My Son, My Buddy

On Father's Day weekend, I had the opportunity to spend a good deal of quality one-on-one time with my son. His Cub Scout pack held a 'lock-in' at the Philadelphia Zoo, where he and other scouts would spend Saturday evening through Sunday morning at the zoo, having access to see animals in the evening and the early morning free of crowds, having their time punctuated with some structured games and activities and the thrill of sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor of a cavernous education center in the shadow of a giant plastic tower shaped as a tree. Put another way, between the event and the fact that he has a couple of good buddies in the same scout pack, he was really loving life.


For me, maybe it wasn't quite my bag. Seeing zoo animals at 10pm wasn't exactly on my bucket list, and I had even less enthusiasm for sleeping on a rock hard floor while getting mosquito bitten completely surrounded by hordes of scouts and parents. It was sort of like the wounded soldiers scene from Gone With the Wind, minus the bayonet and rifle wounds. Admittedly, the fact that the day ended at 11:30pm pretty much had me totally exhausted and gassed (I have no idea how my kid with an 8:30pm bedtime managed, it was clearly all adrenaline). Oh yeah, I have to say, you haven't lived until you've had a chance to brush your teeth and wash you face in a public zoo bathroom.


All that being said, I really had a great time hanging out with my son. The two-hour drives down to Philly and back allowed us plenty of chit-chat time, and at seven years old, he's pretty much capable of having conversations around anything and I feel free (maybe more than I should) to speak to mostly speak to as an adult with some humor, joking and sarcasm mixed it.. I enjoyed his company. For example, my GPS has this bad habit of taking me through the most rugged (i.e. dangerous) parts of North Philadelphia whenever we visit, and this time was no different. So we'd enjoy conversations like this:

(Me locking the doors of the car enters a clearly not-so-nice neighborhood)
Daniel: Why did you lock the doors, daddy?
Me: Oh, you know. It's not the safest area here. I just don't want to get carjacked and shot in the head with someone driving off with you. (quickly changing subject) Hey look, I see all these Korean signs here. This must be Koreatown.
Daniel: Daddy, this isn't Koreatown. Everyone here is black.
Me: But how about all these Korean restaurant and stores? If you paid more attention in Korean school, you'd actually be able to read this stuff.
Daniel: This isn't Koreatown. If this is Koreatown, why is there a Domino's Pizza over there?
Me: You're half-Korean. You like pizza, don't you?
Daniel: Yeah.
Me: So there.
Daniel: I'm American-Korean, that's why I like pizza.
Me: Korean-Koreans like pizza. How about harabujee (grandfather)? He likes pizza.
Daniel: Oh yeah.

It's not profound, but these sort of random conversations where we sort of banter and laugh are the best. There were also some teachable opportunities, as I tried to get him to understand that he shouldn't equate black people to bad neighborhoods and street crime. I'm not quite sure how much he understood my schpiel on economic empowerment and job creation, but hopefully some of it took.

I think what I liked about that weekend is that it's proof that we can spent a lot of time with each other and not get on each others' nerves. It also helps that he largely likes the things that I like (well, Cub Scout sleepovers notwithstanding) and happily partakes in the same fast food junk that I like. I appreciate the fact that he actually likes hanging out with me and wants to hang out with me. I'm preparing myself for the teen and even tween years where I'll be helplessly uncool in his eyes, because I know it's coming.

Until then, I'll buddy around with my son, with dreams of this evolving into the cross-country road trip that we'll take someday... provided I can trust him with my car.