That One Phone Call

At the Dayton (Ohio) Mall, a skinny twenty-something kid with blonde hair and glasses was helping a customer decide which version of Lotus 1-2-3 they needed for their IBM.

Standing next to shelves of magazines and bookmarks, long before Kindle, he was both bookworm and geek - and perfect for the job.

He was there in Dayton because "B Dalton" was testing a startup venture called "Software Etc." And my brother, we had worked at a store in Chicago, was the right guy to run it. Better than anyone could imagine.

He lived in an apartment complex nearby. When I once visited, his was a bachelor's paradise. Mall food for lunch and pizzas for dinner. Cable TV before everyone had it. (Cable, what's cable?)

A grey cat named Beaker who chased crumpled paper balls across the apartment, and a fishtank that could only be managed by a marine biologist. Or my brother Carlos.

Computer parts and accessories filled the place, and he tinkered and toyed and invented with them like a mad scientist, building his own versions like he was in the Cupertino garage in which he belonged. His apartment was an embryonic version of E-Bay, with packages shipping and arriving daily, cocooned in bubble wrap, just like he was, cocooned in his bachelor world.

He taught himself Fortran and Cobol and probably Chinese. When I visited, he put on his Bernie Kosar jersey and we played Nerf football by the lake as the snow fell.

He had a basketball game on his Commodore 64 PC from a new software company - Electronic Arts.  It was called One-on-One, and we faced off as Dr. J and Larry Bird. It was their very first game.

He was no ordinary guy. Inside that lanky and likable frame was a great scientist. But who could really see that? His company loved him, but they were happy to let him work forever, shanghaied next to the Gap. 

Then one day my parents called.

On a land line. Probably on their yellow phone next to the green chalkboard in the kitchen. My mother had her expectations - and she was calling about them. Mom was nothing if not smart, and she sensed that there was a greater scientist to emerge than the one hiding in the bookstore.

She and my father urged him to come home and finish his degree; to give up the pizzas and the paychecks. They offered help, and although I never knew the details, I knew it was something that he could never have done without their help.

He moved into a run-down apartment on Loomis street, near the University of Illinois in Chicago.  A world away from his cozy Ohio apartment. But, once back in school, he soared through his bachelor's, masters, and PhD degrees.  

I visited him in San Francisco, where he was studying at the University of California in a post-doc program. We rode our bikes through Golden Gate Park and ate mexican food in his rented two flat. We flew his radio-controlled plane off of the towering cliffs north of the city.

His next stop was New York, where he is today. A funded department chair and renowned, respected, scientist. A kind and gentle father. A good man.

It reminds me of the profound nature of our choices and actions as parents and human beings. We are teachers and advisors; coaches and critics. We share sadness and happiness. We inject hope and we dry tears.

Most times, the margin of error is insignificant as to be lost in moments of the mundane... But some parenting choices are existentially difficult. And we hope that in the end, looking back, we see with perfect clarity that we got it right - exactly and brilliantly right. 

Like picking up the yellow kitchen phone to call my brother in Dayton. My brother probably answered the phone in his Bernie Kosar jersey, thinking "Now what?"

He could never have imagined that a few short years later he'd be a PhD pilot soaring his geek plane over the deep blue waters of the Bay ... and thinking about how to solve the mysteries of protease inhibitors.