easter, I lost my home. He is Risen!  I lost my Home!  He is Risen Indeed!  Someone could have died, but He will come again!  Everything I own was in limbo for weeks at a fire restoration facility.  He is Risen!  I am not a fan of Easter.  In my opinion it was a holiday created by Christians designed to gloss over Jesus’ entire life’s work including everything he ever said and demonstrated, by celebrating his resurrection from the dead.  Whoop-dee-freakin-doo, I was not feeling very Easterful last year.

If you were unfortunate enough to catch the movie “The Passion of Christ” you know that Jesus didn’t just rise from the dead though, right? He was tortured to death first.  It took hours.  At least he didn’t have to watch the movie, or work closely with Mel Gibson.  But seriously, read the white spaces in the Bible (between the words) and see exactly all that he lost prior to his end on earth.

He lost his status as a carpenter. He lost his family business. He lost dignity and respect. He lost his position in society as a teacher. He lost all of his friends. He lost the possibility of ever having a wife and kids of his own. He lost his Mother and Father and brothers and sisters and cousins.  Don’t you think he wanted those things?  Don’t you think he loved his family and friends as much as we do?

He gave up on all that stuff, all those people.  He was good at giving up wasn’t he?  He held on to everything – every blessing, every friendship, everything —  very lightly.  It’s like he knew that he could lose it all at any moment, and was already prepared to do so.

How then shall we live? 
If we are to be followers of Jesus, why do we fight so hard to not just keep ALL that we have, but to get more and more in spite of others?  Why do we work so hard and for so many hours away from each other?  Why do we fight so hard for principles that have nothing to do with these words of Jesus? What are we trying to do anyway?

Does the fact that Jesus lost everything somehow mean he did not care about anything?  I don’t think so.  I think he cared an awful lot about all of it, all of us and all of them.  It’s just that he knew that life was a blessing.  All of the good stuff did not BELONG to him, nor did he have a right to possess it.  So when he lost it all he was most definitely hurt by the loss, but he somehow knew it could happen.

Sometimes I feel that we as Christians missed the point completely of his death.  We see it as a means to his resurrection, which we celebrate so victoriously on Easter, being remarkably silent on Good Friday. We see him as a winner, a victor over death, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace and all that other mumbo-jumbo which means very little to people who are still alive and having to live with loss on a regular basis. So rather than embrace loss as a way of life, we are forced to sort of pretend that everything is lovely all the time and losing a loved one is no big deal because we will “See them in Heaven.”

We don’t understand why things go so wrong at times and why even though we are living “victorious” lives we still lose so much.  We think sometimes that maybe we are not living victoriously enough and that is why bad things happen.  So we turn it up a notch, the entire time going in the wrong direction, moving further and further from the God of losing — moving more and more towards the God of winning — a fictitious, evil god that is never satisfied.

Or even worse, we blame God for the bad things — for the loss.  See him as some kind of cruel cosmic game master in the sky plotting against us, we who have served him so well for so long.  How could God take these things away?  We deserve so much better.  How does he expect us to claim the victory when he keeps taking, taking, taking?

What we fail to see is that we as followers of Jesus, are to lay these things down — give them up — hold on to them looser than we currently hold on to them. No one can take them away from us, no one, because we lay them down on our own accord (John 1:18-19 again). I know, hard words to hear, and harder words to live by.  Thanks a lot, Jesus.  Why couldn’t you have just told us to infiltrate a major American political party and dominate the federal government with the intentions of legislating morality based on our own interpretation of scripture?  So much easier.

The Loser’s Club
The good news is that we are not alone.  Not only is God with us (in my opinion), but we have each other to lose with. We can have our own Loser’s Club to be associated with. 

In the novel “It” by Stephen King there was a special kind of camaraderie that the main characters shared in being part of this special club of kids called The Losers’ Club by their schoolmates.  But in the end, this band of would be losers somehow proves over and again their ability to sacrifice everything they have for one another.

Love, sacrifice, commitment, compassion, these are the principles that come about when we are used to losing and are held hostage by no-thing.  Jesus knew that.

In The River

In the river I'm gone
In the river I'm gone 
In the river I'm gone
In the river I'm gone
(Sarah Masen's song, The River, from the album, A History of Light and Shadow, 2007) 

I never thought much about that part of Christianity that is all about escaping the cruel evil world.  

I remember being told sometime back when I was a youth that if I got "saved," then eventually I would get to leave earth and go live on a cloud in Heaven, or in a mansion in Heaven and I could never quite reconcile either of those with reality.

