Basement Generation 2.0

    A long time ago I wrote a piece called "The Basement Generation", based entirely on a conversation I overheard with 2 colleagues. It wasn't far off, and was based on the premise that the youth of then (2013) would be doomed to live in their parents' basements...that is, for those who are fortunate to have a basement to live in.

   When I think of a functional living quarters basement, I think of 2 places. One is my childhood friend Jeremy's house in West Lawn,Pennsylvania. There was sufficient moving around space, a small bar, TV setup, mini fridge, and computer area...plus his dad's generous Playboy magazine collection. The other is my cousin Craig's house in the UP of Michigan. Almost like Jeremy's except it actually has a bed...not sure about the magazines.

   Sadly, the western states tend not to have much in the way of basements in their residences. Even more, I think the youith of the western states are more prone to be living with the folks well into their late 20s or even early 30s.

   As I have seen and heard much more in my profession in the last 11 years, I have come to the non-scientific conclusion that the kids are victims of an overprotective system that somehow evolved from a tougher atmosphere that eroded throughout the decades.

   "Bryan, you are full of it!", you may say. Hell, my wife says it frequently, so I am used to it. All of that said, there is so much environmental evidence out there to support my claim.

   Now, before I begin, I should defend that "western states" bit from earlier. To me, the western states are the Rockies and west from there. I could even narrow it to the 50-100 miles of land heading east from the Pacific coastline, but I've met a few from Idaho and Colorado and certainly from Nevada to broaden the scope. 

   Back where I grew up in eastern Pennsylvania, there was a general toughness and not giving a shit attitude about a lot of things, at least when I was there. I can't speak for 32 years later. Nobody really fought over politics or gun rights or anything that infects society today...until you spoke badly about Penn State football. If you had the cahones to do that, you were lucky to get a ten second head start before you lost somet5hing vital, the least of which was your bladder. 

Parents generally kicked you out of the house after breakfast and did not expect to see you again until at least 4pm if not later.

Playgrounds and parks had a metal-based system of swings, monkey bars, merry go rounds, and slides that supported emotional and physical growth. If you flew off, you flew off. There was grass. You dusted yourself off (if needed) and went back to it. If you sustained a head or extremity injury, it might have been a few days before try number 2.

The schools had a pretty easy system to figure out. If you sat and listened and took notes, you had a shot at some good grades. If not, it was likely because you were talking and/or dicking around. An A was 90-100%, a B was 80-89, a C was 70-79, a D was 60-69, and an E/F was the lower 59%. I will be honest here, in my 12th grade classes, I was not really into the school thing anymore and therefore tuned out trigonometry and physics...getting Ds regularly in both classes. On a few trig tests I received a generous 20% and knew why.

Given all of that and knowing that I was far from the toughest bunch, I managed to hold my own. I didn't go out of my way to piss people off, but due to my nerdish nature I was a pretty easy pick-on target. Yet I never had the crap beat out of me or had my head put in the toilet for a ceremonial swirly. In all, I had a good time of it growing up, and was fairly prepared to take on adult life later on...fairly being the key word.

Let's fast forward about 7 years after graduation, when I was a new substitute teacher in Sonoma County, California. I noticed a general trend of what I considered odd behaviors, with both kids and their parents. Now, I was a fairly sensitive guy (and not the kind women purportedly go for) but I was getting a hint of OVERsensitivity. Even third and fourth graders seemed to have a shield at 30% strength. Some parents kept their kids home if they knew there was a sub. More than one parent came up to me and told me how the day would go for their darling kid, damn the others, and if I stepped one little bit out of focus, the principal would be notified. Out of my 4 1/2 years of subbing in many elementary schools in many districts, I was taken off the list of only 2 schools and that was in one district (Santa Rosa City Schools). Otherwise, a good track record.

Once I was truly immersed in the education system as a full time teacher in Las Vegas, I saw so many changes. 

The once vibrant playgrounds had evolved into a plastic mesh of just a small spiral slide and some climb-across bars...usually accompanied by an oil-based spongy base so there would be no owies. The little ones are generally ok with this, but by 3rd grade it's a waste of space and offers little in the way of physical and emotional growth.

Even if a kid receives one of my classic trig test grades, the minimum I can give is 50%. Not sure who this helps in the long run.

And then comes the tech, and here is where it gets what I consider tragic.

I've never been a supporter of being best friends with one's child. It is good to have a healthy and positive relationship for sure, but when discipline erodes in favor of making sure your kid likes you no matter what, it infects the child's growth as well as the parent's own well being. On the flip side, making what is essentially a public utility a parental substitute is also damaging.

