Father-Son "Connection"

Diego and the author, in a rare "cuddly" moment last Christmas

Today my work took me -- as it occasionally does -- to my son's middle school, where members of my AVID team and I were interviewing 8th graders interested in joining our AVID program at the high school next year.  I decided it would be a good idea to run out and get my son some lunch and surprise him in the cafeteria to break bread. Taking my place in the lunchroom a few minutes before the bell, I strategically chose a position where I would be able to see him coming, while avoiding being trampled by a couple hundred 11 and 12 year-olds.

We spotted each other fairly quickly, and he flashed a vague smile, shaking my hand.  I suppose I could have gone for a hug, but I didn't, as he's not generally a big hugger, even in the privacy of his home. "Not this room, we eat in the other room," he said, moving quickly to where he and his friends normally eat.  Pointing to a row of round seats permanently attached to long dining tables, Diego broke it down for me.  "This is my seat, and that one is Alec's," he said, motioning to the one I was about to settle onto.  He raised his eyebrow and said, "You can sit here," motioning to the seat on the opposite side of him.  Obediently, I took the seat he had indicated.

I produced the Subway Sandwich Shop bags and his smile grew a little broader, before he suppressed it.  "Did you get it right this time?" he asked with a grin.  I laughed, (a) because it's a running joke that I can never remember the exacting specifications of Diego's sandwich order (turkey, no cheese, lettuce, no tomato, pickles AND cucumber.  Salt, pepper, oil and vinegar.  NO MAYO), and also because my wife had just texted me his sandwich preferences earlier that morning, when I'd let her know of my plans.

He looked up at a sign on the wall that I could not read and said, "Oh good!"

"What?" I asked.

"We can use technology during lunch.  If everyone behaves well enough in the cafeteria, then they let us use our devices the next day."

"Oh great," I answered.  I had originally pictured us being like those kids at my school when their parents come in, sitting comfortably, laughing, chatting.  That paradigm clearly did not exist in the 6th grade cafeteria experience.

And that was okay by me.  Again, I could have made a big deal of it and forced him (and myself) to put away the iPhone.  "Talk to me, son!" I could have intoned.  "Be here with me in the moment."  Or some such whiny-old-mannish complaint.

But then I told myself, Hey, it wasn't like he was expecting you.  You decided it would be nice to drop in on him with lunch, and I'm sure it was, indeed, nice for him.  On some level.  Two things to consider, though, were that this was his time, and that I was only an interloper.  My experience does not equal his experience.  And my expression of love and joy is not necessarily the same as his expression of love and joy.

In the end, I got to sit with my boy and laugh with him a bit about a new game he was playing on his phone:  something called "aa," in which one has to deposit spokes onto a spinning wheel, trying always to get to the next level.  I watched Diego and his friend Alec laugh together as they played the game, each on his own iPhone.  I feigned interest, asking them about their strategies for beating the game.  They were politely tolerant of me, though I could tell they were much more content just to be playing together, or at least next to each other......

"Well sir," I joked with him as I got up, "good talk.  Alec, you take care."

Both boys shook my hand, and I made my way over to Diego's assistant principal to say hello and drop dime on a group of boys playing "truth or dare" at the next table.  As I left, I took one look back at my son, still a boy, but on the verge of the next phase, laughing, happy and in his space.

A little sad, I made my way out of the cafeteria, leaving the din of too many children behind me.  "This is as it should be," I reassured myself.  "This is exactly as it should be."

Another First in This, the Digital Age

Diego Fuchs at about two months old, in the summer of 2003

It's about 5:30 pm on a Friday, and I've prepared my materials for the meeting with which my day will start this coming Monday.  An Alejandro Escovedo CD is playing in my computer's disc drive, and other than a lone custodian emptying classroom trashcans down the hallway, I'm the only human being in this part of the enormous Cedar Ridge High School campus.

During football season, this is my quiet time at work.  The students and teachers pile out between 4:10 and 4:45, and I'm actually able to sit, and work my way, undisturbed, through what's left on my "to-do" list until having to make my way over to the stadium to stand on the sidelines, greet and "watch" our student section and try not to cheer too obviously for our Raiders.

