By Bob Gaydos

I think that I shall never see … RJ Photography

  This was going to be a rant, then I remembered it was Thanksgiving and I can always rant about the same stuff and the same people another day, so it’s going to be a gratitude column. Better for my health and yours. Better to be thankful than bitter. Better to enjoy the day. (It’ll also be much shorter.)

     So what am I thankful for? Let’s start with the confidence, after nearly 60 years of writing, to know that sometimes it’s OK to end a sentence with a preposition. Thankful, in large part, that at my age, although some components of my body have slowed down or simply broken, the brain seems willing and able to do this writing stuff every day. Sometimes, it insists.

     Thankful, of course, for readers across the years, who have been there to give me encouragement, criticism and feedback and continue to do so today. Without you, I’m an old man talking to myself.

    I’m thankful for the teachers, colleagues and mentors I’ve had along the way and even the bosses who didn’t appreciate my unique talent. They taught me humility and how to look for a new job.

      On a more personal level, I’m thankful for family and friends, old and new, who have provided love and support and still help me to be open to new challenges, new ideas, new vitamin supplements.

      For Max and Zack and filling the birdfeeders on a sunny day. For sushi, salt and vinegar potato chips, thin, crisp, New York pizza, Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, baseball, tall trees, an occasional hot dog, coffee, guacamole, artists and poets, cataract surgery, Bill Wilson, wonton noodle soup, music, electric blankets, horses and dogs. Cats, too.

     Thankful for science and the fact that I have successfully gone from typing my story or column on an Underwood manual typewriter to a Taiahiro Gaming Keyboard, which takes my iPhone hostage. Thank you, Gilbert.

     I’m also thankful I’ve learned how to get in and when to get out. I tried to keep this under 300 words, but I guess I have more to be thankful for than I thought. Thankful for that.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Bob

(Don’t be shy. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.)

By Bob Gaydos

Trains! Trains! Trains!

     Long ago and far away, in a bustling, friendly North Jersey place called Bayonne, a young boy (about 5) clambered out of bed in what seemed like the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

     He opened the bedroom door and entered a world of light and laughter and clinking glasses and aunts and uncles and … trains!  Trains! And tracks. And …!

       Oh! Oh! Oh!

    It was explained to the hyper-excited boy trying not to wet his pajamas that Santa had been there and brought the train set and set it up, but was coming back with more presents so the boy had to go quickly go the bathroom and then he could play with the trains for a few minutes and go back to bed and be quiet not to wake his baby sister sleeping in her crib.

       And so he did.

       He expanded on those trains and surrounding accessories for another dozen years with the aid of Santa, parents and aunts and uncles for many more Christmas Eve visits. The layout expanded to cover a side of the living room around a Christmas tree in another, larger, home until eventually, at the “request” of his mother, it moved to the basement.

        Then the boy went off to college and life.

       Those trains, the Lionel New York Central passenger line, are still in good shape, in storage now in a big box in the basement with all the rest, after the long run in Bayonne and a revival bringing joy for that boy’s own two sons some four-plus decades later in Middletown, N.Y.

        That Christmas Eve with Santa’s two-stop visit returned vividly to that young boy’s mind as he listened to the news last night, now some seven decades later. A reminder of a simpler time. 

        A time of family, community, innocence, hope and peace. A time worth remembering and, perhaps, removing from the boxes in the basement. 

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump and his happy family.

“Daddy, to be honest, is an idiot. A lying SOB, too. A nasty drunk. As long as you praise him, he’s all smiles and charm. Disagree with him and he’s a bully, or worse. He likes to act like a big shot — ‘I’m the smartest guy at the office …,’ ‘the fastest runner …,’ ‘no one knows as much as me …’ ‘I really showed them …’ Yes, he’s somehow always late paying the bills, if he pays them at all, and he seems to owe a lot of people money. He’s not around much lately — busy I guess — but when he is he’s always telling us about how great it’s gonna be when we: a) get a bigger house; b) buy a new car; c) go on vacation; d) move away from this lousy neighborhood.

