Tommy got his license.
Like most of us who spent our childhood and the majority of our teenage years as perennial passengers, he's pretty shaky on directions to and from places he's traveled for months and years. But, he'll learn.
What surprised me and what prompted this post is the fact that he's scared that he's going to make a wrong decision and get into a wreck. This from a kid who knew no fear literally from his earliest days.
I love to tell the story of the difference between Tommy and his late brother Johnny. I may have mentioned it before but the beauty of having little or no memory is that I can't remember and I don't care. When each was learning to walk, at the stage where they would pull themselves up onto their feet and use sofas, chairs, parent's pant legs to move along, I pulled the same parental trick first on Johnny, then a few years later on Tommy.
I would sit on the sofa and put my legs up on the coffee table blocking their passage. Johnny would stop. Size up the situation as best as he could. Look at me. Look at my legs. Look at the table. Look over my legs at what was or wasn't on the other side. Satisfied he would slowly and deliberately start to climb over. Tommy, on the other hand, motored down the side of the couch, got to my leg-bridge and literally dive over with no regard whatsoever for what awaited on the other side. Same with swimming.
Johnny would cling to me if we were in the bay or ocean or to the side of the pool. Tommy - after he learned the rudiments of staying a float or swimming like a damn dolphin, arms at his side, flexing his body and legs, underwater - didn't care if he was at the shallow or deep end of the pool.
Now behind the wheel of a car, Tommy's living scared.
I think it's because of too much emphasis on all the things that can go wrong. It's been a constant verbal diet of watch out for this, try and read the mind of every idiot around you, and on and on until the experience is one of running a gauntlet of folks out to kill you versus the sensation of being free to roam beyond one's own block (if you grew up in the city). The scales of judgment are out of balance. Too much fear. Not enough confidence building and encouragement.
Tommy is and Johnny was not afraid of guns. They both enjoy(ed) shooting. They both understood safety and responsibility. Johnny was an outstanding shot. At one Trappers' convention he out shot me and pretty much everyone knocking animated ducks out of the sky at one of those wall-size simulated hunting video games. Tommy can hit his share of clay pigeons.
I've got to rethink how I handle things.
Okay, here's a stretch for most but not for me.
Just as I believe I was over protective in warning Tommy about the potential dangers of the road, I believe we as a society have been over protective about speaking out when we see something or someone who is wrong.
One of the many lessons I learned in the Army is the admonition to alert someone when something is or might be edging toward the dangerous. It's the antithesis of "don't get involved."
Well we are involved. It's called life. Two examples that happened in two consecutive days.
I was in the Gaithersburg Costco. There is no grocery store filled with more rude damn people than at this particular Costco save every Whole Foods Market I've visited. No one is looking where they are pushing their carts. They seem to assume everyone else will simply move out of their way. The natural extension of this attitude is blocking the aisle with grocery carts. After a few "Excuse me, may I please get through" I came up to a main aisle totally blocked by people flocking to the free sample station and, of course, shopping carts abandoned like logs at a beaver dam. Shy me said, "Will you people quit blocking the damn aisle?" The main offender turned and gave me a look as if I had just burned a Koran or Bible and I should feel guilty. An older woman, older than me, stopped the other woman mid-scold and yelled "He's right!"
Next day, at Sam's Club, a much more pacifistic store in Gaithersburg I got another taste of what happens when people allow other people to be buttheads.
(As an aside, the Gaithersburg Costco - mid week day or worse, on a weekend - is an experience you simply will not find in Costco stores elsewhere. Parking is ridiculous, the crowd is totally oblivious. Actually it's more akin to a well-dressed mob gone wild in a totally politically correct setting. And I love Costco.)
At any rate, I was next in line at the Pharmacy window. A very nice mom walked up and waited patiently behind me. As one of the assistants began to help me, a gargantuan man entered the exit and said the the woman, "I've already been waited on I'm just picking up my package." Seemed harmless enough. The man's package of medicine was clearly visible over the counter. The pharmacist walked up to hand it to him. Still nothing out of the ordinary. Then the man put a pile of groceries on the counter and asked if they would ring them up...I mean a pile.
The pharmacist was startled but said nothing. A male assistant walked up and said nothing. The female helping me gave a look of disgust. I turned to the woman behind me and she was shaking her head in disbelief. I then turned to the man-mountain and said, "You owe this lady and apology."
He got pissed. "None of your business." I said "rudeness...it is my business. You owe her an apology." It got plenty heated. He never apologized. In fact he acted as if I was the offender for making his rudeness verbal. Lard barrel hastily shoved his groceries into a couple of bags and headed for the door. The lady smiled and said, "thank you."
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