It was good advice

[fbhjr]

I was four. My father worked in Boston and took the train to and from work
each day.*
One night, he came home with a friend of his who normally drove to work.
His car was broken, so he took the train. Although we lived close enough
to the station to walk, as my father did each day, this man did not. So,
my father was going to drive him the couple of miles home.
“Do you want to come?” he asked me. This was unprecedented. My father
never asked me to go anywhere with him. And, with another adult? Never.
I nodded.
The three of us got in the car and set off.
As we drove, he and my father were talking about the chickens he raised.
They had some sort of chicken sickness that made their feathers fall out.
“They look sort of funny without feathers,” he said, turning to me in the
back seat. “Would you like to see them?”
I nodded enthusiastically.
We got to his house. He thanked my father for the ride and got out. We
drove away.
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to see the chickens,” my father said as we
drove home.
“I did,” I said.
“Why didn’t you say so?” he asked me.
“I nodded,” I said.
“How was I supposed to know that,” He said. “You’re head doesn’t rattle
you know. If you want something, you have to speak up.”
It is advice I have tried to remember ever since.




*At four that seemed very magical to me. Trains whisking you off to exotic
places like Boston, that place where I was born but never returned to.
Yeah, that’s how I thought at 4. Now I think “Damn, I’ve got to drive
through that fucking city again…”
For my first 18 years, I visited my father’s office once, when I was 7. It
was when they moved from Boston to Westboro and had an open house. When in
college, I sometimes met him at the office for a ride home, increasing the
times I’d seen it to about 5.
I never saw the Boston office where he worked for decades, met my mother
and where her father had worked. The building was once pointed out to me.
It’s near the Back Bay station.

Comments

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

THere is another half of that advice he didn't get to....

If you want something you have to speak up...
and you also have to be prepared to take no for an answer.

(Oh the people who have asked me for things and not been prepared for that "Sorry, not possible...")

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

While I do totally agree with that, if you don't ask, you shouldn't blame the other person for not knowing you wanted it.
And, yes, that doesn't mean you'll get it.