The Eagle Has Finally Landed

For most of my adult life, I thought I was the only one to suffer this self-inflicted wound.

It happens.

I even lied about it for years, trying to rationalize my youthful behavior as if it would make any difference at all. I carried an inner shame that couldn't be shared with anyone, for fear that I'd be judged as an idiot... a cretin... a person who failed at a basic test of courage and tenacity and fortitude.

But after decades of hiding behind a wall of deception, I was finally able to come to grips with my secret shame and understand how and why it happened, and to realize that I had become a better person for it.  And when I met someone who had gone through exactly the same torment and shame that I'd experienced, who had also suffered in silence like me, I was able to openly admit the truth:

I DID NOT REACH THE RANK OF EAGLE SCOUT.

There... I said it. WHEW!

Achieving the rank of Eagle Scout should have been a no-brainer, It was almost predestined that I would become one at 14 years old, and yet I made a conscious decision to NOT let it happen, and that decision in 1970 haunted me well into middle age for reasons both simple and complex.  But those days are past, and now I actually revel in the notion of what I did and why I did it.

Let me explain.

Awesome Dad worked hard to raise my younger brother and I by himself, with lots of help from various relatives, but sometimes he struggled being a Single Male Parent.  I think that's why he had me join the Cub Scouts, where he became involved as a Pack Leader, which morphed into Boy Scouts, where he was the Scoutmaster of our Troop. He wasn't just the Scoutmaster... he and several other Dads of my soon-to-be Boy Scout friends didn't like the look of the local Troops, so they formed a brand new one, based at Sunset Elementary School in La Puente, California.

Troop 715.

Over the next 5 years, I experienced one of the most important, formative, positive and enjoyable parts of my early years on this small Blue Planet. Looking back on it now, I'm grateful to have been involved in Scouting as opposed to sports, because I learned far more about the world as a result. Some of my experiences didn't happen to anyone else I knew who weren't involved in Scouting. Sure, hiking and camping and cooking and knotting and first aid and all the stereotypical Boy Scout stuff, it all added to my quiver of campcraft.

But there were also other special experiences that forever affected my malleable young self. For example, becoming an Indian Dancer, a 'Modern Oklahoma Fancy Dancer', to be exact, the result of being in the Order of the Arrow, a Scouting honor camping society based on Native American philosophy and lore. Dad gave scads of time to organize and support our local Indian dance troupe, and we performed all over Southern California.  I was good enough to compete in and win several local and regional events, earning a chance to compete at the Nationals in Illinois.

My first Indian Dance costume, Dad-designed and fabricated!

Imagine: a 13-year-old attending the Order of the Arrow National Conference and Indian Dance Competition in Illinois, part of a 3-week mid-Summer road trip with two adults and eleven other Scouts in two station wagons, from SoCal to NYC and back again. Many firsts occurred during that amazing journey, but those youthful secrets will remain for another essay, another set of searing memories. That kind of road trip could NEVER happen in our modern helicopter-parenting age.

Picture this: a dozen condoms, bought at a gas station bathroom in Joplin, Missouri for $.25 each, inflated and tied to the car's antennae, flapping like mad in the wind while we raced thru the state at 70mph, laughing like hyenas. Yep, that kind of trip.

By my 14th birthday, I had the requisite number of merit badges and the goal of achieving my Eagle Scout badge was in sight. Although there were a couple of others in my Troop that were also on the same path, I was far ahead of them and would soon be THE FIRST EAGLE SCOUT in Troop 715. Dad rode me hard, made me do the work, never relented on the pressure for me to follow through. But somewhere in there, I spun out.

I got mad at Dad, like all teenagers do.

It happens.

I felt he was putting too much pressure on me to make the rank ahead of my friends/rivals for his own reasons.  I didn't understand what the big deal was (dumb kid that I was) and that it was all about him, not me. I had completed my Eagle Project, and all I had to do was write and submit a project report to our local Council to cross the Eagle Finish Line, but I felt like it was an empty gesture, a thing of no value to me in any way.

I refused to write the report.

