I don't suppose he ever understood why I was so offish with him. He'd given me a wonderful education, hadn't he?
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."
And now I'm getting the same offishness from one of my own kids. Like the man said, "You reap, reap, reap what you sow."
I don't mean to complain. I don't want sympathy. Please, please, no sympathy. This is how it works between the generations.
My father had a love-hate relationship with his own father. The old man wouldn't let go. He loomed over my father's life offering counsel. Maybe that's why my father stood so far back with me. He didn't want to make the same mistake. He didn't want to be oppressive.
Maybe I'm oppressive. I don't mean to be.
Once they're dead they're easy to forgive.
Men are prey animals, scared, scared, scared. The more patriarchal we seem the more frightened we are. We're just king-pin bunnies- scanning the shadows for movement, listening out for the hawk's wings in the sky.