Fathers & Sons


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15 June 2022

Today my dad would have been 66. His dad Neal only made it to 63. My mom's dad Frank only lived to 66. Perhaps it's fatalistic to believe that I only have a couple decades left. My great-grandfathers were from a healthier generation and Obert, Robert, Frank and Albert lived to 78, 34, 86 and 64 years respectively. That's a better distribution, but still averages to 65.5 years. Among the generation before that the men lived to 76, ?, 46, 77, 59, 83, 71 and ?, yielding a slightly better average lifespan of 68.67 years.

Today my son graduates videregående skole in Bergen. In April they told me it would be an online ceremony, so I planned the trip to see Maxwell a couple weeks earlier. While in Norway visiting him they announced that it would be in person for parents. I'm disappointed at not beng there, but Maxwell said it's of no importance. I don't remember who was at my high school graduation and I never attended another one of my own after that, so maybe he takes after his old man in that. When my dad was Maxwell's age he'd being working for years while going to high school and then college, so he'd saved up and bought himself a Camero. He was finishing his first year of college and had a summer government job lined up (with the help of his dad) in a chemistry lab as that was what he thought he was going to do at the time. He was in a fraternity at college and had been through a few girlfriends. When I was Maxwell's age I was married and had two kids. I'd been working many years, but the money went for my growing family's expenses. Her parents had given us their old sedan. I worked in the chemistry lab on the campus of the college I was at and had just become editor of the online magazine the school published (it was 1998 though, so not many people read it). I had been reading Feynman's lectures and thinking about becoming a physicist rather than a chemist. Maxwell has applied to the various colleges in Bergen and will learn where he gets into in July. He's had a couple girlfriends and trains as a cyclist. This summer he will hopefully find his first paying job, with the experience of interning with me last summer. His goal is to save up enough to buy a motorcycle to use at college.



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