The Adventures of Cal and Mac, Episode I

I had my sons this past weekend. Always good to see them although, as a half month passes between their stays with Katie and I, I'm often taken aback at how much they've changed since our last time together. According to the markings on the study's door frame, both of them have grown about three inches during the past year. Each time I see Mac I notice a tooth is missing or one is coming through. Cal's sense of humour becomes more sophisticated, he picks up more in general and displays a lot of the behavior we associate with tweens.

Specific things? Well, this last weekend Cal read the whole of The Call of The Wild within a few hours. Mac, I came to discover, had won a merit certificate for language a couple of days before. He's only in first grade, but he's a standout in the basics of reading and writing. I figured he was pretty bright, but it's great to see it made official. So, they're both ticking along pretty well in terms of intellectual development. Along those lines, they'll be starting at a good private school in a couple of weeks.


It's fantastic that their mother and stepfather can afford to give them a superior education, and I believe that Cal and Mac (right) will thrive in such a setting. I'm grappling with my inability to pay for such things, though: as a fledgling high school teacher, half of their annual tuition would cost me just a touch under a quarter of a year's salary. What's the right thing to do here? Should I get a second job and forget about ever owning a house? Please bear in mind that Katie and I have another child to think about now and that I've not been involved with any decision-making processes regarding the boys' schooling.

Hold on a minute... I need to put the brakes on the guilt reaction here. I am not the only working class father of two in the Perth metro area who can't afford to send his kids to an exclusive private school.

What can I offer my kids? What do I offer them?

The Goofy Stuff

While the hour of tennis we play on Sunday mornings is a nod of the head to respectable activities, Mac, Cal and I spend a lot of time drawing at the kitchen table. This is a throwback to my own childhood: one of my earliest and fondest memories is of my Uncle Jim and I, back when he was dating my Aunt Kathy, circa 1970, sitting at the breakfast table drawing cartoon characters. A few years later I would develop a callus on my middle finger from my hours of drawing superheroes and monsters. My mother's brother, Uncle Frank, also a talented sketch artist, would often ask me, "That's pretty good, Gregory, but when are you going to draw something like airplanes?"


Most of my boys' drawings are of The Incredible Hulk, weird faces, pirates, King Kong and Star Wars characters, but the late Uncle Frank would be pleased to know that every now and again Cal will draw WWII era soldiers. Oh - I almost forgot! Lately both boys have been drawing Sasquatch quite a bit. My interest in the cryptid (please note that I am a hopeful skeptic with an accent on "skeptic") has been reawakened recently and I've shared this with them. They've seen the Patterson-Gimlin Film and are familiar with its famous Frame 352 (see Cal's photo at right). For a while they were both doing various Sasquatch calls around the house... but they eventually spooked each other so I had to issue a cease and desist order.


As you can imagine, we watch a lot of movies, too. They've been so steeped in the Star Wars canon that any prolonged periods of misbehavior are blamed on The Dark Side. Cal and Mac have also seen the original King Kong (1933... Cal used to call it "the gray one") and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), so they'll have a jump on things if they should take a film studies class at the private school. Action figures go about their business to an urgently hummed Indiana Jones theme or an obscure motif from any of the Star Wars films. For a couple of years now they've both been able to pick out the Wilhelm Scream from a movie. The fact that I'm proud of this probably says something about my questionable values.


Then there are the adventures in the real world. A big chunk of this past Saturday was devoted to making a sculpture out of sticks in the park. You see, Perth experienced a hellacious storm last Monday and the grounds were strewn with tree limbs, bark and branches. We had a great time doing this and Mac really threw himself into the task... he imagined the kinds of creatures, both real and mythical, who might live inside. Cal grew bored after an hour or so, but it didn't tower over him like it did Mac, so you can understand. That's when he started perfecting Sasquatch's characteristic arm-swinging walk. I guess the twisted pile of branches made a good backdrop for the imagined antics of the Pacific Northwest's elusive beast.


The headmaster of this really private school gives its two creative students As for their efforts and talents.