It occurs to me to do something that I've never done before.  I begin to script an email to my eldest son, Diego.  I can do this, because we have enrolled our children in the district where I work, and all middle schoolers (Diego is in sixth grade now) are automatically given a student email address, which stays with them throughout the remainder of their school careers.

The workload facing Diego far surpasses anything he's ever had to deal with before.  He takes Language Arts, World Cultures, Science and Math, along with a journalism elective, art and Physical Education.  It has been tough, but so far he is handling his business, as they say, and maintains a good average.  So I write him this email, whose subject line reads "GOOD JOB!" :

Hi Diego, it's Dad.

Just wanted to take a moment to let you know that I think you're doing a great job.  Mami and I both appreciate how hard you have been working, and yes, we are always going to push you to be even better, because we KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!

I don't think Diego even knows he has an email account, but I'm looking forward to when he reads this, because my message, along with the follow-up sent by his mami are meant to encourage him to continue to work hard, and to know, as Jeanette said in her first email to our child, "we've got his back."  We always have.

And we always will.

A more recent shot of Diego Fuchs, class of 2021.

The Case for Fathers Day: My Annual, 24-Hour Rise to the Throne

Father’s Day was a good one, with the kind of pampering and relaxation I have come to look forward to at this stage of the game. Amazing to think that I’ve now played the role for over eight years. As my sister says, I got to “practice” on Levi for a few years before that, when they moved to Brooklyn, and she’s right, to a point. I did get to try out my material, see what got laughs and what didn’t. I got to do the swagger thing. Most importantly, I had to try and understand what the world looks like to a young boy, and what a child needs from the adults around him.

It’s no easy task doing this day in and day out, year after year, which is why I believe it is entirely appropriate that there be a day dedicated each year to celebrating the fathers. Let time stop for us dads once a year, I say. Why not?

Yesterday started the way it was meant to. Diego pushed open the door at around 8 or so with a plate of food – some waffles, eggs and fruit, arranged nicely. As a treat, Jeanette prepared cafe con leche, heavy on the milk and sugar, the way I love -- and, for dietary reasons, no longer take -- my morning coffee. Jackson followed with a lovely card the three of them had made with the heading, “My Favorite Thing About Daddy…” with their answers scattered about in vivid crayon. I can't decide if my favorite answer is "He feeds us" or "He likes Kings of Leon." Jeanette even sketched a lovely portrait of me, looking dapper in a yellow shirt and green tie, and I thanked her, not only for making me skinny, but giving me hair to boot. She has me asking, "Honey, have you seen my wallet." (I have no idea what that's all about. You'll have to ask her...)

We hustled into the car later, so that I could make my 11:30 massage appointment. The therapist did a good job, but having my face – full of sinus infection – shoved down onto the face cushion was a distraction and made it impossible for me to reach my usual level of relaxation I attain during a massage. (Snoring and drooling.)

Afterwards, we had brunch at a place we’d never been – a solid Tex-Mex joint called Santa Rita’s. It was a moment of appreciation for me: unlike New York, here one can just walk into a brunch on a holiday (a “second-tier” holiday, granted, but still) in a good restaurant and be seated immediately. And with parking! We discover new places all the time, and continue to be pleased by the vast majority of them.

Later we went over to look after our friends’ four kids, so that they could go out for dinner. I was mostly a spectator, due to my Seasonal Immunity, so I watched Rory McIlroy storm to victory in the U.S. Open, occasionally stepping in to lend a hand. But the kids were generally easy, and a good time was, as they say, had by all.

We finished off the day on our couch, watching the Coen Brothers’ re-make of True Grit, which was brilliant. I always love the feel of their films and this didn’t disappoint. Jeff Bridges gives a raw, muscular performance in his re-imagination of what had been a John Wayne icon. My hat’s off to him. Such a perfect ending to a day fit for a king.

