The Dedalus Log

Camino

gossimer threads bind
green willows on verdant fields
by Gallic fairies loomed

Compostela

sunbeams on cobalt
yellow arrow points the way
to a field of stars

Oh, I could tell you how it feels
When you got a dirty deal.
I could even tell you how it hurts
When you been stepped on
And treated just like dirt.

Ask me why do all good things
Have to come to an end?
I don’t know.
Lord have mercy I don’t know.
You see
Ask me nothin’ but about the blues.
The blues is all that I was left with.
(Ask Me ‘Bout Nothin’ But the Blues: D. Robey & H. Boozier – 1969)

Last weekend Kathy and I traveled to Indio, California to hear Boz Scaggs perform at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino. My friend Jim Riley had learned of the concert months earlier and asked if we wanted to join him there. I immediately said yes, because I’d never heard him sing live. You see, I didn’t become interested in Scaggs or his music until 1997, when I first heard his song “Ask Me ‘Bout Nothin’ But the Blues” on a mixed tape my son Toñito made for me as a Christmas present. That song, along with a score of others in different music genres, was intermixed between two long recordings he made when he interviewed me on his college radio program at George Washington University. I had flown to D.C. that Spring to watch him act in a Freshman performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and was hoping to take him out to lunch, when he suddenly invited me to watch his DJ radio segment. As we walked into the college radio station (really just a cluttered office with racks and stacks of CD’s and vinyl records, and a couple of microphones), he again surprised me by asking if he could interview me on the air. Although I was stunned and intimidated at first by the request, I have to admit that I was also a bit flattered and I said yes. I assumed he would ask me predictable questions about my profession as a principal and educator, and my role as a father. Instead he wanted to know if I was happy, and then followed up by asking me to describe the things, people, and activities that made me happy or brought me joy. These topics didn’t really elicit any clever or snappy David Letterman-type responses, so I decided to be honest and answered his questions as candidly as possible. It was only months later, when listening to the mixed tape of this interview and heard the song “Ask Me ‘Bout Nothin’ But the Blues” for the first time, that I realized my DJ son had become a connoisseur of the Blues, and that he suspected I was struggling with depression during that period of time.




 I’ve come to understand that music appreciation is an evolving process, in which a person needs to be open to ALL types of music, even those genres they don’t like at first. I’m embarrassed to confess that I became a music fan of the Blues very late in life. I was a rock and roll and pop music snob in grade school, a Beatles and Bob Dylan snob in high school, and a folk-rock snob in college. Except for a few Motown songs and artists, I pretty much dismissed Country music, Rhythm and Blues, Blues, and Jazz, and was not particularly curious in learning anything about them. Luckily for me things started changing in 1995 when I was assigned as the new principal at Van Nuys Middle School and ran right into the Blues. Van Nuys Middle School was a do-over for me. It was my second assignment as a principal, and I wanted to avoid the errors and mistakes of my first. I had been pretty much full of myself at that school, believing that I was the best qualified educator to decide on matters of middle school reorganization and reform, and that I could administer the school from my office, without the need of interacting with and gaining the confidence and support of the parents, faculty, and students. Reorganization did take place during the three years I was there, but it came at the cost of alienating large parts of the school community and making for a unhappy school. Van Nuys offered an opportunity to change and to actually LEARN how to be an effective leader and maintain a positive and achieving school culture and community. The first thing I wanted to do was to identify the faculty leaders and influencers among the teachers and staff, and to learn their strengths, talents, and opinions.


I met and talked to all of the administrators and many of the teachers and staff during the weeks before the start of school, and they all had a lot to tell me. Certain influential individuals really impressed me: Kandy Lundbergh, the Head Counselor; Amanda Bageri, Magnet Coordinator; Dorothy Phillips, Magnet Science teacher and Chapter Chair; Ed Shenin, Math Dept. Chair; and, Jim Clemensen, Physical Education Chair and the P.E. Demonstration Program Director. One other person they all highly recommended to me was Marty Crowe, Counselor. They raved about Marty’s powerful charisma with all the students of the school, his effectiveness as their trusted counselor, and the respect he earned from all the teachers. Each of them also mentioned that he was a talented musician who sang and played the harp (harmonica) on a respected Blues band called Shades of Blue. Ultimately, of these six educators and counselors, two stood out for me because of their unique talents and interests – Jim and Marty.


Jim Clemensen had moved beyond the typical P.E. teacher profile and was the driving force in making his department a model-demonstration program throughout the city and state. The goal of the program was not simply to teach sports and exercise, but to inculcate physical fitness practices for life, employing the newest California State Guidelines for Physical Education and the most efficient methodology. All of his teachers were on board, and they soon modeled cutting edge teaching practices to the entire faculty. Jim also made P.E. fun. His jogging activity was not simply having his students running around a track but challenged them to run and catch rubber chickens that they tossed to each other in the air, and then be able to take and log their pulse rates from beginning to end. He also developed a Circus Unit for the 6^th grade classes, teaching the athletic and finesse skills and talents one would see demonstrated in a circus – arm and leg strength, balance, and movement. Students would measure and grade their own progress, and the culminating project was a juggling demonstration. Watching students’ progress from awkwardly tossing and trying to catch floating scarves, to confidently juggling three balls in the air was amazing, and I asked Jim to teach me as well. I struggled for months, with Jim giving me encouraging tips along the way, until he suggested a strategy, he employed with his students of playing Marty’s Blues CD as they practiced. So, I purchased the album Shades of Blue from Marty and started listening as I practiced juggling. Jim was right, my juggling improved, and listening to the music sparked my interest in the Blues.


Marty was the type of hands-on, bi-lingual counselor that every school should have – a fearlessly, child-centered counselor and advocate, who also had the complete trust of the faculty. He took every opportunity to interact with students throughout the day. He would greet students each morning at the corner intersection of the school and wished them well when they departed for home at the end of the school day. It was his corner, and he was always there to speak with students – checking on their day, their concerns, and their problems. During lunch and recess he wandered about the school yard and playing fields, again interacting and checking on his students. Teachers and students always knew where to find him. After listening to his CD for a while, I finally asked Marty to become my Blues guru and started borrowing some of his Blues albums, so I could get a sampling of different musicians, sounds, and styles. I soon found the Blues to be an acquired taste that kept expanding – the more I listened, the more I liked it, and the more CDs I bought for myself – and I began hearing in its rhythms and lyrics the original roots and influences of Rhythm and Blues, Rock and Roll, Country, and Jazz. Of course, I started my collection slowly with the standard modern musicians – B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, T. Bone Walker, Charlie Musselwhite, and Keb Mo – and then began reading about the origins and lives of the early Blues Musicians. It was like a musical archeological dig, I kept discovering more and more artists with their distinctive sounds, and I bought more and more CD’s. Adding to this excitement with my discovery that when I mentioned this new musical interest to my children, friends, and relatives, they admitted that they were closet Blues fans as well, and we started comparing artists and information. I made KJazz, 88.3, “America’s Jazz and Blues Station”, a favorite station on my car radio and listened whenever I drove. Through this station I also learned that they sponsored an annual 3-day Blues Festival on the Cal State Long Beach campus every Labor Day weekend. It even seemed as if the Blues were conspiring to entrap me when I went to my first Blues festival in 1998 and ran into Marty who also happened to be there that day.




My first year at Van Nuys Middle School was a blissful honeymoon period, where I avoided hubris and my previous mistakes, and had the trust of the faculty. In my second year, however, I experienced the subversive influence and mayhem a small band of zealous parents could cause when directed by a pair of disaffected and angry staff members, the Title 1 Coordinator and her husband (This was my first lesson that it is never wise to have a husband AND a wife at the same school). The 1996-97 school year was a pyrrhic war against an onslaught of false, malicious, and slanderous charges from these parents who besieged the district superintendent, claiming that the school was being ruined, and demanding my removal. Entries in the daily journal I kept at that time stretch from September 22, 1996 to April 17, 1997 and chronicled my solitary struggles and the steady deterioration of my physical and psychological health as I battled the insubordination, defiance, and undermining efforts of these two staff members. It was a gradual campaign of slander and innuendo, which grew and grew because the accusations were so outrageous and so incredible, that reasonable parents, teachers, and administrators began wondering if there weren’t SOME grounds for suspicion. It was during the Spring of that school year that I traveled to Washington D.C., was interviewed by my son on his college radio station and discovered that he was very aware and concerned about my anxious and depressed condition.




