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 Sometimes
events occur In the life of a Blogger which take some time to get a handle
on, resulting in a considerable lag between the event
and the posting. Of course, the Dowbrigade, with his tenuous grasp on
objective time, is as likely to be posting things that happened thirty
years ago as things that happened today. However, today we would like
to write about a moment in time that rocked our world, and that we are
still trying to incorporate into our world view. It happened during our
last visit with our eldest
son.
It was April, early fall in the Southern Hemisphere,
and the mists had started to roll in from the Pacific and blanket the
arid beaches and
ridges around
the
megalopolis
Lima, Peru. We had arrived the night before, after a rewarding
two weeks in Ecuador, spending time on the beach and on the tennis court,
and doing just enough "consulting" to justify the time and feel professionally
validated. We are also feathering our nest for an eventual retirement
relocation, although we know we will never really retire from at least
two of our full-time jobs.
Due to stupid commitments back in Boston, we only had
time to tack on 4 days in Peru, and we didn’t want to spend two of those
days
in the spectacular although exhausting bus trip up from sea level, through
a frigid, foggy pass two-and-a-half miles high between two mountain ranges,
and down into the lush world of the Callejon de Huaylas, and the Eco-Tourism
Hotel our son had built along a trout stream. Accordingly, our son had agreed to meet
us in Lima, the teeming capital and outpost of Globalization, a city
neither of us particular enjoyed. But the important thing was
spending time together, and like any big, capital city there was a lot
going on in Lima, so although our heart was high in the Andes, we we
were looking forward to catching up with Joe.
When we separated from our boys’ mother, the Peruvian
Princess, our older son was five and stayed with the Dowbrigade in Cambridge. His
little brother was two, and stayed with his Mom, knocking around four
countries and a variety of living situations until he also came to live
full-time with his Dad three years later.
Now, twenty years later, the older one feels alienated
in the US, and has settled into the same little Andean town his father
fell in love
with before he was born, surrounded by Indians and the most awesome
exhibition of nature’s glory we know. Our younger son, a self-identified
Libertarian, eschews the third world, loves Bill O’Reilly, worries about
illegal aliens invading the US, votes Republican and wants to purchase
an AK47. Go figure.
Also notable, although perhaps understandable after
watching their dear old Dad struggle from paycheck to paycheck for 20
years, is the almost
complete lack of interest in academics shown by either of them. We got
them both through high school, but they seemed to have neither interest
nor aptitude for the bookish pursuits of their father. Generational commentary
on our career choice?
That morning in Lima, foggy and cool. but with a breeze
that promised to blow off the fog by mid-morning, father and son decided to go down
to a rocky
breakwater near our San Miguel hotel for a smoke and a talk.
We took a cab down to the water, along a winding shore-front road that
snaked down at various points along
the coast from the mesa on which the city sits. The spot where we got out of the cab, in front of the breakwater, was
almost abandoned; the rocky, narrow shore making for poor sunbathing
or swimming. It was not a beach day, either, foggy and cool, and a weekday
to boot. There was hardly a person in sight, a little strange in a city
of five million people.
The stone-strewn beachfront was even narrower than usual, as it appeared
to be nearly high tide. In
fact, a narrow channel of frothy water separated the beach from the breakwater,
which thrust its rocky proboscis 40 or 50 meters into the waves. Joe hopped,
skipped and jumped lightly from rick to rock, crossing the swirling surf.
Although generally a klutz, the Dowbrigade used to be pretty good at
rock-hopping. Alas, not anymore. By the time we got safely to the middle
of the breakwater, one of our sneakers was soaked to the sole, attached
to a slightly twisted ankle to boot.
Out there on the rocky promontory, looking back at the
deserted beach and the modern city rising behind it full of masses of
people and millions
of memories, with our oldest son at our side, we felt at peace with with
world. But not for long.
After we put out our smokes and lay back on large twin boulders, watching
the wisps of fog blowing off towards the horizon, Joe dropped the bomb
he had so carefully set up, and informed us that as of this coming September
the Dowbrigade was going to be a grandfather.
We were stunned. We were staggered. We felt the
earth spin and were afraid for a horrible sick moment that we were going
to pass out.
Sure, we had considered the possibility in a theoretical, arms-length
sort of way. We realized Joe was 24 now, and in a committed relationship,
and that someday he would have kids. But not NOW!
We aren’t nearly ready to be a grandfather! So far, we have
managed to ignore the increasingly insistent communiques from the American
Association
of Retired People, and to pretend that the rapidly thinning ranks
of the "Just Don’t Suck" tennis league are due to a coincidental rash
of minor injuries. Hell, inside our head we still feel like a teenager,
waiting until the Pees go out to have the run of the house.
Still, despite the blow to our self-image, like a true, caring parent
our first words were for our son and his life-altering situation. "Joey
my boy, now you are well and truly fucked."
Well, it was the first thing that come into our head. Joe
looked hurt and offended, normal we guess as we were disparaging the
entire
process which had produced his own life. We remembered back 25 years
when we had informed our own father that he was about join the ranks
of Grandparents Unlimited. We had done it by phone, from this self-same
city of Lima, and still remember the endless seconds of silence after
we dropped our bomb. At least our son had had the decency to tell us to our face.
The world was really spinning, now. We had never
suspected that the news of our impending grandfatherhood would have such
a powerful,
physical effect. Even after ten minutes of small talk congratulations
and backtracking from our original disparaging comment, we were unsure
of our ability to walk off the breakwater. We decided we had better go
back to the hotel to lie down for a while.
Now, two months later and 8000 miles away, we are finally
coming to grips with the generational passing of the torch, the whole
concept of
grandfatherhood, and the eerie sense of history repeating itself in spastic
permutations of a twisted genetic theme. We are planning another trip to Peru
for Christmastime, to actually meet the little whippersnapper (and our
son’s significant other, who we know not yet).
 And, we have finally accepted our new status enough to put it in the
Blog. In a weird way, more than anything else so far, that is what makes
it real.
Stay tuned for the spectacular, official Grand Opening
of Joe’s Hotel, the Villa
Maria Eco-Hostal and web site,later this week.
Plan a visit, see for yourselves. You won’t be disappointed.
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