“We’re still waiting, but we know he’ll figure it out eventually because he’s Daddy and he said so. We love him.”

Welcome to another day in the life of a typical American family locked in the grip of massive dysfunction bordering on delusion. Actually, maybe they’ve already gone across the border.

Of course I’m talking about Trump. You know I’m talking about Trump. The only ones who don’t know I’m talking about Trump are members of the aforementioned family. The delusionals. They stuck with him before and they’re sticking with him now. He’s family. They’re stuck with each other. Hey, nobody’s perfect. “We gotta stick together or they’re gonna take away our jobs. Then our schools. Then our church. Then our kids. Then our guns. Then what’ll we do?”

“Don’t worry. Daddy will know.”

(But remember? Daddy’s an idiot.)

How do you survive in life when all your tools — morals, knowledge, social skills, sense of self, pride, compassion, ethics, economics, tolerance, honor, curiosity, courage, ambition, faith — have been conceived, nurtured and twisted in such a fashion that, although you know instinctively that up is not down, you agree with the head of the family anyway when he says otherwise and you defend him vigorously when others says he’s an idiot? To do otherwise, after all, is to admit your significant shortcomings in those areas and to invite the shame and ridicule you imagine you’ll receive for not recognizing reality. For not kicking Daddy out or leaving yourself.

That’s life with an abusive (often alcoholic) parent. Donald Trump’s America. The drug of choice in this case is applause, not alcohol, but the behavior is the same. Me, me, me. Predictably unpredictable. Trump’s diehard supporters are stuck with each other and with him — one, big, dysfunctional family, lies and betrayals notwithstanding. Indeed, to question Daddy is disloyal, to leave, a betrayal. And where would you go anyway? It is, after all, a scary world out there. Daddy said so. Many times.

Breaking away from any such family is no easy task. It’s who you are, after all, isn’t it? You and your brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles and … Heck, it’s like daddy told you — it’s your brand. “Us against the world.”

Breaking away from the family of Trump — acknowledging that he is a fraud, rejecting the brand — would take enormous courage. First of all, it would mean admitting you have been wrong all this time to have placed your trust in a man with no moral compass, no sense of duty, no trace of compassion for the less fortunate, no regard for the truth and a total lack of interest in anything that does not feed his ego. (Get him a beer!) To admit that, one would have to be a fool, right?

Secondly, it would mean learning an entirely new set of life skills and placing your trust in people who believe pretty much the opposite of everything Daddy has told you. Talk about scary. Besides, how can you be sure those people aren’t lying, too.

“Everybody lies. Don’t believe what the media say. They all lie to make money. Daddy knows. He used to be on TV. He was great. At least Daddy has the guts to stand up to the liars and fight to get what we deserve. Maybe he hasn’t gotten it yet, but at least he’s trying. He’ll come through for us eventually. He has to, doesn’t he?”

Of course, there are 12-Step programs for people who grow up in this kind of ill-functioning, mis-functioning, dysfunctioning household with an unpredictable, abusive, addictive parent at the head. But one has to first admit there’s a problem before those programs can help. Then, one has to be willing to change — to break the chains of denial and dependence on the parent and learn to live one’s own life. To be honest with oneself.

Rather than being the act of a fool, it takes a lot of courage to say, “Daddy’s an idiot and if I keep depending on him, excusing his behavior, I’m going to wind up an idiot, too. I have to face reality.” Sometimes, it take an intervention or a profound spiritual experience, a moment of clarity, for this to happen. Both have been known to work miracles and either one would be acceptable right now.

In the meantime, the key for the rest of the more-functional families in the neighborhood is to continue to recognize that the family down the block has an addictive idiot for a Daddy and that to try to tell them so is to invite insanity into your home.

rjgaydos@gmail.com