What we didn't say

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, essays, family relations, discussions

My father never had "the talk" with me. My mother did instead. When a guy is 12, and the "extra hair" has begun to grow, it's embarrassing and intimidating! The concept, delivered with almost clinical detachment, seemed unbearably gross…I was still about 10, emotionally. However, later the knowledge thus imparted did help counteract the incredible speculations of schoolyard buddies who had a little actual information and lots of rubbish with it. But really, the "Be-Bopper" ditty passed along all the information truly needed:

Down by the river where nobody goes,
I saw a lady standing without any clothes.
Along came a Be-Bopper, swingin' a chain:
Down came the zipper, and out it came!
Three months later, she was starting to swell.
Six months later, she was fatter than hell.
Nine months later, out it came:
Three little Be-Boppers, swingin' a chain!

Details such as foreplay and so forth would have to come later.

In some families, fathers and sons do get chances to talk together. My father and I spent more time together than was common in the 1950s and we talked a lot (I believe my brothers all could report the same). Late in my college years, a friend came home with me for dinner, and remarked afterward, "Your family's table talk is at a pretty high level!" We're all rather chatty, and not much was off-limits.

The Geist family discussions seem to have steered away from "the talk" and a number of other meaningful subjects. As Bill and Willie Geist tell it, they wouldn't have it any other way. Father and son play literate ping-pong in Good Talk, Dad: The Birds and the Bees…and other Conversation we Forgot to Have. The book is really a 16-chapter mini-memoir for the two of them, a kind of comparing notes on significant events and what they mostly didn't say about them: which sports they did or did not excel at (Willie mainly excelled, his dad, not so much); how they learned to love how they hated going fishing together; what really happened to outrage a teacher, to much merriment all around; and how Willie's way into the TV world was pretty foreordained, having grown up with the living room or kitchen being transformed into a TV studio every month or so.

You can't say that Willie Geist was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. More like a silver pen in hand, or at least silver keyboard. A writer friend confessed to Bill that he'd re-type a column of Bill's "just to find out what writing that well feels like." Reading them both alternately, I find there is a little difference in voice but fully equal skill. They both write extremely well. Nature and nurture conspired to pass along Bill's way with words to his son. With Willie's children still so young, it is a little early to tell if the gift will continue, but I'm optimistic.

I don't really want to reveal more about the book. Whether you are a father or a son, or the wife or sister or mother of one, this book will crack open a window on an interesting family, maybe similar to yours, but more likely not. We're all human, but that umbrella is gigantic. And guys, don't feel too bad if you feel shorted in the father-son-bonding-talk arena. It's more usual than you think.

Family drama with a wink

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, essays, humor, family relations

As writers the mother and daughter don't compete, they complement. Philadelphian Lisa Scottoline and her daughter Francesca Serritella write "Chick Wit" for The Philadelphia Enquirer. You know how it goes. Write a column long enough, and you can collect a few dozen into a book. These witty ladies have been at it long enough that this is their fourth book together. I don't now what other writing the daughter does, but the mother is also a mystery writer, with 19 titles so far.

'Nuffa that. Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim is a great read. One might say that Lisa and Francesca are following a trail blazed by Erma Bombeck, one of my favorite writers, though a generation earlier than Lisa. They write with the same pointed humor, but with even more warmth and joy. While their most frequent subject is each other, they discuss friends, pets, travel (with each other or with others), food, and emotions—they're Italian, so feelings worth having are worth having loudly.

If I count right, the book contains 73 articles. Short ones of 2-4 pages. That made it very well suited to the way I often read: squeezing in a few pages between other stuff, or even during TV commercials. A session on "the throne" is good for 2 or 3 items (don't tell me you don't take a book in there).

There isn't a lot else I can say. I didn't pick out a favorite essay, because it would be like picking my favorite day out of the last ten days of almost perfect early fall weather.

As siblings get scarcer...

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sociology, family relations, autobiographies

Sometimes I wonder if I ought to pity our son (I don't, but sometimes I wonder), an only child. I have brothers, and he has none. He has uncles and aunts, but any kids he has will not have, at least on his side of the family. At a family gathering for Christmas when he was little, our youngest girl cousin brought her boyfriend. He was an only child, and his parents were onlies also. He marveled, and said to me, "I never considered I might be missing something, having no brothers or sisters or cousins. There are 19 of you here, and everybody gets along!

