Set in My Ways

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Because of a sore and swollen foot, I was forced to put my workout routine on hold for a day, and my fitness activity tracker was replaced with the television remote control. While surfing the channels I came upon an old episode of the show All In The Family.  As I type, I glance at the scene of Archie screaming at "Meathead" how wrong it is to put mustard on a perfectly delicious pretzel.  I crack up laughing listening to Mike's response of "When the heck was the last time you tried something different, Arch?"

Archie was the king of the phrase “set in my ways!”

I smile thinking back on the days when I would watch All In The Family on Saturday night with my mother. It’s not the show itself that brings back the happy thoughts, but what we did every week on the night we watched it.

Back in those days the Sunday newspaper had an early edition that could be bought on Saturday evenings. Before the last credit hit the black-and-white reflection on the screen Mom and I had our shoes on and were headed the ten blocks to the newspaper stand to get the paper for my father.

I especially loved going because if we got there before the delivery truck I was treated to the best egg creams ever. As time wore on, though, sipping the sweet drink at the counter was replaced with the embarrassment of feeling "uncool" being seen at the newspaper stand with your mom on Saturday night.  I quickly learned to become the Gloria Stivic character in the family and sternly asked Mom why Dad just couldn't go himself.

But it was simply something she wanted to do for him; she went in summer, fall, winter and spring; in snow, sleet, hail or rain. She went with or without me.

Mom was Edith – and Dad was surely Archie!

Shortly after I got married, I invited my parents to dinner for the first time. Talking on the phone to my mother, I enthusiastically described a new stuffed cabbage recipe I’d found in a magazine. The moment I said I was using tomato sauce instead of the bed of sauerkraut my father liked, my mom gave the standard family response: “You know your father doesn’t like tomato sauce. You may want to make something else.”

My Gloria response to Edith: “There’s more than one way to cook, and he’ll be fine.”

What Dad asked for he always got – but not that day! He may have looked bewildered, but he wound up loving the cabbage rolls. Mom even asked for the recipe.

Change should be the plot of every single person's story. But my dad wasn’t alone in an unwillingness to change. As I get older I try to embrace change with an open mind; I love seeing things through different eyes. At the same time, it’s hard to let go of wanting to prove my way is easier. But you finally realize it is fine to let everyone live their life as they wish. The goal is not to be right but to be happy.

And despite my father being set in his ways, I have happy memories of that Saturday-night routine I once took for granted. I wish I could have one more walk with my mother, and hand the newspaper to my dad one more time. These days I would not care if I looked uncool walking with my mother and would enjoy each second.  Oh, how I wish I realized it more back then.

Who knows, maybe one day after I am long gone, someone may flip through an old episode of a show and think of me and say, “She was set in her ways, but we sure had some good times.”

As Archie and Edith said, “Those were the days!”

Donna Vesel Ryan, a frequent blogger for ThirdAge, is the founder and editor of the blog www.50plusstickingtogether.com.