A typical Saturday night on Edwards Air Force Base (according to my 6-year-old brain) included sitting on the back of my dad's MG convertible (yes, on the back) with my feet dangling behind the seats, cruising around the base to house parties. My 4-year-old sister was next to me and my parents were ready to dominate whatever room they entered -- the double-extravert, not-afraid-of-a-dirty-joke, life-of-the-party team that they were at the time.
The expectation for my sister and me was simple: Go play with the other kids and don't interrupt the adults. It was assumed that our age was the only thing we needed to have in common with others - and, that young, it probably was enough - and when we were ready to leave, it was acceptable to ask our parents once, maybe twice, if we could go home. It never worked. We were going to leave when their party ended, not ours.
All of us military brats operated under this same code. We knew the drill, and none of us were eager to interrupt an adult conversation for fear of the consequences and the overall futility. I feel that Andrew and I put this same expectation on our kids when we get together with other families. Interestingly, I've made few adult friends who do the same.* Some kids are allowed to interrupt and some are thrown a vertical index finger to "Wait: The grown-ups are talking."
*This is a judgement-free observation.
These rules extended beyond Edwards A.F.B. and followed me through childhood almost every time we traveled. Our family grew and I got older and vacations were usually road trips without hotels -- my parents seemed to keep friends in every U.S. city. I remember being 12 or 13 and expected to go 'play' with the other teenagers. This was awkward as hell but I did pick up bits of culture along the way, such as being introduced to The Offspring, hanging out with foreign exchange students, and trying to understand why our Texas friends had to sneak their house cleaner and gardener home every weekend under the cover of night.
A few years ago when I was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island with my own family, my mom came up to visit. She had only one request which was to drive to New Hampshire to see a dear friend from her Air Force days. This family I remembered clearly: We'd known them at Edwards and were neighbors again during my high school years in Palmdale, California. The oldest four kids surrounded my age. They were always a level of cool to which I could never aspire. One of the boys was in my first grade class. I had a huge crush on his older brother, who somehow got talked in to taking me to a dance his Freshman year.
Visiting our friends in New Hampshire was like dropping into a time capsule: These cats were still the coolest. Everyone was an older version of who I remembered. And that 14-year-old crush made the corners of my mouth twitch with nostalgia. We were all parents now, and through the course of the evening the younger kids wandered off together and we X-gens found ourselves at the kitchen table. The hours went on and I was finally ready to pack up my mom and go.
I hadn't seen Mom since dinner. She was off catching up with the other Mrs. and I looked around the table to faces that silently communicated, "We're not going to interrupt them. You do it." Like a 6-year-old girl, I quietly approached their lair and, with my best manners, tapped on the door. "Mom? Do you want to hit the road soon?" She turned and gave me a look (no vertical pointer finger, thank God) that said, "The grown-ups are talking." I retreated back to the kitchen table to hang out with the kids my own age (late 30s) and found conversation until the real grown-up party had run its course.
In the past months we were twice blessed to host some recently-retired friends we met in Italy on their way through the country. I insisted on making them feel welcome. As I was rolling out the trundle bed and counting pillows, it occurred to me why the opportunity to provide this hospitality was so deeply important to me: It's how I grew up. And my 2nd-generation military brats will have the unique memory of friends we made across the world dropping in to our living room in East Tennessee.
My 11-year-old dutifully entertained their 10-year-old on the trampoline and gave up his room for the night.
The teenagers all made an effort.
The grown-ups talked forever.
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~ Rest in Peace, Jeremy Moser. Your departure from this earth was way too soon. ~
