Letters from Bum Bum

By Rick McManus

This book consists of a series of personal essays, which are in the form of letters from a grandfather to his grandchildren. These essays are, meant to tell about the author's life to three granddaughters, who were three-and-a-half years old, one-and-a-half years old, and newborn when this book was written. The first essay explains how the name "Bum Bum" in the title came about. Other essays talk about the author's childhood, schooling, work, travels, and his efforts to get to know his granddaughters. While these essays are written with a wider audience in mind, it is hoped that someday Isa, Lari, and Gia will read them and remember the special times they shared with Bum Bum long ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462023103

Rick McManus

Rick McManus enjoys painting with words. His first novel, The Climb to Eternity, published in 2000, presents an allegory about an afterlife that requires newcomers to learn and to grow. In 2004 he published Rancho El Contento, a biography of his mother, a charismatic seeker of answers to life's questions. In 2007 he published his autobiography, Life As a Dance. Through dancing he found the person he always wanted to be -- someone who was confident in his abilities and place in the world. In 2010 he published The Life That Matters, a novel with story elements drawn from Milton's Paradise Lost. It is about a man who has to choose between the lure of a glamorous new world and finding redemption with his family that he left behind. Rick owns commercial real estate and lives near the ocean in La Jolla, California.

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Letters from

Bum Bum

By

Rick McManus

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Letters from Bum Bum

Copyright © 2011 by Rick McManus.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4620-2309-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-2310-3 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 05/27/2011

Contents

Chapter 1 Naming Our Grandparents

Chapter 2 A fun visit to Jo McNabb

Chapter 3 How persistence helps us learn

Chapter 4 My best memories from traveling

Chapter 5 Lessons learned on the lake

Chapter 6 A special day in my young life

Chapter 7 Mother brings out my music

Chapter 8 What baseball taught my sons and me

Chapter 9 Long lost family letters

Chapter 10 The life of a grandfather

Chapter 11 Put things off? Not me!

Chapter 12 From no tech to high tech!

Chapter 13 Being the boss – of myself

Chapter 14 Christmas over the years

Chapter 15 How I try to remember

Chapter 16 Uncle Paul pursues his goals

Chapter 17 All about your dad

Chapter 18 What my cars say about me

Chapter 19 Then and now: two different worlds

Chapter 20 Global warming allegory

Chapter 21 Why I am a writer

Chapter 22 Is it good to follow routines?

Chapter 23 Sports all through my life

Chapter 24 The El Centro of my mind

Chapter 25 The New Arrival

Chapter 26 My home away from home

Chapter 27 Looking ahead to a new purpose

I am grateful to my son, Gabriel, for coming up with the idea for a

book of letters to his children. These letters, written in the form of

personal essays, talk about my life experience, which has included

in the last few years my getting to know my three granddaughters.

He read several drafts of the manuscript and made many invaluable suggestions. I am also grateful to my daughter-in-law, Lindsay,

for her front cover art work and the interior photos.

Chapter 1

Naming Our Grandparents

January 2, 2010

Dear Isa and Lari,

We don’t get to choose our own names. Our parents name us.

And we usually call our parents what they tell us to call them, as they hover over us, stare down at our small faces with their big eyes, make strange sounds, and point at us.

But when we, the children of the world, start using words for the first time on our own, who knows what is going to come out of the mouths of babes.

Grandparents, beware! It’s open season on naming rights!

Actually, it’s all a matter of timing—whether the grown up or the child is quicker at doing the naming or if one or the other first comes up with a moniker that is too clever to pass up.

Your dad called my parents gamma for my mother and gampa for my dad. I don’t know what happened to his r’s. All I can say is that he has roots that go back to Boston, the place where we knew we were going to have a baby. And in Boston pronouncing the letter r is almost a lost art. Back there I actually heard someone say, Pak ya ka in the pak street garaj, instead of park your car in the park street garage. That’s the way some of them talk! Fortunately, we left Boston in the nick of time, as far as Gabe’s pronunciation was concerned.

Uncle Paul came up with something quite unusual for his grandparents on his father’s side: Dodo for my mother and Popo for my dad. How did he come up with those names? I think he pulled them out of thin air.

As for the children’s mother’s side, Nana’s mother and father beat them to the punch. They offered the names gram and grandfather. And those are the names the children used.

A year or so after you, Isa, were born on August 30, 2007, your parents were hard at work developing your speech skills. Very early on you started saying da da. It referred to Gabe, of course, but you extended the range of the word to include practically everything else you wanted to identify vocally.

As for saying your mother’s name, you must have found it a little more difficult to get it to come out of your mouth. Well, one day when you and your parents were visiting me at my condo in La Jolla, I was sitting at my computer desk and taking a video of you, as I often did. This film started off with you walking toward me, giving a little scream, and a showing a slight smile before sitting down in front of me and making some unintelligible sounds. Lindsay was sitting on the sofa across the room, and Gabe was seated somewhere else in the room.

