Jake of the Dead

I spent the day with Jake here at home. Jake has some sort of creeping-crud, zombie, walking death sort of thing. The doctor calls it dyshidrotic excema. Unfortunately it was irritated and then became infected by him not keeping his hands clean and of course chewing on his fingers, DUH!
So home today we were. "Tom!, are we going to do anything fun today?". This is the call of the bored child. One who because he is unable to use his hands for much, feels the helplessness we have all experienced at some point in our lives. Mind you, Jake can be a creative individual who at times comes up with the damndest ways to entertain himself. Today, however, was not one of those days. Today, I was the savior of the child's universe. The knight who comes to the rescue to fend off the evil monster of boredom.
Of course this was the perfect opportunity to pull out the big guns and introduce Jake to one of my favorite movies of all time! A movie that changed the way sports movies were made. A movie that was so monumental that it put all previous sports movies to shame!

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Some may ask why I would let a 9 year old watch this film. This is the person of whom I would ask, "Are you kidding?". This is only the greatest football film of all time and should be on every parents mandatory "what films will I use to raise my children, so I don't have to." List. So, regardless of the thoughts of 1/10 of a second blurred, unrecognizable tit shots and the incessant curse words, this movie is absolutely appropriate for a child of 9. This film looks at football from a sensitive, realistic viewpoint. It shows the intricacies of high school football in the self obsessed, insular, maniacal way that only a West Texan could truly appreciate. The absolutely bloody and brutal nature of West Texas high school football comes through with blood squirting, detailed realism, and the hormone-maddened completely inappropriate stupidity of high school football parents is true to form and would make any West Texas trailer-trash proud. Needless to say, this film is now high on Jake's top-ten movies of all time list which makes me proud. You see, his blood parents don't want him to have a violent thought or to be angry or to get in the scuffles that most boys find themselves in during the painful stages of adolescence. They want him to grow up without ever seeing a violent film or playing a violent video game. Now, I may be a bit of a Neanderthal but this seems to me the quickest route to raising one of those useless people with no identity that just want to cry about the world. You know the ones, the people that wear nothing but clothes from the goodwill (because they want to, not because they have to), the ones that are always sad because the world is just so mean.
It seems to me that a child needs to understand a bit about the world. A bit about life handing you the short end of the stick most of the time, and the need to work with what you have to make the best of a situation. Some may say "but Jake is 9! He shouldn't learn about the world yet! Let him be a child!". I assert that the formative years between 8 and 14 are the years that will decide who a person will be for the rest of their life. If you make your child afraid of the world during these ages, that child will grow up to be an adult that is afraid of the world. That said, I believe further examination of this subject is a discussion for another post.

Life is Good

So Jake and I had fun. This is key for someone who came in to a child's life during the child's seventh year. We are now in his ninth year. We are friends. I am a recognized authority figure. Things seem to be as they should be. By this time next year I will be his step-dad and a permanent part of his life. We will spend a lot of time together, learning about each other and learning from each other. Though I never imagined I would be in this position, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Jake is an incredibly important part of my life.

Zombies 'R' Us

So Jake will be going back to his dad's on Sunday and back to school on Monday. The doctor says his Zombie ism is not permanent (thank god, I am tired of doing things for him that he can do himself). He will continue on his path and this past Friday will become a memory and may even fade in to obscurity for him. I however will remember our time together watching "The Greatest Sports Movie of All Time". When I am old, I will talk about it. I will enjoy the memory. And it won't fall in to obscurity for Jake because I will remind him of it, period.