{by Joe Flood}

That morning, Ted got dressed, picked up his clubs and headed for the links. At the club-house, he had a drink, a Bloody Mary reeking of vodka and Tabasco. The TV played CNBC, news of the financial storm overturning all boats. Ted ordered another drink, handing over his credit card to the bartender.

“Charge it while it still works,” he said.

The first golfers were heading out into the humid dawn air. A group of vacationing orthodontists were looking for a fourth. Ted fell in with their group, a little tipsy from the vodka.

Ted sent his first shot racing into a drainage ditch, a line drive that sent up a big splash in the early morning mist.

“I’m taking a mulligan,” Ted said.

“Yea, it’s practice!” the shortest of the lot said. He was the oldest, the richest, and was the leader of the group. His name was Danny.

Ted’s second swing wasn’t much better. He seemed to slip on the dew-wet grass, his left leg jerking out, as if it had been yanked like a marionette. The ball overflew the drainage ditch and bounced over the neighboring fairway.

“I should’ve hit the driving range,” he explained.

“Hey, it’s early,” Danny said.

Ted took another mulligan and, on his third try, sent a decent drive down the middle of the fairway. Danny then launched a ball high over his, by a good fifty yards. His colleagues congratulated him.

“It’s the Bertha’s!” Danny exclaimed, holding the oversized driver in his hand. The club was nearly as tall as he was.

Ted scooped his ball out with a nine iron and sent it arcing onto the green. Danny did likewise.

The men lined up for their putts. The orange sun was just over the palm trees, starting to heat up the day.

“Did I tell you?” Danny said. “Winner buys drinks.”

“Got it,” Ted said, aligning himself with the hole. He was short by a good ten feet. Danny sunk his ball, a smile alighting on his face.

{Originally posted on Whiskey in My Sippy Cup}

I’ve talked before about the craving we as parents have to mold our children into little mini-mes, to see some glimmer of ourselves behind those big, beautiful eyes. I’ve talked about how hard we both have striven to avoid doing just that thing, for the sake of our kids’ sanity. We were both pushed and pushed perhaps a bit too hard as children. We both spent most of our lives trying to live up to some unattainable ideal of perfection that our parents had laid out for us. We both had an absent parent who we alternately tried to garner the love of and spite with our over-achievement.

We both have parent issues. We try to not share them with our kids.

For me, not pushing them to be me is simply a matter of not letting them slit their wrists and not pushing them to get straight A’s all the time and reading them something other than Douglas Adams. For The Donor, it’s a bit more complicated. He was that kid. I have scrapbooks on scrapbooks full to the brim with newspaper clippings and accolades. I have cases of ribbons and pins and trophies in my basement. I have a wall full of plaques and a closet full of uniforms waiting for a child who needs them. For a child who will follow his father’s footsteps. And I have a very tired father here, too, one who never got his childhood because he was too busy being pushed to be the fastest, the hardest, the leanest, the best.

And so I’ve read them other stories (thank you, Dan Brown) and he’s let them dip their foot in a pool with an instructor rather than with him, and he’s put them in soccer lessons with any other coach, and he’s sat back and waited. I’ve seen him dream. I’ve seen the hope well up inside of him like a fire and I’ve seen that flame extinguish time and time again, mostly because he’s an athlete and I’m a nerd and nerds don’t push their kids to hit balls for a living and athletes don’t buy their kids Mensa Mind Challenge books for fun. Our kids will be neither of us, it seems. At least not by our doing.

He’s actually been trying his hand at their sports of choice a little lately, and let me tell you that a 37 year old man on a Ripstick is damn near the funniest thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Especially when he does a double-backwards-aerial-somersault and lands flat on his ass. That man was never a cat, in any life.