Interview with an Old Man

Jonasen has been learning about the past in school and he had to interview someone who was "old" and create a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting schools from the past, with schools of the present. I thought for sure that Joe would pick Great-Nan and wondered how she would do with the questions seeing that she is 93 years young and has a fading memory.

But when Joe told me about the project, he said, "I have to interview someone old, so I am going to interview Papa!" It made me chuckle a bit (and I thought my mom would be pleased that when he thought "old" the first person he thought of was my dad and NOT her).

Joe got his interview questions ready and with pencil in hand, he Skyped my dad (who Joe sees regularly but this seemed more 'official'). Joe did a great job and I learned quite a bit about my dad's early school years that I never really knew about.

My dad grew up a strict Catholic~ as in school and then church on the weekends. My dad told Joey about the high class sizes, the nuns, the dress code and how there wasn't any PE which shocked Joey!

When I first told my dad that Joe wanted to interview him, he told me a bit about his elementary years. How my Grandma Drapal would walk him to school and how it was fairly early on that he began to question his church when he was told that none of his (non-Catholic) friends would go to heaven... (Ugh... I'm not Catholic...). Though my dad went to Catholic schools, I don't think his house really practiced what was preached (not that I would know what was preached in Catholic church). I do know that my dad failed Catholic marriage in college when he wrote a paper about the benefits of birth control and that his Priest was pretty mad when he learned that my dad had actually baptized me prior to my 'real' baptism. Apparently, my dad learned that babies who die and are not baptized go to a place called "Limbo" or something like that and he didn't want to take any chances with me going there and not straight to heaven, so he took it upon himself to save me without really telling anyone (but that aforementioned priest).

My dad has many great stories of his past (which of course are not all ready for Joey's ears just yet), but I did recognize that look in Joe's eyes when talking to my dad. He loved hearing about the history of HIS family and learning what life was like before he was even born. I always loved talking to my Grandparents and my Great Uncle Joe and Auntie Irene and learning about their lives~ the lives of my immigrant Great-Grandparents. It fascinated me and I still treasure the talks I had with my Grandpa Jonasen when I was a bullied junior high kid and how instrumental he was in getting me to see that life was so much bigger than the moment that I was in. What amazing life lessons I learned. Those talks about the past, turned into talks about the present that helped me in the future (that's a mouthful).

I was so blessed to have so many 'old' people in my life.

I think it's pretty neat that my kids too are surround by some pretty cool senior citizens! (And I can say that because my folks went to the Boat Show today... why? Because it was Senior Citizen Day and you could get in for free. My mom is not going to be happy that I shared that here. I think she is still 47..., but my Dad is old enough to qualify!)