Parenting Your Parents: The Joy of Creating New Memories

by Jim Comer

When we are parenting our parents, it is only natural to dip into the past. The old days are familiar territory and we feel safe there–as long as we are careful which memories to unwrap. While the past may be comforting, don’t neglect the possibilities of the present.

History isn’t something that happens to someone else. Everyone has stories worth telling and memories that should be shared.

Mining our parents’ past is not expensive. It takes only time and energy. With a few taped interviews, vintage pictures and period music, you can create a homemade video that will honor and thrill your parents. If you have no technical abilities, get some high-tech help. Hire some clever teenagers with too much time on their hands.

I interviewed my father on a simple audio tape recorder about his early days. Since he was terribly deaf, I had to shout the questions, but it was a small price to pay for what I learned.

He told me about his trip to Europe on a tramp steamer when he was just seventeen. He was in Germany in 1930 and saw Hitler speaking at a street rally. For a few months during The Great Depression, he serviced slot machines that had been won in a poker game by the newspaper editor in Waxahachie, Texas. In the late thirties, he ran a service station in corpus Christi and one of his best customers was the madam of the town’s premiere bordello.

Dad was in Italy when Rome was liberated and got to stand on Mussolini’s balcony. He was invited to join a group of Catholic pilgrims who had a private audience with the Pope Pius XII. The pope noticed my father standing off to the side, walked over and introduced himself. When he learned that Dad was from Texas, he said, “Texas! Can you tell me why they pour concrete down the hole when they dig an oil well?” My father spent ten minutes telling the pope about oil fields. Not bad for a Presbyterian.

Find out what’s important to your parents about their past and get them talking about it.

In our family, World War II never really ended. During three years in the Army Air Corps, my father kept a journal that covered his combat missions out of England in 1943 when the casualty rate was eighty percent. After the war, we kept hundreds of handwritten pages in boxes as we moved from city to city. When Dad retired in 1974, Mom and I urged him to turn the journal into a book. It took five years to get him started and another five to complete the manuscript. I edited at least six drafts and eventually we honed it down to two hundred and twenty pages. In 1985 Combat Crew was completed. Dad contacted a local publisher who said it would cost $15,000 to print 1,500 hardcover copies. For a conservative man, that sounded like $150,000. I assumed the book would remain unpublished. Surprising to everyone, Dad spent the money.

When the books were delivered, I organized a book-signing party in Dallas and arranged an interview in The Dallas Morning News. They gave Dad a full page with a color picture. To our amazement, the books sold out in six months. A friend sent a copy to a New York literary agent who sold it to William Morrow & Company within 2 weeks. Dad’s book was published internationally in hard cover and paperback and has been read throughout the world. Today used copies sell on the Internet for up to $100.00.

Life does not take place on television. Whenever possible, even if it’s a hassle, get your parents out of the house.

Every May there is a Central Texas Air Show, with re-enactments of World War II battles and an appearance by a B-17. Naturally, ad and I never missed one. The field is hot, dusty and crowded. There are screaming children and a blaring sound system. It’s not my favorite day of the year. Within twenty minutes, I am tired and cranky, but Dad is in heaven.

One year he suffered a fall and had to use a walker. He was in pain and I convinced myself that he couldn’t handle the long trek from the parking lot to the runway and wouldn’t be interested in going. Secretly I was relieved. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to make the decision about attending the show without asking him. I said, “Dad, do you want to go to the air show next weekend?”

He said, as he did so often, “what did you say?”

I repeated the question at triple volume.

With exquisite timing, he replied, “oh, I don’t know, Jim…”

There was a long pause. ” … only if you want to go.”

It turned out I was ding to go.

On the day of the air show, he put on his Eighth Air Force cap and jacket despite the soaring temperature. I planned ahead and got us a reserved parking space and asked for a VIP golf cart to take us directly to the B-17. I also brought a folding chair. Sure enough, when we got to the airport we had a parking spot close to the gate.

I got Dad’s walker out of the back seat. Slowly we made our way to the entrance. When I told the ticket-taker we needed a ride for a World War II veteran, he almost clicked his heels. I was impressed, but shouldn’t have been. It took three walkie-talkie calls before they finally got the golf cart to us. By that time my ever-impatient father was griping about the wait.

I loaded Dad, his walker, and folding chair on the cart and climbed in the front seat. The driver was a soldier from nearby Fort Hood. As we drove off, an enormous lightning bolt struck nearby. In my concentration on logistics, I had ignored the dark sky and ominous black clouds. I told the driver we wanted to go straight to the B=-17 because Dad had flown seventy-six combat missions in World War II.

“Seventy-six!”

“Yep.”

“But didn’t they send those guys back after twenty-five?”

“Dad volunteered for a second tour of duty. Mother almost divorced him.”

“Seventy-six!”

The young soldier turned to my father and said, “sir, I want you to know you are my hero.”

Dad gave him a smile and a kindly nod that meant, “I have no idea what you just said, but I’m sure you meant well.”

“He can’t hear unless you yell. He’s deaf.”

Our driver reached to the depths of his diaphragm for vocal support and screamed, “sir, you are my hero!”

Everyone within a hundred yards heard him, even my father. The thunder was booming as we rolled on to the runw3ay. For the first time I focused on the impending downpour.

“Get as close to the B-17 as you can.”

“No problem.”

He drove past the STAY OUT signs and headed for the Flying Fortress. Dad brightened visibly as he saw the plane’s familiar outline.

“There she is!”

Lightning flashed again and I felt the first raindrop. Our driver was not deterred. He drove directly under the right wing just as the sky opened up. There was a twenty minute downpour of biblical proportions. All 10,000 air show attendees were soaked to the bone, but not us. As he had been sixty years earlier, Dad was sheltered by the wings of a B-17.

I jumped out, opened the walker, got Dad out of the golf cart and prepared the folding chair as if it was a throne. For a moment I saw my father as he must have looked in 1943; lean, strong, blue eyes shining, and his whole future ahead of him.

Dad sat serenely as the rain swept around us. The plane’s crew soon heard that a veteran of seventy0psix missions had joined them. They climbed out of the plane and lined up to shake my father’s hand. One of them asked for an autograph. My father beamed as he signed his name.

When the rain stopped, we made our way slowly across the drenched field. We sat in our folding chairs amid the soaked grass surrounded by planes of his departed youth. We didn’t say much because perfect moments don’t require words. However, I coudn’t miss the look of joy on my father’s face. And to think we almost hadn’t come.

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Jim Comer is a writer and speaker in Austin. His book, “When Roles Reverse: A Guide to Parenting Your Parents” was published by Hampton Roads and was a finalist in the Texas Writers League Awards for Best Non-Fiction book of 2007. His website is www.whenrolesreverse.com and he speaks to groups throughout the country on elder care.