Who’s that over there? I asked you, as I pointed at Lindsay.

You looked around at Lindsay and responded with something like uh, uh. Finally, after uttering a number of other sounds, you said da da.

No, that’s da da over there, I said, pointing in a different direction. Then you walked to the door where I caught up with you, picked you up, and carried you to the sofa to get you closer to the person who needed to receive a proper naming.

What’s happening, said Lindsay, as I placed you on the couch next to her.

Isa, who’s that? I asked, pointing to Lindsay and coming in for a close up of your face with my camera, as you clutched the remote control for the TV and stared back at me.

Ma, you said, turning toward Lindsay. Ma. Then, in response to a whispered prompt from Lindsay, you said Ma Ma. You repeated her name, and we were all proud of you that day, especially Lindsay.

There are different versions floating around out there about how I received my name, which is the title of this book. What I recall is that on a summer visit to my condo, you were ready to branch out and name other people, such as the person who was always holding a camera. I was proud to be a grandparent, and I imagined that soon I was going to be called grandpa. I expected it. I longed for it.

But that was not to be. All on your own you came up with the name bum bum, which puzzled me since it didn’t seem to refer to anything that I could think of.

Gabe recalled it differently. He said that it happened at Nana’s house. He said that he and Lindsay were teasing me with the name of pappy and grand-pappy, and I said we should see what you wanted to call me. So we asked you and you blurted out, A bum. Gabe said that we all laughed, and that’s how I became bum bum.

Lindsay’s version, which is similar to Gabe’s, is that many options were being passed around, things like grandpa and the more bizarre pappy and grand-pappy, names I didn’t like at all. Still thinking I might have some say in my new name, I was pushing for grandpa. One day, Gabe asked you, Isa, what you wanted to call me, and you said, A bum, which received great reviews from your parents and quickly turned into bum bum, a name that stuck.

By the time I will be able to ask you where you got the name bum bum, its actual origin will likely be forgotten. To me, the name must have something to do with my living near the ocean where some people down by the shore are called beach bums. That seems like a logical explanation to me, but probably not to you. I can hear you saying to me years from now, You’re not a beach bum; you’re bum bum. And that will be the end of the discussion.

So I guess my name’s origin will remain a mystery. However, I am not concerned. After hearing bum bum repeated several times, I grew to accept it, even like it, and I appreciated its originality.

At the time that you, Isa, were naming me, you, Lari were about six weeks old, and you, Lari, hadn’t yet said ma ma or da da, so I thought I was going to have to wait awhile to find out what surprising name you would come up with. But maybe it wouldn’t be so surprising. Lindsay told me it would be bum bum because she said that once the first child starts calling a grandparent a certain name, the second child usually calls the grandparent that name, too.

Our parents name us, and we don’t have any say in the matter. And then a long time later our grandchildren, if they are quick enough and clever enough, give us another name, and again we don’t have any say in the matter.

All we can do is graciously accept and live forever more with the names that have been bestowed upon us.

Love,

Bum Bum

Chapter 2

A fun visit to Jo McNabb

January 8, 2010

Dear Isa and Lari,

When you were almost 3, Isa, and you were almost 1, Lari, I stayed in the guest room of your apartment in the Jo McNabb house at Principia for seven weeks. Before that, I had made several one or two week trips to see you, but never for such a long time.

What a great time we all had laughing and playing and reading books!

Almost every morning we all ate breakfast together. You sat across from me, Isa, at the dining room table, and Gabe fixed us toast and cereal, and you and I drank orange juice. You sat in your high chair, Lari, and ate cheerios and bits of toast. After breakfast, both of you sat on my lap and we watched short videos on my Apple iPhone of the theme songs of your favorite cartoon characters, especially Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go. I got to know that Dora has a monkey friend named Boots, and she has a cousin, Diego, who has a sister, Alicia. Sometimes the TV across the room was on, and you watched them go on adventures to solve problems and learn new words in Spanish.

In one adventure Dora and Boots had to help the bear king get his crown to come down to his head from where it was suspended above him by someone who had cast a spell on it. Dora and Boots had learned that the way to end the spell was to say, Please, come down. So they encouraged the king to say, in Spanish, Abajo, por favor. You and I, Isa, repeated those words to help the king—and to help you learn some more words in Spanish. I know you already knew the word for open in Spanish, Isa, because when I would put my arms around you and you wanted to get away, you would say, "Abre." In the guest room I set up a computer, so I called it my office. On the computer I was able to do work for my office rental business in California and to write stories. When your mother and dad wanted to come into my office, they would knock on the door. Whenever I saw the door slowly opening and I didn’t hear a knock, I knew it was you, Isa, coming in to see me. Sometimes you brought toys with you, and you would turn my light on and off and jump on my bed. I would then say to you, Abajo, por favor, and you would sit down.

