To Co-exist in the Unforgiving Surf

“I think the ocean has too many waves
There’s gotta be a way to make it behave
The world would run better
If it was run our way…” 

—KONGOS, The World Would Run Better

They huddled together on the edge of the lazy river. They didn't look scared, just hesitant, as if they were waiting in the wrong line and weren't sure where to go next. There were two younger girls, teenagers, and an older woman I assumed was their mother, all wearing colorful one-piece bathing suits, their puffy pale skin smeared white with sunscreen. The mother's face brightened as if she remembered where she was and separated from her daughters. She dipped her toe in the river, smiling a big winning smile.

"What are you doing?" one of the younger girls called out to the older woman.

At this point I floated calmly in the river on my pink donut floaty, courtesy of another hotel guest who was leaving the next day. He wanted another family to have fun with the two floaties they'd been using and didn't want to take home. We gladly took them.

My wife basked in the sun on a nearby lounge chair. Our two girls jumped and splashed in the pool, one of a few the lazy river flowed throughout the resort. Not too far away a sign on the side of a bridge read: All hotel guests must wear a wristband in pool areas.

I noticed the two teenage girls and their mother didn't have wristbands, but I didn't worry about it. Other guests were pointing it out every chance they could. I was too relaxed in my floaty to care, and then the mother said something I couldn't shake.

"For as much as I paid for our breakfast at this place, I'm going swimming."

She swam around for only a minute, pulled her heavy body out of the water and left with her two girls, both with expressions of embarrassed surprise. There it is, I thought. It wasn't that I cared she went swimming without being a hotel guest. I've "jumped the pool fence" a few times in my life. It was the idea that she was owed the pleasure. That she was due. That she was entitled to something else because for whatever reason she couldn't have otherwise due to screwed economic circumstance. And she was clear with her children that it was okay to feel this way.

The next day as we lounged in our small covered cabana, that we paid for, and which sounds a lot more glamorous than it is, another group of non-guests swam by and one of the guys said, "Look at those fancy celebrities."

Wow. And we even packed our own drinks and snacks to save money. At that moment I realized how apologetic I had been about our summer family vacation, still sensitive of surviving the great recession. Prefacing the family fun with the fact that I wove together credit card miles and points to make the vacation magic. Feeling almost guilty about investing in fun and family memories.

Almost, but not quite. I shouldn't feel that way, I know. We work hard to have the little we have, but we weren't due. We weren't owed. We weren't entitled to it because. We made the vacation happen because we could. Nothing more. 

Many of us can be and have been victims of circumstance. Getting the shaft and the short end of the stick due to financial forces beyond our immediate control. But it shouldn't mean we have a right to take because of it. This behavior has diminishing returns, and when it's played out again and again, and it is, we perpetuate the painful socioeconomic disparities that can and do lead to greater conflict. 

It's like witnessing a century-old sea turtle swimming alone in the shallows of a crowded beach. We can either swallow it whole like a monster, or learn to co-exist in the unforgiving surf.

A Little Tooth Fairy Lidocaine Love

“Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense…”

—Roger Waters, Perfect Sense II

It had been hanging there for weeks. It wiggled, it jiggled, it bent, but it wouldn't budge. Only a few millimeters of gum tissue held it in place. We coaxed her every night to pull it out, but she wasn't biting. Even Bryce kept urging her big sister to pull it out so she could share the Tooth Fairy booty.

This last week it was in, Beatrice allowed the Mama to try and extract it with floss, and while it moved and bled, the front tooth did not come out. And then the morning I was away on a work trip, the tooth did come out while Bea drank her milk. She beamed proudly with her toothless smile during our FaceTime call together.

The next morning after I had come home, the girls were buzzing over the previous night's Fairy visit.

"Beatrice, where's your tooth?" I asked.

"I left it for the tooth fairy."

"What did you get?"

"I got a bag with two gold coins."

"Where are they?"

"One's in my bed and one's in Bryce's bed."

"Yes Daddy -- I got one, too!" exclaimed Bryce.