No matter how much Dad cajoled and pressured me to take that last step, I refused.  Sure enough, one of my good friends/bitterest rivals caught up and earned his Eagle, the FIRST ONE in our Troop. To make matters worse, I even performed the Eagle Dance at his award ceremony, strutting and spinning on stage with my Eagle head and wings, dancing to the drum beats, feeling Dad's anger and shame from across the room.

I won.  I was victorious by denying him what he wanted most. I had POWER, for seemingly the first time in my life. And for the next two years, I just cruised through Scouting, never taking that last step, never going the final mile. By the time I turned 16 and got my first car, I was done and gone from Scouting, separated forever from the specter of the Eagle Badge.

Or so I thought.

As an adult, the shadow of that non-achievement haunted me, making me feel like I'd given up something important, something that was totally in my grasp but let slip away. If the subject came up, I would lie about being an Eagle Scout, but it was just me rationalizing about making it THAT CLOSE, so it counted, right?  But it didn't count. I wasn't an Eagle Scout. I had failed.

Eons later, talking about it with Dad, he said he hadn't even thought about it... but I KNEW DIFFERENT.  I knew he was pushing down the abject disappointment of my failure all those decades ago, I was sure of it. As time went on, that missed opportunity turned into a jagged little pill, spinning around in my rabid wolverine gut, making me feel like that singular teenage act had some kind of dark juju hanging over my psyche.

And then, a miracle happened.

About 5 years ago, our next-door neighbor's oldest son Boris (not his real name) earned his Eagle Badge, and The Artist and I were invited to attend the ceremony. We went to the church where the event was being held and were hanging around outside when I saw Boris talking to a few of his friends.  I asked to speak with him privately for a few minutes. First, I gave him my Camp Cherry Valley (Avalon, CA) 'Staff' neckerchief that I'd had since my Scouting days, which he loved since he'd be spending a week at the same camp later that summer.

Then I told him about my not having achieved the Eagle rank, how and why it happened, but also why I was a better person now because of Scouting, Eagle or not, and that I was incredibly proud of him for finishing his quest.  He was visibly moved, thanking and hugging me for taking the time to share these personal truths with him. Very powerful stuff.

Once inside the church, we witnessed a ceremony steeped in tradition and reverence.  I was time-warping in a big way from all the trappings... the scouts, the uniforms, the flags, the adult leaders... all of it.  The thing that really took my breath away was the joy, pride and happiness of Boris' parents, sitting there beaming.  When I saw the bliss on their faces, I was thunderstruck at the reality of what I'd done to my Awesome Dad all those years ago. He'd been denied that moment of parental joy because of my youthful selfishness, denied of the honor that would not and could not ever be grasped.

I sat there mute, holding The Artist's hand, thinking to myself, "How could I have done that to Dad?!?!"

I felt terrible.

But it only lasted a few moments, because I also realized that, good or bad, I'd made a decision and stuck with it all those years ago.  I became filled with pride and joy for Boris' achievement and felt like I was up there with him on stage, smiling like a loon, being THE MAN. I had been talking about this Eagle mindfuck with The Artist in the days leading up to this moment... I looked at her, she smiled and I knew she knew exactly what I was thinking. Funny how that works.

All at once, the guilt and shame and regret over my selfish act of parental denial faded away, replaced with a sense of understanding, happiness and compassion.  When the ceremony ended, we left for home, me released from a weight that I'd carried for most of my adult life.

This is what it means to be forgiving of one's own (self-perceived) faults.

How many of us carry around these self-inflicted wounds, forming scabs that constantly get ripped off to reveal the raw emotional flesh underneath?

It's almost unbelievable that I labored with this internal struggle for so many years, all because of a teenage angst-ridden decision.  But the truth is, most everyone have regrets from their youth that were never resolved and still haunts their sub-conscious mind. Sometimes it becomes so prevalent, is filled with so much anger and pain and hurt, we drown ourselves in drugs or booze or food or emotional upheaval and it poisons and destroys every other aspect of our lives.  Anyone who has ever watched an episode of 'Intervention' knows that one single childhood trauma can have disastrous repercussions for the rest of your life unless you deal with that trauma, learn to forgive yourself and then move on.

"Deal with the faults of others as gently as your own." -- Chinese proverb

However, I am here to say that as traumatic as this insane Eagle issue was for me, it is now merely another closed chapter in my life's novel.  I've removed the bookmark from that page and have started the next chapter.

