Category: theater

Lessons you learn from your kids

Camping with my son a long minute ago.

I just learned something from my son. He’s older and wiser than me now.

We had a public disagreement on Facebook, and he really let me have it. It hurt, though that wasn’t his intent. The details don’t matter; they’re just between us. The point is that he taught me something.

For the sake of this essay, I’ll call my son Jeremy because that’s his name.

I’m 73, and Jeremy’s 47, but sometimes I still think of him as a kid.

I do, but I don’t. It’s complicated.

I knew he was an adult when he went off to college nearly 30 years ago, but that’s where most of my personal memories of him end. That’s where we started to grow apart.

The tricky thing about parenting is that you have two lifelong relationships with your children: when they need you and when they don’t. It’s the whole point of parenting, right? Give them what they need and then let them go on to live their own lives.

Forty years after this picture, Jeremy has a long, happy marriage and a brilliant adult child of his own. In many ways, he’s the finest man I know. And sure, I take some credit, but just a bit. He also has a mother, a stepmother, teachers, friends, and a thousand other inspirations I know nothing about.

Children grow up and fly away from the nest, but as just one parent, your relationship is grounded in the past of birthday parties, Christmas mornings, and teary, skinned knees. You try to hold onto that feeling but reach a point where your heart can’t follow.

We stay in touch, but sometimes I need to be reminded that my son hasn’t lived with me for well over half of his life.

“You have nothing in common but his childhood.”

My wife of 37 years lovingly explained that to me a few nights ago.

Jeremy and I still love and respect each other. We just told each other so. And in the wisdom of age, we’re probably closer now than ever.

Sometimes it’s just hard to keep up.

I guess I’m still letting him go.

Act Two

Sacramento’s Stagedoor Comedy Playhouse was my home away from home in the 80s and 90s. For several of those years between marriages, it was my home instead of home.

I was Felix to Dave Grosby’s Oscar in Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” Gosh, we were terrific.

I don’t have an exact count but I’d guess I performed in some 20 plays at Stagedoor and directed another ten or so. I wrote a few, too. After each performance, the cast and crew would gather around the beer and wine bar in the lobby and relive the glories and horrors of that night’s show. We drank and laughed while learning the fine points of our craft, of action, reaction and timing, through our shared experience. We kept at it until the wee hours, then reluctantly headed to the parking lot with the happy promise that we’d all get together the next night and do it all again.

I was in my thirties then and thoroughly immersed in my life as a single father and my blossoming radio career. But I still had dreams of a different, distant future.

“When I get old,” I told my theater family, “I’m going to get acting jobs in movies and TV. All the young, hot bodies are fighting for stardom. I’ll wait until they’ve all burned out,” I said. “Then I’ll just scoop up all the old man character roles.”

Remember this old man? Burt Mustin. He was on every big and small screen in the 1950s and 60s.

It was my retirement plan. Seemed like a good idea at the time when TV shows all featured the same two or three old men playing minor roles and window dressing, actors who had been around forever learning technique and aging into the life experience needed for old man character roles.

Forty years have slipped away. I guess it’s time.

I just filled out a form for a casting agency to appear as an extra in a TV series filming in the Fort Worth Stockyards. It’s a prequel to the hit series, “Yellowstone”, called “1883”.

I love Westerns. I’ve eaten dust on horseback.

I loved playing cowboy 60 years ago and I loved being on stage 20 years later.  Maybe I’m ready to saddle up again, or just walk down a wood plank sidewalk as a body comes flying through the swinging doors of a saloon.

I’ll let you know how it goes.