The usual emotional rollercoaster

Memorial Day, as usual, was fraught. Found myself tearing up at the aged WWII vets, my typical practice when confronted with anyone who looks like my dear departed father. The guy wearing the three-sizes-too large shirt really got me--my dad wore shirts that fit him 60 pounds ago till the end of his life. Was he frugal or in denial?

Trust me--he was in denial. Mother cornered the frugality market in our household. The Great Depression was a cataclysmic event for her--she went from relative luxury (well, Midwestern Calvinist style--still wearing a hairshirt, but it was of wonderful quality) to relative penury overnight. Made her distrust money almost as much as Republicans.

Dad's working-class family likely didn't see any change in their fortunes, Depression or no Depression--they muddled along on the same barely-making-it strata their entire working lives. As a result, Mother worried about money, Dad's experience taught him that no matter what crunch they found themselves in, it would somehow work out. To say they had different money styles would be, as the old saying goes, a "masterpiece of understatement."

As it turns out, Dad was right. Something to remember these soon-to-be jobless days of 2005.

While we're talking tears, I also cried when the marching band went by--I'm a former band geek, and there's something about a line of clarinets (one of my former instruments) that chokes me up almost as much as the WWII vets. Noted no one was marching with a tenor sax as my band director used to make me do--he didn't like me, that was plain, and I believe making me march with a big ol' sax was one way to make me pay (I was first chair and would not relinquish my throne to his pockmarked son for one good reason; certainly, considering my rocky adolescence, he had more reasons than that).

So yes, it was a Memorial Day--remembering dead dads, tyrannical teachers, and more. Woo!

It was not just a day of remembrance, it was a day of new experiences as well. Saw my first soap box derby, and while I think I wanted to do it as a kid, watching yesterday's spectacle of family strife and ambition play out on Locust Street certainly erased that "wish" from my list.

Not that every parent behaved badly--there was one dad who offered nothing but sweetness and support to his indifferent-yet-winning daughter (she had a pink car with flames--how cool is that?), but enough parents coached their kids into pre-race cowers and screamed from the sidelines to make me think, "There but for the grace of God...."

What a weekend! Am almost glad to be back in my office, facing my one remaining deadline.

Almost.