Just Wings

People from Buffalo don’t call wings “Buffalo Wings.”  They’re just wings.  Look, your place has its own terms.  And despite our best efforts to let others know about the other staples of Western New York, the one that dominates the conversations is the wings.  There isn’t much difference between a chicken born in the Buffalo area and a chicken born in the Boston area.  And anyone can make wings the same way they're made near the Great Lakes.  So, when it comes to wings, the Buffalonians likely just eat more of them.

Next year, he will be the one driving

On Sunday, I took my son to see the Buffalo Bills take on the LA Chargers at the Bills' brand-new stadium. He’d asked me last year if we could go to a game in the old stadium, then one in the new one.  Like most of his requests to spend time with me, I obliged.  It was the Bills vs. Saints last season.  And this weekend, we did a quick hit – drive in Saturday, and head back home as soon as the game clock hit triple zeros.  910 miles of driving in just 39 hours’ time.  Bills won 24 – 16.

This post isn’t about the game, though.  It’s about the idea.  He’s 15, and things are already getting complicated with his football practice and game schedule, his friends, and soon – hopefully soon – a part-time job.  Two turns around the sun, and he’s a tech school grad, likely heading right off to real, full-time work.  Then the time will come when I want to jump in the car to road trip to and from a game, and the answer will be “I can’t.”  Times like the weekend we just had won’t be ordinary.  Rather, they’ll be rare. 

From the eyes of this 53-year-old, being me, this game was a big deal.  My own father had no interest in football, and when I was 15, he wouldn’t bring me to a game even if it were my Make-A-Wish.  I left Western New York as his kid.  Now, I go back there with mine. For Luca and me, our shared love of the game is great.  But the best part of it was the time.  Time in the car.  Time at the hotel.  Time at the restaurant.  Time talking.  Time listening to my awesome tunes, and whatever those sounds are that he calls music.  I learned a little about Kanye.  And, holding his nose, he learned some about ABBA. 

At the end of the game, the Bills’ anthem, Mr. Brightside, was played at the stadium.  If you ever attend a game, it’s a sing-along.  The lyrics are on the screens so we can follow the bouncing ball, and 60,000 people can belt it out at once.  While we were singing, my son put his left arm around my back, and that’s when it really hit me.  We were making a memory that’ll last two lifetimes.  And if I did this right, it will be replicated in some future ones too. 

There’s a story I had to read in high school about a father who kind of realizes he wasn’t being the best dad he could be to his son.  He spends his day correcting the kid, scolding him for little things, expecting him to act older, behave better, and somehow understand the world the way an adult does. Later that night, he looks at his son as he sleeps and realizes how unfair he’d been. He was so focused on raising his son that he had forgotten to simply see him for what he was: a kid.

The father realizes that he had been measuring his son against the expectations of a grown man and, in doing so, had asked far too much of him. It is a simple story, but I recall it now because I think every parent eventually has moments when we realize we have been so busy preparing our kids for who they are going to become that we forget to appreciate who they are right now. It’s called “Father Forgets.”  I had to read it in 12th grade, and I was interested in it because my old man related to me with the back of his hand, the way a father was supposed to.  In the 1940’s.  In the remote mountains of Italy.

If you’ve never read it, look it up

At 17, it was like everything else they made us read.  I mean, seriously.  Would I be any better for having read and written sonnets, haiku, and iambic pentameter?  But thirty-five years later, I am glad I did.  Now that I can articulate the cruel tricks of parenting, I know that “Father Forgets” isn’t about parenting at all.  It is actually about time.  And it’s a reminder that I shouldn’t focus so much on him being a grown-up as I should on me sometimes being a kid when I am with him.  I mean, do I want him to remember me yapping at him about the cleanliness of his room, or would I rather he remembers singing Mr. Brightside?

As I sat in a restaurant on Hertel Avenue in Buffalo, NY, alongside my son and some friends, the wings were served.  When he ordered them, he knew not to call them Buffalo Wings, for he was in Buffalo, with his dad, who grew up eating these things simply known as wings. Somewhere along the way, without either of us really noticing, pieces of me have become pieces of him.  He now knows that 910 miles in 39 hours makes perfect sense if there is something, or someone, worth driving for.

If he has a kid of his own, he’ll explain that they aren't called Buffalo Wings. Maybe he'll tell them about the old stadium and the new one. Hopefully he'll make them listen to Kanye while they roll their eyes because whatever they're listening to in the 2040s is so much better. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, somewhere in the middle of it all, he'll tell them about their grandfather, who once drove him 455 miles each way just to watch a football game.

It’s true that parenting sometimes requires a clean room and schoolwork done.  Someone to say it is time to put the phone away.  And to get a part-time job.  But parenting also requires game tickets and a long drive.  It requires a Mr. Brightside sing-along.  Maybe even buying an overpriced, autographed jersey.

Oh, and one more thing.  The wings.  Don’t forget the wings.