Christmastime is here again!

Basically it's a nitemare to be around children anymore - it's just really really hard. As my frenz are of the age a late age, n'atch - where they're finally having kids, that sorta life seems fades off of any future I may see. Many reasons.

Parents came to this country from a very poor background. Very poor -Appalachian style poor - Mom had that grammar school education and Dad had that .... well, he never set foot in a school and started in the boats when he was 7. They wanted - genetics go calling - a better backdrop for their offspring, and the Promised Land of America was the only place for it. They had as many kids as they could and worked hard - always w. me understanding that they had sacrificed everything for us. Left the country (Dad never saw his parents again, Mom saw Grandmother once more and Grandfather three more times) , overtime and extra jobs, saving always for our schooling. The deep importance of children and th future - well, everything - depended on these two things. Always knew I was wildely loved - but also understood it wasn't me, it was the family and my part in it.

Then came the kids. Nephew.1, Niece.1, Niece.2 etc etc etc... Sisters lived so close, we constantly babysat or visited or were visited. Intoxicating. The kids were so fun, and again to be part of a whole working forward. So much fun them being about - BUT MORE!!! trying to expand them by taking them wherever. Lots of games - easy: Fire, Sox, Bulls, Hawks, etc... Movies, plays, the odd street theatre, a free music in Grant Park. Coaching them year after year in soccer. Wasn't a job, being an Uncle.

And Q. We shared that FirstLove between us, and like all young lovers, we wanted to burst our love all over the whole world - couldn't everyone see how great and wonderful existence @ this time and place is. And of course, we really wanted to help out the world by spreading our love even more with our "VirgilQ's" or "QVirgils", depending on which of us happened to be romantically romanticised our relationship @ that moment. We settled on seven kids we would have, and all were named both first and middle.

It was nice being a Freak amongst my college educated frenz (Many non university trained had kids outta HS or soon after) in the whole kid. I really liked that I'd changed hundreds of diapers by the time I was 25. I liked bringing the kids around frenz who probably had not had much real interaction w/ kids up to that point. I liked being not an expert but The Expert in real terms on children.

And now.

Modern times, ,modern country, modern economics.... Took a long time, but now it's the time for many of my frenz to finally have kids. Again - many non university types already had kids - but the educated ones, nows the time. And it's not me taking munchkins everywhere anymore - it's people who were once young now doing that. And - there's me wasting away in Moms basement, unemployed, and now surrounded by everyone elses kids. Even those that gave me so much joy - the 8 nieces and nephews - have dwindled away as they grow up and are now getting jobs and off to colleges and etc... They have their own lives and are rarely over - and I can see into the future where I probably will see some of them once every two years or whatever.

Where I once was rare in a great way, it seems Ive passed into rarity once again - but in a way I never wanted. Where once I was once surrounded and glorious - now sequestered and dimmed. Rage rage and the dying of the lite and all that, all playing out in my spirit.

In many ways it's like March of 1814 and Napoleon est moi. It's that soccer team and being a coach and it's importance to me. However much I feel that life has totally passed me by, there still are 40 girls and 55 boys each year that look to us three coach's for guidence. It's still me who makes out lineup cards, pulls kids aside to correctly show them how I want whatever done, subs in kids, gives the halftime speech, etc...

Except for these 100odd kids or so, it's next to impossible to be arounbd young people these days. I hate it.