For one, does Jesus really get off on big houses?  I mean is that what our reward basically amounts to is a large house with many rooms and servants and a decent sprinkler system?  How about a few Rolls Royces while we are at it?  Does God come over to your mansion for dinner parties and will I have to wear a fancy antebellum dress on this ocasion?

The cloud idea was also a little crazy.  Wouldn't you fall right through?  If not, how do planes fly right through clouds and how many Heaven-dwellers are knocked right off the tops of clouds when planes fly by?  Also what about issues like exposure?  Wouldn't we eventually die if we had to spend eternity outside like that, with no shelter?  

Yeah, I know this is coming off a little silly.  Really, I don't mean it to, but you know it is me talking.  I tend to lean towards the silly.   Anyway, the main point of their sermons is this:  "Your life truly sucks right now, doesn't it?  If you accept Jesus Chirst (he always has a last name in these sermons) as your lord and personal savior, not only will it get dramatically better, but eventually you get to leave behind this shithole."   Okay, I may have gone a bit beyond with the term shithole, but you get the picture.

Christianity was a means to escape the world. If I can dwell on Heaven a little more, I don't have to dwell too much on what is going on right now, right here, and right in front of me.  I needed that as a teenager.  I really did.  My life did suck.

No, I did not have abusive or alcoholic parents.  I did not have a heavy drug habit or anything like that.  Nopers, as a teenager, I was just plain unattractive and unpopular and desperate for friendship and acceptance.  Sounds a bit like something a drama-queen might say.  In fact I was so unpopular and unwanted by most kids my age, I thought that becoming a Christian, though being a form of social suicide, would be much better than the life I was living up to that point.  In fact, I needed Jesus as much as I needed anything back then.

I eventually grew up and I eventually grew to realize that this world is God's creation and that I am also his creation.  I learned that escaping was not at all what Jesus was talking about when he said things like Love your neighbor as yourself, and go the extra mile, and do not divorce your wife, and do not objectify each other, and that the kingdom of God is here, near, and now.  Jesus was overly concerned about how we treat others right now, right here, and on earth.  At no time did he say "forget all that shit, we are out of here in 5, 4, 3..."  He just simply doesn't say that ever.  

So I have settled into the idea that Heaven is really not at all what we think it is, and neither is Hell.  We simply don't have the answers.  None of us do, and neither does the Bible.  But, sometimes I still want to just hide.  Sometimes I still want to get away.  Sometimes I could just withdraw from everything and everyone and just totally isolate myself.  I don't get it.  I don't understand it, but it's true.

So, when I heard this song by Sarah Masen, I just fell into it.  I listened to the lyrics and I just fell into it.  For me, "the river" is not just the equivelent of spiritual bliss, it is a means to escape all of the hard stuff.  A way to run into god's arms and just cry, or sit and be quiet or just relax. Because sometimes I am like this big kid.  With all of my knowledge and education and experience, sometimes I want my big daddy to just wrap his arms around me and hold me.  

At those times, I am sick of my job, my church, my life and people and I just want to escape it all and be with someone who I think not only understands me, but maybe who understands me more than I understand myself.  Maybe this is a form of Heaven.  Well it seems that way to me.  This is a place that I can go whenever I want, but there is also a certain amount of depravity in staying there, isn't there?  Sarah, has put her music online for folks to listen to and I invite you to quietly listen to this song with me.  Below are the lyrics.

Click Here to download the song:

I could never get close enough to your fire

And now that my flame's gone out, I won't try
Cause I'm in the water under and going down tired
And if there's life at the bottom, I guess I'll find out
 
Somehow I knew I wasn't meant to burn on
And how could such darkness make any sense, I don't know
But everything is pulling like Easter, somethings begun
But everything's moving toward something that's already done

In the river I'm gone (x4)

I can see your light on the surface, now it fades
But I am still alive, some second wave
And I can hear singing, some distant parade
And over and over, I hear the same refrain

In the river I'm gone (x4)

Come with your weary
Come with your thirst
Come with your fading 
Come with your hurt
What is not is now
Come with your doubt
Come on

In the river it's gone 
In the river I'm gone
In the river it's gone
In the river I'm gone

Come to the river
Come with your burdens
Come into the river 
Come

In the river I'm gone (x4 and fade)

When I was Just a Little Girl...

Just read an article on Huffington Post that made me think back a bit to when I was a kid.  I know weird, right?  I never talk about being a kid.   Okay, that was admittedly a bit of sarcasm.  I frequently talk about my childhood, but that is because I think childhoods are important.  I think they shape us into the adults we become.

