39 The Lovely Crisis: Magic Sperm Club.....

In the late 70s on a warm summer afternoon, my brother, two cousins and I were summoned to the backyard deck of my Aunt Ellie and Uncle Dan Dan's house. The four of us boys ranged from 6 to 10 years old and were raised for all intents and purposes as brothers. We were met on the deck by our fathers Dan Dan and John John and told to sit down on the wooden bench that framed the deck. The breeze from Lake Michigan subdued the suburban Chicago humidity and spared us the usual sticky August heat, yet we felt an air of discomfort in anticipation of out meeting under the giant maple trees that shaded us from the late summer sun. Ice cubes chimed discordantly along the side of John John's tumbler as he set it down on the picnic table behind the towering pillars of our family. We didn't know what we did wrong, but were sure a lecture was about to accompany the somber energy worn by the men. John stepped forward and slowly painted a vivid mural for us. 

"You could have been born in the middle of a desert in Africa. You could have been born on the South Side of Chicago with bullets whizzing past your head. You could have been born during a famine. You could have been born seriously mentally retarded. You could have been born in the middle of a war. You could have been born anywhere else, under worse conditions than you can image." He paused for the longest minute as we pictured the different scenes laid before us. "But you were born here, on the North Shore.....," a few seconds punctuated the silence when he broke the news, "....and you had nothing to do with it." We now were pretty sure we did something wrong. "You were just the fastest one in there over millions of others who didn't make it. You were born into the Magic Sperm Club. You could have been born something different but you weren't - and you have an obligation to do something about it. You have opportunities almost nobody else has.....and you had nothing to do with it. Do something. Don't waste it. You have an obligation." 

The birds singing in the yard barely made a dent in the deafening silence that followed the speech. None of us made a sound through our mouths that hung open, stunned with the heaviness of the message. Although our heads were reeling, we got it. The was no need or offer of questions or clarification. The meeting was over as he turned to Dan and said something about lighting the charcoal in the grill.

 In an afterthought, he turned back to us as we began to compose ourselves, "Oh yeah, also, if your mothers aren't happy, nobody is happy. Get it?" We all smiled with our fathers.