(Mis)recognitions

With Cleo's school closed down for a 5-day Memorial Day weekend, it was time for a dad-and-daughter trip - or, better still, a dad-and-dad-and-daughter-and-daughter trip, as my old friend Geremy agreed to brig his 3-year-old, Harper, up to Gettysburg for a reunion, some time in a hotel, and maybe a sliver of Civil War history. And all went well: indeed, in our roughly four hours in the pool, we never did see another guest, so the girls could splash and shriek all they wanted, and the local pub carried both Smithwick's and crayons, keeping each voting bloc content.

Along the way, though, Geremy and I were repeatedly struck by how people seemed to see us: not as two high school friends who now happen to be fathers, but rather, it seemed, as a nuclear family. In some cases, this reaction was only implied: visible in brief double takes, or long glances. But it was certainly explicit at the Visitor's Center, where the ranger handed us one brochure, and then responded to our request for another with the warmly worded but firm insistence that they only give one per family. Suddenly, we weren't merely dads out with the kids; we were also, apparently, emblems of an emergent landscape in American family life.

But Cleo, it turned out, didn't simply have two dads; she also had an aging dad. Later on Monday, after saying goodbye to Geremy and Harper, we stopped at the Berkeley Springs McDonald's, for a cup of coffee and an ice water (and, all right, a strawberry banana smoothie). Nothing very special, in other words - until I heard the cashier repeat my order: one smoothie, one water, and one senior coffee. Confused (and, frankly, still in need of coffee), I mumbled a yes, only to learn that she'd taken me for 55 or older, and thus charged me a mere 59 cents for the cuppa joe.

So, my friends, I'm hear to tell you that I have been, in rapid succession, a 42-year-old married to L., a gay dad interested in the Civil War, and an aging senior who buys smoothies for his granddaughter. And none of it was, frankly, that bad.

But as I was being consistently mis-recognized, Cleo was doing some spot-on recognizing. About a week ago, I taught her the first verse of one of the most summery pop songs you'll hear this year: Cruise, with Nelly working alongside Florida Georgia Line. It gets a bit earthier, eventually, but the opening line strikes me as worth hearing: "Baby, you a song, You make me wanna roll my windows down And cruise." It's a song of motion, of love, of enthusiasm: of everything that I was feeling on my little jaunt with Cleo. And so it touched me when the song happened to come on in the hotel lobby, as Geremy read a book to the assembled girls - and when Cleo sang her brief accompaniment.

Baby, you a song. And I, by your side, a senior, a daddy, a partner: regardless, my windows are down.