I lead the tech bit with that because the tech has become of very essence of many children's lives. We go into restaurants and see some kids and their families interacting, and other kids playing on a device while the adults talk or be on their own devices. 

30 years ago the Internet was an new thing, now kids are planning a career as a web influencer or professional gamer or professional Youtuber...thinking it will make them millions instantly based on what they see on various social media sites.

And on top of the tech, there is a growing society of fear. Fear of COVID and germs in general is what I have noticed especially. Fear of their child being labeled as having something like ADHD. School shootings and the public threats of such have not helped matters any. 

I wish I could go into the "nonbinary" realm, but I know so little I will just stay in my lane...but much of that controversial realm fits what I am getting at.

I have seen social media posts that say parents and schools should not try to prepare their kids for a world that no longer exists...and to a large extent that world of the child growing into a mature adult ready to take on the world in their early 20s does NOT exist, with a few exceptions, those being privileged expensive prep school students who are just waiting for their turn in line to control government or industry or both. Or, there are the kids who have firm goals in mind for when they get out of high school and plan ahead. Those cases are getting rarer and rarer, but they do exist.

As for the rest, it will be a tough road, for even the parents who work for lucrative companies and/or industries are finding more and more that the employer contributions to retirement and/or health care are getting slimmer and slimmer due to trying times or just plain corporate greed. Add to that just plain inflation. And if the kids are living in the basement or just never left their room, supporting them just with food and health care will be a tough cookie to crumble.

Sadly, much of this was avoidable years ago when the biggest tech advancement was the DVD. Yet so many "easy" roads were offered since then in the way of affordable tech and participation trophies and what not that the instant gratification was practically pre-destined. In fact, the kids I taught 21 years ago are parents now, and the trend I saw the seeds of then are fully grown with their kids...and those roots are so firmly entrenched that unless there is a "world code" depicted in "Escape From L.A." where Snake Plissken shuts everything down with one button push, the problem will no longer be a problem...it'll be just life.

Remember my dream about returning to 1972? It has not disappeared.

The Grandest of Grandparents, part 1

    Lately, I've been getting quite introspective.Well, I've ALWAYS been pretty inner as a person, but a few life circumstances and such have gotten me trying to comprehend the why of it all. Hey, I recently turned 51 and had a pretty shitty year being 50. Given that, I have been thinking about relationships in my life. I realized that some of the best ones I had growing up were with my grandparents!

   I was pretty lucky to have 2 sets of grandparents who lived an easy 5 minute walk from each other in residential Royal Oak, Michigan. Ah, Royal Oak! After we moved to Pennsylvania from Michigan in 1976, we took fairly frequent trips, especially during the holidays, to see both grandparent sets. And those trips were LONG! Why were they so long? If some of you 20th century folk may remember, there was a roughly 14 year period when the top speed limit on divided AND single lane highways was 55! I can Sammy Hagar now! 

   And when the drive from Berks County to Royal Oak was just over 550 miles and with food and gas stops, it was about a 12 hour trip. I will always remember knowing we were almost there when we passed the Shrine of the Little Flower at 12 Mile and Woodward, then crossed under the Grand Trunk railroad bridge, I didin't care which house we were going to, we were seeing my favorite people in the world then!

   There were, as I said, 2 sets: one on Alicia Court and the other on Vinsetta Boulevard. Let me begin with the Alicia Court set, my mom's parents.

   When I was a little kid, they were referred to as Monny and Bompa (my sister called them that when she was little), but I dropped that when I was 13 and called them Grandma and Grandpa. Their house had a reddish exterior and was a single level with a basement. A decent size living room was where we opened Christmas presents and watched TV. Down in the basement was my grandfather's workbench and tools, a ping pong table, and a little "cocktail lounge" complete with bar and cash register. Oh, the fun my sister and I had there!

   My Grandma Jo was a good person, but definitely had no patience for kid nonsense. I remember her smacking me once or twice for something, but that was as negatrive as it got. I remember liking anything she cooked and eating in the dining area set off from the living room. On that same table we would play card games after dinner. We would often go to the store together for something or another. When I was with both her and Grandpa when I was little, I was allowed to sit on the fron armrest between them.

   Grandpa Fitz (full name Leighton Deck Fitzmorris) was probably my favorite of all. We just had good talks about pretty much everything. Like my grandma, he also had a short patience for nonsense but generally smiled at my silliness. 

