In Praise of Mothers

First things first - to my mom; my wife; my late mother-in-law; my cousins - Lisa, Laura & Jennifer; my sisters-in-law - Pam, Janine & Laurie; and my niece-in-law Abby --- HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
-------------------------------------------------------------

In Cat & Cat, Chris Telamon talks a lot about his father, Lenny, and Lenny's subsequent influence on his life, not only in terms of musical taste but his entire worldview. Through Lenny’s example, Chris grows up to internalize the qualities of paternal responsibility and a predilection towards the epicurean in life. Chris Telamon isn't just his father’s son, however, and neither is the writer who created his universe.

In my forthcoming novel, Stalking Mule, the other side of Chris Telamon's parentage is explored in depth, and we learn quite a bit more about what drives Chris Telamon's rigid and, at times, uncompromising sense of justice and fair play. Needless to say, just as Lenny Telamon is somewhat modeled on my dad, Larry Kozak, the character of Corinne Telamon, Chris' mom, is also patterned on the life and times of my own beloved and "long suffering" mom. So, in honor of Mother's Day, I'd like to do what every child is doing today and talk about my mom, Irene Kozak.

Whereas my dad inspired and nurtured my love of music, good food and the Three Stooges, my mom's insistence that I always do my best, think of others and never compromise my principles provided the bedrock that allows me to enjoy myself without harming others. From my mom I inherited a thirst -- no, rather make that an obsession -- with moral clarity. Even as a small child, I was adamant about not only knowing what was right, but why it was right. Consequently, the issue of fairness became my constant preoccupation. So to everyone I've ever infuriated with my incessant need to examine the moral implications of every decision I make, now you know why. Throughout my life, family members constantly point out that my temperament falls more in line with my mother’s side of the family than my father’s side. I've always taken this as a compliment. What some may call impatience I deem forthrightness. Although I may be prone to flights of indignation, they tend to be of the righteous variety, not self-righteous.

My mom grew up a PK. For those of you not familiar with 20th century acronyms, PK stands for Preacher’s Kid. PKs, like Army Brats, live in a kind of parallel universe alongside the children of lay or civilian folk. My mother once described growing up a PK as living in a fishbowl. Every eye studies you, expecting you to be perfect, and then delighting when you fall. Some PKs “act out” against their parents’ authority and society’s expectations. Other PKs embrace their identities and follow in their parents’ footsteps. Much to her credit (and often to her dismay I’m sure), my mom zealously pursued the latter option.

My grandfather, the late Reverend Huber F. Klemme, wasn't exactly your typical American preacher. From the onset of his ministry, he used his pulpit to address quite a number of controversial causes. Throughout the 50-plus years of his ministry, my grandfather remained deeply and unequivocally committed to the core principals of the Social Gospel movement: civil rights, social justice, world peace, and economic equality. Given the political climate in our nation during the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s & ‘60s, his unyielding stance invariably set him face-first against our culture’s prevailing winds.

During the 1930s, amid the first Red Scare, my grandfather proudly declared himself a socialist. My mother, a grade-schooler at the time, found herself in quite a bit of trouble when she informed her teacher that her household supported Norman Thomas for president over FDR. A short time later, my grandfather’s pacifist philosophy prompted him to counsel Conscientious Objectors during World War II. (Think about that for a moment-- not the Vietnam War or even the Korean War, but WWII.) In the 1940s & ‘50s, he zealously advocated for civil rights and the abolishment of Jim Crow, long before public sympathy got swept up into the monumental social upheavals of the 1960s. My grandfather’s recognition of racial injustice and African American Achievement certainly rubbed off on my mother. Once, when another grade school teacher asked my mother to name a famous scientist, she responded with George Washington Carver. Obviously, the teacher wasn't impressed, as she snidely dismissed Carver as “just an old nigger.” (Can you even imagine a public school teacher saying anything like that today?)

As a teenager and college student, my mom proudly followed her father’s example, becoming active in a wide variety of social and religious causes. After graduating from Heidelberg College, she taught in the Cleveland schools for a few years before marrying my father and starting a family. Understandably, my mom was strict with my brothers, sister, and me. She suffered neither fools nor brats gladly. Each and every time I was punished, however, I not only learned what I’d done wrong but why it was wrong.

In retrospect, I think those hard object lessons probably spoiled me. From childhood on, I've always looked for the same clarity and consistency among the legion of authority figures I've encountered in life: teachers, bosses, policemen, elected officials. Needless to say, I'm constantly disappointed and troubled in this regard. Perhaps this sense of anomie, more than anything else, explains why I write the world the way I do. Both  Cat & Cat and Stalking Mule revolve around the central questions of right vs. wrong, idealism vs. pragmatism, selflessness vs. expediency, the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. Chris Telamon and Ryan "Snake Eyes" Leach fight these battles in the trenches every day while the character of Wormwood and his Zoroastrian worldview passes judgment on every human being engaged in the epic War of Light & Darkness.

When I finished Cat & Cat and presented my parents with a printed copy of the unedited draft, I really wasn't sure my mom would like the novel. Her tastes run more to Murder She Wrote than Natural Born Killers. Then again, she also reads James Patterson and watches Criminal Minds, so I was fairly confident nothing I wrote would truly shock her. I was also quite sure she'd immediately recognize the foundation upon which I'd built my plot. It was the same fundamental, tripartite question she'd first introduced to me when I was still in diapers: What is Right? What is Wrong? And Why?