 By April of that year, I was dreading going to school. Every day promised a new catastrophe, a new crisis, or another emotional scene of defiance and confrontation with one of the opposing staff members or their minions. I could only compare my feelings to the “battle fatigue” that bomber crews experienced during World War II after countless missions over flak infested skies where they were sitting ducks for enemy fighter pilots and anti-aircraft guns. Finally, on one Friday night as I was driving home the emotional toll caught up with me. Highlights of the week’s conflicts flashed through my mind, and when I arrived home, I just sat in the car, without moving, for about 30 minutes. I felt shell-shocked and depressed. I was comatose – just sitting there, gulping deep breaths, closing my eyes, and then opening them to stare off, vacantly, into space. I was paralyzed and unable to think or make decisions. I felt helpless and overwhelmed by these never-ending problems and the constant realization that they were being taken “over my head” and delivered directly to my superiors. Feelings of failure and inadequacy welled up like a giant, black wave, and then came crashing down over me. I only had one wish – I wanted to feel competent again. I wished I could once again act with confidence instead of reacting with doubts, fears, and uncertainty. That evening Kathy finally stepped in and, by telling me all that she had been observing in my actions and behaviors, put a mirror to my face and let me see for myself what I had become in the course of the year. I wasn’t sleeping through the night; I was experiencing gripping aches and pains in my back, neck and chest which were recurrent; I was coming down with constant colds and coughs; I had stopped jogging and exercising, replacing a healthy routine with daily cocktails at 6 o’clock, and drinking wine with dinner; I had developed an uncontrollable and annoying twitch in my upper eyelid; my handwriting had deteriorated so badly that my secretary (who had worked with me for 4 years) could no longer decipher it; and I was always so sad, that not even my daughter Teresa’s animated talk after a high school basketball game could cheer me.  Kathy told me that she loved me, and would do anything to help, but if I could not recognize the symptoms for myself there was no hope. I was stunned, but not blind. I called Employee Assistance the next day and scheduled a psychiatric assessment the following week. The psychiatrist confirmed what Kathy already knew and I suspected; I was clinically depressed and had been for a long time. By the time I opened Toñito’s Christmas gift in December of ’97 and listened to his mixed-tape of my interview with him, along with the song “Ask Me ‘Bout Nothin’ But the Blues”, I had already accidently discovered that the Blues were a crucial part of my recovery therapy. My prescription for health became medication, counseling therapy, jogging, diet, and the Blues (although not necessarily in that order). In effect, the Blues became the soundtrack of my eventual recovery.




I came to love the Blues because the music seemed to resonate with me during that time, and the stark lyrics from the songs I heard seemed to hold a personal meaning for me. Boz Scaggs’ rendering of “Ask Me ‘Bout Nothin’ But the Blues” was one of those songs that seemed to reach out and grab me by the throat. It seemed he was singing my life and my feelings through his words. Marty once theorized that people listened to the Blues because it was one of the simplest but emotionally intense genres of music. By shunning the complex chord progressions and rhythms of classical, jazz, and more sophisticated forms of rock and roll, he said, blues musicians were forced to make their music more compelling by playing it with feelings from their own life experiences and suffering. Blues comes from the soul, and it is the hardships of life that formed this style of music, and as such it cannot help but inspire one to feel something deep inside. Johnny Winters, another noted blues musician, once said “You gotta’ live the blues if you ever wanna play the blues”. Of course, not all blues songs are sad ones, but I think the “sadder” songs work best because they help us feel better when we are down or depressed, as I once was. It’s as though the singer knows exactly what we are feeling, and he holds out the promise of our getting better. Such was the case for me, and I will be eternally grateful of its restorative power.

The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gray
The glory that was Rome is of another day
I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan
I’m going home to my city by the Bay

Left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars
The morning fog may chill the air, but I don’t care.
(I Left My Heart in San Francisco: Cross & Cory – 1953)

It’s hard to admit that my notions of how people will respond to places and experiences I loved is predicated more about me than the people having the experience. This tendency really borders on hubris – the excessive pride and arrogance that everyone else will share the things and places I value and cherish equally. This fact was again brought home to me a few weeks ago when Kathy and I took our granddaughter Sarah on her first airplane trip to visit San Francisco. By the time it was over, I felt like an ancient Greek traveler surveying the smoldering relics of old illusions and false expectations that had crumbled before the innocent behaviors of an eight year-old child.


The idea of taking Sarah on an airplane trip began with a conversation I had with Kathy about five or six years ago. She was telling me how the parent-in-laws of her boss, Kevin Baxter, the Superintendent of Catholic Schools in Los Angeles, took each of their grandchildren on a trip at age 10 to a city or place of their choice. It sounded like a wonderful idea to imitate, and we talked about it over the years, trying to decide on the proper age of the child, and the location to choose. As time passed, and we got older, Sarah’s age, and the distance and scope of the trip became less and less. Airplane trips to New York or Washington D.C. seemed a little too long, so we kept reducing the length of the trip and the stay to minimize our physical exertions and activities. At the same time, we were anxious to do it as soon as possible, while we were still able and fit. It seemed too long a wait until Sarah’s 10^th birthday, so I suggested that we tie the trip to a fast approaching milestone in her life – her First Communion. Kathy thought it an inspired idea and suggested locations that offered short flying times and a variety of activities. We eventually settled on San Francisco, a city that we both loved to visit. I thought the plan was brilliant because it combined so many momentous components: First Communion, first time on an airplane, and first time visiting a beautiful and historic city. “How could Sarah not love everything about this trip?” I asked myself at the time, not realizing it was the wrong query to make. The question Kathy used instead to plan the trip was, “Will Sarah enjoy the trip and will it be memorable for her?” and, as it turned out, she did and it was. My error was in expecting Sarah to appreciate it the way I nostalgically remembered flying and traveling.




My experiences with airplane flying began as early as 1948, when I was a year old. My mother and father were returning to Mexico City from Los Angeles in the hope of establishing permanent residency while my Dad attended college under the G.I. Bill. My brother and sister (Arthur and Stela) were born there, but we had to return to Los Angeles when residency was denied. On the average, my Mom traveled back to Mexico to visit her family every 3 to 4 years, always taking the children along, and Dad when possible. Except for one trip by car, we always flew by airplane. I loved everything about air travel. Still considered a luxurious means of travel in the 1950’s, we dressed up for the journey, and departures and arrivals were always accompanied by loads of friends and family to see us off and welcome our return. Goodbyes included apprehensive excitement, tears, hugs, and blessings, which were transformed on arrival by cheerful hugs and shouts of welcome. I loved the sensations of lift off and touch downs, when the swift moving airplane miraculously elevated into the air, and then thudded onto the cement runway on landing. I also loved those occasions when the airplane experienced turbulent weather and buffeted up and down while flying. Those were the only times I actually felt I was in the air flying – otherwise the cabin was relatively motionless during most of the flights. Also, as the oldest child in the family, I usually contrived to occupy the window seat on the flights, gluing my nose to the porthole window so I could watch as we glided through billowy cumulus clouds, and look down upon the rough desert terrain we flew over, and the tiny structures and cars I spotted on ribbons of roads and highways. So I couldn’t wait to witness how Sarah would react to the same experiences, at roughly the same age. I was also excited about showing her the city of San Francisco, with all its historic sights, buildings, and bridges. Needless to say I had built up a massive tower of expectations that Sarah would have the same reactions I did. The reality came as quite an awakening.


