Category: people

For my kids and theirs

Saturday, March30, 2024

The big tree at Big Tree Park, Glendora, CA. CarolAnn and I lived half a block away. Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

I wish I knew more about the lives of my parents and theirs. My dad, born in 1929, was of a generation that believed children should be seen and not heard. It sounds mean but it was common sense at the time. Dad just figured if I were going to be in the room with adults it would be better for all of us if I sat quietly and just listened. I could learn and they wouldn’t be bothered by my childish interruptions. That probably makes some sense but it didn’t allow me to ask questions.

The attitude extended to what amounted to an information blackout. The grownups wouldn’t tell me much about their younger lives. They’d drop a little nugget here and there but if I asked a follow-up question or two we soon got to the point where I was told, “That was a long time ago. Go outside and play.”

My childhood was a long time ago and I still want to know more about the people who gave me life, loved, and taught me. That’s why I write these essays so that my kids and theirs can know me better than conversation ever allowed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could learn about our ancestors back many generations if our grandparents could introduce us to theirs and so on over the decades and centuries past? If we could get an idea of who we are and why we belong here, wouldn’t we take ourselves a bit more seriously? Maybe we’d try a little harder to be worthy of the chain that binds the family to humanity.

We are all the sum of many; we are each the result of thousands of loves.

 

Terry Nelson lives

Terry Nelson on KROY, 1973. Copyright @Jeff March

I believe we leave traces of ourselves everywhere we go and among everyone we meet. Over a lifetime these fragments of others meld with our own essence to create the people we are.

My special friend, Terry Nelson, has apparently died. I say apparently because it’s something I can’t yet accept. It just doesn’t make sense.

Of all the people I’ve known Terry is one of the few whose very existence inclines me to believe in God, His goodness and His famously mysterious ways.

I wish I could tell Terry that. He’d laugh like hell and say, “Man, we need to get you another drink.”

Terry is one of those rare people I’ve known who always wears a smile. Always. I never saw him down or angry. He speaks with a persistent and infectious chuckle. He pays attention to every word I say, nodding his comprehension and agreement. He responds with a sterling compliment: “Dave, that’s exceptional”,  he’ll say, and then give me a brief, positive reflection on what I had told him. He often leaves behind a nugget of revelation.

A few moments spent with Terry always makes me feel better about myself.

The eddies of life as they are, swirling, mixing and moving apart, I haven’t seen or spoken with Terry in years but the traces of him that migrated to my soul have made me a better man.

I guess the reason I can’t believe he’s gone is that he isn’t. He lives large in each of us who loved him.

More Terry Nelson tributes, memories and recordings of his on-air work can be found here, at the KROY Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/112381452000/

The 1240 KROY website: http://www.1240kroy.com/