Our Children in the Eighties (13)

The Party That Wasn’t Supposed to Take Place

The other children tested the limits too, but they usually tried to hide it from us.  With Gary, it was right out in the open. However, I didn’t know about everything.

Long after Gary had moved out on his own, I was asked to perform a marriage ceremony for two of his friends.  I asked where they met.  They said, “At your house.”  Then they hummed and hawed for a minute and said, “At a party…”  I finished their sentence for them. I said, “…which wasn’t supposed to take place.” We had been gone, and we left Gary to stay overnight by himself, so he thought it would be a good time to have a party.

            Gary tried a lot of different things at school – concert choir, band, drama, the swim team, track and field, football, soccer.  He never stuck with any of it for a very long period of time.  He struggled academically, but that didn’t come from lack of intelligence.  He was just plain bored with school.  In his thirties he decided to go back to college and he pulled straight A’s.  He said, “Dad, I finally fell in love with learning.”  He’s working on a bachelors’ degree right now, and making very good grades.