Nathan Weathington - Where the Hell Were Your Parents?

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Where the Hell Were Your Parents?

Copyright 2014 by Nathan Weathington

Promontory Press

www.promontorypress.com

First Edition: May 2014

ISBN: 978-1-927559-40-6

eISBN: 9781927559413

Cover Design by Evan Pine

Typeset at SpicaBookDesign in Old Style

Printed in India

To my mom and dad.

Thanks for giving us a childhood

exciting enough to write a book about.

And to my boys.

I hope I can give you a childhood as

fun as mine, minus the felonies.

I Hate Snakes

1982

8 years old

Sue Harris is a kind woman I am glad we didnt kill her. She was morbidly afraid of snakes, a weakness she let slip at a dinner party with our family. My identical twin brother Brian and I recognized and communicated an opportunity between us in a millisecond using that magical twin telepathy crap everyone always talks about. When we were finally able to break away from the table, both of us had already worked out the entire play, making further planning unnecessary.

We were new in town. Our dad was the head football coach, which in Bremen, Georgia, is more important than the mayor, Wal-Mart, and the lady who turned tricks at the local truck stop all combined. Lets just say I found the movie Friday Night Lights a bit watered down. We were also twins, a bit of an oddity in a town of 3,500 people with only one other set at the time.

So, although we had not earned our notoriety, we were known. People knew we were Coachs sons the day we arrived in Mountain Shadows, a glamorous suburb outside of the booming Bremen metropolis. But in a few years the roles would reverse. My parents would soon be known as the parents of the Weathington Boys, a title they carried with an even ratio of pride, love, and shame.

Brian and I had a great childhood. Our parents loved us, supported us, and somehow found the strength to not beat the living ass out of us. I can only hope Ill have the same restraint with my two sons if they try to pull half the shit we did. Our parents gave us freedom kids today dont have; we could go anywhere and do anything, and we usually did it packing heat.

Our parents had the courage to allow us this independence, without cell phones or a GPS device planted in our rectums. They did not entertain us twenty-four hours a day, buy us video games, or have a day-timer for our extracurricular activities. Yes, this sometimes led to temporary boredom. Boredom, and the subsequent hell Bremen suffered as we entertained ourselves, was a recurring theme of my childhood, and thus this book.

Had our parents obsessively entertained us, a lot of people would have never met the Weathington Boys, which might have seemed like a blessing at the time. However, those same people would now be stuck talking about their lawns and the weather instead of telling an entertaining story about being fleeced as part of the Raccoon Removal Scam of 1987. Amusing ourselves with such projects provided valuable life skills. Although video games do build impressive thumb strength, keeping our virginity into our thirties seemed like a harsh tradeoff.

The combination of smothering parents, the Internet, and reality television guarantees this next crop of kids will be the dullest our planet has ever seen. If you are ever stuck in a serious situation at work or in life, maybe turn to the kid who knows which end of the gun is the business end, not the one with the highest score on Dig Dug.

Our parents were comfortable with us being rough around the edges and took pride in the fact that we had more bruises, tetanus shots, and fish hook accidents than the normal kids. They did not give in to the parenting peer pressure of the day. Other parents found them irresponsible as we ran wild and routinely damaged or lost their precious children. This peer pressure is escalating with my generation as we partake in a heated arms race to prove who can be the most responsible, and therefore, the safest parent.

This movement has led parents to push for playgrounds that are as exciting as hermetically sealed carrots in your Halloween bag. Where the hell is the zip line these days? Maybe its harsh, but if your kid walks off the end of a plank ten feet in the air, chances are we needed to weed him out anyway or we might all end up as monster truck fans.

This safety movement has also led to an attempt to decrease stress in our kids lives. Weve removed grades from schools, scores from athletic events, and kids whose parents can afford the visit to the doctor can get their sweethearts untimed testing. And if little Johnny is still stressed by the untimed testing, we have some meds for that. Fast forward to these kids telling their first boss that it doesnt matter how long it takes them to stuff the Happy Meal.

The most extreme symptom of competitive parenting is baby sign language. This ridiculousness is somewhat self-explanatory. Lunatic parents have convinced themselves that their three-month-old is a master linguist despite the fact that they eat their own boogers. It might be hard to believe, but your kid smells like he said he shit his pants, not that he enjoys listening to Mozarts Piano Concerto #17.

My parents did their own thing when it came to parenting, mostly my moms doing. My moms childhood was less than spectacular to say the least. She was determined ours would be better, and man, it was. Now that Im trying to figure out how the hell to raise two boys of my own, I frequently turn to her for advice. Her goal was for us to be independent and willing to take risks, and if that meant a few extra stitches and felonies, then so be it. She would not have allowed us to sit around Bremen, Georgia, after we graduated talking about our glory days over a case of PBR with the boys down at the local mud bog.

Sue Harris our neighbor with the snake phobia would not have accused my parents of over-parenting, not by a long shot. She volunteered to baby-sit us the day after that fateful dinner party. Things were going well cupcakes, toys, and the high fructose corn syrup drink du jour. When the sugar-high dissipated, it was time to focus on the task at hand.

A week prior, while we were supposed to be having our souls saved for the umpteenth time at Bremen United Methodist Church, we snuck across the street to the Triangle store and purchased a plastic snake with the $3.25 we lifted from the offering plate. This was not your ordinary plastic snake. It was infinitely more believable than the holiness of our Youth Director, whom we all knew was sniffing enough glue to paper mache a revival tent. It was a dead ringer for a copperhead, and in case youre not up on your ophiology, a copperhead is a very poisonous snake that inhabits the southeastern U.S.

While playing in the yard, we carefully wove Oscar into Sues grass.

Do you think it will work? I asked Brian.

Well, only one way to find out.

Brian, being the gutsier of the two of us, kept it simple and believable.