The article by Kristen Wolfe entitled Dear Customer Who Stuck Up For His Little Brother was about a teenager (around 17 YO) who in fact defended his little brother’s (10-12 YO) decision to choose a video game that had a female lead character in it and a purple controller for the game against his own father who was threatening the child with bodily harm if he chose these things.

The father stomped off angry and the boys, though emotionally affected stood firm together.  It is an amazing story.  The father wanted his son to choose something more “manly” apparently, something with guns or zombies in it, but the boy insisted that he wanted the girl-game.

I thought about why the father was so insistent and I think it is because somehow he believes that if the boy chooses more manly games, then the boy will somehow grow up to be… more manly.  The opposite argument also works in this case, if in fact the boy plays with girl-games, then he will most likely end up to be gay, or a girl – which is one in the same for this father obviously, and both are anathema to the father.

But, is this assumption true?  I mean, when I was a young father raising my boys I think I felt like it was my job to mold my boys into “men.”  And my definition of men was something like this father’s.  It was tough, strong, manly, or masculine, or macho, and straight, not gay.  I was deluded into believing that somehow just by the toys I let them play with, the clothes I let them wear and the things I let them do, I could somehow make this sort of thing happen.

So I only let them play with toy cars and trucks and other stuff like that.  When kids were playing dress-up and putting on dresses, I did not allow them to play that way.  I made crude jokes about gayness and gay people in the home to make sure the kids knew that this was not an acceptable way to be.  I did everything I knew to try and control their future outcomes.  I believed that I could somehow, prevent gayness, or create straightness if you will.

Years later, I am convinced that I was wrong to try and do this.  I also now realize that being a man has nothing to do with a person’s sexual preference.  After all, there are plenty of tough determined men in the military stationed in Afghanistan right now on behalf of our country who happen to be gay. 

I realize also that there is no way for a father or mother to create or foster or nurture or make kids grow up to be straight.  You can certainly make them miserable by trying -- as the father in the article certainly was able to demonstrate.  I don’t know what the scene was when those boys got home or in the car on the way home, but I can imagine that it was not a pleasant one.  Just because dad backed down in the store it does not mean that the discussion was over.

Here’s another thing, does playing with cross-gendered toys mean that you have a gender identity issue?  Does a boy playing with Barbies make the boy instantly gay?  Does a girl playing with a set of tools make her a lesbian?  What is wrong with people?

When I was a small boy I distinctly remember that my favorite person in the world back then was my Mom.  She was a SAHM, who took being a Mommy to the nth degree.  She saw it as her duty to spend every waking moment with me, caring for me, playing with me, reading to me and talking with me.  She also did a fair amount of cleaning.

Seriously, a lot of cleaning.  I don’t mean like dusting and then sleeping.  I mean hard core cleaning.  I honestly think she was a bit OCD  However, when she cleaned she would play the most beautiful music.  While most Moms of that day were listening to top 40 stuff of the 70s or Motown, Mom would play her Doris Day records from the 60s.  I grew up listening to Doris Day and singing “Que sera, sera.  Whatever will be, will be.  The future’s not ours to see.  Que sera, sera.”

My favorite toys back then were a plastic toy vacuum cleaner, a few dolls and a golden brown teddy bear, appropriately named “Goldie.”  She had a husband teddy bear named Ted.  I think he was actually doing my dark brown teddy bear (Markeesha) on the side, but that is another story.  These were a few of my favorite things. 

You know why?  I wanted to be just like Mom when I grew up.  And she seemed to favor these things, including the vacuum cleaner.  It’s a miracle that my favorite toys weren’t an old dust rag and a mop and bucket, considering how much Mom cleaned.  No, instead it was toys that could let me play like my Mom.  I wore her shoes around the house too and liked to make things with her.

Guess what, I'm not attracted to men in the least.  So, there you go.  My worst moment as a child growing up?  The day my Mom put all my girl toys in a plastic bag and I never saw them again, including my Goldie bear.  I cried and cried and cried.  It was heart-breaking.

Maybe she too was afraid of her influence on me.  I still believe that spending all that time with Mom and playing with tender toys and listening to Doris Day and having my Mommy wipe me down with a cold wet wash-rag and stay by my side all night when I had a fever made me into the caring and compassionate man I am today.  Thanks Mom.  I forgive you for taking Goldie away.    

“When I was just a little girl, I asked my Mother what will I be.  Will I be pretty?  Will I be rich?  Here’s what she said to me.”  “You will be a good man, John.  You will.”