The Freudian psychoanalyst of my younger days tried to write off these (to me) cataclysmic changes as manifestations of male sons’ unconscious oedipal strivings to father kill and thus become. After some mulling, my theory did not wash.
They spent time accompanying themselves on guitars, singing hymns and shouted Corinthian Paulisms to small curious crowds gathered in beach parking lots, city parks and inner city street corners of Southern California. They passed out pamphlets containing New Testament tracts and formulaic aphorisms promising the post-repentance blessings of Jesus. The eldest, articulate, bright and prematurely worldly, had been an ardent memorizer and appreciator of Shakespeare, especially the mystical Tempest, the music of Aaron Copeland and Igor Stravinsky, the improvisations of Charlie Parker and Cannon Ball Adderley and the provocative literature of the time including Jack Kerouc’s On the Road and Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. They loved riffing with the Voltairean pungency of Frank Zappa’s lyrics. Now, nihilistic humor had become an anathema.
Several weeks after my eldest son’s transformation, | found him in the garage using a hammer and an empty barrel for disposal as he destroyed his modern jazz and early rock record collection. He ridded himself of all of his fiction and most of the nonfiction books in his young but relatively large personal library. His new energy and high purpose emerged as a clearly defined set of rules of behavior, a strong stand against abortion, frequent talk about the need to escape from the contaminating influence of MTV culture, as well as our years of talk about the biological and physical sciences. Both boys were particularly critical of my Darwinian flavored attempts at scientific explanation of man’s inner life using the selective and adaptive neurobiology of brain mechanisms and behavior. They spent increasing amounts of time with Church friends, seldom seeing their old ones. The eldest’s college goals turned from plans for a U.C. Berkeley equipped career in literature and creative writing to a none spiritually challenging, objective and practical, Christian free market finance and accounting degree from U.C.’s Business School.
Gone were shared magical hours of intellectually stimulating, humorous,
even scholarly discussions. In place of evidential talk in areas of philosophy,
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