I remember this brand of peanut butter being in their pantry. I think it was a Michigan brand like Saunder's chocolate because I have not seen it in decades. By the way, Grandpa Fitz had a regular diet of bread and peanut butter, often eating it in place of what was being served. Oh, and Grandma Jo's potato chip cookies and her French toast! I can almost taste it all again!

   The Fitzmorris's were often our caregivers when there was serious business at the Moore household...which to this day seemed more often than not. When I went with my dad to check on how Bompa Moore was doing in the hospital in 1978, Grandma Jo and Grandpa Fitz watched over me most of one day. When Nana Moore passed in 1981, they took care of us. At that point it was easier as Grandpa had retired the previous year. They took us to the Ren Center in downtown Detroit, Belle Isle, and a short turn into Windsor, Ontario. 

    Many a visit with them also included their good friend Gerry Matter (whom I called Aunt Gerry), who lived about ten minutes away in a condo complex that had a swimming pool. Gerry accompanied them on trips often, especially to our house in Wernersville. Later on in life I came to wonder why she was with them and got more than the hint of a love triangle, but I'm not the National Enquirer and only deal in facts...as far as you know.

   If we were visiting in the summer, Grandpa would fire up the grill and put on chicken, and we'd eat at a picnic table in an enclosed porch. 

   Frequent visitors to their house were Gerry, her daughter Pat, and sons Mike and Richard. Friends Becky and Clayton Hardenburgh also came along with Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Bob, Tim and Mike Fitzmorris, and various members of my grandma's fellow soap opera watchers in the afternoons.

   But that is just the Michigan end of things...

   Grandma and Grandpa often came to Pennsylvania as well. When we lived in Wernersville, they slept on the fold-out sofa bed in the family room and if Gerry was accompanying, she slept with Kristin. Sometimes if my mom and dad were away together, the grandparents would come and watch us. 

   When I was 4 and 5, when they were visiting, Grandpa and I would go the airport and watch planes land and take off for a bit, then sit in the airport bar where I would have a soda and he would enjoy a whiskey sour. A few of them, actually. Then he and I would drive more. I can see the shock and horror in your faces but he was a functional alcoholic. He stopped drinking in 1978. The bar visits were replaced with McDonald's sundaes.

   After Nana Moore died, we stopped our Michigan Christmases, ad the Fitzmorrises came to us in 1981, 1982, 1984, and 1986. We began a new Christmas Eve tradition where we invited our friends the Kirkners over and had snacks that included peel and eat shrimp from the local Adelphia seafood market. I was glad my grandparents got to share in that for a few years.

   Just like in Wernersville, they would watch us in our Whitfield house whne my parents were away, sometimes the both of them, other times just Grandma Jo. On one of those visits, I came down with pink eye and she got me to the doctor and got some meds and took care of me for the week. She really was a good nurse when the opportunity came. 

   In late 1986, my grandparents decided they didn't want to upkeep a house anymore so they sold it and moved into an apartment in Troy, just 4 miles up Crooks Road ("Where all the crooks live", Grandpa often joked). I saw the place for the first time just after they moved there when Bompa Moore died. That was a tough time for me at 14, but my grandparents really took care of me on that one.

   In mid 1988, Grandpa Fitz was diagnosed with cancer. It took him within 6 months, and I got the opportunity to see him one last time before he passed in October.

   In years since, I've come to understand there was a darkness to their marriage as years passed, but 46 years isn't all roses for many others, either. What we see in others and experience within ourselves is often quite polar...and at the same time connective if we think it right. 

   A year or so after Grandpa Fitz died, Grandma Jo was reunited with a high school beau named Bob Shade and got married to him in June of 1990. Bob was ok, and after I began teaching, we began to have some commonalities to talk about as he'd been an instructor in the Navy.

   Grandma and I continued to be close right up to her death in early 2011. She paid for my return to school in 2000 to train to be a teacher. After I graduated and went through a depressed period of not looking for teaching jobs and going back to substituting instead, she sent me a SCATHING email that snapped me right out of it and got me actively looking. I think that email, along with the French toast and nursing me back to health, are what I smile about when I think of her.

   When Vickie met her at Mom and Don's wedding, Vickie told her that she was adopting her as her grandma as Vickie's had long passed. You could not have seen a happier smile from Grandma Jo! 

   She got to see Natalie a few times when Natalie was an infant, but passed away when Natalie was 18 months, so my daughter has no recollection of her great grandma.

   I miss those two people a lot. Grandpa Fitz will definitely be a role model (of many) when and if I become a grandfather.