Mom and "Pop" Pelton on a visit to Oakland
“Pop” is 83 years old now. He is a nationalized US citizen, originally from London. I’d like to see him move up to Oakland from the San Fernando Valley with mother, who has developed Alzheimer’s disease. At their age, I would feel better about having them nearby, and I would have more time to “hang out” with Pop.
I’ve been a dad myself now for 16 years, living with my wife and two girls in and around Rockridge. I can see the problem when there is insufficient “hang” time between a father and his children. When I hang out with my girls, our time together is comfortable and unforced. But when I travel for work (moderating roundtables and dinners for a national IT publishing company), our time at home feels more condensed, more compressed. I don’t have enough time to understand what is going on in their everyday lives. Even though I really want to know what’s going on, teenagers, of course, don’t answer questions on a tight schedule. Being apart so frequently makes it more difficult for uncomplicated, father-daughter communication. It is easier to talk about important things when you’re just hanging out with time to spare.
But with my own Dad, we probably see each other half a dozen times a year. Our family travels to Los Angeles nearly every Thanksgiving to visit. For the remaining visits, he and my mother trek up to Oakland several times a year. We try to create some of that precious father-son “hang” time — we both love Scotch! But travel visits always have full agendas. If we lived side-by-side, like in the old days, we could have casual, drop-in, neighborly visits. But with so many miles between us, our time together still seems a bit limited, a bit forced.
Still, it’s great fun to have a non-resident, Oakland booster as a Dad. On our most recent visit, the weekend before Father’s Day, he told me about all the cafes with outdoor tables in and around their “Best Western” hotel near Jack London Square “Downtown’s sure coming back,” he announced. When he comes to town, Dad always makes time for Bakesale Betty’s, Pizzaiola, and Sunday mornings at the Farmer’s Market at the Claremont DMV. Indeed, he likes the whole scene in and around the Temescal District. How I wish that he and mom would just pack up and move here to Oakland and that he would pick the Temescal neighborhood as a place to hang his hat!
Speaking of hats: Dad is an aficionado of berets and only buys his hats at The Hat Guys near downtown on Broadway. He knows the cheapest gas in Oakland; and has even been known to sup at the ultra chic, piece-of-New-York Mua, near the “Y”.
We have enjoyed some Fathers’ Days together, but since he just visited last week, we will each spend the day in our own homes. As for me, I’ll probably host a barbecue, invite some Dads and their families over, and wish my Pop were only three or four miles away, instead of four hundred. I really wish he could be here with me, hanging out, sipping Scotch and flipping burgers on the grill.