Today, I descended back down to my rightful place in the real world. It was sweet while it lasted, and I look forward to the next one. In all seriousness, I'm humbled by the love I receive from the beautiful individuals I'm blessed to call my family, and I thank them, not only for a spectacular day, but for the other 364 of them each year, as well.

Farther Horizons: When Will They Yearn Past Our Fences?

Sitting in my back yard, watching my two boys play catch, the summer heat begins to make itself known, even at 7:45 in the morning. The heat has been monumental lately, hitting 100 degrees and beyond, day after day, and we’re only in mid June.

There’s a nice breeze, though, and it’s a bit on the cloudy side, so that it feels good to be out here with my two little progenies, playing, talking, laughing – the sounds of wind chimes, air conditioners, birds and dogs punctuating our interactions.

This is one of the reasons we moved from Brooklyn – to give our kids more access to the outdoors, and I’m glad of that. This is not to say, however, that Brooklyn had any lack of green space. In fact, we were blessed to have found a coop just half a block away from Prospect Park, one of the world’s loveliest. But with big city parks comes an element of unpredictability and danger, so that having children cannot help but bring that fear up for a parent.

Parks here are so much more sparsely peopled; even Zilker, at its most crowded, feels less packed than Prospect, or Central, do.

I don’t mean to sound like one of those crazies who are afraid of people, nor would I want to expose my children to that kind of thinking. But the reality is that New York is densely populated, and its mental health facilities are too few. As a result, one has to be aware, at all times, of who’s around. This is probably true at Zilker, too, but not like the New York parks – not to the same extent.

Certainly the back yard is a nice, if tiny, alternative, allowing the kids to be outside in the summer sun, playing with their toys and having a good time.

I wonder when the time will come that Jackson and Diego decide they can no longer be contained by our fences. It’s inevitable; I still recall how much I loved our back yard on Hartford Lane and how exciting it felt to burrow under our back fence and into the Hartford Woods.

Our fences have nothing on the other side of them but other yards here in Manor. I can imagine a day when my kids decide to get on their bikes and venture into the Shadowglenn golf course, at which point we get a call from Diego, who is being detained by the groundskeeper.

Or driving along Route 290 and noticing my children walking or riding along the side. Our yard can only contain them for so long. Soon they will be looking for farther horizons.

What They Will Remember II, The Sequel

Yes, there is an unfortunate sequel to the story of my stormy Tuesday with Jackson. We had our tender moment, described previously, when I made the choice to give him the affection he was asking for, so of course I dumbly assumed everything would be peachy when I went to pick him up from his after-school program at six that same evening.

Have I learned nothing these past six years?

I noticed that Mr. B., the head after-school teacher, was awarding Jackson’s older brother Diego with “Colt Cash,” a positive behavior incentive that they use to reward good behavior, good deeds and the like.

“Sorry, Jackson,” he said kindly to the younger Fuchs boy. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll get some.”

The fabled “Little Curl” appeared on his forehead, and once we got outside the tears came flowing. He was in full effect.

It was on.

I tried the Love and Logic stuff; I swear I did.

“You sound upset, Jackson,” I said. “What can we do to make you feel better?”

“AHHH!” he answered.

“Jackson, I’m going to need you to stop screaming. Daddy can’t drive when people scream in the car.”

“AHHHH!!” he replied, twice as loud.

Diego was looking out the window, going to his Happy Place, no doubt. He knew what was coming next.

“Let’s put that seat belt on, buddy,” I said, amid the swelling tantrum and screaming. My head was beginning to throb now. “Do you need some help?”

And that’s when it happened. He crossed the line. When I reached back to help him, he hauled off and hit my arm. Hard.

So I smacked him across his shoulder, three times. Hard. And I began yelling. Diego kept looking out the window all the while.

“You wanna hit?!” I screamed. “I can hit harder! You wanna scream?! I can scream louder! You wanna go down this road? We’ll go down this road. You treat me like a piece of garbage and put your hands on me, I’ll treat you worse and hit you harder! Because that’s what happens in life! You get treated the way you treat other people! Understand?”