HOWEVER.

The things I learned in Scouting... the 12 Scout Laws, the concepts of the motto 'Be Prepared' and the slogan 'Do a good turn (deed) daily'... those things have stayed with me and will always be a part of my deep rooty-root character.  How could I have known the idea of always doing for others first would be my life's mantra?  I couldn't and didn't, yet they're among the most important elements of who I am now. I may not be a fan of what the Boy Scouts have become these days, entrenched with religious dogma and its regressive ideology, but I'm glad to have gotten my Scouting goody when it mattered most to me.  I owe it all to the Awesome Dad.

The Twelve Scout Laws:

A Boy Scout Is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent (my troop's secret laws also included 'Hungry, Lazy and Girl-Crazy'... heh heh heh).

Could there be a better list of secular human behavior to aspire to? No, I don't think so.



Closing Notes:  I used the lead image and closing video clips from the 2012 Wes Anderson film 'Moonrise Kingdom' for a very specific reason.  Although  the 'Khaki Scouts' portrayed in the film don't really exist, the tone and context they display, along with the entire film, are crazy-similar to my Scouting and youthful reality, strange as that may seem.  I totally identify with Sam Shakusky's main character in so many ways, it's almost scary.  In addition, heroine Suzy Bishop is a dead-on ringer for The Artist in her formative years, and I like to think that her and I would be exactly like Sam and Suzy if we had met as barely-teens.




See this film.

In a strange and not-ironic twist, one of the most popular custom art projects The Artist creates is (wait for it)... AN EAGLE SCOUT MEMORY BOX. Now whenever she completes a special commission for one, I photograph it with my very own camp knife, neckerchiefs, merit badge sash and Order of the Arrow patches inside as props:

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."  -- Robert Brault

Lead image, Gracias de arewenotentertained.com; 'Moonrise Kingdom' videos, Gracias de youtube.com; Eagle Scout Memory Box image, Muchismas Gracias de MisguidedDesigns.com. Hungry, Lazy & Girl-Crazy!

Lost In La Puente

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  Saturday morning, sometime during the summer of 1970:

Me: “Hey Dad… I’m heading over to Ken’s house.”

Dad: “OK.  What are you two gonna do today?”

Me: “I dunno… maybe go grab some fries and shakes at Randy’s Burgers. Ride around.”

Dad:  “OK… just be sure to get home before dark. and stay outta trouble.”

Me: (whooshing sound as I blast off into the Great Unknown)

I would jump on my metallic purple 10-speed and haul-ass from home as fast as my pedaling could take me.  Yes, I would make my way to Ken’s house for a few minutos, maybe even find some time to make out with his sister Julie (if no one saw us), but that was only the start of a typical teen-age Saturday morning.  The possibilities were endless, and my hard-earned allowance of $3 a week (handed over to me just before I left) guaranteed that I would not go hungry or thirsty, no matter what adventures came our way.

We might ride up to the top of Pee Hill and tempt injury or death by racing down the steep streets like imbeciles.  We might ride to the (outdoor old-skool) mall in West Covina to look for girls or ride The Broadway elevator up and down 14 times before getting kicked out by the ancient security guard.  We might ride up into La Habra Heights and careen down the steep and twisty tree-lined streets while the neighborhood dogs would race after us to try and bite our legs and tires.  We might ride to Workman High School to watch the cute cheerleaders bouncing and prancing around during field practice.  We might even ride the 35 miles all the way to Huntington Beach to hang out on the sand and eat hot dogs and just be stupid hormone-soaked teenage Cali boys.

We might wind up doing some or all of those things.  Or not.  The point is, once I left the house, I was GONE, baby... totally lost.  The only way Dad would know where I was and what I’d been up to was if I got hurt or in trouble.  Otherwise, he didn’t have a clue where I was, who I was with, or what I/we were doing.  There were phone booths all over town if I had to make a call for any reason, but I had no reason to call unless I was hurt or in trouble, see?  He trusted me enough to let me roam about unhindered, unsupervised, uncontrolled.  That’s how it was for a relatively-good 13-year-old boy in 1970 in La Puente, California.  I know it wasn’t the same for girls… or was it?

