The Living Room

It always started simply enough, but never seemed to start the same way twice. Dad (Richard/Dick) would stop me in the kitchen by giving me a friendly shove on the shoulder. “You’re getting to be a pretty big kid.” (I was probably 10 years old.) “How tough are you?” He’d smile as he started to push me backwards towards the living room and I started pushing back.

Or I’d be walking through the living room while my brother Al was reading a science fiction paperback on the floor. Suddenly his hand would shoot out and grab my ankle. “C’mon Al, let me go!” I’d say. With a smile he’d say, “Make me!”

Or I’d be headed into the kitchen and Al would be blocking the doorway. “Excuse me.” I’d say. Al might say “What’s the password?” It wouldn’t matter what I’d guess. It would be wrong no matter what, and he’d grab a limb. “Aw, c’mon Al, I don’t have time for this.” And the reply might be, “Then you better escape quickly.”

- Thus began numerous informal wrestling matches in the living room. –

It was around 1962 when I was 10 years old and in the 5th grade when the living room wrestling matches began for me. Al would have been a senior in high school and Dad was about 46. Al and Dad had probably been wrestling each other for several years prior, but my juvenile memory does not include that as a fact. I do remember being very proud that I was old enough to be included in the informal wrestling matches. It meant that another milestone toward maturity had been reached.

Al was an extremely successful wrestler on the high school team, and Dad had wrestled for the University of Iowa back in the late 1930’s (37-40), so I was at an extreme disadvantage due to both age and experience; all of which is a polite way of pointing out that I got hammered.

I had no idea what I was doing at first. Most of my time was spent on the bottom or on my back getting pinned in a variety of tortuous holds. I only got to be in the offensive position if they permitted it out of a sense of mercy.

As time went on I started to recognize the various moves and positions through observation and repetition. Later on these moves took on names like cross face, sit-out, cross-body, switch, roll, single-leg, cradle, false cradle, and near arm – far ankle. As I learned these moves by example, I also learned the counter moves, but I was only able to execute these if Al and Dad were wrestling at 50% of their ability.

It wasn’t frustrating. It was fun. I was just a kid. I shouldn’t be able at that age to beat full-grown men. It made me feel like I belonged to something special. I imagined I was a member of a special group of people, a fraternity of warriors, who had secret knowledge and secret skills. Ten year olds have great imaginations.

Sometimes when Al and I were wrestling, Dad would walk in and start telling me what to do. Or when Dad and I were wrestling Al would come by and say, “Tom, it looks like you could use some help.” whereupon we would both wrestle Dad to submission. Other times it was Dad jumping in to help me wrestle Al.

We liked to say that Dad had chosen the house in Cedar Rapids for the large living room. It was big enough to be used as a private wrestling room. The carpet was a tight weave that couldn’t be harmed, and often harmed us. Anytime a bare piece of skin rubbed too quickly against the carpet surface I’d get a painful rug burn. It happened all too often. The next week would be spent with an oozing sore on my elbow or my knee which would rub painfully against my clothing.

It was the living room furniture that was in greatest jeopardy when these wrestling matches broke out. I don’t think we ever broke anything, but we came extremely close. We would crash into the couch, the end tables, the legs of the dining room table, and the chairs. There wasn’t a single piece of furniture that didn’t get banged at least once. Beating your opponent was more important than a mere piece of furniture. Mom (Gladys) would come rushing out of the kitchen pulling movable objects out of the way without getting crushed herself. She’d pleasantly scold us to be careful and “Don’t hurt your father!”, and we would all laugh. Someone was bound to get hurt, but that was part of the fun; to prove that you could take a lick or two.

The matches were over whenever Al and Dad said they were over, which was always the point of complete exhaustion for me. My clothes would be soaked with sweat. My hair would be matted down and dripping into my ears. Before heading off to shower for the second time that day I’d first have to hunt for my glasses which had been thrown under a table or couch for safety at the beginning of the roughhousing.

When Al headed off to college Dad and I continued to wrestle from time to time. There was a day in my teenage years when I came to realize that I wasn’t wrestling at full effort anymore. I was holding back when wrestling Dad, and I knew if a score were being kept that I was winning. I’d always thought that that day would be a day of great triumph for me; that I’d finally beaten my father. It was a milestone, but it gave me no pleasure. It made me sad. Dad was no longer the all-powerful, all-knowing superman I’d known as a kid. Once I’d beaten him wrestling he became a mere mortal, like me, and could no longer protect me from anything and everything. I was now responsible for taking care of myself. I could no longer claim to be “just a kid” anymore.

I don’t know what it meant to my dad, but I know what it meant to me as a dad when my son John could first beat me wrestling and roughhousing, and if the truth be told, my daughter Ann as well. As a parent it was a day of celebration and great pride in my kids. Yet another milestone had been reached. It meant that they were physically better able to take care of themselves than I was. It meant they had yet another reason to be self-confident. It meant that the kids were getting closer to independence. Isn’t that what all parents want?

Lately when I see my adult kids I like to give them a playful shove on the shoulder, just as my dad used to do to me, as if to say “How tough are you?” Ann’s response is to threaten to hurt me, and she could, and she has. John’s response is to grab one of my limbs and smile, at which point Jean calls out, “DON’T HURT YOUR FATHER!”