I grew up as a child. And while my peers wanted to grow up to become train engineers, firemen, and cowboys, I wanted to become a urologist. I never did become a urologist, probably because my father wound up passing his kidney stones even before I was allowed to stay outdoors after the sun went down. Besides, I later learned that urologists deal with lots of droopy body tubes near other internal parts that look like raw sausages.
My father passed his kidney-stone-passing talents on to me. A few years ago I wound up in the E.R. where, in the midst of a kidney stone attack, I vocalized a now-famous screech the likes of which had never been heard before. That's why a commemorative plaque marks the place where that ear-piercing echo first erupted. E.R. staff there still refer to it as the "Tomaso Tremolo". You must admit, this is quite a feat in a theater where screams of pain punctuate the day.
But the Tremolo was small potatoes compared to the frenzy of suffering I witnessed circa 1958. My mother banished me to the outside patio while Dad lay prone on our couch, convulsing in pain so extreme that it sent me into hysterics. My mother ping-ponged between attending to my father and trying to shield me from those horrors and persuade me that my daddy wasn't about to die. Given the experience, you might have expected that I would grow up wanting to become an ambulance driver. But by the time the medics arrived, I had already run off into the woods to scream at the Georgia clay and weep violently in the willows.
In my current job, I sometimes encounter young men whose career hopes get derailed because they got arrested for beating their wives and girlfriends. Many had grown up wanting to become police officers, to become just like those brave cops who arrived in the nick of time and saved their mothers from further beatings by their drunken fathers. These boys grew up wanting to save the day with their badges, shiny belts, and their good guns of justice. But in the end, they were too much their fathers' sons.
In my current job, I sometimes encounter young men whose career hopes get derailed because they got arrested for beating their wives and girlfriends. Many had grown up wanting to become police officers, to become just like those brave cops who arrived in the nick of time and saved their mothers from further beatings by their drunken fathers. These boys grew up wanting to save the day with their badges, shiny belts, and their good guns of justice. But in the end, they were too much their fathers' sons.
If fathers really are to blame for their sons' career choices, it's possible to trace my seeds to another bout of Georgia screaming. One night when I was about seven, Dad went into the bathroom, and unleashed in that small space and from the bottom of his guts, profound wails that rattled the walls. These were not screams of physical pain, but convulsions of outrage and anger, primal and deep. One scream followed another, and on and on they roared.
What's a seven year-old to do? Why, join right in, of course. I opened the bathroom door, walked in, and starting screaming with all that my little voice would carry. My father seemed oblivious to me, and so together we howled, me in my pipsqueak falsetto, he as turned inside out as a man could be.
Unfortunately, this was a warm Atlanta evening and all this happened with our windows wide open. Our neighbors, the elderly McConnells, who lived next door and enjoyed their evenings relaxing in their screened-in porch, made a hasty retreat back inside. What must they have thought? It must have sounded like murder going down in the neighborhood. Either that or an attack of kidney stones.
But my father wasn't one to spew forth and rage against innocents. Quite the contrary. He was a gentle, thoughtful, enthusiastic, pipe-smoking college professor who never raised a hand to his children and who gained fame among his students for expounding the value, of giving and receiving hugs. On that particular night, Dad simply sought the only sanctuary he could find, and let loose his pent-up store of personal agony. I never learned what it was about, and to my knowledge, he never had another screaming spell after that.
Now that I am all grown up, what have I grown up to become? Before drifting off to sleep, I did love the distant sounds of those southern freight trains as they rolled through my Atlanta childhood nights. Such a comfort it was to feel that low and steady note while gazing half awake through the darkened web of dogwood limbs outside my bedroom window. I did not want to be the man who led the charge, the grimy engineer, the leader of the pack. Instead, I dreamed of pulling up the rear, the solitary man in the caboose, keeping the lantern lit, feeding the small coal-burning stove, and smoking a pipe just like the one my father smoked. Before the next depot, all the while, there's the caboosey cricket call, clickity-clack, clickity-clack, clickety clack, the cool tempo of the railroad track.
The Caboose Man. I hope that's who I've become.
Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com
Unfortunately, this was a warm Atlanta evening and all this happened with our windows wide open. Our neighbors, the elderly McConnells, who lived next door and enjoyed their evenings relaxing in their screened-in porch, made a hasty retreat back inside. What must they have thought? It must have sounded like murder going down in the neighborhood. Either that or an attack of kidney stones.
But my father wasn't one to spew forth and rage against innocents. Quite the contrary. He was a gentle, thoughtful, enthusiastic, pipe-smoking college professor who never raised a hand to his children and who gained fame among his students for expounding the value, of giving and receiving hugs. On that particular night, Dad simply sought the only sanctuary he could find, and let loose his pent-up store of personal agony. I never learned what it was about, and to my knowledge, he never had another screaming spell after that.
Now that I am all grown up, what have I grown up to become? Before drifting off to sleep, I did love the distant sounds of those southern freight trains as they rolled through my Atlanta childhood nights. Such a comfort it was to feel that low and steady note while gazing half awake through the darkened web of dogwood limbs outside my bedroom window. I did not want to be the man who led the charge, the grimy engineer, the leader of the pack. Instead, I dreamed of pulling up the rear, the solitary man in the caboose, keeping the lantern lit, feeding the small coal-burning stove, and smoking a pipe just like the one my father smoked. Before the next depot, all the while, there's the caboosey cricket call, clickity-clack, clickity-clack, clickety clack, the cool tempo of the railroad track.
The Caboose Man. I hope that's who I've become.
Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com
