I shouldn’t have been such a smart aleck. I hung around Harvey Pekar, who was inspirational — very bitter. \u201cI\u2019m hateful,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d like to have a cool way to slip my George Ade article to Lark [Pekar\u2019s second ex-wife, an academic]. She\u2019s small-minded. Who wants to dig through Ade\u2019s school grades? So what. I want to do something more creative.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was<\/strong><\/span> in 1981.<\/p>\n Ted has been a newspaper reporter and taught English in Korea. He has a law degree. He was on Jeopardy<\/em>. He has worked temporary crap jobs, too. He has done a lot, but he’s still only half my age!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what<\/strong><\/span> I\u2019ve learned in the past 31 years:<\/p>\n 1. Guard against bitterness I hope to list 10 items by the end of the decade.\u00a0 (Make it to the end of the decade, then worry about the list, dude.)<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n When my<\/strong><\/span> youngest child, Jack, moved to California last year, I held a mini-shiva<\/em>; I walked through the music room in the basement and threw out old mic cables, cassette tapes and tons of drumsticks.<\/p>\n Eli “Paperboy” Reed (L) and Jack Stratton down the basement, 2011<\/p><\/div>\n Jack took his drums and an electric bass out west.\u00a0 I called him when he was driving through Nebraska, and said, \u201cDid you open the letter I wrote you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,” he said, “my friends thought it was funny that on the envelope you wrote, \u2018Don\u2019t open till Nebraska.\u2019 They thought it contained hallucinogenics.\u201d<\/p>\n I’m anti-drugs!\u00a0 I was dispensing wisdom-in-a-can (in an envelope) to my youngest child. If\u00a0 he could combine my old guy’s experience with his 24-year-old’s enthusiasm and creativity, he would do fine. [Story about the letter is here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n I filled<\/strong><\/span> up four contractors garbage bags in the basement.<\/p>\n I hauled the stuff to the tree lawn on garbage day.\u00a0 An hour later, three bags were gone, but the fourth remained. A junk man had picked up three bags.\u00a0 And I had put some paperwork in those bags, as well as Jack\u2019s garbage.<\/p>\n Mac — the\u00a0 junk guy\u00a0 — pulled up the next week in a pickup truck. He said he liked my trash, particularly the ersatz medieval knight\u2019s helmet from my son\u2019s high school days.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/mohel-mit-goleneh-hands.jpg\" "\\"mohel")
<\/a>Now I’m twice as old as my son Ted. Exactly twice as old. He’s 31. Pekar was at Teddy\u2019s bris<\/em>. Pekar considered writing a comic about the mohel<\/em> raising his hands like a prize fighter and saying, \u201cGolden hands!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n2. Make your job interesting
\n3. Do something beneficial for others
\n4. Zekhor<\/em>\u00a0 (Remember)
\n5. Get married and have kids
\n6. “Don’t just view it, do it”\u00a0 (Shari Lewis)
\n7. Old people are dumb! (joke)<\/small><\/small>
\n8. Don\u2019t judge people by bumper stickers, neighborhoods, or their tastes in music.<\/p>\n