What I Hope to Learn

Attempting to set some goals for this endeavor

Dad and I

As much as I would like to dive right into the details of Upper Michigan and the peculiarities of the “dontcha knoooo” accent, it’s important to first show the roadmap and give reasons for embarking on this bizarre yet hopefully beautiful journey.

Why, after nine years in Europe, having a nice apartment in Prague, and friends throughout the continent, am I flying back to a rural Michigan village of four thousand people, back to the place I spent twenty-three years dreaming about leaving?

Well, partly because I think America is in desperate need of respectful dialogue, and I know my uncles and I can engage with respect for one another and hopefully be a model for others.

But, ultimately, there’s so much more selfishly that I want to learn.

Having lost my father so young and having now spent so many years away, most of the intentions and dreams for this project fall under the umbrella of “getting to know the family better and learning about my father.”

But as I begin this adventure, I’ve been trying to think of additional motivations and value to readers that would help me feel like quitting a job, giving up a visa, and changing continents was going to be worth it, not only for me but for my family and everyone taking the journey through the writing on this blog.

It will no doubt be a year of discovery, and I’m still not sure how it will go or what I’ll find out along the way, but there are a few things I’d like to know.

For starters, I want to learn from the people who knew my father a lot longer than I did and build a clearer picture of the man he was. I want to know what he nerded out on, what made his eyes light up with excitement.

Obviously, I remember bits and hear pieces from my mother, and I know he was into garage sales, a good deal on eBay, and golf, later realizing he didn’t pay and snuck us onto the course many times, telling us kids were free and we would only play the outside four holes and then rush back into the van before anybody noticed.

But I want more.

I’m looking forward to asking his brothers and sisters about their childhood. What my father was into as a youngster, how were his grades, and what kind of demeanor he had as a teen.

Those are questions I’d love the answers to. And I’m sure one million more will emerge.

Who knows if it’ll be possible, but I’d like to get an idea of what my father would think of me today, 32 years old with no wife, no car, no house, and a career teaching English that pays similar to my pizza-delivery-boy days at sixteen.

In an alternate universe, he’s alive, and I never latched onto Anthony Bourdain as a hero figure; I stayed in Upper Michigan and married one of those insanely beautiful blonde women from our church. I have a truck, a house, five children--all in elementary school, and a decent job in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

Had everything worked out differently, that could have happened.

But that’s very much not the life I am living.

I want to know more about my father’s personality and mindset because I want to know if the energy of the relationship I might have had with him would be similar to how I feel with some of my uncles.

Because honestly, I’m not that comfortable with all of them, and I fear that, had my father lived, our relationship would be similar.

They’re cut from the same cloth, the same era, birthplace, and religion.

And as I type these words, I’m sitting in a pub near open double windows, staring into the street of Prague’s Old Town, the setting June sun casting slanted shadows on the cobblestones. I’m three beers deep clacking away on my laptop and exploring these thoughts, and, having come from a strict non-drinking religious community, I don’t think my father would have approved.

And maybe wouldn’t approve of anything about me.

When it comes to my eighteen uncles, I want to know what kind of levels they have, because on the outside, most of them seem like stoic hardasses. But for stern, rural Americans, you’d be hard-pressed to find men more comfortable picking up and holding a baby.

I want to know what kind of relationship they had with their own fathers, how that affects the way they’re raising kids, if they ever felt ready to have them in the first place, and if being a dad changed their perspective on anything. I’d like to know if they’re worried about the future their children—and now grandchildren in some cases—are inheriting.

Last winter was long, cold, and dark on many levels for me because of the crumbling of a three-year relationship, so I would love to know how my uncles and aunts make it work, what they do when things are getting tough, and how they’ve all stayed together for so long.

I want to know if they have any regrets.

I want to know what they miss about my father.

And I want a fuller picture of them all as humans.

As a side project along the way, maybe the uncles can teach me some of those more masculine activities because, despite my metal shop and carpentry classes in high school, beyond spraying WD-40 on a bike chain, I’m pretty useless mechanically.

I can’t change the oil in a car, but I can make a mean vegan coconut curry with red lentils on a bed of fluffy, steaming basmati and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro to brighten the whole dish. So, I imagine—or maybe I hope—my macho points will go up over the next year, but I mainly want to listen and learn. Get to know them and their families, our family better.

That’s the mission, and the uncles seem to be on board, so I’ve quit my teaching position, bought a ticket home, and launched this new blog.

I’m going home for a year-ish to build a deeper picture of the men in my life, reconnect with my family, and hopefully model respectful dialogue in a divided America.

I have a lot of questions and a lot of preconceived notions.

Maybe, there’ll be inspiration and lessons in those exchanges for everyone.

Hopefully, we’ll all learn something about what it means to be human and American in the 2020s.

And when all is said and done, I hope I’ll be more than comfortable sitting down for a coffee with each and every one of my 18 Uncles, they'll be a little more comfortable with me, and we’ll all learn a little more about what we have in common.

Thanks for reading and following the adventure.

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My father at 18 with his truck.

With my sister Faren and brother Cole.

Me learning to walk.