Through his tears he said he did. And he stopped yelling.

The truth is I don’t want this kind of relationship with him, and as true and effective as my words may have appeared to have been, the fact is they won’t always be. Someday he’ll be bigger, stronger, and louder than me. But it won’t matter, because we won’t be speaking to each other by then if this keeps up.

It’s complicated. Something has to change, and soon.

Jackson Hanno Fuchs, Six Years Old Today

On her son’s third birthday, my friend Kami Lewis Levin wrote a touching letter to him, one that I would never think of trying to duplicate. Instead, let me do my best to describe for you the birth of the younger of my two sons, Jackson Hanno Fuchs, born on this date, May 7, six years ago, in 2005.

It was a Sunday morning, the day Jackson decided to make his first entrance. I say “decided,” because when he was ready, he was ready. Unlike his older brother, who made us wait all day, before deciding to come swimming out into this world, Jackson was very nearly born in the front seat of my car, which I ditched facing the wrong way on a one-way street, in a no parking zone, in front of Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn.

The unsympathetic, condescending nurses who greet us insist that Jeanette is incorrect when she tells them, “I’m going to have this baby right now.”

“No you’re not, sweetheart. You’re fine. Come on in here to triage, so we can see what’s going on.”

They lay her down on the table in the triage room and upon a quick examination concur that she is, in fact, going to have this baby now.

“Right this way,” they say in urgent tones.

“No wait, this room’s taken.” (I catch a glimpse of an Asian woman, sweating, panting and screaming and once again am amazed at the biological imperative that has women put themselves through this more than once.)

The next room down is free, and the midwife we’ve met with during our pre-natal visits is there, waiting for us. Before we can greet each other, they are lifting J up onto the bed, and that’s when I hear the crying. Our second son, Jackson Hanno Fuchs, has landed safely in the midwife’s hands, at the exact moment his mother touches down on the delivery bed.

And thus, a baby boy -- and his personality -- was born.

I am thankful for his impatient, action-seeking nature. He brings excitement and humor into my life each and every day. He is a true original, and his is the kind of a smile that charms an entire room, like my father’s did. Many will clamor to become the beneficiary of that smile. The fact that I am able to see it on a daily basis leaves me feeling blessed, if sometimes “challenged,” to put it lightly by the sheer force of his one-of-a-kind personality.

Those Little Fatherly Things You Never Forget

My father was a morning person, and I have memories of the time my brother and I spent with him every day before school. He would sit us each on a knee, as he sipped his coffee in his easy chair; we spent this down time before jumping into the routine of the day. I still recall the details of the experience: His breath smelled like black coffee, and there was a red blinking light atop a distant radio tower that always seemed to grab my sleepy attention.

I thoroughly enjoyed those moments of closeness with my father. The fact that I had to share him with my brother was a given, and I was okay with that for the most part. There were other, more unique rituals than the morning easy chair time. For example, there were the eggshell faces. Sometimes when my father served us eggs for breakfast, he would take the shells aside and draw cartoonish faces on them with a pencil. I do this from time to time for Diego and Jackson, partly, I think, to experiment on them. Will the eggshell faces become a life-long memory the way it has for me?

Another one I remember is the invisible elephant named Harold who lived behind my father’s easy chair. He was the culprit whenever we heard (or smelled) an unclaimed “bottom burp.” “Oh, that was Harold,” my father would say, quite deadpan. I tried having Harold around our house for a while, but the kids are too darn savvy for such things. Then again, I do need to remind myself; it’s unlikely my brother and I believed in Harold at the time, either. It was just fun to have a dad who blamed his farts on imaginary animals.

Occasionally when we sat in that drowsy, before-school time with him on the easy chair, he would take our hands and place them on each cheek. Mike and I would begin to giggle immediately.