I have heard it said that men with brothers become better negotiators. That doesn't seem to have handicapped our son. He is a real tiger when it comes to bargaining or manipulating or cajoling, or just negotiating. How did he get more skilled at these things than I, who grew up with brothers after the age of 3½?

Growing up with brothers does change a man, but it is sometimes hard to say just how. George Howe Colt takes a powerful stab at it in Brothers, just out from Scribner. The book is subtitled "George Howe Colt on His Brothers and Brothers in History". History, indeed; he interweaves his fraternal autobiography with mini-biographies starting with jealous Cain bumping off his brother Abel, who gets replaced by Seth (and his name means "appointed" meaning he is appointed the replacement rather explicitly). Late in the book, a reprise on Seth and the whole phenomenon of a later boy replacing a deceased older brother fills half a chapter.

In keeping with the strongest contrast among brothers, that between the firstborn and the next, Colt limns the "good boy bad boy" phenomenon using the Booth brothers, Edwin and John (Lincoln's assassin). Everybody loved Edwin Booth, the darling of the stage in pre-Civil War America. John was a good actor also, and got raves of his own, but was more the Rodney Dangerfield of his family: he got no respect compared to Edwin, to his other brother Junius, or even his father, who could bring a whole room to tears with his sonorous rendition of the Lord's Prayer. The Booth family exemplifies a gaggle of siblings who seem more different from one another than a random collection of people.

Not every pair of eldest brothers are opposites. The Wright brothers were almost like twins in many ways, completing one another's thoughts, and though they often argued and debated, they found it great fun and did so without rancor. They learned from each other. Two boys our son practically grew up with, nine and ten years his senior, were born eleven months apart, and were inseparable as youngsters. They now have challenging professions: one a surgeon, the other a federal agent. They were too old to be quasi-brothers to our son, but were more like kindly uncles. They remain close to each other, though they presently live in different states.

Then there are brothers who cannot get along, such as the Kelloggs (one being the corn flake king). They spent the last couple decades of their lives in a series of lawsuits against one another. The elder, John Harvey Kellogg, pretty much made his younger brother Will (W.K.) his footstool, until Will simply had to break away and exert his independence. Being an even better businessman than his brother, he soon got rich making breakfast cereals, which irked John no end. John's attempts to duplicate (plagiarize) his brother's products and overtake him triggered the legalities over who had the right to use the family name as a trademark, at least for starters.

George Colt was the second of four brothers, and seems to have become the best known (authors at least become known to their readers, who can number in the many thousands). Similarly, while I am the eldest of four brothers, it is #2 who is the best known, the only one of us to publish a couple of books, with more on the way. He has been interviewed on the Discovery Channel, something beyond my imagination. George and his brothers each carved out a niche for himself: the oldest, Harry, a doctor, George a writer, #3 Ned an international correspondent (who was kidnapped for a few days in Iraq), and the youngest, Mark, administering a nonprofit organization for the blind.

One reason history is so full of brotherly examples is because in former generations nearly everybody had a few. In Colonial America, having 8-12 children was the norm. I once wondered how the 72 members of Jacob's descendants (who comprised 12 families) entered Egypt and grew in only four generations to number a million or more (there were more than 600,000 males 20 and older after the Exodus). It didn't take long to determine that an average couple had to have about 20 children! That's with total inbreeding; probably lots of the second and third generation had Egyptian spouses. Whenever there has been large-scale migration, such as the Europeanization of America, many of the immigrants are younger sons who don't expect much inheritance. Once "they get theirs" they breed like crazy. I share with the author a little concern for the present generation of young mainland Chinese, most of whom are only children, by national fiat.

I wonder whether having only one brother is better or worse than having either none or having several. In most of Western society, the average number of children, at least among Caucasians, is less than two. A growing number of couples remain childless, a great many have just one child, and few have more than two. Of those with just one sibling, only a third of the males have a brother (I know, you expected it to be half, but the combinations are B+B, B+S, S+B and S+S). A research project in the making!

George and his brothers are very similar in age to my brothers and me. Like the Colts, we have grown closer as we aged. Once a fellow is secure in his own life, there is less fear of brotherly usurpation. I often read in rags like the AARP Bulletin of studies that show how so many older people are happier than when they were younger. I guess if your younger days were filled with sibling rivalry and continual battling for parental favor, you're happier once a lot of that falls by the wayside.

George Colt's insight triggered a lot more memories I don't have space to go into here (and it is unlikely you would care about them). I am sure glad that, like him, I've become better and better friends with my brothers as we work our way through middle age. I'd hate to be like W.K. Kellogg, spending huge amounts of time and money fighting a baleful brother. Brotherhood can sure be good!

