Highlights and Lowlights of a Prosaic Life – Set the way-back machine to 1956. Not that you would care, but come with me on a self-guided and mostly misremembered journey of discovery as I relive and relate some of the most prosaic, profound, painful and perfectly hilarious moments of my life.
Family of Faux
I wouldn’t call my childhood idyllic but viewed in the blurry rear-view mirror of life it doesn’t seem that bad either. In light of the fact that countries actually track and tout, or try to hide, something called a child mortality rate, I consider myself fortunate to have been born and raised when and where I was and by whom. I have been afforded opportunities in life others are denied, including a formal education that has been of great benefit, and reached a ripe old age to enjoy a secure, if modest, financial future, however long I may last. Very fortunate. That said, unlike a lot of people, I wouldn’t go back in time to relive my childhood if you gave me a million bucks and the stingray bike I really wanted but never got.
As I advance into the golden years of my life and tumble into the social safety net, memory of my childhood years has admittedly grown a bit dim. Oh sure, I still trot out a few stories that are sure-fire crowd pleasers, all embellished to the point they are no longer entirely accurate, and frankly I can’t tell anymore if they really happened or are some benign form of recovered memory. But I intend to share some of them with you here, so I probably shouldn’t have said any of that. The only reason I can claim authenticity for what I’m about to tell you is that irrefutable evidence exists in the form of Kodak slides and Super-8 movies. These mute testaments to the joys of my youth sit in boxes in my sister’s garage collecting dust, but exist they do, and they are a priceless repository of the beginning of the story of my life.
When I woke up one morning and began in earnest my journey to be a sentient human being, the first thing I learned was that my full given name was Eric Alfred Oliver Stromquist, Junior.
Aside from that being a real mouthful and causing great consternation because it wouldn’t fit on any standardized test forms, it was obvious to me that I had the same goddamn name as my dad. Lots of men use this approach so they themselves are glorified well past their demise, and to make sure their firstborn son is properly labelled. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this and many male children actually end up having Roman numerals after their name. That to me seemed more dignified than “junior” and only heightened the sense I lacked individuality, and that fact may very well have influenced any number of poor decisions I made later in life. Anyway, to avoid confusion around the house my father went by Dad, Daddy, Alfred, Al, or behind his back AO, and I was called Rick, Ricky, Rikki Tikki Tavi, and Buster Bub. Anything but Eric really, although those occasions I drew the ire of one or both parents, I was usually summoned by my full given name. Including the junior.
The next thing I discovered was that my father was a big meanie and my mother was a big softie.
AO lost his father when he was young and was raised by an indomitable Swedish mother who insisted he be the “man of the house” at an early age, and later he fought mortal enemies in World War II on a battleship in the Pacific, so it’s no wonder he was a meanie. Other men seemed to survive similar upbringings and experiences with a sense of humor intact, but my father did not. Happily, this was offset nicely by the fact that my mother Mary didn’t have a mean bone in her body. Not even one mean little cell. The result of this ham-and-egg parenting arrangement was that I got large and more or less equal doses of education, discipline, compassion and love. How all of that turned out is not for me to say but looking back I can see that I got as fair a start in life as any snot-nosed kid could hope for.
The third thing I discovered was that I had a sister.
More on this later but suffice it to say right now that being four years older gave Karen certain systemic advantages. Advantages that I was unable to overcome no matter how hard I tried. I certainly don’t want to suggest that I was some sort of a second-class citizen in our household, it was more like third-class or steerage. Being at the bottom of the org chart, however, taught me many valuable lessons in humility, respect, resentment and escapism. Lessons that have served me well to this day.
AO and Mary were only children, but it took me a while to grasp that the various other people in our extended family who we referred to as aunts and uncles weren’t aunts and uncles at all. These cheerful imposters, most notably Aunt Annie, Aunt Greba, Aunt Fae, Aunt Mary – it struck me as odd or excessively lazy that parents would give sisters the same name but who was I to judge – Uncle Bert, Uncle John, and Uncle Harry, rounded out the Stromquist faux family, although Bert and Harry were actual cousins of some kind but clearly were impersonating an officer and didn’t deserve the rank of Uncle. Nonetheless, these people played a significant role in my upbringing, or at bare minimum hung around the house a lot, and they hold a special place in my heart. Much later, Aunt Fae became the second Mrs. Alfred Oliver Stromquist after my mother and Uncle Bert died. But that’s a whole ’nuther story.
You can't make this stuff up, right?
I recognize this even tho carefully crafted as fiction. 😀