Men Are From Mars

FROM WHERE I SIT   Men Are From Mars   June 2, 2013 Pat DeKok Spilseth

Let’s face it.  I don’t mean to be sexist or politically incorrect, but men and women are wired differently.  Remember John Gray’s book MEN ARE FROM MARS. WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS?   From cave man days, men were taught to provide and protect.  Women nurtured their children and were in charge of the home.  Today, those images are somewhat passe.   In my experience, dads are problem solvers.  Moms are the ones we talk to about feelings.  

  

“It doesn’t matter who my father was,” Anne Sexton wrote, “It matters who I remember he was.”  It’s interesting how each kid in the family remembers Dad for different reasons.   Often the older kids in the family didn’t get as much time with Dad: he was working long hours, building a career, wanting to provide for his family.    By the time younger kids came along, usually Dad had more time to spend with them.  

No matter if we grew up in the 30’s, 50’s, 80’s, or recently, Dads make a huge impressions on their kids.  Many girls want to marry a man just like dear old Dad.  Boys want to be Mr. Fix Anything, an athletic Superman or a brain whiz like their father.  

Many men enjoy building, fixing things and mowing their lawn so it’s the best looking lawn in the neighborhood.  They like to shoot baskets, throw the football, play tennis or tinker with cars.  Guys seem to be more interested in action activities; they’re uncomfortable talking about feelings.  

Girls want to talk.  We are so different than guys.  We want to talk about school, books we’re reading, friends, places to travel, our dream guy and what we want to be when we grow up.  Guys want to fix things, find solutions to a problem; they don’t want to discuss feelings.  Girls do.  We want to dream and analyze everything.  

Maybe my desire to know more about life and why I felt the way I did were some of the reasons that Dad and I had very few conversations.  I could have talked with Dad most any day in his office, which was next to our family’s kitchen at the jail.  But I remember very few talks.  I do remember four conversations that made an indelible impression.

1. When I got upset about something my band director said, Dad stood up for me, called the instructor, and my problem with that person was solved.  

2.  When I misbehaved, he’d send me to my room to “think about what I’d done.”   After he’d given me time to cry and feel totally terrible, he came upstairs to tell me how badly I’d disappointed Mom and Dad.  He wasn’t a cuddlier nor did he talk about love.  That was supposed to be understood.  Love wasn’t verbalized.

3. When he dropped me off at Luther College, my first time away from home for any length of time, he told me “to remember who I was” and to “stand up for what I believed.”  He was a very principled man.  He expected others to be that same sort of stand-up, ethical person.  

4.  When he was ill with cancer, dying at the Veterans’ Hospital in St. Paul, I’d sit with him in companionable silence.  But he did rally strength to forcefully tell me to “Get out there and do all those things you want to do before it’s too late.”  Dad had things he wanted to do, but his job took his time, energy and health.  At 61 he died, unable to enjoy retirement, travel, and never knew his grandchildren.  

Dad’s life was mostly work, either at the sheriff’s office, plowing fields on his farm, or driving trucks carrying cattle or feed to market.  My Dad was quiet, but I remember that most men weren’t big communicators in the fifties and sixties.   Today’s dads seem more open, spend more time with family.  Many women have returned to the work force so dads are expected to help out more with family and household duties.  Life is no longer just about work; today, relationships seem to be a higher priority in our lives.

My children’s dad has been a wonderful companion and cheerleader to his children.  Dave enjoys water skiing, tennis, boating, and going to the movies or sports events with his kids; he could spend hours shooting hoops with Andy and biking with Kate.   He attended all their sports games and music concerts if he wasn’t at his job flying airplanes.  When he was home, Dave became the referee, settling arguments and solving problems.  But when it came to talking about their troubles and hurt feelings, it was Mom’s turn.  

Girls and guys are wired differently.  Dads and Moms have different strengths and weaknesses, but as mates, we try to fill in each other’s empty spaces and be good influences for our children.   June 16th is Fathers’ Day.   Tell your Dad how important he is in your life.  839 words

Backyard Enchantment

FROM WHERE I SIT Backyard Enchantment Pat DeKok Spilseth




When summer arrives in full bloom, there’s a special kind of enchantment. Summer breezes smell extra fine. Grass feels softer. Waves gently lick the shore. Hammocks swing slowly between backyard trees, and we fall into a deep sleep.



