Nothing reminds you of your own childhood like watching a 7-year-old boy topple headfirst into a bed of ferns and filth.
And the sound of his father screaming across the backyard, “Striker! What did I tell you about being in the dirt?!?”
The child popped up like a groundhog, ferns and filth dripping from him.
Ah, to be a kid again.
This child is my nephew, Striker. His father is my younger brother, Scott.
This was at least the 75th time my brother had barked: “Striker! What did I tell you about being in the dirt?!?”
Now the boy had been summoned for a talk. The 75th time.
My daughter and I tried to contain laughter as we watched the kid’s walk-of-shame.
“What did I tell you about being in the dirt?” he was asked again. The boy stood there and thought about what he would say. Really seemed to be mulling it over. I mean, how do you answer a question like that? There’s the obvious answer: “Uh … you said, ‘don’t do it,’ if I’m recalling correctly the previous 75 instances.” There’s the out-and-out lie: “I know, but I got hit by a meteorite as I was running. I tried to fling myself onto the concrete, but I missed and landed in the ferns.” There’s the apology: “I know it was wrong, and I’m sorry. It will never happen again, and I love you, dad. Also, don’t look at the left side of the car anytime soon.”
And then there’s my nephew. He goes with honesty: “Um … I don’t remember.”
Oh, boy, you are in total timeout on that one!
We had been over at my mother’s. It’s a Sunday afternoon tradition. My daughter and I go over there with a rapid-fire NERF gun and shoot foam bullets at the kid while he runs about screaming like a wild maniac. Then he topples headfirst into a bed of ferns and filth. (In a slight variation, he sometimes crashes into a bush first, causing my mother to yell, “Striker! What did I tell you about tackling my bushes?”)
I stared at the boy. His hands were the color of charcoal. There were green grass stains – no, STREAKS! – running down the fronts of his khaki pants.
“Why don’t you just put him in shorts year-round?” I asked my brother. “He will scrape all the skin off his knees, but it will go a lot easier on your budget for new pants.”
“GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!” my brother replied. “He goes go through pants by the crate. I literally order a pallet of new ones every 3 weeks.”
Then: “Stri-KER! What did I JUST tell you about being in the dirt, man?!?”
Oh, boy. Here we go again.
“Pop says Striker is just like Uncle Scott at that age,” my daughter told me as we were driving home. “Is that true?”
Ahhhh! That’s why it all sounded so familiar. Took me back to our childhood all those years ago. Because yes, that is true. Like father like son.
And now the father has to go around yelling, “Striker! What did I tell you about digging a 10-foot-deep hole, filling it with water and jumping in? I said, ‘ONLY with adult supervision.’”
As children, I don’t ever remember my brother being clean. You know how you have those images of siblings or family members etched into your memory as a kid? Mine is of my brother with a sweaty dirt-smear across his forehead and someone yelling in the background, “SCOTT! What did I tell you … !”
I hated being dirty as a kid. Still do. Hate grime and feeling dusty. Hate grass stains and anything on my clothes. Don’t like holes in my pants. If I have a mission in life – a reason for being – it is quite simply to stay upright and never spend time cuddling ferns.
Not my brother, though, and these jaunts in the backyard always take me back. A reminder of our own golden years. Playing in the backyard. Shooting each other with some kind of pellet guns, or rotten oranges, or something a whole lot worse. Dirt-stained hands. The green streaks of grass skid-marked across pants. The threads just holding on for dear life, but always exceeding their tensile strength. There was no hope. They were always frayed. All from slides across the yard or launching oneself into bushes. More my brother then me.
Then the cry would go out across the neighborhood: “Scott! What did I say about those pants?”
And here it is, a new generation. Well, my daughter’s knees are still there. She took after me. And the boy clearly is his father’s son.
I take a moment to look down at my brother’s pants and swear I can see a little streak of green, and maybe a little fading at the knee cap. Part of me wants to point this out to my nephew. Only, before I can, he’s toppled over into the ferns again.