I WAS FREE.

No smart phone.  No mobile phone at all.  No tablet.  No pager.  No e-tracking.  No live feeds.  No GPS.  No electronic tethers of any kind to worry about.

I WAS FREE.

No closed-circuit cameras were mounted on buildings, ready to catch me doing brodies on the smooth concrete loading dock at Food Giant.  No motion sensors were activated when we climbed into dumpsters behind the liquor store, looking for ruined copies of PLAYBOY or STAG Magazines.  Active surveillance was limited to being seen and/or heard doing… whatever.

I WAS FREE.

I feel awful for 13-year-old kids in our modern climate change age, with their (not very) smart phones and Fecesbook updates and Twatter feeds and I(B)Ms and all the things that hold them in electronic hostage, whether they are conscious of their condition or not.  Yeah, they might think they have it all… all the electronic goodies and the interconnectivity we modern humans think we cannot live without.  But they are NOT FREE, no way no how.   They can NEVER be as free as I was in 1970, riding my bike (without a helmet) across town, hair flying and sweat streaming and skinny tires glued to the ground by gravity alone.

I’d been thinking about this issue for some time when I read a column in my local paper, written by a school teacher who answers questions posed by unbelievably dense parents.  Seems a Mother’s kindergarten-aged daughter was having trouble making friends at school or her pre-scheduled ‘play dates’ and Mom asked what should she do.  The teacher’s answer was surprising… she basically said that play dates usually don’t work out for kids, because it’s really about the parents being friends and getting together. 

As for the kid making friends in her neighborhood (which the Mom doesn’t allow), the teacher talked about her own Mom letting her leave the house ON HER OWN and walk up the street to make friends, something ‘play dates’ just don’t accommodate.  Kids that don’t learn to make friends unless there is direct adult supervision are just missing out, so Mom needs to take kid to the park and let her run wild, make her own friends and learn how to assimilate into her own age group… on her own. Skip the play dates, lessen the hovering and supervision and little Missy’s ability to make friends at school would probably improve dramatically.

I read the question and answer over a few times to make sure I understood what was being discussed, and that’s when I flashed back to my yoot.  Even as a little kid, I somehow managed to find other kids my own age, whether at school or in the ‘hood, to play with and fight with and get into trouble with, to the betterment of us all.  Even then, the only time the parents got involved was when we drew blood or needed stitches or to be fed so we could rumble again.

It all relates to my original concern about too much electronic connectivity, parental control, covert and overt supervision.  When you grow up with those things as part of your world, you never know what it means to be without them, and therefore never learn to operate without them or know what it means to be so unencumbered.  This meme is probably not unlike arguments made about landline phones or teevee or any other modern conveniences that changed our lives during the last 100 years, arguments made by olds to youngs, the same arguments that are met with a heavy sigh and rolling eyeballs.  I think the newest digital demons are much more sinister, far more mind-numbing and ADD-causing, and are creating people who never really know what it means to be free, the way I was at 13 years old.

As I've asserted before, I reject the ownership of a smart phone, and will do so unless and until it becomes mandatory for my work.  I make no excuses for this Luddite tendency, even though my current work phone allows me to text and take pictures.  I understand how smart phones have become ubiquitous, their presence almost natural in many people’s lives. However, I draw the line at owning one for a wide variety of reasons.  Example: my boss recently called me into his office and we had the following conversation:

Him: “Here, I have a new phone for you to replace your old one, it’s a smart phone I just got.”

Me:  “Thanks, but I don’t need a smart phone.”

Him: “Whaddaya mean, you don’t need a smart phone?  It’s new and lets you browse the web!”

Me:  “I have a philosophical issue with smart phones and choose not to have one. The phone I have lets me text when I need to and that’s enough for me.”

Him: (sounding slightly confused) “But… you can check your e-mail from your smart phone no matter where you’re at.”

Me:  “I can check my e-mail when I'm working at my desk.  If I’m out and about, that means I’m busy doing something else and my e-mail can wait until I get back to my desk.”

Him:  (with a look of confusion and incredulity on his face, pauses for a few beats) “Well… OK then.  Have it your way.”