As I’ve mentioned before in the blog, Kathy is the master travel agent and social activities director in the family, I just go along for the ride and the enjoyment – being supportive along the way. Her two-day itinerary and agenda of activities were perfectly designed for our eight year-old granddaughter. Sarah is a child in constant motion whose emotions and actions tend to flow in undulating waves – rising in verbal anticipation, peaking in kinetic energy and active enjoyment, and cresting in a momentary lull as she pauses to search for new activities to perform. This was visible from the moment she arrived at our home on the night before the flight. Walking into the house, rolling her carry-on suitcase behind her, she excitedly unpacked to show Kathy what she had brought to wear for the trip. Then, eyes bright with excitement, she listened as Kathy described the itinerary: overnight sleepover; early breakfast, then calling a Lyft for a ride to Hollywood Burbank Airport; an hour-long flight to San Francisco, then checking into our room at the Hilton Union Square Hotel; a restaurant lunch, followed by shopping at Macy’s on Union Square, and then swimming in the hotel pool; finally, a cable car ride to Fisherman’s Wharf, and then dinner. The following day I would take her to Union Square and Chinatown, and then we would meet our niece, Brigid Williams, for a Saturday at the Exploratorium at the Embarcadero. After listening and commenting on this very full and active agenda (Sarah is always eager to expand on topics and subjects she has heard about, or seen on television), she asked permission to go outside and shoot baskets before dinner.


Looking back on this trip with Sarah, I’ve come to some new insights about the things children enjoy about flying that are no longer based on my “remembered” experiences. Some of the things that excited Sarah were predictable, but many were not. She loved rolling our large suitcases for us whenever she had the chance, and the TSA checkpoint was a special highlight for her. All the TSA workers were incredibly solicitous and kind, giving her big, warm smiles, and patiently explaining the ticket and scanning procedure. She passed through the sensors quickly, and then turned around to give me advice when I set it off the alarms twice because of my belt and cell phone: “Take off your belt, Poppy!” she admonished me. The Hollywood/Burbank airport was also a big hit because of its wide corridors and huge picture windows showing the parked jet airplanes on the tarmac as they fueled and loaded the luggage onboard. Another benefit of the airport is its small size, which allows passengers to walk on board from the tarmac ramp or stairway, and Sarah’s excitement was visible as she bounded up the ramp leading to the entry hatch of the airplane. She had a little trouble buckling her seat belt, explaining that it was different from the car belts she was used to, but she was incredibly attentive as the stewardess explained the emergency procedures from the front of the plane. Later, Sarah had me point out exactly where the lifejackets were located under the seats and from where the oxygen masks would drop if they were needed. The takeoff, as expected, was the most invigorating part of the ride. With her nose pressed to the window, Sarah seemed to hold her breath as the plane sped faster and faster down the runway and then suddenly felt weightless as it lifted off the ground. The upward climb was steep, doubling the sensation of flight, and then banking slowly to the right, Sarah could see the quickly shrinking buildings, homes, streets, and cars below us. “Wow!” she said, “they’re so small”. Once in the air, surrounded by wide, puffy cumulus clouds, she said they reminded her of cotton candy, and then turned away to set up the iPad Kathy had provided so she could watch episodes of the children cooking show “Nailed It!” on the small screen. The only disappointment she evidenced was when the captain explained on the PA that because of possible turbulence, there would be no cabin service (Sarah had been looking forward to the stewardess providing soft drinks and peanuts). Landing at the San Francisco International airport provided a momentary distraction to her video watching, and she became alert to her surrounding again when we deplaned. Confidently leading the way down the wide corridor and reading the directional signs as she walked, she directed us to the baggage claim area, where she studiously kept her eyes peeled on the luggage carousel to spot our suitcases. She saw them first, and only asked for our help when they proved to heavy to lift.




After leaving our luggage at the hotel, I learned quickly that, unlike adult travelers, San Francisco dining was not a big deal for children. Sarah would have been happier selecting her meals from a children’s menu at Red Robin rather than a pub called Johnny Foley’s Irish House on O’Farrell Street. While eager to choose a meal from a menu, Sarah simply picked at her food during the meal, leaving it spread out on the plate, mostly uneaten. The trip became exciting again when Kathy took her shopping at Macy’s Department Store on Union Square. There she could use the Macy’s gift card and cash she had received as gifts for her First Communion, and purchase the shoes and shirts she was eager to inspect and try on. Another big hit for Sarah was the pool and our room at the Hilton Hotel near Union Square. The room was a spacious corner room with a separate rollout couch, two TV’s, and two large picture windows overlooking downtown San Francisco. Once we had unpacked and stored our clothes, Kathy volunteered to take Sarah down to the pool to let her swim, play, and burn off more energy. This is a tag-team strategy we often employ when babysitting our granddaughters, one of us would take them swimming, walking, or to a park to play, while the other person took a break. A pool is always the best for us because the girls are competent swimmers, and all we have to do is watch them while lounging on a deck chair.





When we were ready for dinner, Kathy and I tried describing the cable car ride we would take to Fisherman’s Wharf, and the many stores, restaurants, and sights along San Francisco Bay. These had always been my favorite part of San Francisco, and I suppose I expected Sarah to feel the same way. I wasn’t disappointed, even when discovering that the cable car terminal at Powell and Market Street was closed for repair, and a bus would transport us to the pickup point, about halfway along the cable car route. I would have preferred a longer cable car ride, but Sarah loves public transportation of any kind – bus, metro, or train – and the cable car was a brand new experience. Sitting on the outside bench of the car, she was able to see the people and city of San Francisco as we rolled along toward the Bay, slowly climbing, and then descending down the steep hills on Hyde Street. Reaching Fisherman’s Wharf, she feigned interest as we pointed out the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Prison, but I think we were past the highpoint of the evening for her. We walked along Jefferson Street, looking at the stores and searching for a bayside restaurant for dinner, and all the while, Sarah, who was radically underdressed for the San Francisco cold, kept repeating, “I’m turning into an icicle!  I’m turning into an icicle!” The evening was salvaged after dinner, when we allowed Sarah to wander through a vast It’s Sugar! candy store nearby, where she could pick as much and as many candies as she could bag.






Sarah awoke bright and early the next morning, long before we did, and while we continued sleeping, managed to view a variety of Disney Channel programs on what she called “my TV”. After a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant, it was now my turn to entertain Sarah by taking her on long walk through Union Square, and then up the hill to Chinatown. She proved a patient traveling companion, allowing me to pose her for pictures, and listening to my stories of the city and its sights. Of far greater interest to Sarah, however, were the storefront displays of Asian toys, fans, parasols, and knickknacks that cluttered the sidewalks of Chinatown. I kept shooing her along until she again paused in front of a clothing store to inspect a rack of traditional Chinese formfitting dresses called “quipaos”. There I finally relented and asked the rhetorical question, “Would you like to buy one?” By the time we returned to the hotel from our 90-minute walk through San Francisco, Sarah was eager to get on to our next adventure while I was exhausted. Thankfully Kathy had arranged to meet our niece Brigid at the San Francisco Exploratorium at the Embarcadero that morning. What I had originally considered a thoughtful idea to visit a relative living in Oakland proved a Godsend. Bridgy took Sarah completely off our hands, and the two of them spent the sunny morning and afternoon exploring, playing, and manipulating the hundreds of interactive displays and exhibits that populated this massive museum. Kathy and I just tagged along, watching them learn, laugh, and play, until it was time to find a place to eat at the Embarcadero. When we finally got back to the hotel, there was still sufficient light for me to take Sarah back to the pool area where she spent an hour or so swimming, playing with some children who joined her, and lounging in the sauna. Foregoing a restaurant that evening, we picked up dinner at the hotel delicatessen that evening and ate in our room. Sarah went quickly to bed after finishing.