“This way’s nice and smooth,” he would say in a singsong voice, guiding our hands gently, with the grain of his stubble, down his face. Sometimes Mike and I sang along. Then abruptly, he turned the hand over and pulled the back of it up his face, against the stubbly grain. This one I remember loving, because of the mixture of fun and physical pain it brought together. The anticipation of that sandpaper skin on my soft child’s hand was almost unbearable, yet I always asked him to do it again and again.

I’ve thoroughly stolen this game, and it is one of the favorites of both my boys – Jackson, especially. He can’t get enough of that one.

There are countless others I’m not thinking of right now, I’m sure. My father was a good man, and an excellent dad. He wasn’t perfect, of course; you realize that as a son more and more as time goes on. My boys will realize the same about me. But he made my childhood a place full of love and safety, and this way he did reach a kind of perfection. After all, isn’t that what every parent would like to do for their children? I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: The greatest gift my father gave me was the capacity to love, and I plan to pass it on along to my boys, in the hopes they’ll do the same someday.

The Great Diego Cooking School Debacle

Picture a little face. The face of a seven-year-old boy. He's looking up at you, and he's asking you, "What are we going to do today, Daddy?" He asks the question with a mixture of intrigue and misgiving. This morning, when Diego asked me the question, as he does on most non-school days, I heard my wife say from the bedroom, "No se lo diga." Spanish. Our code language, and probably the only way we'll get them to learn it, because if they think we're telling secrets on them, they're going to want to understand it.

Really healthy, I know.

"No se lo diga." Don't tell him. My wife's instincts were telling her that if this boy got an answer to his question ("We're going to Central Market for a cooking class.") he would raise all kinds of stink and make my morning a living hell. (I say "my" morning, because Jeanette was headed for the merciful sanctuary of work. I'm "off" for Spring Break this week, so I'm on Daddy Day-care duty.)

"We're going on an adventure!" That's our stock response when we don't want the kids to know where we're taking them. Of course, they've figured this out by now, so he immediately asks me to be more specific about said adventure.

"You'll see, buddy. You'll like it."

It's not until we're pulling into Central Market that I reveal the truth of what's happening. "I don't want to do cooking class! I hate cooking class!"

"You do not hate cooking class," I say, remaining calm, but with beads of sweat already forming. Don't let them smell your fear; it's like blood in the water to them.

"I'm not going!" he said, walking away from me in the parking lot.

"Diego, you get back here NOW. One....TWO..."

Then comes his meltdown. The tears well up and fall. Despite all my efforts at Love and Logic, I become Daddy Monster, the daddy I don't want to be. I issue threats, doing my best to make them reasonable. Jackson, the five year old, is -- and by the way, Jesus, thank you -- calm and not so concerned about cooking class. I think he's figured out that there will be cookies involved, and maybe a lot of them.

My threats are enough to get Diego into the classroom, where the instructors look at me with concerned expressions on their faces. Diego repays my threats of depriving him of his greatest love -- technology -- by refusing to participate in the class, for which we paid a nice little chunk of change, I might add. I watch them from outside the glass, Jackson happily cooking and eating and eating and goofing with the other boys and eating, while Diego sits by himself, coloring. He's not disruptive; he's got an almost eerie peace about him, and inside I'm churning.

I must, of course, enforce my punishment. He is not allowed any technology for the rest of the day. I spend way too much time wondering why the hell I let this stuff get me so angry, and why I can't be the in-control father that I fancy all the fathers around me to be.

But then something occurs to me. Diego is a smart, smart child. He made the choice to take control of his situation, even though he knew the cost would be something dear to him. It must be difficult having your days dictated by someone else all the time. As much as it annoyed me, at the end of the day I kind of have to applaud the kid for standing up for something.

I won't tell him that though, will I? Like fear, they smell empathy, and feed on it voraciously.

Two Sons, One Father, and a Parallel Dynamic

After a long day that included hiking and canoeing in Zilker Park yesterday, we packed into the car and ate at Hut's on Sixth Street, where we filled up on heavy food -- burgers, fries, shakes. By the time we got home, both boys were asleep in the back of the car. Jackson woke up first, and he and I were able to have some one-on-one time, throwing the football and riding bikes.

