Leaving For College

You know it has been coming for a year. Yet you never really recognize the day will come. One month. One week. One day. Then she is saying goodbye to the dog and you wait and hear her sniffs that blend with your own. Then you have the drive up to Michigan that is like a family vacation. You want it be that way. You push it from your mind even as you enter the university and make your way to her dorm. Now you are unloading her belongings in the cart. You are the cheery dad doing the physical stuff you do best. Your wife is already arranging her room and you step back and everyone is in their roles one last time.

Then there is a walk around campus. At twilight you look up at her dorm and pick out her window and you know that is where she will look at life now. That window is her new home and you will not be there with her. But there is still time. There is the dinner where the seafood is not quite up to Chicago standards. You joke around with her as you always do and then in the hotel room you watch Ace Ventura and you both laugh laying together on the bed. You always had the same quirky sense of humor.

But now it is morning. You go do down and try and eat something but your appetite is gone. A trip to the Walmart for last minute items. You see other parents looking like zombies with their kids. No one wants to go to this final wake for parenthood. But then you go back to the dorm and unload the bags and now...now there is nothing left to do or say. You cannot talk and hide behind your sunglasses. She hugs your wife and then she hugs you twice. And you murmur I love you. Something you never said enough. And now you are walking down the hallway. If you can just make it to the stairs you will be good.

And then you do and you walk to the car that is now minus one person. And you start the engine and pull out and you leave your daughter behind. And now you just cry and cry because your heart is broken and there is nothing you can do. Your daughter  has just left for college. 

Some of the things I won't miss about Parenthood

Let me say that I have watched over ninety episodes and I am closing in on the final season. So you could say I am a Parenthood devotee. Saying that there are some things I wont miss. The first will be the uber couple Adam and Kristina. These two seem to have some pack of kryptonite the rest of us mortals do not possess. Not only does Adam lose his job and land on his feet but he starts a recording studio with his brother Crosby that becomes enormously successful so much so that he passes up a couple million dollars in a buyout option after realizing that it is his brothers raison dete. Add a child and Kristina's cancer and a mayoral run by her and then starting a Charter School for their autistic son all the while navigation family crisis with elan and grace and money few of us possess and you have a most obnoxious fantasy middle class couple of the Berkley  super enlightened type.

I will also not miss the ever sexual Sarah billed as the siren who cannot fight off men fast enough. From the boyish Mr Sear (sic) to the hangdog Hank to the doctor in her apartment building to Seth her drunken ex rocker husband no one can get enough of her funny goofy cant get it together persona and the fact she always looks like a million buck no  matter how many crisis she navigates which brings us to her children.  Drew and Amber

Amber cannot be Bohemian enough for the writers. From her loft apartment that is always open to her strumming guitar to her I will have sex with anybody who moves me to her taking in broken men (Ryan) to her determination that she will be who she is to right to the point of having sex with someone in a body cast and getting pregnant and not getting why everyone isn't crazy enthusiastic over it except for Zeke the over top grandfather who we will get to in a few minutes. Forget that she blows a job working on a campaign by getting it on with the candidate or her series of jobs that go nowhere because she seems to never be shot of cash.

Drew they should have cut his character. Right off the bat. One hang dog Berkley angst ridden brooding  middle class kid (see Hattie who eventually reveals she is gay) is enough. So lets cut to Joel and Julia. Joel is probably the worst actor there or maybe the best. Just look conflicted with a hardhat and leave your smart sexy wife because she shows up at your work and then brood for a year. He deserves his white prison cell condo. What a dope.  Julia at least is who she is and is about the only character who doesn't go in for touchy feely emotional masturbation.

Then we have Crosby the eternal boy wonder /artist. Will he ever quit being the Crosby do the teenager thing? Married to another beautiful woman he effortly skates to success with Adam being the creative force of the studio while doing just about every bone head thing they can come up with  until be becomes the perfect dad with his African American wife and son all the while managing to be the token black sheep who is lovable even as he has sex with Max's (autistic child) tutor. (Everyone has tutors and therapists ...money is no object)

Zeke is just nuts (should have quit with Poltergeist) and his wife Millie (should have stopped with John McClains ex wife in Die Hard I) has had way too much plastic surgery and too busy wilting through every scene as her husband plays the obnoxious patriarch busy setting the table in the back so they can have another family dinner. Because no one works and drops in at each other places of employment to discuss interpersonal issues and what the hell everyone is living in nice homes in Berkley and so lets go to dads before he sells the place and moves to another giant house complete with long table for family get togethers.

So...I will miss Parenthood. I actually really liked the series even with all it's flaws. Maybe I am as nuts as the characters. It does take one to know one.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

The High Point of the Day

Driving my daughter to school is the highpoint. After that it is all downhill. Maybe it would seem strange that taking a second grader to school in the morning should bring such joy but then we are still children. Do you have your lunch? Your backpack? Do you have your boots, your coat, your gloves, your hat? Yes dad Yes dad Yes dad. Alright lets go.

And then of course the inevitable question. So...what's today? Wednesday. And what happens on Wednesday? Hmmm...well daily five. Math. Library. Science.PE...and lunch. And what  is for lunch? Peanut butter and jelly and an apple an chips. All this while driving the same route day after day behind the same minivans of parents in pajamas and in coats and mothers and fathers dropping off their charge in the circular drive.

And what does it do? It takes us back right? I remember sitting with my father at the end of the drive waiting for a bus in the darkness. Or he would drop me off on the way to work. And the questions were the same. So what happens today? What's for lunch? These are the brilliant little nuggets of parenthood. These moments that are way too short and end way too quickly.

And now we are rounding the drive and it is time of the drop off. Ok. Have everything. Yeah dad. Alright...have a great day and have some extra ketchup with your fries. And she turns and smiles. Dad. We aren't having fries. But the joke is there and we do it everyday and then you watch her turn and walk into that school and with her goes a little bit of your heart.

Rocket Man...the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man...Chicago Sun Times