I didn’t realize how exhausted she truly was until the next morning, when for the first time ever, Kathy and I awoke before she did. The 6am alarm we had set did not stir her, and I had to gently shake her awake before she moaned, rolled over, and reluctantly opened her eyes. The return airplane trip home was a repeat of her first flight, only this time she easily manipulated her seatbelt and ignored the preflight safety announcement. After takeoff she quickly gave full attention to the iPad on the flight tray and continued watching the cooking show she had begun on the previous trip. The only novelty for her on this flight was being served when the attendant asked what refreshment she would like to accompany the complimentary bag of pretzels. I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed by her reactions, thinking that Sarah had not fully appreciated the extent of all the novel circumstances we had experienced. When, during the flight, I casually mentioned this to Kathy, she simply gave me a puzzled look and said, “What did you expect from an 8 year-old girl?” That accusatory question sat with me for the remainder of the flight, prompting me to recall my own first trip to San Francisco when I was 5 or 6 years old. My grandmother, aunt, and two uncles were visiting us from Mexico, and my parents had decided to take them on a road trip to Yosemite and San Francisco. There are actual photographs of this trip, but I only recall vague memories of waking up one morning to the sounds of a waterfall near a lodge we occupied in Yosemite, and a stop we made on our way home in Bakersfield. It was in Bakersfield that our car broke down, and we had to stay overnight before it was repaired. This breakdown was the highlight of the trip for me, because it provided drama, excitement, and an overnight stay at a roadside motel with a pool. When we weren’t exploring the grounds of the motel near the service station, my three siblings and I spent the entire afternoon and evening playing in that pool with other children. Those flashing scenes are the full extent of the memories of my first trip to San Francisco. By the time we landed at the Hollywood Burbank Airport, I had left my disillusions behind, and just felt happy at having completed the long planned dream of being able to watch Sarah react to many first time experiences. I don’t know how many of them she will actually recall in the years to come, but I took plenty of photographs to help her remember.

Sometimes in our lives we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow.

Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on.
(Lean on Me: Bill Withers – 1972)

How and when does a married couple decide to have a child? It’s an awkward question to ask a wife and husband because it is so personal. It’s like asking them what type of sex life they have, or if they practice birth control? The reason I mention it now is because Kathy resurrected the query to me after a conversation with our son Tony (Toñito).


Kathy was talking on the phone with our son a few months ago when he mentioned an eye-popping bit of news. About a year ago, Tony and his wife Nikki casually mentioned that they were interested in adopting a child. This was startling news at the time because Kathy and I had witnessed no overt foreshadowing of this parental interest in their conversations or actions. They had been very busy last year – adopting a dog, reflooring their home, and adjusting to Nikki’s establishment of a private counseling practice. So we were caught unprepared for this seemingly sudden interest in parenting, and didn’t know how to respond besides voicing our support. Kathy made some calls to friends who might be able to help in the adoption process, but generally we decided to leave the topic alone and watched how it played out. We hadn’t brought the subject up again until Tony mentioned it anew, saying that they were now deeply enmeshed in the long adoption process of clearance, certification, and approval. Once this revelatory conversation with Toñito was concluded, and we sat quietly, reflecting over the ramifications of the news, Kathy turned to me and asked:
“Do you remember when you were working at West Hollywood Opportunity Center and how you announced that you were ready to have children?”


I suppose Kathy and I always knew that we would have children eventually, once we decided to marry. We had talked about having children, but were in no hurry. I was 27 years old and Kathy was 25 when we married and moved into our apartment on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. During the first two years together we concentrated on getting to know each other as husband and wife. In every sense of the word it was a two-year honeymoon with the added dimension of learning – learning how to cooperate, how to communicate honestly, how to plan and budget, and how to maintain a household. We discovered our shared strengths, our individual foibles, and the realization that we worked best as a team. We were good at learning, and everything seemed to come easily that first year – at home and at work. What changed in the second year was my new job.


I had received my M.A. from UCLA in Latin American Studies just before we married and I planned to resume teaching History at St. Bernard High School in the Fall of ‘75. Kathy had already been teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) at Los Angeles High School for two years. It was a pleasing relief returning to the progressive religious community that existed at this Catholic high school, and I made life-long friends of a group of sisters in the Community of St. Joseph of Carondolet. The only drawback was comparing my monthly salary with Kathy’s and being rudely awakened to the vast disparity between public and private school salaries. As a State credentialed teacher, Kathy made twice as much as I did, so I immediately enrolled in the Teacher Credentialing program at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). It proved to be a wonderful program with excellent teachers and counselors, and by accepting many of my post-graduate courses at UCLA, it helped qualify me for a provisional credential in one year so I could immediately apply for teaching positions in the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was fortunate to land a job at a brand new “alternative” school called West Hollywood Opportunity Center (WHOC), on Fairfax, near Santa Monica Blvd. However, my first year there proved to be a traumatic exposure to undisciplined and unruly junior high school students in a radically non-traditional setting.





 I thought my first semester teaching high school students at St. Bernard was tough, but it was nothing compared with the cultural and educational shock of working with the unmotivated, angry, and under performing juvenile delinquents who were referred to our center. For the first 4 months at WHOC I felt like Glenn Ford in the movie Blackboard Jungle. These were 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grade students (mostly boys), who had been kicked out and transferred to two or more schools for disciplinary reasons. Many could barely read and write, and they disguised their educational deficiencies by acts of defiance and sullen indifference. The only mitigating factors were the small class sizes (no more than 10 students), the understanding and supporting staff of a full time principal, psychologist, and Pupil Services and Attendance counselor (PSA), and a faculty of seven teachers who held daily “post-mortem” therapy sessions to discuss our students, analyze our teaching and motivational strategies, and comfort each other. Those first months were a weary slog addressing the emotional issues, the behavioral outbursts, and the educational deficiencies of these students. The best part of my day was arriving home after work, and walking across the street to the palisade cliffs overlooking over PCH, to let the air, wind, and sight of the endless Pacific Ocean sweep over me and calm me. It was during that first semester that I announced to Kathy one night at dinner, that after dealing with these kids on a daily basis, and listening to their stories of terrible home environments and poor parental modeling and supervision, I wanted to wait before having children of our own. Parenting, I felt, must be harder than I thought, and I didn’t feel ready to take on that onerous responsibility. It was hard enough dealing with these children as a teacher, and I didn’t feel capable of being totally responsible for their upbringing and development. I just wanted to finish the year in one piece and forget about teaching and children over the summer.




 It’s hard to remember now, after so many years, what changed in the Spring Semester at WHOC. Perhaps its because we bonded as a school community, and I befriended Vernon Fulcher and Marty Cohen, the PSA Couselor and School Psychologist, who acted as my personal therapists and confessors. As a school staff we finally realized that we were in an absurdly difficult educational situation that resisted our unstructured Carl Rogers approach of “unconditional positive regard” toward student behavior – so the best we could do was try to adapt and change, keeping a sense of humor about our failures. We adopted a “montessori” approach to student progress (letting students work at their own pace, with input as to the types of activities they preferred), within a more structured, clearly defined, classroom environment. This gave the students fewer opportunities to become frustrated and bored, and prevented them from acting out, or taking advantage of the teacher. More importantly Vernon, Marty and I talked and listened to the stories of their homes, parents, and former schools, without judging them. It’s surprising how candid children can be when they trust you. Many of these stories were hair-raising tales of gangs, violence, and abuse at home, the availability and use of drugs at school and home, and the shifting partners of divorced or absent mothers and fathers. The race, ethnicity, and socio-economic levels of these children could vary, but the stories tended to be eerily similar. To my surprise, I began relaxing more and more around these kids, and befriending a couple of them. Two eighth grade students in particular stood out, a boy and a girl, whom we’ll call Todd and Bristol. Despite their young ages, they seemed more mature than the other students and better prepared academically. Both attended the afternoon sessions of school, arriving at noon and leaving on buses at 3:00 pm. Vernon, Marty, and I would often join them for lunch in the cafeteria, talking and joking with them, and other students, in this non-academic environment. Despite this informality, and my relative inexperience teaching, we still managed to maintain a professional distance from these students, never getting too personal, or too friendly. However, looking back at my actions now, I still shudder at some of the naïve chances we took, and, no matter how well meaning, the risky situations we sometimes created for ourselves. One of my actions in particular set off a series of events that had a lasting effect on my attitude toward parenting and having children of my own.