Diego eventually emerged groggily from his nap and came outside to find me and Jackson tossing the ball to each other. "Here you go," I called, throwing a pass to Diego, who watched as the ball bounced in front of, and away from him, making zero attempt at a catch. He then yawned, rubbed his eye with his fist, and returned to the house.

I realized then that there is a parallel forming. I am spending time nurturing Jackson's unusual athletic talent and love of sports, just as my dad did with my younger brother. Much was made of the time and attention my father paid to Mike -- least of all by me. But my grandmother, my "Oma," had many talks with her younger son about the issue, explaining to him that it was important to spend an equal amount of time with the two growing boys. I never felt abandoned by my father. On the contrary, I was as excited about my brother's abilities as anyone, and I did what I could to nurture them, as well. I wanted to play my part.

For a while there my brother played the competitive tennis junior circuit, 12 and under. We would drive out to the Port Washington Tennis Center on Long Island, the place that spawned John McEnroe. Mike did well enough that he agreed to enroll in the Welby Van Horn Summer Tennis Academy in Connecticut. When he called home crying that he wanted to leave the camp, my father didn't think twice about going to get him. Thus ended his run for professional tennis stardom at age 12.

I do think, looking back on it now, that my father made a good effort to get me out there on the tennis court with him, as well. I enjoyed playing then, and I still do. I just never showed the same natural aptitude for the sport that Mike did. I've long since realized that it's not a question of my brother being a good athlete and me being a shitty one; it's actually comforting to realize that Mike has freakishly sharp hand-eye coordination, so next to him my skills in various sports have always felt low. Once I went out to play with others, however, I realized I was better than I thought. Mike was simply playing on another level.

I'm starting to think that Jackson may possess this kind of ability, too. He throws the football with stunning accuracy, when he takes the time to concentrate on what he's doing and where he's throwing. And he's got a strong arm for his age. I'll need to remember to give Diego that important equal time my Oma spoke about. Even though he may not be feeling a need for it right now, I think it will be important for me to do things like play video games with him. As I said, I hold no resentment towards my father or Mike; that said, it would have been nice for my father to sit down with me while I was drawing or reading, or whatever I was doing that didn't involve throwing a ball around. As much as I enjoyed throwing and catching and running and hitting, I also enjoyed other activities just as much or more.

What I'll try and do differently is to meet Diego on his own terms. If he wants to join me and Jackson for a catch, that's great. If not, then I'll find the time to take an interest in whatever it is that he finds interesting and exciting. As parents, this is our ultimate job, isn't it? To validate the passions that lie within the hearts of our children.

In Other Words...

My father knew a lot of things. He spoke a number of languages and was well-read. As a younger man, he wrote a novel that he never published. He spent the Sundays of his adult life tearing through the Times Magazine crossword puzzles in dizzying time. In pen! There was no "Google" or "Wikipedia" back in his time, so when he pulled quotations out from memory, it was true erudition. Me, I just go to one of those websites, cut and paste, slap a couple of quotation marks on either end, and I sound smart. He really was smart.

My brother Mike and I have discussed, at length, how much we both admired our dad's mind. I'd like to think I inherited at least some of his intelligence; and I know Mike has. There's something else I've inherited from Hanno, though, and I've never stopped to asked my brother if he has found this trait to have been handed down to him, as well. At a certain age, Mike and I caught on to the fact that it was very hard for our father ever to admit to not knowing something. I don't know if it was because he thought saying he didn't know something would somehow lower our esteem for him; this wasn't possible, of course. As a boy, I viewed my father as a larger-than-life figure. A hero, in the epic sense of the word. I thought his mind was his super-power.

He probably sensed that I felt this way about him. I've developed this theory because I see the dynamic playing itself out with my own sons. I am their dictionary, their encyclopedia and their calculator. They come to me with question after question, and, like my father before me, I do my best to answer them. Although I'd like to think I'm better at admitting my ignorance than he was, I do fear letting the boys down and somehow losing the Olympian status I have at the moment, so I, too, am reluctant to say those three dreaded words.

