WAR-PATH, BUT HE IS TRYING

     It felt good yesterday to have friends over. After they left, I shuffled around the house for a while. Gradually, I became aware of some noise coming from the bedroom area. Voice? It was Taka, talking to Sonny. Not talking, yelling! From experience, I knew that Sonny doesn't like me to butt in when his dad is on the war-path. I stayed in the living room. It continued for a very long time, though! When I went to the bathroom. I'd see Taka popping into Sonny's room, giving a speech, popping out, going into our bedroom where he works on the computer(s) and repeating this sequence over and over again. I tried to tell him that it was enough, that talking too much about the same thing is detracting from the impact of what one wants to convey. Pfah! I said those things many-many times in the last twenty five years, to no avail. Besides the length of the talking-to that Sonny received, it was  also the content. "You are not doing anything, you achieve nothing, you will not succeed!" That was the gist of it. At one point, Sonny ran into the living room and sat on the couch next to me. He looked ready to cry. Perhaps thinking that at 18 he should not show such weakness, he ran back to his room. I still tried to tell Taka that Sonny does a lot at home, besides going to college during the year and practicing driving. Even the games that he plays, usually, have some educational value, and he always looks for new things to learn about science. Taka just grimaced at my words, either in an annoyed or patronizing fashion.
   I went to bed after one o'clock at night. Taka was still watching a movie.
- "Is Sonny asleep?" - he asked. 
- "I don' t know, his light is off" - I said. 
- "I, probably, depressed him.."
That was unexpected. He never before let his doubts about his treatment of Sonny show. I tried to be mild tempered and only repeated the good things that Sonny is doing. 
- "At his age I was doing so much more!" - Taka said.
- "Well, then you should do something together with him!"
     This morning, the two of my men have been walking and talking in the garden. When Sonny had a chance to come inside, he told be in a bewildered manner: "Today he wants to talk about plants!" At least, Taka is trying!