None of our students lived close to the Center, so they had to commute long distances by bus to arrive and depart. If they missed their ride after school, they had to wait a half hour for the next bus, or walk a long way home. One Spring afternoon, Todd bounded into my classroom after school announcing that he had missed his bus, and needed a special favor to get home for some crucial event. When I hesitated at driving him myself, he turned on all of his charm and humor, emphasizing its importance and assuring me that it was okay. I finally agreed to drive him home, stopping by the main office to inform the principal or Vernon of what I was doing. The drive was enjoyable, with Todd happily chatting away, telling me of his family and the friends he had made at school. At some point, when he sensed I was comfortable enough, he exclaimed that he knew my home phone number, which he had looked up in the telephone directory. This surprising bit of information shocked and unnerved me, and my face must have shown it, because he laughingly told me not to worry. He realized that this was personal information, and that I could trust him to keep it private, but he still recommended that I get an unlisted number in the future. The remainder of the ride was uneventful, but before dropping him off at home, I repeated that I trusted him to keep his promise about my phone number. Two weeks later I received a surprise evening phone call from Bristol, tearfully telling me that she needed my help.





Bristol was a tall, mature, and intelligent 13 year-old, with short brown hair and a constantly serious expression on her face that challenged me to make her smile. She and Todd became close friends, sharing their worries, troubles, and secrets. Todd, who was everyone friend, had that special ability to listen to her troubles and still make her laugh at them. It was hard to imagine that this quiet and attractive girl, who looked more like a high school student, had been transferred out of two schools for defiance and truancy. She volunteered little personal information when we chatted at lunch, and what little I knew about her home and family life came from Todd. So, although momentarily stunned at hearing her crying on the telephone, and mildly irritated with Todd for having violated my trust, I asked her why she was calling.

She started by saying that she had called Todd first, telling him of the intolerable situation that occurred at home with her mother’s boyfriend. After listening, Todd counseled her to seek adult help and talk to a teacher they trusted. He said he knew my home phone number and recommended that she call me first. With that explanation out of the way, Bristol told me that she had been having trouble with her mother’s live-in boyfriend for a long time now. She had become increasingly uncomfortable by the ways he looked at her, the questions he asked about boyfriends and sex, and the sexual jokes and innuendos he made around her. While pretending sullen indifference to him, she had managed to ignore these actions, shrugging them off, until tonight. While her mother was at work, the boyfriend had come home, smelling of booze and tobacco, and started touching and fondling her, trying to hug and kiss her while maneuvering her into the bedroom. She managed to struggle free and ran out of the house, getting to a nearby telephone booth to call Todd for help. I was momentarily stunned and silent by this tale, until it finally occurred to me to ask: “How can I help?”
Thankfully, while kaleidoscope images of the impossible things she might ask me to do, such as confronting the mom’s boyfriend, or bringing her to my home, flashed through my mind, she replied: “I need someone to drive me to my aunt’s house where I can spend the night”.
All this time, while listening to Bristol’s story, I had been casting panicky, wide-eyed glances at Kathy, whom I had waved over to stand by me after realizing that I was talking to a student in trouble.
“Okay, listen Bristol”, I said, hoping to buy some time so I could talk to Kathy about this situation and the advisability of getting involved, “I want you to relax and not worry. I’m going to help, but first I need to talk to some people about the best thing to do. So give me the phone number there, and I’ll call you back right away”.
Sounding less frantic and more in control, she agreed and gave me the number. Hanging up, I turned to Kathy and repeated the tale I had heard from Bristol.

It occurs to me know that my response in this first handling of an emergency situation that affected us personally and professionally, would be played out many, many times in the future. Before taking action, or making a decision that affected us, or our children, I wanted to discuss it with Kathy first. I felt calmer just repeating the tale I had heard, as if reframing it in my head, but I especially wanted to hear her reaction to it, and her recommended course of action.
“Well of course you’re going to help the girl”, she said immediately at the conclusion of the story, “but I’d like you to check with someone to find out if we should do anything more”. I remember calling our PSA Counselor, Vernon, and telling him of Bristol’s phone call and her request for a ride to her aunt’s home. With his okay, and Kathy’s support, I returned Bristol’s phone call and arranged to meet her at a not-too-distant strip mall, where, red-eyed but relieved, she got into my car, thanked me for my help, and directed me to her aunt’s home. There I met her aunt, who assured me that Bristol was safe with her, and that she would be talking to her sister later that evening about her boyfriend and what had happened. Bristol was absent from school for a week, and Vernon made a home visit to check on the family situation. However, I got more personal information from Todd, who was in daily communication with Bristol. Bristol’s mother had thrown out the boyfriend, and brought Bristol back home. He assured me that her family life had greatly improved, and she would return to school soon.

On the day that Bristol returned to school, and after sharing this information with Kathy that evening, I again brought up the subject of parenting and having children. I reflected that this incident with Todd and Bristol had given me a different perspective on the kids I taught, and the quality of their parenting. They were not all juvenile delinquents, as I had first assumed, but inherently “good kids”, brought up in difficult home and family situations, with parents who made poor decisions and bad choice. I couldn’t help knowing and trusting that Kathy and I could be good at it. We were professional teachers, good, intelligent, and caring adults, who could figure out the puzzles of parenthood as long as we had each other to lean on. I was confident in us, and in our ability to bring up fine children. Kathy smiled, as if she knew this all along, and asked:
“So what do you think we should do?”
“I think”, I replied, looking into the eyes of the woman I loved, “we should have children of our own.”
Soon after we started looking at homes to buy, and Toñito was born about 11 months later.






Perhaps one day I’ll ask him, but right now I have no idea what finally prompted Tony and Nikki to adopt. I was equally surprised when our daughter Teresa (Prisa) announced that she was pregnant with her first daughter Sarah, six or seven months after her wedding to Joe. What I know for sure is that married couples have to arrive at that decision together, and in their own time. Their relationship has to be open, honest, and loving – trusting each other and feeling confident that they can tackle any difficulties, hardships, or catastrophes together.

We’re on our own, cousin
All alone, cousin
Let’s think of a game to play
Now the grown-ups have all gone away
You won’t be much fun
Being blind, deaf and dumb
But I’ve no one to play with today.
(Cousin Kevin, from Rock Opera Tommy: The Who – 1968 )


Kathy and I travelled to Chicago last week. The primary reason for the trip was to see our nephew, and Kathy’s godson, Jeff Parker in the Drury Lane Theatre production of MAMA MIA! We had seen Jeff in other productions in and around the Chicago area before, and Kathy had also gone with our daughter Prisa to see him in The Secret Garden. Needless to say, Kathy is an avid fan of Jeff’s work, and is willing to travel far and wide to see him performing, plus it took no effort to convince me to come along. I’ve loved all of Jeff’s performances, and I enjoy the songs by ABBA. What was different about this trip was my interference in its itinerary. Usually Kathy is the sole travel agent in these ventures, scheduling flights, booking hotels, buying tickets, and arranging our visits and activities. She was in this role again when I suddenly interrupted. I pointed out that previous visits usually centered around her family or close mutual friends, but on this trip I wanted to include some family time of my own. I reminded her that I had a cousin of my mother’s Villalpando family living in Chicago. Rafael (Avillo) Villalpando, the second son of my Uncle Beto (Adalberto), whom we often called “El Doc”, had immigrated to Chicago with his wife Estela decades before and raised 3 daughters there. I think the intensity of my request caught Kathy off guard, because she wasn’t aware of my interest in visiting a cousin I hadn’t seen in 50 years. After asking some questions about Avillo and Uncle Beto, she agreed to add another day to our trip to accommodate a reunion.





I have to confess that this insistence on meeting a distant relative was a little out of character for me. My connections to Mexico and my cousins had always been through my aunts and uncles, and they had diminished over time and distance. Although I stay in touch with a few of them through Facebook and occasional phone calls, the family ties have frayed. The Chicago connection was actually sparked when I came across Victoria Villalpando, Avillo’s second daughter, on Facebook, shortly after her college graduation a few years ago. Her postings and photographs of family, jobs, travels, and achievements seemed to minimize the distance that separated us, and I felt we had a lot in common. She and her 2 sisters, Estrella and Nazaret, were Mexican-Americans, as my siblings and I were, and we were all educated in American colleges with established careers. Victoria was also the first to reach out to me a few years ago when she flew to Los Angeles on a college recruitment assignment for her university. Conflicting schedules prevented our meeting, but her thoughtful attempt at communicating with me left a lasting impression and I resolved to arrange a future meeting if an opportunity arose. Once Kathy adjusted our timeline in Chicago, I “messaged” Victoria, asking if it would be possible to set up a meeting or dinner with her father and family. She quickly responded that her father loved the idea and she would take care of the arrangements.






