If It Feels Good Do It

The title is complete bullshit. Well, maybe not complete bullshit. But the content is the true story of my life. I was inspired by thebaglady’s continuing translations of her Dad’s story, Fifteen Years In America and motivated by this comment that I left regarding it.

When we moved from Sunnyvale to Benicia it was like someone turned up the saturation knob for my life.

Instead of renting a store, my parents rented a house that was near the bay. It was windy, but I loved to run down to the end of the street and play in the water. In the backyard was a lawn, quite a welcome change from the dirt lot I had played in before.

My parents enrolled me in Mills, the downtown public elementary school. It seemed so loud and dirty. The students there were like savages compared to the sterile refined classmates I was used to. There was no long line of yuppies out in front to pick up their kids after school. One of my classmates had parents that were in the Hells Angels.

In private school I had learned basic reading, writing and math. Now in kindergarten at public school I learned, well I don’t remember what I learned actually. Mostly I remember scooping rice and taking naps.

My mom still lit two Shabbat candles on Friday nights. One time when one of our cats died, my dad had me stand over its grave right after we buried it and speak Hebrew. My dad just thought that was a cool thing to do. It was a little bit on the morbid side. For the most part though, other than those two examples, all Jewishness that I had learned was dispensed with. One of the first things we did when we moved to Benicia was celebrate Easter with some cousins of mine that lived in Napa. Well, by celebrate I mean we had an Easter egg hunt and then ate candy afterwards.

SOUTHERN MAN

My mom worked early in the morning before I got up to go to school. So, everyday my Dad would wake me up.

My dad was from the South. His definition of breakfast was very American. He would cook a huge breakfast consisting of pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, bacon, sausage, and other ingredients commonly associated with a diner. Then he would sit with me at the table and make sure I ate all of it. He was almost always in a good mood at that time of the day, and almost always not in a good mood after it.

Starting from the first-grade, I rode my bike to school.

My first-grade teacher was also from the south. He had trouble pronouncing my name. When he said “Ian” it sounded like “in.” So, a bunch of my classmates called me “in,” and continued to do so for years.

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• Fifteen Years In America: Five Of Which I Spent Getting High On Weed, And The Other Ten Of Which I Spent Being Apathetic And Unmotivated, In Other Words, Being An American. Oh Yeah, Plus Another Fifteen In Which I Finally Got My Act Together And Capitalized On Newfound Productivity Gains From Snorting Large Amounts Of Coke - Chapter 1