Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 495

Poltergeists and house fires

My sister’s latest post on 107 Federal Street deals with the two most terrifying moments of her childhood.

Parents can be awful and despicable to their adult children. I will not be one of them.

After years of listening to stories about the suffering that my adult friends are forced to endure at the hands of their meddlesome and controlling parents, I have decided to create a list of promises to my children that will protect them from such behavior in their future.

While I can’t imagine myself engaging in any of this despicable behavior when my kids are adults, I can only assume that these rotten, interfering  parents felt the same way when they were my age, and yet somehow they ended up acting like selfish, petulant, overbearing jerks.

This list will serve as an insurance policy in the event that the same happens to me when I am older.

I plan on adding to the list and re-posting it as often as needed.

Please feel free to offer any additions to the list.

It should also be noted that as of this moment, my in-laws are not guilty of any of these offenses, nor was my mother when she was alive. These items are based solely on the experience of my unfortunate friends.

Thus far I have been exceedingly fortunate.

This does not mean, however, that I would not include them on this list in the future if their otherwise reasonable and respectful behavior takes a turn for the worse.

Promises To My Future Adult Children

I will never criticize or attempt to manipulate my children’s choice of names for my grandchildren. Doing so is a selfish, intrusive, despicable act. It is also one of the most asinine things a grandparent can do.

I will never pressure any of my children to get married. Doing so is hurtful, insensitive, narrow-minded and potentially damaging to a child’s future.

I will never criticize my children’s choice of occupations. Doing so only serves to impose my own values and personal estimation of happiness on them, which is selfish, narrow0minded and despicable.

I will never criticize my children’s decisions related to religion. Doing so fails to honor them as individuals and free thinkers and is selfish, self-serving, antagonistic and despicable.

Happy endings only please.

“Daddy, I only want to watch Wonder Pets with happy endings. No one can get hurt. No sad stuff!” – my daughter, hiding in the bathroom

It should be noted that every episode of The Wonder Pets ends happily. Some just require more work on the Wonder Pets part in order to make this happen.

Father and son in Shakespeare

The idea that reverting to the original pronunciation of Shakespeare’s day has brought new meaning to his work is fascinating, but the most interesting aspects of this video for me was the relationship between this father and son.

They have chosen to pursue an identical line of work and seem remarkably simpatico as a result.

As the son of an evil step-father and an absentee father, I can’t begin to understand a relationship like this, but I envy it more than you can imagine.

Not a fan of Santa Claus

Clara spent most of the evening demanding that I play a game called Christmas, in which I would be Santa Claus and she would be a kid.

Unfortunately, I was eating dinner at the time so the game never happened, but she had elaborate plans that included such things as, “You go upstairs, Daddy. There’s a lot of room for Santa upstairs” and “You have to say, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ a lot!”

I’m sure I’ll get another chance to play soon. But I ask you:

Does this look like a girl who likes Santa Claus? 

Weaponized brownies

My sister and I are back in business. After a lengthy hiatus, Kelli has begun writing again for our brother-sister blog, 107 Federal Street, and I am once again responding to her posts.

All it took was the gift of a used laptop. It turns out that my sister is much more willing to write on a full-sized keyboard than her cell phone. In the past three days she has written three new posts, and more are reportedly on the way.

My sister has a near photographic memory and remembers things from our childhood that I have long since forgotten. The purpose of the blog is to recapture some of those lost memories from that steel-trap brain and examine some of the events that took place during our less-than-ordinary childhood.

Ideally, we are creating something that our children and grandchildren will enjoy someday.

On a more selfish level, I am also accumulating new material for a memoir that I will one day write.

Who knows? Now that my brother has returned from his five year disappearance, perhaps I can get him to contribute as well, though that is unlikely. Kelli is an excellent writer and uses the Internet on a daily basis.

Though my brother possesses the technical expertise to write a post and surf the Internet, he lives more like a mountain man when it comes to computers, which is one of the ways that he managed to disappear for five years.

Today I posted the first of Kelli’s recent posts, about the time I baked brownies for our Boy Scout meeting and the resulting violence, as well as my response to it. 

Dicks could have spared humiliation had they been born in Denmark

In Denmark, choosing both the first and last name for a child is serious business, requiring the approval of the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and the Ministry of Family and Consumer Affairs. The Law on Personal Name is designed to protect the a child from a name that is embarrassing or could  cause him or her to suffer ridicule or abuse. 

Expectant parents can choose a pre-approved name from a government list of 7,000 mostly West European and English names. Those wishing to deviate from the list must seek permission.

About 1,100 new names are reviewed every year, and 15-20% are rejected, mostly for odd spelling.

While this law initially seemed heavy handed to me, my father’s name is Leslie Dicks, and he goes by Les Dicks. Also, I have a great uncle named Harry Dicks and an uncle named Harold Dicks who also goes by Harry Dicks.

I have to believe that these men would have been protected from the horrors of their names had the United States adopted legislation similar to Denmark .

In fact, our surname might have been eliminated long ago had the Denmark law been in place within the United States. 

Then again, you would be hard pressed to find three tougher people on this planet than my father and my uncles.

As I have explained to my wife many times, as difficult as my last name was at times, it also taught me some important life lessons.

Like how sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.

Also, the most effective place to punch someone in the face if that becomes necessary.

Joy and cheer indeed!

Awkward questions about sex, underwear, my mental health and my tax return.

At all of my book talks, I offer a prize for the most unique or challenging question of the evening. This began after a woman asked me about the role my ex-girlfriends play in my fiction.

When I asked her why she asked the question, she replied, “You look like the kind of guy with a lot of ex-girlfriends.” 

Thus my contest was born.

At a recent talk, the prize went to the man who asked me if I thought that autism was the result of inbreeding. I was forced to give him the prize in fear that he might attempt to trump that question with another.

Usually the offer of the prize does not cause people to ask anything out of the ordinary, probably because my prizes aren’t great. They tend to be the foreign editions of my books that have piled up around the house. I keep at least one, of course, but had no reason to keep the other ten copies, so giving them away made a lot of sense.

Lately I’ve been working through my stack of Chinese versions of SOMETHING MISSING.

Not exactly an inspiring reward.

But perhaps I have underestimated the value of these books.

At last night’s book talk, I was asked the following less-than-ordinary questions by audience members:

How lucrative is your writing career?

Based upon the childhood experiences that you’ve described, is it possible that you are schizophrenic?

Do you think that you had an imaginary friend as a child because you were neglected by your parents?

Do you avoid writing romance because of the sex?

Do you ever write in your underwear?

I also met a woman whose daughter lives in the home that my grandparents occupied for more than forty years.

It was a fun night, but it was a strange night, too.

So much for skipping

While attending the Brattleboro Literary Festival last October, I was reintroduced to the joys of skipping. 

My wife was less than supportive about my newfound joy, but I heard from at handful of readers who had taken my advice and tried skipping again after many years of non-skipping.

All reported it to be a unexpectedly joyous act.

So just when I thought that skipping could possess mainstream appeal, along comes The Skipper, a man destined to ruin skipping forever by making skipping look like the most ridiculous form of locomotion on the planet.

I hate when zealots destroy a perfectly wonderful thing with their complete lack of restraint.