Mash

“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” Frank Herbert, Dune. 

My father is more of an Isaac Asimov man when if comes to Science Fiction, and yet when I read that line from Dune I think of fatherhood and beginnings. I’m probably the person I am now in part because of the beginning I had with my mother and father. 

There was a formative time for me as a young person when I was a real hungry boy, and a real pain for my Dad. He made many of the meals during the week, I ate a lot of food and would sometimes complain afterwards that I was still hungry. What a pain. 

One night Dad’s sense of mischief took hold and he decided to send a message. There was an event happening up at school and we were setting up to eat early and then race up for the concert. When we came in to dinner there were four sensible Wednesday night meals and one ridiculous statement plate of gluttonous proportions. Two meat pies, green veggies and a straight-up massive deposit of mash that looked like it had taken the majority of a potato bag to make. 

The family exclaimed, my father grinned and I steeled myself for a rite of potato passage. 

I set in with determination, and long after everyone had left the room I toiled and shovelled. I remember taking a break to go and collect my nice clothes then returning to the table to keep eating while doing up my shoes and wrestling with my tie. 

I took the second meat pie into the car and finished the last bite as we walked toward the school hall. I strode in triumphant, and in an acute state of suffering.

So certainly I’ve learned that beginnings, delicate care and balance are important. But Dad, as Asimov wonderfully said in Foundation, “Childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.” 

Thanks for the parenting lessons and happy father’s day.