Page 474 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
Soon after receiving the appropriate thank-yous for the trip that we had arranged for them, I began to see the attrition set in in a series of phone calls. First: “I wish that we could find friends to go with.” Next: “You know, your father doesn’t really like to play golf alone.” Then: “I don’t think that your dad has been feeling all that well lately.” And finally, and best: “Did you hear about the murder of some tourists on St. Croix?” There is a distance of over seventeen hundred miles between Bermuda and St. Croix, but I finally got the point: nothing could get them to go. Swallowing my disappointment and anger with my mother for depriving my father of the trip, I decided that the only option that I had was to cancel the arrangements and give them a gift that they could use for whatever purpose pleased them. I sent them a check for $1,000 with a kind note and, in sadness, put the problem behind me.
That was in May 1981. Two weeks after they inspected my apart- ment in 1986, I received a call from my mother. My parents had decided that I needed help and, therefore, they had decided to return the $1,000 gift to me! Moreover, my mother insisted that I tell Phyllis of my par- ents’ largesse and that I make sure that she knew they were helping me out, just as they imagined that Phyllis’s father was helping her. I don’t recall whether my mother insisted that I send $500 to Phyllis.
That episode was not my parents at their best, but, as time moved along, they became accustomed to the realities of the divorce-to-come and, to their credit, they would frequently drive to Scarsdale from Somers to take their grandchildren to Friendly’s for a “Fishamajig” and a “Fribble,” or to Seven Woks, the kids’ favorite Chinese eatery.
In Loco Parentis
Yes, this section is about my children or, to be more precise, my relationship with my children.
Looking back, I’ve always felt that I was not as involved with my children when they were very young as I should have been. I’d like to say that that is because Phyllis was a very proactive, stay-at-home
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