When my brother and I reached a certain age, we could see the signs of when Hanno didn't know the answer to one of our questions. He would repeat it, stalling for time, searching the memory banks. Then he would begin to hypothesize on the problem. At this point, Mike or I would usually say to him, or to each other, "In other words...," which was shorthand for "In other words, you don't know."

Usually if it got to this point he was caught and would cop to maybe not knowing all there was to know on the topic. Sometimes, though, he would defend his ideas, to varying degrees of success. Because he was a thinker, his squirming could, at times, become a fascinating philosophical discussion. He was that smart.

When we were older, he would give in to self-effacing giggles, followed by a quick, joking, "Fuck you guys."

It's just a matter of time, in my case, before Diego and Jackson start asking Jeeves instead of asking Dad. And that's okay. I want them to know where to go for good information. For now, though, I'll admit to enjoying being their Phineas J. Whoopie. (For those of you who don't know, he was a cartoon character in the old "Underdog" series. "The Man with All the Answers.")

And you thought I wasn't well-read!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Lincoln, I mean Washington, I mean King

My boys are at that stage in their education when they're starting to get a lot of facts thrown at them, especially Diego, now in the second grade. They know, for instance, about a president named George Washington. Diego has also learned some things about Abraham Lincoln. And I've seen little readings about Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrate today.

The problem is, however, that they're receiving all these facts and are either not being allowed to process them fully, or their brains are not yet at a point of being able to do so.

It leads to some pretty interesting conversations, which remind me of collages of historical figures, glued together in an attempt to make meaning of the interesting stuff they've been learning.

For example, the other day, as I drove them to school, I wanted to see what they knew about Dr. King, since they would be having a day off to celebrate his birth.

"So guys," I said, peering into the rear view mirror, "what can you tell me about Martin Luther King?"

The second grader raised his hand politely, but before I could "call on him," the Kindergartner yelled out, "Maulinlooferking was a very nice man who died a long time ago!"

"Jack-SIN!" Diego whined.

"Okay, Jackson, that was good, but Diego raised his hand."

"And maulinlooferking was the boss of everything," Jackson continued.

"STOP!!" Diego yelled with such urgency that you'd think Jackson was somehow emptying his bank account, bleeding him dry.

Fearing the dreaded "Boy Fight," I informed Jackson that it was Diego's turn to share.

"Martin Luther King freed the slaves," the older boy announced.

"I think you might be thinking of someone else," I said.

"He's on pennies."

"That's Abraham Lincoln."

"And he made the world safe after the Revolutionary War."

I do my best to encapsulate the Civil Rights movement, talking about segregation, and even "personalizing" it for them, suggesting that, had Dr. King never been born, the two of them might never have been born either.

"Why, Daddy?"

I explained that as people of two different racial backgrounds, their mother and I might never have been allowed to marry. There was a pause, and then I heard them both laugh. It wasn't derisive or silly; in fact their laughter made me happy. The laugh suggested that they had thought about what I'd said, looked at each other, and then silently concluded that the notion of a world where their parents were not together was utterly ridiculous.

At that point, they moved on to the next topic of conversation, which was, if I'm not mistaken, whether or not Spider-man could beat up Batman.

A Boy And His Dog-Lust

I have a confession to make: My resolve to deny my son Jackson his request for a dog is beginning to flag. I was proud of myself when we got through Christmas without giving in to the incessant questioning: "Are y'all gonna get me a dog?" "Is Santa bringing me a dog?" "How come Brady has a dog?" "Did you have a dog when you were five?" "How come you had a dog, and I can't have a dog."


I say I'm proud because there were a number of you betting on the fact that Jeanette and I would cave in, and we didn't. I guess you figured that the kid is so darned cute he's bound to get to us eventually. My wife and I have stayed on the same script: "When a family decides to have a dog, everyone has to be ready, and we're not all ready just yet."


And he bought that for a while, but I think he feels my resolve starting to crumble. He tries to get me to participate in straw polls when I give him this answer now, responding with, "Well, Daddy, are you one of the people who is ready, or not ready." Unconvincingly I explain that I'm one of the not-readys.