 To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about meeting Avillo, who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in over 50 years. During my last extended visit to Mexico in 1973, Avillo had graduated from college and was a practicing orthodontist in Guadalajara. All I knew about him was second-hand information from my mom, who told me that he had immigrated to the United States sometime in 1990 with his family to establish a dental practice here. Had he changed? Would I recognize him? Would he speak English or Spanish, and was my Spanish good enough to sustain long conversations? All of these questions buzzed through my head before and after our arrival in Chicago. Yet, what came foremost to mind was a flood of memories of his father, Uncle Beto, “El Doc”. Of the four Villalpando brothers, Carlos, Beto, Pepe, and Lalo, El Doc stood out for his height, aristocratic good looks, and his quiet and soothing demeanor. Walking ramrod straight and erect, I remember him coming by on a regular basis to visit my grandmother Mima, to check on the medical condition of my great-grandmother, Mima Rosi, when they lived on Chopo 25, in the San Cosme neighborhood of Mexico City. Beto was a good listener who spoke in a soft, reassuring professional tone when diagnosing an ailment or prescribing medical treatment. He also had a warm, endearing laugh that always made me smile and put me at ease. He radiated such a sense of safety and wellbeing that I always want to hang around him, tagging along when he left Mima’s house, walking by his side, hoping that he would speak to me further. Since he lived nearby with his wife Licha (Alicia) and two sons, I would even offer to accompany him home. Rather than disappoint me with a no, he would give me a long, understanding gaze and laughingly offer instead to stop by a nearby drugstore and buy me a candy or “paleta”. It was the subtlest of bribes to have me return home.




I loved going to his home when my mother would take us to visit him and his family. He lived in a classic colonial-style residence surrounded by an intimidatingly high, ancient stucco and cement wall. Entering through a two-sided, wooden door, you were immediately greeted by a lush interior garden patio, surrounded by rooms and quarters on all sides. It reminded me of the luxurious interior gardens described in the Moorish Tales of the Arabian Nights. His sons Betito and Avillo would take me on tours of the rooms, always ending by sneaking into Beto’s “consultorio”, or consulting office where he would see private patients. I would stare in wonder at the glassed in cases and cupboards containing surgical instruments, medical equipment, vials, and bottles. It looked like a laboratory, and I imagined Beto working late into the evenings in this lab, discovering a miracle cure or a new, breakthrough surgical procedure. The longest time we spent with Beto and his family was the summer of 1955, when we drove our car to Mexico City. Once there we arranged to take Beto’s family with us to Vera Cruz, the port city in the Gulf of Mexico. I remember visiting the crumbling island fortress of San Juan de Ulúa that guarded the harbor entrance, and walking through the dank dungeons and antique armament. We also spent a lot of time on the beach with Betito and Avillo playing in the surf and looking for sand dollars on the shore.






The last time I saw Beto was in December of 1979, when Kathy and I travelled to Mexico City to introduce her and our son Tony to my Mexican relatives. There were a series of family parties, dinners, and posadas during our stay, but the event I remember best is when Beto invited Kathy and I to be his guests at La Plaza de Toros to see a bullfight on a Sunday afternoon. We were visiting during “la temporarada”, the bullfighting season, when the best matadores in the world were in Mexico touring its various cities and plazas de toros. Beto’s father, my grandfather, was an avid aficionado of the bullfight, and in his youth toured with the matadores as they traveled through Mexico. Beto had retained this interest, remaining the family expert of this ancient spectacle. After picking us up in his car, Beto detoured for a stop at his home, where he carried out two large medical bags. When I asked what they contained, he replied, “litros de sangre” (liters of blood), and I recalled that not only was Beto a fan, but, as a doctor with a hematology specialty, he was the official medical consultant if a matador was gored and needed a transfusion. We drove straight into the bullring, past the gates, guards, and spectators, and into the inner recesses of the stadium to deposit the blood in the clinic there, and then escorted to our premium seats near the ground level of the bullring.




Now a bullfight, or corrida de toros, is not for the faint of heart and stomach, and I suddenly panicked that Kathy, who was 3 months pregnant and had never witnessed one, might find it hard to watch. I tried preparing her for this bloody spectacle, warning her of the picadores, who speared the bull with lances from horseback, and for the sometimes clumsy, sword thrusts to dispatch the bull. I advised her finally, to just close her eyes or look away if the events proved too gruesome. I don’t recall the name of the matador, but the first bull was a marvel who charged straight and true. It is rare to see a monstrous beast and a lithe and daintily clad matador, in his “suit of lights”, so in sync and in rhythm with each other. It was a ballet of flowing capes and brutal force, with the matador effortlessly guiding the movements of the bull. Not wanting to weaken his partner in motion, the matador quickly waved off the picadores, and impaled his own “banderillas”, or decorated darts, in the back of the bull. Finally, when it came time for the kill, waving white handkerchiefs appeared throughout the stadium, and the crowd began chanting, “indulto, indulto”, demanding the pardoning of the bull from death. It would be the equivalent of watching a perfect game in baseball, only here the bull is rewarded for a perfect corrida by being spared, and retired to stud and sire other toros bravos, or brave bulls. As the matador acceded to the wishes of the crowd, and the bull was guided back into the pens below the coliseum, Kathy turned to me and said, “I think I can really enjoy bullfighting.”





When Kathy and I entered the Greek Islands Restaurant, in the Greek town section of Chicago, I almost walked past a seated Avillo and his family before noticing them. Luckily, his wife Estela, recognizing Kathy from her Facebook photos, nudged him alert and said, “Son ellos!” They all arose, and with a laugh we all greeted each other, hugging, and introducing ourselves to one another. We’ve grown old, Avillo and I. We are a little stouter, and a little greyer, but our Villalpando characteristics still united us. The two of us fell into immediate conversation – mostly in Spanish. Though seated around a circular table, it was difficult hearing what everyone was saying to each other, so I concentrated on Avillo, asking about his mother, his siblings, and his journey from Mexico. Time and distance seemed to fade away, and our conversation was even better than in our youth, when we sometimes felt awkward with each other, and too embarrassed to ask personal questions. Over a fine meal of lamb and wine, I laughingly pointed out that I spotted many of my mother’s Villalpando family characteristics and attitudes in the proud way Avillo described his daughters education, their achievements, and their current careers. It was the same way that my mom, and all of my aunts and uncles, spoke of their high expectations for their children and grandchildren. Villalpandos were well educated, always punctual, polite, and discrete – and they were expected to achieve at a higher level than their peers. This became especially important for my mom, who quickly became aware of the ethnic prejudices and negative stereotypes of Mexicans by many Americans. Avillo and Estela had communicated the same values of self-esteem and the drive to achieve into their 3 daughters, Estrella, Victoria, and Nazaret. We talked and laughed and questioned together, barely finding the time to eat. Finally I had to mention a sartorial issue that had perplexed me. I had debated with myself over how to dress for this special evening dinner. Had I been in Mexico City, a coat and tie would have been my mother’s choice, but in Chicago, the restaurant only required “evening casual”. So I came in dress shirt, sweater, and slacks – only to find my cousin in proper Villalpando attire. I laughed at myself for not knowing better, and kidded Avillo for not having “Americanized” very much. It was only at the end of dinner, when we were posing for photos, that Avillo sadly noted that the entire generation of Villalpandos, which included our parents and all our aunts and uncles were gone and many of their children dispersed to different countries and cities. It was a thought I had never pondered from the perspective of cousins so far from their ancestral home. Avillo and I are truly on our own, so far from our parent’s Mexico and their influences, now that they are gone. It’s a litany of sorrow to say their names: Helen, Carlos, Beto, Chita, Totis, Güera (my mom), Pepe, and Lalo. Lalo was the youngest, and the last to pass away last year. I don’t know, or can’t recall exactly how they died, or when, but that is an unimportant detail. All I can do is call forth some memories, and tell stories of incidents that come to mind. Talking with Avillo, and speaking the Spanish that always feels comfortable when meeting Mexican cousins, brought up some of those long ago moments with Beto. It’s my small way of saying thank you to him for the care and kind attention he gave us, and the love for his family that never wavered.