Moms rule

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, family relations

When Clear Channel Communications bought out a local radio station recently, it spent little time replacing all the conservative talk shows with fare more palatable to the benighted liberal audience they wished to cater to. That means if I want to listen to Rush, Sean, Glenn, or Dr. Laura, I have to listen to a scratchy signal from thirty miles away (no streaming internet audio is allowed in my workplace, for good reason). Somehow they've kept the "other Laura" (Ingraham) and Jerry Doyle. Go figure.

When I saw that Dr. Laura Schlessinger had a new book out, I of course snapped it up, even though its primary audience is women. English is my wife's second language, so she prefers that I read excerpts to her, rather than plow through a book herself. In the case of this book, In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms, her response to almost any excerpt was, "Well, of course!"

Dr. Laura uses the acronym SAHM, but I prefer just the term Mom with a capital M. That is what I called my Mom, and that is what our son calls his mother, both stay-at-home Moms. We feel very, very fortunate we were able to have my wife stay home to raise our son. However, it took some practice and training for my wife to respond to the inevitable question, "What do you do?" with something other than "I just stay home." She soon learned to say instead, "I'm raising our son." Spoken with quiet confidence, such a response typically ends the matter.

So in our case, reading the book was a case of the author preaching to the choir. Its eight chapters reinforce any wavering Moms in their conviction that nobody else can truly mother their child. While we all know of a woman or two who really should not have tried to raise children, if you have 100 women at random declare confidently, "I am the best Mom for my child(ren)!", 95 of them, or more, will be correct.

Dr. Laura hints at this, which I will come out and say: To any woman who thinks a "professional" would be better at raising her child, ask yourself, would a "professional" be better than you are at keeping your husband's bed warm?

We are glad, my wife and I, that she raised our son. We are glad that she shared those special moments only a Mom can appreciate best. We are equally glad I had sufficient freedom in my schedule that I got to all the soccer games and track meets and concerts and PTA meetings. We don't remember any sacrifices, just the joys. Just like nobody ever said on his deathbed, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office", no Mom would say, "I wish I'd seen less of my kid(s)." And to those mothers who feel they really can't stay home, I sympathize, I really do. Take all the time you can with your kids, and just do the best you can. The years pass so, so fast.

Sometimes, single is as normal as you're going to get

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, memoirs, family relations

A South Dakota rancher told me of one of his neighbors, a woman and her mother who were running a substantial spread. He said men didn't tend to stay to long in that family. The latest, the younger woman's husband, was a nice fellow who liked to drive around and "look over the place," but didn't really do much. "She just sorta kept him as a pet until she was done having children," he told me, "then the man went his way." This sort of story underlies Garrison Keillor's tales of "Norwegian bachelor farmers" and their alleged fear of marriage, and his description of Lake Wobegon as a place "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

A similar trend can be seen in The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them. Amy Dickinson's memoir of a life anchored in the very real Freeville, New York focuses on the many women of her family and their tendency to live their lives without men around. Not that they don't get married. The marriages just don't seem to last. But the women last; they survive, they prevail, and they mostly raise their kids alone…alone, that is, if you ignore the close-knit web of mother, aunts, sisters, and female cousins that sustains each of them. The author describes the frequent get-togethers as "continued conversations that started decades ago."

A few of the marriages do last. One great-aunt and her husband had been together almost seventy years by the time the author's daughter began college. A few others had hung together, enough to give a ray of hope to the women on occasion.

This is mostly a story of Amy Dickinson's life as a single mother: more than fifteen years raising a toddler to young womanhood, then seeing her off to college. She had picked a man with little real interest in being a father, and only a passing interest in being married. Once he left, she prevailed, as her mother had. When her own father simply wandered off one day (Amy was twelve), her mother had to support the family. When the youngest went to college, the mother went also, eventually becoming a college professor. She's the first to admit that, had her husband stayed around, she'd still be living in a trailer, living on the edge of poverty. Amy prevailed by becoming a gifted writer and speaker. If you've heard of her, it may be because she has been "the new Ann Landers" for some five years now, and is heard on various NPR programs.

This is also a memoir of the author's daughter Emily. Though the two women have quite different temperaments, they attained a comfortable, friendly relationship that must be the envy of many a mother with a rebellious daughter. Though the author presents herself as a bit of a panicky worry-wart, she has managed to gather the composure to take a few risks, such as turning down the first writing job that was offered her, for it was a higher-stress position than she cared for, even though she desperately needed the money. She was soon offered a more suitable job, and managed to bypass much of the "pay your dues" work entailed in the normal path to the title of Columnist.