I know he didn’t understand my point, but then again his Droid calls out to him all day long, pulling his eyes out of his head in an instant.  For him, not having a smart phone is just… DUMB.  Every time I mention my aversion to smart phones, I get the same reaction, with varying degrees of flabbergast and disbelief.  I’m used to it, but it gets annoying.  I know it’s a losing battle… even my personal phone carrier is dropping their 2G service soon, which will render my ancient Nokia obsolete, forcing me to get a newer, more connected device.  I’m not looking forward to it.

Back to that whole teenage freedom thingie.  It only went so far (as it should), and my 13-year-old self sure as hell knew it.  In the case of being gone on my bike all day, there was one hard and fast Dad rule:  I had BETTER be in the front yard by the time the street lights came on or it was the belt for me, no questions asked, no excuses.  And he whipped HARD.  That was all the motivation I needed to keep me in line, the vision of him hanging on to my arm with one hand, his belt lashing at me with the other, both of us circling around in a weird dance of parental discipline.  Me no likey!

So here’s how it happened (more than once heh heh heh):  me and Ken are at Randy’s Burgers, eating fries and drinking choco shakes and trying to act all cool in front of some girls from another school.  Suddenly, I stopped cold… I realized it was getting dark and I was at least 2 miles from home. HOLY SHIT!!!  I dropped my food and jumped on my bike and blasted off for home, riding like a deranged rabid wolverine through the quickly-darkening neighborhoods, pedaling my ass off.  Somewhere about halfway home, my skinny front tire caught one of the recessed gutters at an intersection and I went down HARD, rolling into the curb and scrubbing flesh off my hands and arms. 

Without missing a beat, I jumped back on my bike and careened around corners, narrowly missing cars and curbs and pedestrians, riding like mad to get home please please PLEASE let me get home in time!!!!!  Rounding the curve near my home, I almost go down again, somehow managing to stay upright, slicing onto the sidewalk and crashing onto the grass in front of my house.  I jump up and see the street lights flickering on, then spin around to see Dad, standing in the front doorway, a stoic look on his face, saying nothing.  Her didn’t need to.  He slowly turns around and goes into the house, closing the door behind him.

I made it, but just barely.

I don’t begrudge the use of smart phones per se, but I do worry about the subliminal effects the electronic leash will have on the young’uns.  I am totally OK with how this technology has asserted itself into our daily lives, as all modern conveniences tend to do.  However, I can choose which of these tools to use, which ones to avoid, and which ones to rail against with vigor and contempt.  You know, just like Abe Simpson yelling at clouds… it will have the same impact.

For the time being, I’ll just keep using whatever mobile device(s) that allow me to have the least amount of connectivity possible and avoid the inevitable encroachment of streaming mega-data into my conscious sphere.  And I will continue to value that time in my life when I was pedaling around La Puente on a Saturday with my friend Ken, untethered, completely unattached from any web of any kind, thinking only of being on my own and away from home, eating fries and dodging cars, making out with Julie and getting totally and completely lost.

Epilogue: 

Ken was one of my best friends all through Junior and High School, and we spent lots of idle days cruising around town on our 10-speeds.  He was the first among my circle of friends that got his driver’s license and a car in 1972, and we managed to get into all sorts of bitchin’ situations in that faded blue beast.  I had sporadic contact with him after we left high school, and the last time I saw him was in 1990 when he stopped in to visit The Artist and me at our home in Long Beach.  I always wanted to reconnect with him again, but I found out just last year that both he and his sister had died under sad and unfortunate circumstances.

I was really depressed when I realized I could not and would not ever see him again, but that depression has passed and now I will always have him in my head and my heart. Sometimes I can almost hear him, calling my name and softly knocking on my bedroom window at 4AM on Saturday morning, ready to begin our 3-hour ride to the beach, climbing through La Habra Heights in the cool dark, careening down the other side and pedaling all the way down Beach Boulevard until we reached the sand and the ocean and the sweet escape it offered.

Thanks, Ken… we did it on the good foot, unconnected, lost in La Puente.

Lead image, gracias de flickr.com; Jimi Hendrix 'Freedom' and Bread 'Mother Freedom' videos, muchismas gracias de youtube.com; R.I.P. Ken & Julie Wallis.