Vaya con Dios, tio Beto.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
(Seasons of Love: Jonathan D. Larson – 1996)

There are certain moments in life that are timeless because they involved a special combination of sights, sounds, people, emotions, and related memories. These events are fixed in our minds, and are triggered by one or more aspects of the long ago occurrence. The song Seasons of Love from the musical RENT is one of those triggers for me. Whenever I hear that song, my mind automatically flashes back to a day in 2000 when Kathy and I attended the high school graduation party of her nephew Danny Williams. Although we were unable to attend the commencement ceremony at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, we made a point of going to the celebration at the Manhattan Beach home of Kathy’s sister Patti, and her husband Dick.


Graduation from high school is a momentous occasion, but what I remember most about my own is that it signified the end to, probably, the most enjoyable and memorable year in the four of high school. At the same time, it also pointed to the beginning of a scary new life in the unknown world of college. It’s a turning point, when the past and future come together in a single moment, and teeters back and forth, from sadness to excitement, from joy to dread. I really didn’t know what to expect at this party. I’d watched Danny grow up through the years, and knew that he had attended American Martyrs grade school in Manhattan Beach, and graduated from Loyola H.S. I suppose I expected to see many of his male friends from that historic, single-sex, Jesuit institution, so I was surprised at the large number of girls who were present. When I pointed this out to Kathy, she explained that Danny had been part of the Loyola music and drama program that was also open to high school girls from many schools in the greater Los Angeles area. They could have been graduating senior girls from Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, Immaculate Heart H.S., or Marymount H.S. Many of these young people had taken part in musical productions over the years. Having personally observed the dynamics of high school drama students through our son’s involvement, I knew them to be a tight, talented, and close-knit group of friends, and Danny’s were no exception. Their laughter, stories, and gaiety filled the house, and I was almost envious of their blissful youth. But I had little in common with them, so I only observed them from afar, and did not interact with them. It was only at one point that they held my complete attention. A group of Danny’s friends were suddenly, and loudly urging him to sit down at the piano in the living room and to play. At first I assumed they wanted him to simply perform a piece, but suddenly a group of the eight or nine boys and girls were clustering tightly around him and the piano. That’s when I heard their rendition of Seasons of Love from the musical RENT.





 At that moment, there was something in that sang that was incredibly poignant and personal. Danny’s music, combined with the fresh, youthful voices of his friends brought a uniquely sweet and timeless relevance to the lyrics they were singing. They were fresh-faced, bright-eyed and youthful optimists setting out to explore and conquer the new worlds of college and universities. Yet the song was also a nostalgic reflection on the year that had passed – probably too quickly for them now. So the words in that song took on a special meaning for me, and the performance brought tears of joy and delight to my eyes (which I swiftly tried to wipe away):

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles
In laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love.
Seasons of love
Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned
Or the way that she died?

It’s time now to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let’s celebrate now
Remember a year in the life of friends.

Remember the love
Remember the love
Remember the love
Measure in love
Measure, measure your life in love

Seasons of love
Seasons of love

The singing of that song by Danny and his friends was my first introduction to RENT. Of course I had heard of the Tony Award winning Broadway musical that opened in 1996, but I did not relate to it the way I did to other musicals like Chorus Line, Cats, or Les Miz. I never saw the play, although Kathy and Prisa did during a Broadway trip to New York City in 2003. The song stood alone for me, separate from the musical. I didn’t hear it as a song about young bohemians struggling through the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Lower Manhattan’s East Village. I saw it through the lens of high school enthusiasm and optimism. A song that described the dawning realization that childhood had ended, and the realities of life would soon descend and have to be dealt with. It took the January television production of RENT, and its reprise of the song, Seasons of Love, to trigger the long ago memory of Danny’s graduation party. Only this time the song did more than simply recall the nostalgic end of a senior year for those youngsters in 2000 – this time the song begged an answer to a puzzling question it posed: How do you measure a year in your life?


Last year was a difficult one for me. It opened soon after the death of my mother, and just moved on from there, as all lives do. As to “measuring it”, I suppose one might do it through the daily entries in a diary or a journal. If you were faithful in this practice of noting daily events, you could review an entire year – looking back at events, reading your immediate reactions to them, and then reflecting on that. Unfortunately, except for a few times in my life, I was never really consistent in maintaining a steady, ongoing journal of daily events, and anyway, I was more interested in simply surviving this last year than meditating on it. No, the closest I came to recording consistent events of last year was through my camera, and the photographs I took from December of 2017 to January of 2019, and through postings on my blog. In my Amazon Cloud photo library I have digitized photos from 2003 to 2019, divided into the months I took them. I also have a huge cache of undated pictures that were copied from printed originals. Along with this photographic evidence of the years, I also posted numerous personal essays on my blog, Dedalus Log, which I’ve kept since 2005. So I decided to use these two “primary sources” to go back and try to answer the question posed by Seasons of Love for myself, and attempt to “measure a year in the life”.





I counted approximately six thousand eight hundred forty-five photos (give or take a few hundred) from December of 2017 to January of 2019. At first they seemed a crazy and random mixture of unrelated events and people, but after a more thoughtful inspection I saw certain patterns and categories arise among these thousands of photos. They showed photos of road trips with Kathy, our families, and friends to Paso Robles, Avila Beach, Salinas, Big Sur, the Carmel Valley, Monterey, Lone Pine, Boulder City NEV, San Diego, and Downtown L.A. Plane trips with friends and family members to Portland, Ireland, and New York City. Holidays, family celebrations, wedding and funeral receptions, going to plays and musicals, and reunion lunches and dinners represented hundreds and hundreds of images. The countdown towards Kathy’s retirement from the Archdiocese Department of Schools popped up in pictures scattered throughout the year, culminating in her retirement party in June. Photos of granddaughters and cousins young and old dominated numerous collections; photos of Sarah and Gracie at play on the beach, playing sports, in the pool and Jacuzzi, and celebrating birthdays and holidays, along with a few of their parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. By far the majority of these photos showed the faces of people – people I love and people I struggle with: sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, and long-time and recent friends. Every picture told a different story of the people in them and the events that brought them together. Every photo was a memory enshrined for the ages, insuring that the event and the people present would never be forgotten. I constantly lost myself scrolling through the thousands and thousands of photos, remembering what I felt at that moment in time – happy (and some times sad) to relive it again. I also posted twenty-three personal essays on my blog from December 2017 to January 2019. The number came as quite a surprise to me, because it represented almost two essays a month during a year I felt more like forgetting. They began with a remembrance of a deceased professional friend, JoAnna Kunes, and ended with the realization that I was “getting older” and our children had passed us by. While four essays were about Los Angeles, the Sixties, Ireland, and grief, the rest, once again, were about people – people I loved, people I lost and remembered, and people I struggle with. When it came down to it, I wasted my time trying to answer this question, because Jonathon Larson, the writer of the song Seasons of Love, was right all along. We do measure a year in daylights, in sunsets, in inches, in miles, and in laughter and strife; in truths that we learned, or times that we cried, in bridges we burned, and in ways that they died. We remember a year in the lives of our family and friends, and we remember the love. We really do measure our life and our seasons in love. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that’s what Danny Williams and his friends were singing about all along.

Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don’t remember getting older,
When did they?
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly flow the days.
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blooming even as we gaze.
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly fly the years.
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears.
(Sunrise Sunset: Bock & Harnick – 1964)

When do a father and mother realize that they have reached the tipping point of parenthood – that pivotal moment when their children are actually more knowledgeable and capable than they? Is there a certain age one reaches, or is it about diminishing mental capacities? Brain farts must certainly be one indicator, or perhaps the number of times you walk into a room and forget what brought you there. Maybe it is about getting older. I suppose I’ve always KNOWN that my two children, Tony and Teresa, had grown up and caught up to us. I’d watched them leave home for college, graduate, begin careers, marry, begin families, and buy their own homes. But it wasn’t until Kathy and I traveled with “Prisa” to New York City that it really hit me. It was there that I felt our roles had switched – the child was guiding the parent! You see, in the space of five months I have experienced that moment with both of our children in very different locales, Dublin and New York. Strange that it would take two cities, so far away from our homes in Los Angeles, to illicit a sense of a paradigm shift in our relations with our children.


