An older Ben

 I have a newspaper clipping that I rediscovered today. The clipping is an interview with my father. It appeared in a Long Island New York newspaper, Newsday. It was in the Sept 28,1975 edition. The reporter asked a variety of questions, questions that are still being asked today. It begins with an explanation. You see, this reporter identified Dad as a Bonacker. Bonacker, in case you are not familiar with that term describes a person born and raised in a specific place in the town of East Hampton, New York. You can simply Google the word Bonacker for a complete description. It's pretty amazing to me, as I too am a Bonacker, at least according to Google I would be although I don't think of myself in that way. The interview focused on the changes to the East End of Long Island due to the influx of tourists and the wealthy folks escaping New York City, wanting to live in the "country." That's still being talked about today but now it is being called The Hamptons. I can hear Dad rolling over in his grave at that! He often referred to those folks coming out to East Hampton during the season as termites. Like Termites they come out of the woodwork and begin destroying everything in sight. He isn't wrong. He wasn't wrong about a lot of the stuff he said in that interview. Well, as he might have said, you don't need to be a prophet to see what's coming, just follow the money.

 As I read that interview, I could hear my father's voice. In the article the reporter says he spoke a "colorful" dialect that is being lost to urbanization. Strange reading that as he just sounded like everyone else I knew except for those living "upstreet" as we used to say. I understand at some point someone was recording people speaking this "colorful" dialect, studying it and preserving it for posterity. It just sounds like home to me. Another line in there jumped off the page. She says that dad is fifty. Wait a minute, this was in 1975 and he was fifty? I had already served four years in the Navy. I thought he must have been older. No, that's correct he was fifty. He would be fifty-one a few days after the interview. He would only live another fifteen years. He passed away in Florida, where he had relocated, in February of 1990. As best as I recall he moved to Florida around 1980, I was back in the Navy by then having reenlisted. So that means he was just sixty-five. 

 Now I've often been compared to dad. There are those that say I resemble him, talk like him, and share some mannerisms. All of that may very well be true and I'm proud to claim it. I believe, like most kids, as the years pass by, I have begun to agree with him and learn. We used to butt heads, a lot! We would argue and discuss just about everything and anything. Today I am realizing just how right he usually was about things. I didn't want to hear it back then, but I guess I did. More importantly perhaps, I remembered hearing it! 

 Today I'm sixty-nine. That's four years older than dad. After reading that article again and thinking about it all I determined I'm just an older Ben. I guess I am like him in a number of ways, especially in the way we think. That's probably the reason so many of these "woke" people get triggered so often by what I say. If they had to listen to my father, they would explode! To say he was very matter of fact is a gross understatement. He sure didn't go along with feeling sorry for yourself, all this, touchy-feely stuff so common today. He had been drafted and fought in WW2. He never complained about that, just did his duty. He had a bad experience with a labor union and was totally opposed to them. He was fiercely independent, as the saying goes. He approached the world on his own terms. 

 I wish I was all of that but make no such claim. It's strange because when I was growing up, I was always called little Ben. For a while I tried to be Ben, especially when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. Then I just wanted to be Ben. Ben is a man's man. At some point I came to realize that I would never be that Ben. I just started being who I am. I even wrote an explanation for that: " My name is Ben that's who I am and all I'll ever be, I tried to be someone different, but it just wasn't me" And now, now I'm just an older Ben wondering how the original would handle this world. I'm thinking he left at the right time, it wouldn't be pretty! Dad at ninety-eight! Yeah, thinking that might be just a little too much for this world to handle. As Dad was fond of pointing out, " Well Bub, there are a lot of educated damn fools in the world" He isn't wrong you know. 

                                 Dad, 1975 from Newsday.