I have quite often been brought up short that people question that my
son calls me by my first name and refers to me as such. As opposed to
saying, "My father," he says "Ken." The question usually seems to imply
behind the words an inference that he is not my legitimate son. Having
myself endured many years of those sorts of oddly unspoken questions I
remember when I am asked this one. I do not recall him ever calling me
Dad or Pop though I do know that on occasion he will refer to me as
father. I have always taken his calling me Ken as a sign of respect. I
do not think it is a northern tradition for him to call me by my first
name as it is in the north that I am questioned. These days the
informality of name between us helps a whole lot in a balance of respect
as our being business partners. I will refer to him in non-business
context as my son, never directly applied to him in person, but most
often I refer and speak to him as David. Each individual is a unique
creation and I do not believe that we need to go out of our way to
empower a heirarchy of valuation one to another. I have been reading a
great deal lately regarding the interface of religion and American
politics and history. There is a politics to the syntax and usage of our
langage and in part it is driven by our religious beliefs that are
inherent to our cultural contexts. I have not as yet got it figured out.
The Jamaicans (Anglo-Afrikan Americans) that I work with, and in the
past the Pakistanis in particular, would often refer to me as Mr. Ken,
and the most irritating from the Jamaicans sometimes as Boss...
particularly irritating if I see the relationship as one of mutual
dependency -- in that it is difficult to have balanced dependency when
the other person is making you out to be the boss, the responsible
party. Though at times it seems quaint to be called Mr. Ken I tend more
to find it an inhibition to the communications in that it signifies a
relationship in the work process that is not particularly one that I
want. When someone calls me Mr. Follett I tend to expect that they are
going to try to extort something from me and I go on the defensive.
Fathers & sons... the fellow at the Lefferts House, Billy Holliday, with
whom we have been working directly with him and a motley of adult-youth
volunteers to build a beehive bake oven and cooking fireplace at the
site in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, which is a children's historic
museum... and the bake oven sits outside in the yard and is classified
in the park as playground equipment... it actually works -- we have
worked real hard to make sure it works -- and Billy bakes bread in it...
David and I have had many day long work sessions with this project --
anyways... about a month ago his 21 year old son who was working as a
roofer in Maine (I had been talking w/ Billy about possibly getting his
only and adopted son Joey into traditional slate roofing) was killed in
an automobile accident. It was meaningless, tragic, and leaves behind a
19 year old unwed mother and young daughter (Billy's granddaughter).
They were planning to wed in October. He had just started his own
business detailing cars. She had a week before got her GED and Joey had
gone up on the graduation stage and given her 5 dozen red rozes... baby
in one arm, roses in the other. So last week David and I had a task to
do on the bake oven and in respect to Billy, our first visit with him
after his loss, who very much needed to talk his pain out with us... and
I will say it is hard to be there with your son working, and obviously
the two of us in good humor and harmony, when your friend has lost their
son. All things considered I do not care what anyone calls whomever in
the end.
][<en
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