Emily has this kind of composure in spades. Single moms struggle to shield their children from the unpleasant realities of "broken homes." Though Amy tried dating a few times while raising her, she shied away from prospect after prospect. In this she was wiser than many, who risk their children's well-being by getting re-involved rather too quickly. Emily took all this in stride. When, after Emily had been away at college for a little while, Amy re-connected with a man she'd known "for ages", who was now also single, Emily's response was "Hubba, hubba!"

This isn't Lake Wobegon. Amy, having become one of the strong women, is ready to take a man, not as a pet, nor as a dominator, but as a partner. It seems she isn't nearly so panicky any more.

Dads needed

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, family relations, fathers

Tim Russert's release in 2006 of Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons caused quite a sensation. I can see why. It is the most touching book I've read in recent years. His earlier tribute to his own father, Big Russ & Me, prompted thousands of people to write to him with stories of their own, which he and his writing partner, Bill Novak, molded into shape as a tribute to fathers everywhere, of every sort.

Not all fathers were so great. As one man said to his brother, "He was a monster, but he is our monster." Russert has a chapter, "Forgiveness", about how some people dealt with their own monsters. And in another chapter, a woman starts out, "My father was a bad man," but relates that he was never bad to her, and managed to instill some concrete values.

Contrary to entertainment stereotypes, most fathers love their children, do their best to provide for them and train them in ways that are good for them. The luckiest people are those who, as adults, recall lots more good than bad about their fathers (and mothers), and have many memories rather than a precious few. They had fathers who were there. As my own father used to say, "Nobody on his death bed ever says, 'I wish I spent more time at the office.'"

I remember, as a young man, with many good memories of growing up as one of four boys, hoping I would have several children. As it happened, I married just a bit late (28), and it took more than twelve years for a child to come along. We have just the one, who is now twenty. I sometimes look back and thank God that he made me wait until I was capable of being a good enough father; I wasn't ready at 28, or even 38. I say "good enough", which is not quite the same as "good."

I share that hint of guilt with my own father. He has sometimes said he regrets being busy while we were growing up. But that's not how I remember it. He didn't travel much for his work, so he was at the dinner table almost every evening. We had lively discussions, the six of us. He could keep a conversation going, and he often had a new joke (he collected them; still does). I remember him teaching me the basic chords on a Ukulele when I was eight, and my hands were too small for a guitar (When my hands got big enough, Mom showed me what to do with the extra two strings). I still sing the first songs I ever heard him sing, including the strange ditty, "Show me the way to go home," a drinking song, and he a teetotaler!

I remember being taken along on some of his business trips. His business partner owned a small airplane. I remember going with the two of them to a customer's business, and being allowed to "fly" the plane (it was on autopilot) for a little while; I was about eleven at the time. Also, he had only one "big" trip yearly, and he'd take the whole family, adding a few vacation days so we could drive two days each way and add a few days for sightseeing after his convention ended. We did that seven years in a row.

I also remember when we took a walk in the desert once, that he and I took different routes, and I found myself stuck halfway up a small cliff. He made his way back to find me, then told me where to find footholds to work my way back down. He didn't betray any trace of fear, which helped keep me centered. He was a problem-solver. I went to Kent State for two years, a very hilly campus. A favorite winter activity was sledding on lunch trays. But one typically winds up going back-first. He worked out a way to sled downhill feet-first all the way. It is still my favorite way to slide on snow, whether on a lunch tray or a piece of cardboard.

There's lots more I remember, but I have to relate one of the key moments of being a father. Several years ago, bemoaning the lack of sports skills that meant I couldn't help my son practice his favorite sports, I said that I felt I'd let him down. He said, "You've always been there for me, and always backed me up." What could I say to that?

It is possible for someone who didn't have a father in his or her life to grow up well and do well, but it is harder. It is possible to be emotionally healthy in spite of having a bad or abusive father, but it is harder. As someone said, a boy needs a father to learn how to be a man. A girl also needs a father, to learn how to relate to a man. Some of Russert's correspondents, not having a father, were able to have a substitute "male role model."

In the Bible, there are a number of injunctions to "remember the fatherless," to take special care of them, for such children do have it harder. Tim Russert reminds us, in detail, of some of the blessings many, many of us have because we had a father.