1970: A Space Odyssey

I’m not sure why these weird time-warp mind games keep happening. When I bring up the subject of my 'time slip', The Artist claims that I am too obsessed with time. She’s right, of course, but I am obsessed with what happens in time, whether then or now, and what impact it can and does have, and how that impact resonates throughout our lives.

In this case, methinks the current political screeching from the Ignorant Right about how they ‘don’t need no damned science’ pushed me into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine, back to what became one of the most important days of my life. The fact that it happened when I was only 13 years old is of Major Significance as, naturally, everything that happens at 13 years old seems to be earth-shattering and important.

So here goes… stick with me, because it all happened in one day.

Summer of 1970, weeks before the start of my Freshman year in high school, saw me at the cusp of an emotional and philosophical breakout. As with most 13-year-old males, I was in a constant state of agitation over girls, school, parents, girls, homework, Playboy Magazine, Boy Scouts (figger that one out), music, girls, reading sci-fi, cars, girls, building car models, going to the drag races, girls... you know, typical stuff. Mostly it was girls and school. I was on the verge of an important personal epiphany, but on that fateful 1970 summer day, it was all about girls. One girl in particular.

Her name was Janet, and although she was the object of undeserved scorn from many of my friends (something about her buck teeth and the way she sat in the cafeteria during lunch), I was smitten. I’d had her in a few classes at junior high but never really got to know her until we paired up at several year-end Friday night dances. In that brief summer between junior and high school, we sorta ‘went around’ (a.k.a. going steady, do teens still do that?), but it was really only a handful of languid afternoons spent at her house, making out junior-high-stylie while her parents were gone, just being dumb teens, you know?

That summer afternoon I walked to her house, making sure her folks were gone because I dinna think they knew what their only daughter had been up to. She let me in, we drank some lemonade, she put on some 45’s and we started necking as usual. After a few minutes of heavy teen-dream-breathing, she pulled away and said “There’s something one of my friends showed me today… wanna try it?” Being as suave as possible, I answered “Uh… well, OK. What is it?” She stood up and instructed me to stand behind her with my arms around her stomach. “I’m gonna start breathing in and out really fast”, she told me, “ …and when I tell you, squeeze your arms really tight around my stomach… it’ll make me pass out for a minute. It’s really neat!”

Before I could say anything, she began to hyperventilate herself and, when she felt lightheaded enough, gave me the signal to squeeze, which I did with vigor. In an instant, she passed out in my arms, something she’d said would happen but caught me by surprise. It was pretty weird and kinda sexy, holding this limp cutie in my arms, but in just a few seconds she came to and began to laugh at what had just happened.

“OH WOW THAT WAS CRAZY NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!!!!!!” she shouted, spun me around and wrapped me in her arms from behind. At this point, I was feeling like I’d rather get back on the couch, but she was adamant that it was my turn to pass out. Wishing I could suck her face instead of sucking wind, I started hyperventilating and after a minute or so, felt lightheaded and gave her the signal to squeeze and then...

I awoke and realized I was lying on the floor, with Janet screaming hysterically and jumping around. I slowly sat up, rubbed the back of my head and felt something wet. I looked at my hand and saw it was covered with blood, same as my arm, the floor, the carpet and the corner of the coffee table that my head had smacked when I passed out and fell because she wasn’t strong enough to hold me up. There was blood everywhere, Janet was screaming, and I gingerly felt the huge opening on the back of my head with my index finger. I stuck it in there and realized I was racked up pretty good, a 2-inch gash at the very least.

I felt OK, maybe a little weak, but was able to stand and get my bearings. Janet was beside herself, looking at the bloody mess in her den, knowing she was in deep shit now, same as me. She threw me a towel and, thanks to my excellent Boy Scout training, I knew to press and hold it to the wound to stop the bleeding, which was flowing pretty good. After a few moments, I told her I needed to get home right away, so without helping to clean the mess, streaked with blood and holding the blood-stained towel to my head, I walked slowly home.