In addition to the strategy I mentioned above, (staying "on-message" with Jeanette) I have tried a couple of other tactics to respond to Jackson's manipulation. He and I sat at the computer and wrote a little story together about a boy named Jackson and his dog named Blinky (or something like that). We even found a picture of Blinky from Google images. (He's a chihuahua.) Jackson liked it so much, we printed it out and stuck it on his bedroom door. We've also visited a couple of dogs. We stopped in on our neighbors, an elderly couple, who let Jackson feed their chihuahua, Pepper.

I think it was this dog-visiting strategy that led to the wane in my resolve. Last weekend I took the boys up to Round Rock to visit my old high school buddy, Mignon Young, and to meet their new puppy, Tuffy. I took a few pictures with my Blackberry, not expecting much. The photo quality is okay, but no great shakes.

Unfortunately, God can sometimes be a cruel trickster, because as I was looking through those shots, I came across the one I've included above. The expression on my son's face is so full of love and wonder and joy and DAMMIT! I can hear Jeanette already. "Stay the course, Dan. Stay the course."

I know, I know, but come on. I mean, look at that face. I'm slipping. I don't want to pick up dog poop.

But I'm slipping.

"Potential"

I posted an old photo on Facebook today, one from when I was probably no more than a couple of weeks old. My father, Hanno Fuchs, about 35, looks unshaven and a little rumpled. Maybe it's been a rough night in their Washington Square Village apartment, where, until recently, he and Carol had been living in relative quiet.

His expression is one of warmth and love, not an unusual one for him to have. He appears to be amused by my toothless smile, as though he had figured out, for the first time, how to make me laugh -- with a noise, perhaps, or a sudden bounce on his knee. "Honey, get the camera," he may have called out to my mother.

The post elicited the kinds of responses you'd expect it to get -- variations on "Awww, isn't that adorable?" But as one of its subjects, I experience this photograph differently. Unlike some, I make no claims to have memories dating back to my infancy (if I'm not mistaken, my earliest memory is of tripping over a hose and deadening my front tooth, around age four); so I have that usual odd sensation one has when looking at an image of one's precognitive self. On top of that, there's the pang of seeing my old man and missing him so.

And then there's this whole notion of "potential" that has popped up as an early theme of this blog. In fact, this image, of a young man and his infant son gazing at each other, works on an iconic level as the embodiment of this idea. As parents, we find ourselves observing our children and wondering what will become of them. We imagine life's twists and turns that lay ahead for them, and we pray to God the journey will be a merciful one. When they laugh, or express happiness in other ways (my brother Mike tells a lovely story of the time his daughter, Hannah, looked up at him, unprompted, and proclaimed, "I love my life, Daddy"), we want to hold onto that moment, to that emotion; we want to "bottle" it, so that when those inevitable instances of pain befall them, our kids will possess a reservoir of joy and love that will sustain them, and guide them through the rapids, to a calmer place.

I wonder, too, what he wished for me in that instant. My parents were of that class and generation who allowed their children to "make their own paths," and offered very little in the way of direct guidance. If someone had asked him in that room, at that time, just after that photo was shot, he probably would have said something like, "I just want him to be happy." Of course that word is a complicated one, with myriad, moveable meanings. He'd say that he'd want me to be whatever I chose to be, and not to let anyone or anything get in the way of my doing that.

Beyond all of this, however, there is a potential I feel I have reached, and I credit my father for helping me to do so. And I'd even go as far as to say that if you look closely at the photograph, you can see that he is already beginning to help me with it in that early moment in my life. As people, we have the unique potential to give love. As I mentioned, my father's eyes were often filled with love -- for me, for my siblings, my mother, but also for humanity as a whole, for the community of people on this planet, trying to make sense of our lives. As his son, I am grateful to have been the beneficiary of my father's capacity for love on such a grand scale; obviously, this is a potential I wish for my own sons to reach, as well.