Martin Luther King, Jr. via last.fm

I recently read a wonderful post by Ron Mattocks at Clark Kent’s Lunchbox about what our hopes teach our children about their futures. Using Martin Luther King‘s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech as a catalyst, Ron tells us stories of his father and the effects his father had on his life and parenting style. It’s great. I highly recommend you head over there and read it.

As for me and my dreams, I grew up with a passion for animation, especially stop-motion animation. Using a VHS camcorder, I discovered that the camcorder would back up the tape 2 seconds when paused. So I would record my action figures for 3 seconds, move them, record for 3 seconds, move them… The result was choppy at best, but watchable, and I felt great! I felt like Chuck Jones must have felt when he discovered that Wile E. Coyote has to disappear for 24 frames when he falls off the cliff before you see the puff of dust when he hits. 24 frames achieves maximum hilarity.

In school, I built my own clay figure of Batman, and with a couple of friends, we animated a short film of Batman stopping a blob-like creature from stealing a TV from a cardboard electronics store. It was the only film I’d done that included dialogue! I remember showing it at some kind of open house we had, and a parent asked me when I’d be putting my films on Nickelodeon. I had to wait several hours for the head-swelling to go down in order for me to leave the building.

Unfortunately, I let my own fears get in the way. I wasn’t a good enough artist. I wouldn’t be able to get in to my dream school, or schools, it shifted daily from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to CalArts. I read stories of animators and cartoonists that sounded like they led terrible lives. Charles Schulz, creator of the ‘Peanuts’ daily comic strip, once said of cartooning, ‘It will destroy you. It will break your heart.’ He also said, ‘You can’t create humor out of happiness.’ So the career I wanted could possibly result in a life that was less desirable. Which way would I go?

That answer was ultimately answered for me when I met a red-haired girl who had a charming little girl of her own. In that relationship, I saw the life that I wanted. I saw more children and more happiness. I resolved that if I was Charlie Brown in the Peanuts strip of life, I was going to kick the damn football while avoiding the kite-eating tree.  Quickly I realized that I wanted the life of my dreams, and not the career.

One line that struck me from Ron’s essay was ‘Walking away from a dream, even for all the best and selfless of reasons, is no less painful as it shrinks in the distance behind you.’ That fit my decision to a ‘T’. Now, more than ever, it seems that Comic Books have taken over the cinema, and animation (at least CGI) is reigning supreme. Could I have seen a piece of that action?

On one hand, I feel the pain Ron describes of not actively pursuing the career of a cartoonist or animator, but on the other hand, I feel like that era of cartooning is vanishing. Everything’s done on the computer now. At 31 years old, I feel like a dinosaur. No one’s doing the animation that I wanted to do. I want to go back to hand-drawn animation, even hand-painted cels! I literally get teary eyed when I watch a film like ‘Pinocchio’ or ‘Fantasia’ and think about how the animators toiled over every bubble that rose up when Monstro crashed to the sea, or every broom that nearly drowns Mickey Mouse. The technique and artistry that was invented at the time was beyond compare.

If the Disney Company can start with a mouse, imagine what your kids can do! image via Wikipedia

Of course, Disney recently released ‘The Princess and the Frog’, and Studio Ghibli‘s ‘Ponyo‘ just saw its’ American release, and those are more traditional. Henry Selick and Aardman Studios are still out there doing stop-motion, but these are all the exceptions, and certainly not the rules.

That’s probably enough animation history for one post. What I’m trying to get at is that I would not trade my life today for anything. I am still in the job I got at 18 to ‘get me through college’. But that job has taken me places and taught me things that I don’t think  I would have gotten otherwise. And, of course, there’s my family. I have the best family on Earth! Without my family, this blog wouldn’t exist. Outside of my family, my heroes have shifted from Frank & Ollie to the likes of Ron Mattocks and Joe Schatz. These guys make being a Stay at Home Dad and blogger/writer look like feasible things that can become reality.

It is my hope and dream that I can nurture my children in to whatever they want to be. I tease my wife about my ability to get the kids to say that Batman is their favorite over Superman (she likes Superman better), but right now Calli would rather choose ‘Princess movies’, Kat is in to romantic manga and anime, and Tristin squeals when he sees his Spider-Man teether. I couldn’t be prouder of my independent thinkers!

As far as serious career paths my kids are considering? Kat wants to work with tigers. We just got an invitation for her to participate in the People to People Student Ambassador program. This is a program that has been around for over 50 years and is offering Kat the chance to go study in Australia. I have heard this is fairly expensive, but I will do everything in my power to make sure that she gets to go. If I have to create fundraisers, sell my soul on eBay, whatever, just so she can take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Currently, Calli is a Princess. Who could ask for more? The other day, we asked her to pick up her toys. She put her little balled-up fists on her sassy little hips, looked up at us and said, ‘I can’t do that! I’m a Princess!’ We’re working on that…

Tristin is succeeding in holding up his large cranium. At 5 months old, he’s wearing a 12-18 month hat. Beyond that, today he managed to get my water bottle away from me and take a few sips. I’ve never laughed so hard at his big eyes as the cold water ran down his throat! He immediately went for more.

Whatever the kids wind up doing, I will support whole-heartedly and be the proudest father in the Universe, on this they, and you, have my word.

The Ultimate Payoff:

Jimmy Gownley is a cartoonist who cares. With ‘Amelia Rules!’ he set out to create a comic with classic comic strip sensibilities that did not talk down to kids. His success at this is overwhelming. Jimmy is a co-founder of Kids Love Comics!, an organization that promotes literacy through comics. Something I can certainly relate to and support.

The reason I began this post by introducing Amelia and Jimmy to you is because, obviously, I think they are incredible. But also because a story in the fourth volume, ‘When the Past is a Present‘ really hit home for me. The story is called ‘The Things I Cannot Change’. This is a story of how one of the kids in Amelia’s school is dealing with her father being sent to war.

Lately, I have been putting in a loooot of hours preparing for inventory at the store, and I was feeling a little down in the dumps about that. Fifteen hour overnight shifts don’t leave much for family time, and I could tell that it was hitting my two year old pretty hard. I explained to her that work was how I got money for toys and food. She pushed me out of the door that night, but I still felt terrible.

I then read ‘The Things I Cannot Change’ and it put things in perspective for me. At least I wasn’t getting deployed. My family wasn’t seeing me as often as I’d like, but they were seeing me. I was still tickling the two year old at least once a day! My heart has always gone out to the men and women fighting for our rights, but sometimes it takes a reminder that my own life isn’t as bad as all that. Amelia reminded me in a way that I hadn’t felt in a long time. And then she made me laugh, which is a wonderful thing.

As previous posts have indicated, I really make every attempt at staying positive. I don’t see a need to stress because that just locks me up and keeps me from taking care of the business at hand. But sometimes, I do let things get to me. At these times when most people feel like picking up a bottle, I reach for a comic book. Boy, did I pick up the right one this time!