That would be the last time Janet and I ever spoke to each other. I would see her at high school in the fall, but she never again acknowledged my existence. I figgered she got nailed pretty hard by her folks, coming home to find the bloody aftermath of our teenage games. I can’t say that I blamed her, maybe I should have talked her out of the whole thing. Maybe we would have, you know, gotten to first base instead (yeah, right). I really liked her, too… even her buck teeth.

So anyways, I walked the half-mile or so home, with people staring at me all along the way, but that’s not what I was thinking about. I knew that I would have to call my Dad at work and tell him what happened, because I’d need to get stitches at the hospital. I was frantically thinking of an excuse as to how I cracked open my head, because I sure as hell wasn’t gonna fink out on Janet. By the time I got home I had decided that it was a trip and fall accident, hitting my head on the curb, yeah, that’s the ticket, that’ll be a plausible scenario, no one saw me, someone gave me a towel for my head as I walked home, makes sense to me, right right right.

I called Dad. He was really pissed off, but he came home immediately and took me to the ER at our local community hospital where the Doc sewed up my noggin. The Doc asked me what happened, I told him my huge lie, he just went “Hmmm… OK”, and finished the job (thanks, Doc!). It felt really weird having the needle push back and forth through the skin on the back of my head… kinda cool, actually. I got a tetanus shot, they bandaged my head and we left the hospital.

I knew I was in trouble, dragging Dad home in the afternoon to go patch me up, but he seemed bemused, almost like he thought it was funny, so I was relieved that he didn’t start yelling at me for getting hurt. We got home and just hung out for a while when he surprised me with a question. “Son, you probably don’t feel like going to the scout meeting tonite, right? Why don’t we skip it and go see a movie instead?” I didn’t fall to the floor again, but I felt like it… this was a totally unexpected turn. Without hesitation, I said “Let’s go see ‘2001: A Space Odyssey!!”. I instantly knew this was not what he was hoping to hear, but being the most Awesome Dad Ever, he agreed.

Now, this was a Big Deal, skipping our Wednesday night Boy Scout troop meeting. Not only was Dad the Scoutmaster, but I was a patrol leader. We NEVER missed scout metings, so for him to take a night off was rare.

At this point, I need to fold a few pertinent facts into this recipe for context.

Firstly, I had just finished reading the novella of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ by Arthur C. Clark, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. (I recently found out he wrote the novella after Stanly Kubrick had agreed to direct the film but needed more than the original short story). The novella had a dramatic impact on me, and the sci-fi books I was inhaling at the time were simply blowing my mind, philosophically-speaking. I wanted to see that movie… BADLY.

Secondly, I was in the throes of seriously questioning my Catholic faith, and had been for at least a year. After attending the obligatory church studies known as catechism, I found the whole religion thing far more unbelievable and ridiculous than anything I was reading by Asimov, Clark, Bradbury or any of the other sci-fi stalwarts that had captured my imagination. The whole god/jesus/heaven/hell/sinner/saved/bible meme had left me cold, had not incorporated into my brain, had not convinced me that it made one iota of sense. Attending church services seemed like a monumental waste of a good Sunday morning, especially since my brother and I weren’t allowed to have breakfast until after we got home from church. THE HORROR!!!!

Thirdly, I was ripe for a new way of thinking, of understanding the world around me. I had already decided there was more to this existence than what they talked about in church… much, much more, but I didn’t know what that was. I was ready for The Enlightenment, but little did I know that it would soon enough stomp me hard without any warning.

OK, back to the story of that weird day. I knew Dad was going way out of his comfort zone by agreeing to take me to see ‘2001’, just out in its wide theatrical release. He didn’t like sci-fi, didn’t like movies that made you think, only wanted to be entertained. Methinks my bandaged head and ugly wound gave him enough reason to swallow hard and do something that he abhorred, but I reveled in. So we drove to a local theater, known far and wide as one of the few left to still have a live organist play muzak between the features.

How can I describe what happened to me that evening, sitting in that theater with my bandaged head, sitting there with my Dad who honestly would have rather seen any other movie in the world? Yes, I already knew the movie’s plot line, but from the very start of the film, I was transfixed at what I was seeing on that huge screen. The moment when, after discovering the violent uses for their newly-discovered tools, the Chief Ape threw his bone-weapon into the air… and it changed into a modern spacecraft circling the Earth, I was spellbound. When Strauss’ ‘Blue Danube Waltz’ began to play (still my favorite piece of classical music) and the spacecraft swam in the blackness of orbit around the space station, I was OUT THERE WITH THEM, living the reality of our future, floating in zero-g.