The idea of traveling to New York with our daughter grew from a phone call she made to us on the night of last year's Golden Globe Awards. At the conclusion of the show on television, Prisa called us with news that the actor Jeff Daniels was starring in the new Aaron Sorkin Broadway production of Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. After the phone call, Kathy tossed up the idea of taking Prisa to New York as a Christmas present. The more we talked and laughed about the idea, the more we realized that traveling to New York with our baby girl to see a new Broadway play was absurdly brilliant. That same evening we called her back with our proposition.


You need to understand that there is a special relationship between To Kill a Mockingbird and our daughter. It was the first novel I was ever able to convince Prisa to read. I did it by telling her that the central female character of the story, Scout, reminded me of her. I coaxed her into first seeing the movie version with Gregory Peck, and then tempted her into read the novel by saying that the book offered further tales and more information about the precocious tomboy, Scout. To date, I believe To Kill a Mockingbird is the only novel that Prisa read at my recommendation – and she loved it. I’m secretly convinced that she felt that Harper Lee was describing her and her relationship with her brother Tony in the story, and the book planted the seed of Prisa’s budding love of literature and the skill of writing. So the prospect of taking her to see a new production of the novel was an opportunity Kathy and I did not want to miss.





There was an assumption being made in that last sentence – that Kathy and I were taking our daughter to New York. It implies that we were in control and Prisa was coming as our guest. Now Kathy and I had been in New York City nine years earlier celebrating her 60^th birthday. We had explored the city together, walking Uptown and Downtown, strolling through Central Park, and masterfully utilizing the subway to travel to the Bronx, the Battery, Wall Street, Columbia University, and Grand Central Station. We were confident in our sense of direction and remembered the street names and numbers we traveled. All of those abilities deserted us on the first day, the minute we stepped outside the Hilton Midtown Hotel on 6^th Avenue. Even following the directions to Rockefeller Center, given by the hotel clerk, proved difficult. It wasn’t until Prisa stepped in, reading the Google map directions on her cell phone, which we found confusing, that we reached our destination. Over the two days Prisa stayed with us, I can only imagine her shaking her head in amusement over our directionless antics, and our wishy-washy decision-making. The second day in Manhattan, after visiting the 9-11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center and walking over to the Brookfield Place shopping mall on West Street to look for a place to eat lunch, I was overwhelmed by the size and seeming confusion of the food court. Once again Prisa took over, guiding us to an empty table overlooking the Hudson River and the New Jersey shore, and telling us to sit there until she had scouted the various offerings and came back with recommendations. Later, after taking a carriage ride through Central Park together, I imagined that she felt a great sense of relief at safely depositing her two parents back at the hotel, and went off to explore Manhattan on her own.





Traveling to New York to see a new Broadway play was a dream come true for me, and having Prisa there to share the experience made the whole evening magical. Yet, even while walking to Broadway, through Times Square, on our last evening together, we were totally dependant on Prisa’s guidance and directions to find The Blue Fin Restaurant for dinner and the Shubert Theatre for the play. Despite the fine meal, the great play, and the fabulous conversation before and after the play, I could not dispel a nagging sense of uselessness, and the feeling that an oceanic tidal shift in our relationship with our children had occurred.




I had felt a hint of this shifting landscape in Ireland, four months earlier, when Kathy and I met up with Toñito and his wife Nikki in Dublin for dinner. Kathy had been planning our return trip to Ireland for a year, and we were surprised to learn that Tony and Nikki had decided to visit Scotland and Ireland at about the same time in September. I believe it was Kathy who first floated the prospect of trying to meet up in Dublin, if our timelines and itineraries matched up. At first, I dismissed the idea as a fanciful wish and assumed Tony and Nikki would concentrate on their plans and around their own schedule and interests. So I was surprised when Toñito called Kathy sometime in August asking for the specific dates we would be in Ireland to see if he could coordinate a reunion. After much discussion with his mother, it was decided that he would try to meet us for dinner on our last night in Dublin, October 1. Even through Kathy never got a clear picture of Tony and Nikki’s specific travel plans in Scotland, she fixed on the idea of our reunion and believed it would take place. I, on the other hand, must confess of being a pessimist about nebulous plans actually working out, and throughout our travels in Ireland, whenever I asked Kathy for specific information about Tony’s itinerary and received a shrug with an “I’m not sure” response, my dubiousness multiplied. I tried dismissing the nagging suspicion that this reunion would never actually take place, and concentrated on enjoying my trip through Ireland with Kathleen.


You have to realize that Toñito was a sweet boy growing up. He was always thoughtful and considerate to his sister and us throughout his childhood, youth, and young adulthood. He shared his toys and sporting equipment with Teresa, included her in all his games and computer activities, and spent countless hours reading to her, and listening to her early attempts. He remembers birthdays and holidays, and always makes a point of attending family functions, celebrations, and weddings. But as often happens in the lives of maturing men and adults, new relationships, responsibilities, and personal interests and habits begin to dominate and take precedence. Tony follows his own schedule and pursues his own way of doing things. I suspected that Toñito would do what I would have done in his place while traveling with Nikki in Scotland – while always having the intention of making the reunion on October 1^st, the dictates of time, travel, and hardship would determine if he ever actually made it. I had experienced first hand the trials of train and automobile driving in Ireland, so I could imagine that the difficulties of crossing the Irish Sea and traveling into Dublin on a specific afternoon and evening would cause him to give up. It is what I would do.




On our last day in Dublin, Kathy and I did some last minute separate sightseeing, packing, and waited for Toñito and Nikki to notify us of their arrival in Ireland. We waited and waited, with Kathy never doubting, and stoutly putting up with my pessimistic vibes and comments, as I got hungry and then sleepy after two cocktails. At about 8 o’clock Tony finally called to tell Kathleen that they had arrived at a seaside bed and breakfast to the north of Dublin and planned on driving into the city. Kathy advised them to forgo the driving and instead taking the DART electric train to a station close to our hotel. Although it seemed to me that her suggestions were only complicating things further, Tony agreed and said he would meet us there. At about 9 o’clock we walked to Pearse Station, keeping a look out for Tony and Nikki on the multiple elevated tracks. As one, and then two trains arrived, Kathy said in an excited voice, “There he is!” and I too spotted the tall standing figure through the window of the train. Tony and Nikki had made it after all.




There is something special about meeting up and dining with loved ones, and close family members and friends in a distant or foreign city, far from home. The unlikelihood of such a reunion gives it a magical air and a timeless feeling. Watching Toñito descending on the station elevator changed the ambiance and tone of the evening for me. By overcoming time, distance, and hardships, Tony had achieved what I considered impossible for myself. At the nearby Kennedy’s Restaurant and Bar we laughed and talked together all evening. Tony and Nikki recounted their travels in Scotland and sought our suggestions about possible sites in Dublin. I smiled happily throughout the evening, listening to the talk and descriptions, but was a bit surprised at Tony’s response when I voiced my doubts about this reunion actually taking place. He laughed kindly as he put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Of course we were going to make it tonight, Dad! I wouldn’t miss celebrating your birthday in Ireland.”


So on two happy and magical evenings, in two faraway cities, spending private time with our son and daughter made me feel a little nostalgic of times long past. I loved the fact that we were together, talking about our travels through Dublin and New York, and the new theatrical adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. We discussed, agreed and disagreed about things, and spent much of the time laughing and smiling, but there was also a bitter sweet aura of time having passed us by – that Kathy and I were no longer as capable and able as we once were. We weren’t the primary caretakers. Over time, Toñito and Prisa had gently usurped that title. They had families, careers, homes, and futures, and they organized and managed their time based on changing demands and responsibilities. They were now the grownups, and were far more capable of traveling, negotiating new cities, and making quick decisions than Kathy or I. I suppose this sad realization would have come to us eventually, but I’m glad it happened when it did – in the company of our children, in two special places.