My Father's Clothes

Several times in the year or so after my father passed, my mother would call me over to one or two closets in which she'd neatly hung my father's clothes with a veneration reserved for a priest's vestments. "He hardly wore these," she'd say with a sad, delicate wave of her hand. I’d look in her eyes and what I'd see there was not so much her grief in the lengthening absence of her mate of over 53 years. What I'd see most, was her hope in my acceptance of the utility of the offer. These were reverential, intimate moments between the two of us. The third presence, the obvious one, Dad’s, was hanging on the clothes rack. So, each time, I selected two or three items that I liked more than the others and thanked her. 

It's an odd, sad and complex thing to walk around in your dead father's clothes. There are times I asked myself that if his clothes retain some essence of him, would I absorb it?  I already had 90% of his genetic makeup. Would the clothes make it complete? All his successes, setbacks, beliefs and experiences–would I inherit these by osmosis?

Dad was 5'9" and barrel-chested. I am 6'1" and barrel-chested. At the top, we are alike. Dad's legs were short, thick, muscle-knotted and bandy. I have my mother's longer, more graceful legs. Dad's scent is sweet and masculine. It is cinnamon, musk, Irish Spring soap, Old Spice aftershave, graham crackers and face stubble. I’ve known this scent/signature all my life. My own scent is much harder for me to describe, though I know it is similar to his.

I passed over his sportcoats, which I really did not like and assumed would not fit me properly. The first item I chose smelled the strongest of him, even though freshly washed. It's a navy blue zippered pullover. As I held it to my face, a flash of grief surged through me with the knowledge that once I took it, wore it and washed it, eventually my molecules would displace all his molecules and its scent would change, become entirely mine, not his. Everything fades. Molecular traces are replaced. Though I honor his memory by wearing Dad’s pullovers, I actively erase his imprint by doing so. This is not something one can do casually.

In defense of the (revised) liberal education

"This is a tough time to graduate from college. While unemployment is high across the board, recent grads face a brutal 9.3% unemployment rate -- the highest that statistic has been for them since the Great Recession began. Worse yet, studies have shown that fewer than half of recent college students are finding jobs that relate to their majors, and just more than half felt their jobs made use of what they learned as undergrads."

I came across this article by DailyFinance.com's Bruce Watson, thanks to an FBF and it made me think about how much things have changed since I was a starry-eyed student.

The old saw when we didn't have gray hair was that college was less valuable for what you learned and more valuable that you "learned how to learn." As a grad of communications, back further than I care to say, the attrition rate was appallingly high. Maybe 1 in 10 still working in the field. The one thing I got right back in my youth was that "you really have to want it" and I did. And I do. So here I am, still working in a field that is every bit as tough as it was when I got out of school, if not tougher.

7 reasons why being middle class ain't what it used to be

My dad worked a middle class job for almost 30 years. He never cracked more than a 5-figure income. Yet we had a house, plenty of food and oh, yeah, he put six of us through top state and private schools using a combination of (then) plentiful state grants, scholarships, work study and low interest loans. I only have two kids to put through college. My income is more or less on par with Dad's, but do I get the sam deal as him? "Every picture tells a story, don't it." Pertinent images from documentary, "Inside Job":
(rights retained by author)

Going to college is about 10x more expensive than when I was going.
Is my income 10x what Dad made? No.
American universities have abrogated
their compact with the middle class of this country.

Glad somebody made out. My family didn't.

I don't carry anywhere near this kind of debt,
but my savings certainly don't show
the same robust upward swing.
Talk to me after the boys graduate.
I may well be at the top of this cuve.

When I saw this, I knew things would be no different.
Change = "same as it ever was"
I am so disappointed in him.

Tim Geitner -- go directly from Wall St. to PA Avenue,
no need to stop at Main St.

Annuals and Decimals--Notes on the Passing Decade

Sweet dreams are made of these

At age 10, I had a dream about my fifth grade class going on a field trip to the moon. I actually entered the gleaming rocket ship and settled into my launch chair, but I never made it. The nuns discovered I'd forgotten my lunch money, so I was kicked off the space ship and left behind. I'd never forgotten that dream, but the last place I expected to be reminded of it was at the premiere of "Tron" this week.

My 16 year old and I settled in for the trailers and I found myself watching this theatrical Kia Optima commercial: "Sweet Dreams"  with a mixture of joy, wonderment and the feeling expressed best by Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." It felt like some evil mf copywriter genius at Park Pictures reached inside my head, extracted the glowing filament that best distilled all my most cherished fantasies and unfulfilled dreams and splashed them on the screen with a tagline "No one ever dreamt of driving a midsized sedan… until now.” The boy driving his bed through his fantasies turned into a driving man who watches in awe as the rocket ship of his dreams lifts off into the cosmos. He's happy in his sleek midsized sedan, but to me, it seems like a poor consolation prize.

Worker Rights Extend to Facebook, Labor Board Says - NYTimes.com

Worker Rights Extend to Facebook, Labor Board Says - NYTimes.com: "Company Accused of Firing Over Facebook Post
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: November 8, 2010
In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on her Facebook page. This is the first case in which the labor board has stepped in to argue that workers’ criticisms of their bosses or companies on a social networking site are generally a protected activity and that employers would be violating the law by punishing workers for such statements."

This is going to be big, not just from a worker/social media context but in a labor relations context as well. I'm watching this. We all should be.