Later that day when I sat in the family room eating lunch that Gabe brought from the main dining room on campus, I sometimes saw you, Isa, coming in the room wearing my reading glasses.

Isa, only go in my office when I am there, I said, as I reached for my glasses.

Okay, you replied. I will do that, you replied in a serious voice.

Later I was in my room and I heard my door opening and someone saying, Abre.

I thought that like Dora and Boots, you should learn to say please. So I would reply, Say, ‘Abre, por favor’. After you said that, you would come in to see me.

Sometimes the three of us read stories together in the family room. You both sat on my lap, as I read and tried to turn the pages. You, Isa, listened, while you, Lari, hit the pages and wanted to close the book.

I know you are both going to be hitting the books pretty hard when you are in college, I said, and getting no laughs, I went on reading as best I could.

One of our favorite books was Peter Rabbit. We read it over and over, and I always would remind you that the good behavior of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail kept them safe while Peter Rabbit, who was naughty, almost got himself put in a pie when he crawled under a gate to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Although several babysitters came and went during the day, there were times when I had to fill in for one of them who was absent for some reason. I sat on the sofa in the family room and the living room door was closed and I set up a child gate in the doorway leading into the master bedroom. Because I had installed it loosely, you, Lari, were able to dislodge it and crawl under it. I said that I had better save you before you got put into a pie, as you, Isa, smiled and nodded your approval of my rescue mission. My real concern was getting you, Lari, away from your dog Charlie’s water bowl.

You and I, Isa, loved to repeat nursery rhymes, such as Hey diddle diddle, the cat in the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such a sight, and the dish ran away with the spoon. I would change it by saying, The dish ran away with Isa’s spoon.

You would then smile at me. Nooo. Not my ’poon. Your ’poon.

When I was the babysitter and you, Lari, were napping, and you, Isa, were busy scattering toys all over the floor, I would sometimes put my head back on the sofa and say that I wanted to close my eyes.

No. You can’t do that, you said with a serious look on your face. The babysitter has to keep his eyes OPEN.

As for games that we played, one was called Up and Down. I would reach out to you, Isa, with my arms and say, Up.

No, down, you would reply, as you quickly moved out of range of my arms that were reaching down to scoop you up.

Sometimes I wanted to put my arm around you, Isa, when we were sitting on the couch watching cartoons.

I don’t like this arm, you said. I like that one, you added, pointing to the one on the other side that was not in a position to go around you.

For a long time our favorite DVD to watch together, Isa, was Enchanted. We had seen it so many times we had practically memorized the entire story. On this trip we were both a little bored with it, and now our favorite DVD was Beauty and the Beast. I would say that I was the beast, and you would play along, Isa, and say that you and Lari were the Beauty. Then I would growl at you, Isa, like the Beast and tell you that you were my prisoner and that you would have to come to dinner every night and eat your dinner all up forever.

You’re not the beast, you then said, and I wondered if your reply had something to do with not wanting to make a long-term commitment to eating everything on your plate.

One thing that you liked a lot was to listen to stories, Isa. I would start out by saying it was going to be a story about three lions named Bum Bum, Isa, and Lari.

No, monkeys, you insisted.

Okay, monkeys, I agreed. There was a very big monkey named Bum Bum, and very tiny monkey named Lari, and a medium-sized monkey named Isa, I went on, as you, Isa, sat by my side enjoying our flight of imagination, as you, Lari, tried to climb down from the sofa. They lived in a rain forest where the trees went up to the sky, and the grass was taller than Bum Bum. These monkeys liked to swing from branch to branch in the rain forest. Then they saw Boots coming toward them.

Where was Dora? you asked.

Well. Dora was visiting her cousin, Diego, I replied.

And Alicia?

Yes, his sister, Alicia, too. And now Boots wanted to teach them the monkey dance. He led them to a clearing in the rain forest and he stood in front of them. They danced to the music of the rain forest, the wind blowing through the trees and the sound of the rain hitting the leaves.

Here, put on your monkey costume, you said, handing me a pretend costume.

But I thought we were already monkeys.

No, we’re not. We’re people.

Okay, I said. Now we look like monkeys.

You nodded in agreement. Keep telling the story.

Well, pretty soon all of the other monkeys in the rain forest came to the clearing to learn the monkey dance, too. Then they all lay down and fell fast asleep. The End.

For a long time I only had four videos on my iPhone, and we watched them over and over. We would watch Andrea Bocelli sing a version of his song, "It’s