My father was an eccentric who loved discussing topics that no one else seemed to know about.\u00a0 Not a classroom learner, he dabbled at college but didn\u2019t finish, apparently conceiving a philosophy out of it: academic achievement was the sign of a small mind.<\/p>\n
The trouble was, I liked academic achievement.<\/p>\n
As a child, I went about the business of school under the radar, probably hoping that if I quietly excelled, my parents would stop fighting.\u00a0 But after their divorce when I was a young teen, I became more provocative toward my father.\u00a0 In an attempt to get back at him for his relentless attention-seeking\u2014and because I was starting to notice he wasn\u2019t always as well-informed as he seemed\u2014I began to ignore his intellectual meanderings.<\/p>\n
Dad would retaliate by telling me I lacked imagination, or that I wasn\u2019t a voracious enough reader.\u00a0 Or he\u2019d say I was \u201crigid\u201d for wanting to cut short a visit so I could study for an upcoming exam.<\/p>\n
I was sixteen when my father won custody.\u00a0 It was October of my senior year at Berkeley High, and a few weeks after moving in with Dad, I began filling out the application to Cal.\u00a0 I asked him to handle the financial aid forms.<\/p>\n
Dad took one look at the paperwork and started hyperventilating.\u00a0 \u201cIf you were a real intellectual, you wouldn\u2019t need college,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n
I got my way, was awarded scholarships and grants, and took advantage of my college experience in spite of him.\u00a0 But my inner landscape was another story.\u00a0 When I did well in school, I worried I\u2019d soon be exposed as a fraud.\u00a0 And any subject or book I found difficult seemed to validate my father\u2019s skepticism of my intellect.<\/p>\n
Was Dad insecure?\u00a0 Of course\u2014deeply, exhaustingly. \u00a0Did he feel humiliated by my ability to succeed in college and get along without him financially?\u00a0 Probably. \u00a0Was he hurt that I couldn\u2019t bring myself even to feign interest when he\u2019d pontificate?\u00a0 No question.<\/p>\n
But these are explanations.\u00a0 And explanations don\u2019t show you how to live.<\/p>\n
I like getting older, because sometimes insights come my way for no reason other than that time has passed.\u00a0 A couple of months ago, a lovely cousin of mine e-mailed me about some letters she\u2019d found from Dad\u2019s father.\u00a0 She mentioned something I never knew:\u00a0 that before my grandfather immigrated to New York and became a shopkeeper, he\u2019d been admitted into the top yeshiva in his village in Ukraine, and that in a very scholarly family, he was considered the most brilliant brother.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know Grandpa well and had no personal sense of his academic prowess.\u00a0 But I suddenly felt a strong kinship with him, a fatherly presence one generation removed.<\/p>\n
I also realized at a new level how ashamed of himself my father must have felt at the time I was applying to Cal.\u00a0 Sure, he\u2019d fought for custody and won, arguably a heroic act, but he\u2019d also recently lost his retail store and livelihood and was barely making ends meet.\u00a0 And he wasn\u2019t as accomplished as his own father, who\u2019d fallen short of the rabbinate only because of life circumstances, not because of a lack of ability or focus.<\/p>\n
I wish I could say that as I come to understand my father more fully, his condemning voice naturally ebbs from my consciousness.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not so simple.\u00a0 In one way or another, I do battle with that voice every time I sit down to read or write.<\/p>\n
What I am starting to grasp is that really, it was nothing personal.<\/p>\n
Published in The Piedmont Post<\/em>, June 16, 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My father was an eccentric who loved discussing topics that no one else seemed to know about.\u00a0 Not a classroom learner, he dabbled at college but didn\u2019t finish, apparently conceiving a philosophy out of it: academic achievement was the sign of a small mind. The trouble was, I liked academic achievement. As a child, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[113,101,129],"yoast_head":"\n