That movie… a film, a vision, a director’s perspective… it affected me to my very core. I had read Clark’s words, but when they were transformed into the stunning images before me, well... it moved me deeply. I was sitting right there next to my Dad, and he didn’t have a clue what was happening. Clark’s story came to life for me, it resonated with my understanding of the universe, and it confirmed my newfound concept that religious belief was nothing more than man’s pitiful attempt to explain away the vastness of the cosmos. And at the film’s end, when Dave was mutated from an old man to the Earth’s embryonic savior, returning to protect mankind from his own pending self-inflicted destruction, I found the answers I had been searching for. Which means, of course, that I finally discovered there ARE NO ANSWERS, only questions that push us to seek and explore and query and discover, without end.

We left the theater, me totally changed and raw and new, Dad bored to tears. To this day, he still says ‘2001’ is the worst movie he’s ever seen. I wasn’t the same teenager that entered the theater two hours earlier. I was this new being with an expanded mind and a new understanding about my place in the universe. In the weeks that followed, I would attend church services for the last time, never to return except for weddings and funerals. I had left behind the simple fables of religion. I felt alive, maybe for the first time.

From then to now, the epiphany I reached in that darkened theater still resonates and gives me strength. Would I have felt the same way had I seen ‘2001’ on a different day, under different circumstances? Hard to say, but I’m glad it happened the way it did. I have learned a lot about the world, a lot about myself, but my understanding about my place in the universe, thankfully without the shackles of religious belief, is healthier and more defined than ever.

I reckon this essay was spurred by the pronouncements of former Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a devoutly religious man who claims his God and Bible are first in his life, as he believes it should and must be for everyone. He has belittled the concepts of evolution and climate change, has denigrated the importance of a college or post- high school education (while holding two degrees himself), and claims that “colleges are responsible for indoctrinating liberal ideas in students, coercing them to leave behind their well-formed traditional religious beliefs.” He is not alone in his conviction, as there are many people who feel the same way. How tragic that is.

I’m all for every individual choosing for themselves what and what not to believe, but it seems to me that as a 13-year-old, I was more self-aware and mind-expansive than this man who wanted to lead our nation, using his long and firmly-held religious beliefs as his guide. I read a commentary regarding his statements that asserted it isn’t the education that tramples traditional religious beliefs… it's called GROWING UP, and it happens all the time. The Greek philosopher and biographer Plutarch (45-125 AD), said “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled”.

That summer Wednesday in 1970 started out simply enough for my 13-year-old self, but it escalated beyond anything I could have expected. I had no clue that would be the last day I would ever speak to Janet again. I had no clue that I’d crack my head open on a coffee table. I had no clue that by day’s end, I would experience a philosophical and life-affirming epiphany that would stay engrained in my psyche for my entire adult life. But that’s how these things work. You just… never… know.

I’ll never forget those makeout sessions with Janet, coated with the gauzy haze of time and space. I hope she’s still out there, somewhere, wondering whatever happened to the cute moron who got her in so much trouble by bleeding all over everything in her parent’s den.

I wouldn’t trade one split-second of that day for anything.



Update 4/3/12: I watched '2001' again this past weekend, with special thanks to The Artist for recording it. She RULES. I hadn't seen the film in perhaps a decade, but I completely enjoyed the story, the nuanced perspective of humanity and the grand vision that Mr. Kubrick committed to film. I was also surprised at Kier Dullea's subtle but powerful performance as Dr. Dave Bowman, caught in deep space with a rogue computer and nowhere to go but further out. I can totally understand how this film might confuse someone who doesn't have the foundation of reading Clark's novella, but I highly recommend reading the book and then watching the film. It might prove to be a very interesting journey.

Lead image, Gracias de cheap-modern-wall-decor.blog.hr; video 'In The Summertime' by Mungo Jerry (#3 on the 1970 Billboard Top 100!!!), Muchismas Gracias de YouTube.com.