Remember when your mom told you to go out and play? You did. Kids got up a backyard ball game and played ante ante over the shed storing rakes and mowers, winter skis, skates and toboggans. Little tykes blew bubbles through the wire wand of the bubble bottle, chasing them in until they burst far up in the clouds. Some created plays on backyard stages. You stayed outside all day long until the supper whistle blew, then raced home to eat with the family at the kitchen table.



Do people still take time to enjoy relaxing in their backyards? I hope so, but with both Mom and Dad working; the kids in day care or school, and grandparents living many miles away...who uses their backyards anymore? Kids’ schedules are crammed with supervised lessons in every sport, music and language. Do children today have free time to play? Is the backyard another sign of oblivion like the front porch?



When I was a kid, we used to play dress up with neighbors’ cast off hats, trailing bridal veils, and bridesmaids’ bouffant, pastel dresses. We paraded with measured steps, pretending to be part of a wedding party. Some backyards had a swing set and a slide. Jeanie Zimma’s grandparents had a play house in their yard for us to have tea parties and play with our dolls. My backyard had a sweeping, weeping willow tree where I would sit with my pals on a high branch, lean back against another branch, and swap tales. No parent or neighbor could see up through the leafy tendrils hanging to the ground. How cool the shade felt on hot summer days sitting in the tree sharing our dreams.



When Dad was sheriff, my backyard at our jail home was across the street from the red brick Lutheran church. Kids would gather before choir practice and confirmation classes to roll down our huge, grassy hill, squealing with delight. We’d pick dandelions and braid the yellow weeds into crowns. Lazy summer afternoons we’d stretch out on the sweet smelling grass and search for four leaf clovers to bring good luck. If we were lucky, we’d find one or two, press them into the thick Webster Dictionary, and save them in a special box. On the cement sidewalk, we’d draw hopscotch squares with chalk and jump from one block to the other, scattering those nasty, sandy ant hills with our white tennis shoes.



Mom’s laundry was hung on our backyard clothes lines on Monday, her designated wash day. Her clothes pin bucket was a tiny dress whose skirt held the wooden clothespins anchoring clothing to the lines strung between metal posts. White bed sheets flapped on the two outside lines; panties, slips and bras, BVD underwear, night gowns, and pajamas were hung on the inside line. No one was supposed to see these “unmentionables”.



We created a camp out tent by pinning Dad’s gray, wool, army blankets to the clothesline. Though we wanted to spend the night outdoors, often we got too scared or rambunctious in the tent telling ghost stories. The pins holding the tent would pop, and the blankets collapse on giggling girls underneath. When we remembered that the jail prisoners were only a few feet from our tent, it spooked us. Our imaginations, the starry black night, and those unidentifiable monster sounds frightened us so thoroughly by midnight that we’d abandon our tent and run to the safety of the back door.



Mom and her friends enjoyed coffee and cookies while they visited in the backyard’s metal lawn chairs, which could get blistering hot. The soft grass cooled our feet, especially after the Courthouse caretaker Herman Quist mowed the lawn, making the air sweetly scented with newly mown grass. His helper, friendly Lee Sorset, would often stop to visit with us until Herman appeared; then Lee tried to look busy once more.



Dad liked to relax with a cigarette in the evening. He sat in a lawn chair in the backyard watching the traffic on Minnewaska Avenue. He could see who was walking down the sidewalks towards downtown, veterans going in for a drink at the Legion Hall, someone being booked at the police station, and ambulances bringing bodies to Hoplin’s Funeral Home. We had quite the view!



Sitting in the backyard on Sunday mornings, we could see who was coming to church services at Glenwood Lutheran Church. Of course, we also noted who wasn’t coming to church. It was a thrill to watch brides in their veils and long white gowns, bridesmaids with their big skirts and bouquets, and the groomsmen in their black tuxedoes. Photographer Vernon Hegg would shoot pictures of the guests throwing rice at the bridal couple. I loved hearing the couple’s car with tin cans and noisemakers attached making a huge racket as they drove away for their honeymoon.



As a kid, possibilities seemed endless when it came to wasting away a summer day. Finding a soft patch of grass under a tree to lie on my back, I’d gaze dreamily into the floating clouds in the sky. English politician John Lubbock wrote, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”



I love perfect summer days in my backyard, hearing neighbor’s grandkids laughing as they jump off the dock into the lake. Summer doesn’t last forever... Take time to dial back to those empty days of a simpler time. Give yourself the luxury of enjoying summer in your backyard. 991