On the Road to Reno

Up, up, up from the Sacramento Delta and its gathering heat early this morning, we rose along with the foothills, climbing toward the sky. The thermometer on my rear-view mirror that senses the outside temperature had hit 75 degrees when we started the serious upgrade; when I glanced again maybe fifteen minutes later, it had fallen to 58 degrees.

By now we were in the shadow of the western-facing peak, shaded from the eastern sun. Magnificent Ponderosa Pines rose on every side, lining the jagged peaks that fanned outward like the granite fingers they are, reaching from deep in the earth below.

The soil was red.

Up to the summit, way over a mile above sea-level, on through the Donner Pass (~7200') we drove. Now the outside temp was back up to 75 degrees and climbing. We drove parallel to a train along the transcontinental railroad built under great duress by Chinese workers in the century before last.

I did my best to make this brief road trip a history and geography lesson, but my 17-year-old had something else on his mind – his first tattoo.

He’s been planning this since he was 16, but in our home state it’s not legal until you are 18. Thus, our trip across the borderline, down the eastern face of the mighty Sierra.

Reno’s a bit different from San Francisco, you might say, a casino town, with a thriving tattoo parlor business. Here you need only be 16, with your parent’s permission, to get your body defiled – or beautified, depending on your perspective.

“You seventeenish?” was the greeting as we entered the shop.

My son is nothing if not strong-minded. Once he sets his mind on something, he’s hard to move off the ball, just as on the soccer pitch.

The tattoo artist, Brian, tried to convince him to adjust the placement and gave him all the reasons to do so. He gave us ten minutes to think it over, during which a couple giggling teenage girls entered. One wanted a tattoo on her foot re-done.
When Brian said it was our turn, my son said he wanted it in the original place, on his upper left arm, he’d previously chosen.

When it comes to parenting teens, you gotta pick your battles. Come to think of it, that’s necessary with your average two-year-old, as well. Parents who try to hold to too strict an approach often encounter rebellions that disrupt and undermine their relationships with their kids in ways that are difficult to repair over time.

Giving in all the time isn’t an option, either. There are real dangers out there, and no matter what, you can’t parent as if your wish is to be your child’s best friend.

I think it’s more like the buck who shows up in the Bambi story, though hopefully not in that dire a context; you should be there when it matters, and meanwhile, don’t sweat the small stuff.

Many will disagree with me, but a tattoo (it’s a nice one – of the sun) isn’t one of the battles I choose to fight about. In fact, I like the way he connects the image with the meaning of his name (“bearer of fire”) and his naturally competitive nature.

This all seems natural to me.

Helping them mature and ultimately letting them go means navigating that narrow line that runs through the intersection between providing guidance, threatening discipline in the form of consequences, allowing mistakes, forgiving mistakes, exerting needed control and letting go of control.

And no engineering feat along the interstate highway system we navigated to get here rivals anything like the complexity of this mix.

The older I get, the more I admire and love youths, not just my own. It was a long time ago when I was their age, and I didn’t do a very good job of living life, in retrospect, until about the age of 19.

It’s a joy and privilege seeing how my progeny are doing a better job than I did years younger than that. It took me until the age of 24 to experience some things that helped me define a path to the future.

Getting a tattoo at the age of 17 requires thinking ahead, something I didn’t do well at that age.

Today, I suspect, the state of Nevada just won itself a new fan. If in the future, he regrets today's actions, I will bear full responsibility, as the parent who facilitated his first tattoo to happen.

Should that turn out to be the case, we will have both made a mistake.

As we retraced our steps back up and over the Sierra, he soon fell asleep in the wake of the adrenaline rush that led up to the appointment.

When we descended back into the great central valley of California, the temperature outside hit 95 degrees. A 37 degree swing during the course of a few hours -- that's one aspect of living out here that I love.

Slowly we made it back to the Bay Area, where to our surprise, it is a sweltering (for us) night, i.e., in the 70s.

All I know for sure is that it was a beautiful road trip, my boy's dream came true, and as for the wisdom of the whole experience, well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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