"Of course. Bryce, you'll loose some teeth soon enough, you know."

Bryce thought about that for a moment, then added, "Well, when I loose my teeth, I'm going to wait until I have three so I can get a big bag of gold coins."

Of course. When you run the numbers, even at one dollar per tooth, that's twenty dollars after all the baby teeth fall from grace, which isn't too shabby for a seven-year-old. We can make that go a long way at CVS.

However, I'm not even sure why we continue to perpetuate the Tooth Fairy mythos, giving money to children for losing body parts. There is pain and fear experienced and associated with losing one's baby teeth, so I get that maybe there's comfort in believing in a sweet fairy who visits in the middle of the night and gives money for the lost tooth is a reward for surviving that pain and fear. Especially if the tooth is in good shape without cavities or decay.

But still. It's a little bit of a disturbing rite of "economic value" passage, isn't it?

I'm not suggesting that we don't do it; the Mama and I received that sweet milk enamel money as well growing up and couldn't wait to put those teeth under our pillows. Although the exchange rate at that time 25 cents per tooth, not a dollar. That's a 300-percent increase in exchange rate (at least the one we honor). Not a bad return over time. And we certainly didn't get a bonus dollar for being a sibling either. Bryce certainly knows how to work the system. And we let her, of course. She just may have a bright Wall Street future.

Either way, from Wall Street to Main Street, we can all get kicked in the adulthood teeth enough worrying about how we're going to stretch a dollar into two, so no harm no foul with a little Tooth Fairy Lidocaine Love.

Right?

The Greatest Gifts a Father Can Give

"Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown." -- Author Unknown

Four downturns in, this daddy takes a look back.

I was a teenager in the early 1980s recession, in my twenties during the early 1990s recession, in my thirties during the dot.com bust, and in my forties when the global pool of money melted down the world's economic engine, I became a father to two beautiful little girls.

During the first two I had steady jobs -- working in the produce department at a grocery store in my hometown and then working in alumni relations and fundraising at SJSU, my alma mater.

The third was a dot.com demise where we all lost our jobs and then the latest involves making a living stringing together risky business endeavors post a long-time leadership position in a local firm.

I read at the end of last year that millenials (i.e., Gen Y, those born somewhere between the mid-1970′s and the early 2000′s) will have at least 7-8 careers in their lifetimes. I’m a Gen Xer and I’ve already had 6 now. The top concern for many daddies (and mommies) of any generation today is to stay afloat financially in the Bermuda Triangle of jobs, homes and keeping food on the table.

Four downturns in and I take an even further look back at the careers of my dad and my grandfather, because we all share generational contrasts in lifetime careers and the cobbling together of others.

My dad was a mechanic in the Air Force. After serving he then returned to his home town of Porterville where he became mechanic foreman for the local Chevrolet dealer. This was back in the 1960s when you could practically listen to a car and diagnose its problem. After that he went in a completely different direction and became a police officer where he spent the rest of his career, complete with a short stint as a deputy sheriff in the South Pacific and then eventually becoming a "special agent" in charge of the forgery and fraud division at the Visalia Police Department (my hometown) where he happily retired.

My grandfather (my mom's dad), according to his own incessant quoting, was a "Jack of all trades and master of none." He worked on the railroads back in his home state of Missouri. He then moved the family West to California's Central Valley where he worked odds jobs before working on the Friant-Kern Canal construction. When he hurt his back he went into life insurance sales until he retired. But even retirement didn't slow him down; he worked as a custodian in a middle school for many years after. And throughout his whole life he was an avid tinkerer, watch and clock fixer and home gardener. I remember watching with magnetic fascination my grandfather fixing the tiniest of watches and watch parts with the biggest of hands and fingers.

Through thick and thin they both took care of their families. For the most part none of their children really knew the financial struggles they went through, because the greatest gifts a father can give his children are love, security and presence, all of which transcend economic peaks and valleys when passed on in kind.

Happy Father's Day, Dad and Grandpa. I'm passing them on in kind.

Besides, how can we go wrong with clipping these kinds of coupons?