I'd Have Been a Star

Lisa, my mom and I were sitting in the back porch of my childhood home. My mom was just getting to know Lisa. Eventually, she would like her more than me and love her because Lisa’s “perfect for me.” The conversation drifted to my writing hobby.

“Rob writes poems?” Lisa feigned ignorance. “He’s never written one for me.” My mom laughed while I squirmed. I knew what was coming next.

“Yes, he likes to write, and did you know I typed all his papers his senior year in high school?”

Ugh, mom’s favorite topic, I thought to myself.

Lisa looked a little disturbed. “You couldn’t type your own papers?” Lisa acted or was genuinely incredulous.

“I took three writing classes at the same time, but I didn’t know how to type,” I explained.

“So you made your mom do it?!”

“He wouldn’t have graduated high school without me,” mom declared, looking from me to Lisa with pride.

Telling people she typed my papers is one of my mom’s favorite parenting stories. The dilemma is, it makes me look like a manipulator or a momma’s boy and her naïve or an enabler – not the best impression in front of your girlfriend.

My mom is proud of her and my dad’s parenting and DNA contribution. “Your father was a very good athlete. He was so natural at everything,” she tells us. “And you know I was the only girl on a boy’s baseball team.” My parents were both good athletes. They were good parents as well; at least, I don’t have any complaints – except for one which revealed itself in the oddest of ways.

When I was a kid, my dad used to shoot film. I remember him shooting the film, but I don’t remember watching the film. I remember him spooling the tape through the projector. I remember him setting up the projection screen. I remember him turning the lights off and, just as I got comfortable for the viewing, he’d request a Pepsi with five ice cubes. He was a molecular gastronomist when it came to his glass of Pepsi. The ratio of five melting ice cubes in a 12-ounce glass, to a bubbling pour of high fructose corn syrup created a subtle sugariness of perfection my father couldn’t resist. I just realized: my dad was a sugar addict. Back to the films. I don’t ever remember the watching or the actual films.

After my dad died, we thought the films were gone. We had a house fire in ’91. “They were probably burned in the fire,” we agreed. “Or,” we surmised, “Dad could have thrown them away during one of his unexplainable Alzheimer’s purges or reorganizations.” Neither was confirmed, both made sense.

Then one day my brother happened upon a coffee can filled with 8 millimeter films – jackpot! Without a projector or old-time movie skills, my brother took them to some professionals. Their job: splice them together, put them to music, and put them on a DVD.

A month later, my mom, brother, Cousin Jeff, my wife, and I sat down to watch these epic videos – the ones I couldn’t remember. We made popcorn, poured each of us a Pepsi with five ice cubes, lowered the lights and popped in the DVD.

It started out nice. They added instrumental background music; my brother and I were skiing at a local ski hill. We were tiny and cute, wearing little skies, and either showing off for or oblivious to the camera – nothing in between. Then, how can I put this, it got really f***ing boring. Dad’s camera work was a little wobbly, his framing either avant-garde or dumb. “Why are we on the edge of the video coming in and out of the picture?” we wondered. Sometimes the video was blank. The editors to their discredit, decided it was valuable footage. Apparently, they respected our dad’s Kubrick-esque vision, or they were lazy. They were lazy! Those thieves decided the three hours of eye-bleeding video didn’t need to be chronological or themed. They just put it to stock string music and spliced it together, in no discernible order. We’re skiing, we’re barbequing, we’re skiing, we’re swimming, we’re playing football, we’re three, we’re ten, we’re seven, we’re two – what the hell?! I’m sure the visionary who put the masterpiece together is currently sitting in his basement re-editing the lighting of his unfinished opus or he’s high, watching South Park and eating Cheese Puffs.

It wasn’t all bad. They were our memories and we did get misty and nostalgic. One scene grabbed all our attention. We were at a lake. My brother, all skinny and small, walks by with a bubble (flotation device) on his back. He splashes in the water. Then my cousin Jeff waddles by in an oddly tight swimsuit.

“Are you wearing a speedo?” we ask.

“I was very European during that phase of my life.”

“Where am I?” I ask. Everybody else, my aunt and uncle, was in the video. Then the camera pans to my mom, and there I am. I’m inside of her. I wasn’t born yet. Oh, that’s pretty cool, I thought. But wait, what’s she doing? And here’s my complaint: she just took a drag of a cigarette, a long smooth inhale right into her womb. And that’s not the end of it. She’s sipping a drink. It’s green. She’s drinking a daquiri – pouring alcohol into my developing brain.

“What the hell, mom?”

“What? What do you mean?” she responded.

“You’re drinkin’ and smokin’ like a dock worker, with me in your belly.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a big deal back then.”

“I don’t think dockworkers drink Daquiris,” Lisa (my wife) added.

“Imagine what I could’ve been mom. I’d probably be six feet tall, a step faster. I’d be playing in Major League Soccer right now. You stunted my growth, destroyed my dreams,” I said, 98% kidding. I mean, seriously, if I was a little taller…

“Well, they didn’t have those rules back then,” she waved her hand at me and laughed.

“I’m six feet,” my brother offered. “It didn’t affect me.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I quipped.

“Yeah, Tim is a lot taller than you,” Lisa, always supportive of my view, chimed in.

Then my mom did what she does at her entertaining best, she changed the narrative: “Your father and I were both good athletes. So you have us to thank for that.”

“I’m just sayin’ ma, maybe I’d a been a star.”

“Yeah, well, if I didn’t type all your papers your senior year of high school, you never would’ve graduated.”