I'm a 2,000 man

I turn 40 on July 25. Forty. Over the hill. Middle age. 40.

A week ago, which was the two weeks until I turn 40 mark, I found myself watching Thundarr the Barbarian with the Boy(s).

Thundarr rocks. Seriously. I loved that cartoon as a kid, and even though I hadn't seen it in over 20 years, I still dug it, hard. The Boy(s) too. They really got into Thundarr, which was icing on the birthday cake I didn't want.

In fact, we were so fired up about Thundarr that we decided to watch another episode after the first finished (we were watching it On Demand for those scoring at home.)

You see Dear Reader, I missed the intro on that first episode. The Boy(s), at that point were not yet familiar with Thundarr, thus complaining about my cartoon choice in a manner that kept my attention off of the tv, and on them.

By the second episode, they dug Thundarr (The Little Warrior pronounces it Dun-R the R-bear-ing) enough to sit back and watch the intro which goes like this (you can watch it for yourself HERE thanks to the magic of the Internets:)
The year: 1994. From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction! Man's civilization is cast in ruin! You can stop. The rest is unimportant.

What is: 1994. I was married in 1994?!?

As if turning 40 wasn't hard enough, now I had the realization that a cartoon from my childhood had used a date that was then, the future, which was now, my past.

Fuck me. It was as if Ookla the Mok kicked me in the nuts. Not even foxy Princess Ariel couldn't zap me out of my funk.

The next morning, still in my, I'm old funk, I decided to break our scheduled routine, and take the Boy(s) to drop off some library books and then hit the donut shop.

On the ride to get donuts, the Elder Boy was excited about the sugar, thus talkative.

"Daddy..."
"Yes..."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Please."
"What did you like when you were young?"

Nice. Pour some salt on the wound.

"Excuse me?"
"What did you like when you were a kid?"
"What do you mean?"
"What cartoons?"
"Oh. I liked Thundarr, like we watched last night. Thundarr is cool."
"Yeah. It was cool."
At which point the Little Warrior chimed in, "Thundarr the Barbarian (which sounds like: Dun-R the R-bear-ing) is cool!"
"I liked Woody Woodpecker. Droopy. Popeye. Scooby Doo. Hong Kong Phooey. Stuff like that. Oh, I like The Three Stooges, but they aren't cartoons, they are like old movies, just short."
"What else?"
"I don't know. There were a lot on Saturday mornings."
"Saturday mornings?"

That's when I realized (like one of those bad forwarded chain emails you get that list all the things that someone born in XXXX never experienced) the Boy(s) couldn't comprehend a world in which you only could watch cartoons on Saturday AM. They freak out at Old Granny's limited cable TV channel offerings. Imagine them trying to dial a pair of rabbit ears in, so they can get a UHF channel so they could watch something on TV.

"Yeah. When I was little, we only had three tv channels, and cartoons were mostly on Saturday mornings. Sometimes they were on after or before school. It depended on the station."
"REALLY?"
"Yes. When I was your age, actually until I was in high school, we didn't have VCRs. DVDs have only been around since Daddy was an adult. We had to go to the movies to see movies, or wait for them to come onto TV. Not cable tv either. Regular TV. Daddy got cable when he was a teenager."

Nothing. I'd lost him.

"Daddy also had to walk twenty miles to get to school, in the snow, uphill."
"What?"
"That's a joke."

Until I BLOG again...And my kids, they just don't understand me at all.

Won't pass me by

On my fifth father's day as a father I found myself on the phone with my father who was on his thirty ninth. I had just wished him a happy father's day, to which he had replied, same to you. I always find that odd, when he turns the happy father's day wish back at me.

As soon as our happy father's day circle jerk was over, the conversation turned to how his high school reunion was going in Tulsa. That quickly turned to a lady that he had hoped to see at said reunion.

"She's a feisty little thing. She reminds me of your Mom."
Nice, I thought, what every woman longs to hear on a date, you remind me of my dead wife.
"Jesus Dad, Don't tell her that."
"Oh, I won't...I'm not stupid."

Later in the day, watching Ninja Turtles with a feverish Little Warrior I did the math and realized that it took us about five years to have the first Boy. The memory that there had once been a time, when we feared that we'd never be able to have our own children, was, absurd. Two Boy(s) later, on that day, I could barely remember our trials and tribulations. It was long forgotten. Gone. Like Mom.

Pardon my cliche, but seriously, snap your fingers. We'll be in the Buck Rogers future and that version of the Boy(s) will be reading this maudlin shit.

I hope those future versions are happy. That's all I really want for either of you.

Until I BLOG again...Like the fool I am, and I'll always be.