A lot of things have changed in Texas, and one of the biggest changes is the relationship between fathers and sons.
When I was a boy, my father knew more than I did, and I knew that he knew more than I did. If the chain came off my bike or an inner tube got punctured, I took it to Dad, and he put the chain back on with a screwdriver, oiled it with WD-40, or patched the tube—all within five minutes, like a pit crew. Then he handed the bike back to me, patted me on the head, and said, “There, all done.” If my air rifle jammed, he opened it up, removed the stuck pellet, and handed it back to me, saying, “There you go, son, loaded and ready.”
Now that I have boys of my own, I find that I don’t know much about their world. I can’t solve their technical problems. They say things like, “Dad, my Xbox isn’t connecting properly to Microsoft’s Call of Duty server.” Or, “Dad, can you download the synchronization patch for my Wizard program?”
All I can do is look at them and say, “How’s your bike, son? How’s your air rifle?”
When I was a boy, no one could get me to come inside; now I can’t get them to go outside.
My boyhood wars took place outdoors on a battlefield consisting of five acres of gardens. We fought with clods of dirt, oranges, and the like.
My sons’ wars take place on a 32-inch two-dimensional screen in a dark room. When you walk by, all you see is flickering light. I tell my sons that humanity went through thousands of years of evolution to escape the cave, and now they’ve gone back into it.
I suppose every father thinks his childhood was more wholesome or tougher than his son’s.
A few Christmases ago, I stood with my father and grandfather, watching my son play with a remote-controlled robotic dinosaur.
I remarked that my son’s toys were incredibly advanced, almost like something out of a science-fiction story.
“When I was a boy,” I said, “advanced technology was an electric train.”
My dad said, “In my day, all we had were rusty old metal trucks that we pushed around outside in the dirt.”
My grandfather said, “Hell, in my day, we had to imagine we had toys.”
