An Inherited Trait

(Originally posted on Facebook 1/23/11)


I thought I was being visited by a ghost. I asked my 12-year old to write a draft of some essay for his school and all of a sudden it hit me. I cannot believe what I was staring at.


Maura had all these note pads, scribbles and lists all over the place -- phone numbers, grocery lists, call back notes, etc. I compiled a book full of them and although I'm used to seeing her handwriting over the years, pasting every single one of those notes on this blank book made me realize how unique her penmanship was -- part print, part cursive, beautiful. Only a spouse or a parent would appreciate the way she wrote. So it took a little over a month to gather all these notes and I just realized how I already miss her little post-it notes and scribbles and how I am going to miss her handwriting. Until I reviewed my son's draft that night.


I don't know if it was one of those postcards from beyond but here's the rest of this anecdote. My eldest is not as good as speller as his younger sibling so I found a couple misspelled words. I asked him to please fix the spelling errors. I told him to write down the correct spelling on a separate sheet. And as he was writing, that's when I just froze staring at the paper like I saw a ghost. The way he formed his letters is every bit just like his mother. Not only was his penmanship identical but his penstrokes like the tail of an "a" are every bit handed down maternally as I've observed countless times over the years.


So, I really don't know if there is a biological explanation but I definitely am very interested if there is any research on handwriting as an inherited trait. I suppose traits passed on to offsprings is just nature's way of ensuring continuity of the genes.

Inoculation

With senseless violence everywhere in the media around us, I tried inoculating my kids, age 9 and 11 by watching with them the Spielberg classic "Saving Private Ryan" a couple weeks ago. I figure at the very least, I am there to explain to them the brutalities of war in context of a fictional story that is probably graphically accurate. There are other war movies that are most violent and some that are fairly mild but Saving Private Ryan seems like a good choice. Having seen it at least 3 times before, it does seem to get better with each viewing. Unlike other war movies with tough guy leading men, Spielberg's epic stars Tom Hanks, who looks like and plays a school teacher who just wants to go home. Whatever glamorous image war had in my kids mind before the movie seemed to have changed a bit after almost 3 hrs. I guess I am one of those parents these social conservatives refer to as "irresponsible left coast liberals."

Aging Should Not Mean Slowing Down

I had every intention of training for the 31st Annual Firecracker Run in Chinatown held a couple weeks ago but work, family and the weather made it virtually impossible to get any decent preparation run, treadmill or road. I think my last run was before Xmas so the fact that it poured really hard at 5am that Sunday morning made me breathe a sigh of relief. Until of course an hour later, when it was as clear and the road dried. Doh! Bottom line, I could still do a 5K without any training -- finished in 32+ minutes but sad thing is I ran my last 10K in '99 in 49 minutes. During the run, kids who look like 12 or 13 and older runners who could be over 65 were passing me. Aging is never an issue but slowing down is.
(Caveat: The last 10K I did was at the Rose Bowl and it was a relatively flat course. Anyone who's been in Chinatown know how hilly the area is. So I don't think I've really slowed down that much. Still, my old boss, who's at least 55 completed the hilly Firecracker 10K in under 53 min AFTER doing a half marathon in Catalina the day before. He's the best boss to work for but sometimes he really just makes me sick.)

Moving To The '909'

Finally moved into the city where I expect my kids to attend intermediate school (Grades 6 through 8) and high school. Going from a city with a lot of history like Pasadena to a relatively new incorporated city like Rancho Cucamonga (est. 1977) is not something I would have predicted years ago. I've always thought I'll spend the rest of my life in the city famous for the Rose Parade, Caltech, Rose Bowl, Huntington Gardens (and at least 3 other art museums) all within 20 minutes of downtown Los Angeles. Rancho C. is in the 909 area code and with existing cell phone coverage, I don't have to get a land line with a 909 prefix. (Whew!) It was relatively painless 14 yrs ago moving from Santa Monica to Pasadena -- a city established in 1886 that is rich in culture, tradition and history. But Rancho C. will not be an easy adjustment for me. MOCA in downtown LA is now an hour away, LACMA another 20 minutes and the Southbay beaches close to 2 hrs. Yikes. But on the plus side, the upper desert is now only 20 minutes away and Las Vegas just got closer by a half hour. Oh, and the public schools are really excellent in the 'hood I moved into.

A Few Thoughts On Bernard Madoff Fraud

Can't help but think what might have led to the biggest investment fraud in all of history, the Bernard Madoff scandal. Loose SEC regulation certainly played a role along with the climate of let business self-regulate their activities. But the more I think of this, a Ponzi scheme requires a very essential element, no matter how big or small the scheme is. And that is greed on the part of the investors who think they can make a quick profit by investing with a Wall Street legend, with little questions asked. Do I feel bad for multi-millionaires and billionaires losing half or more of their assets? I seriously doubt they'll be worrying about next month's bills so the answer is no. Do I feel bad for non-profits losing everything? Maybe, but again, they elected or appointed financial directors who they feel can make them the most profit. So I think the Obama administration will change this culture of non-oversight fairly quickly within the financial industry but at the same time, I don't think any amount of reform can change the way the majority of Americans think about greed and the accumulation of wealth.

The Other California

I'm trying to understand where people are coming from. Literally. Spent Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday in Lake Isabella with my brother-in-law's new house. Anyway, at the grocery on Friday morning, while waiting for everyone to get their items paid for, a bearded man, maybe in his mid 60's approached me. What country were you born? Excuse me, I said. What country were you from? Seriously, this man had never seen a Filipino before or what. The Philippine Islands, I said. Oh, we had some Filipinos in the Seventh Day Adventist church and they are very nice, he stated proudly. I try really hard to be non-judgmental but I suppose with a population of 3300 people, 90% are white, the odds of finding a non-Caucasian is really low so I must really stick out like a sore thumb. Come think of it, I did not see a single black, Latino, Asian or non-white these 2 days. Except for my 2 hapa haole boys. I don't know what to say to this gentleman other than "Oh, that's really nice." Thank goodness, the checkout lines were fast so he ended the conversation with "Well, we welcome everybody!" I guess you really don't have to go too far from Los Angeles to see that not all of California is a melting pot. In the past, I used to feel very Filipino when visiting places like Michigan, West Virginia or Ohio but in this case, I only have to travel a hundred miles. Nonetheless, I think that he was truly sincere in stating that he welcomes me to his part of America. And in this case, while I was driving home, I felt bad for feeling so defensive at being asked where I was born. Race relations is a two-way street indeed.

NPR Shapes American Culture

I can't even remember how many times I've bought something (book, movie, CD, toy, etc.) after listening to a feature of that particular item on National Public Radio (NPR). Most of Los Angeles is pretty lucky to have two NPR stations, namely 89.3 KPCC and 89.9 KCRW. Used to be a KCRW listener when I lived in West LA but had been a KPCC loyalist since moving to Pasadena in '95. Anyway, I did it again recently, buying a non-fiction book titled "The Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell and a novel "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. I dare say that if it weren't for NPR, I would spend less money of books, music, film and the like but then again, what's life without these necessities? (Thank goodness, those podcasts are free.)
So I figured out why conservatives hate NPR. It educates the masses and an educated population is not to the benefit of conservatives who want as narrow a definition of American culture as possible.