Meet my son, Cubby

This is Cubby.

You'll learn more about him when you read Look Me in the Eye.

He's in 11th grade, a good kid. A solid D student.

Doesn't drink or do drugs, as far as I know.

Doesn't do any useful work, either, though.













In this photo you can see him lined up with his friends, waiting for the limo they hired to take them to the Senior Prom. He's not a senior, but his friends are.

The more observant of you will note that there are eight girls and two guys. I looked at the other photos to see if there were some other guys hiding, but there were not.




I never went to a prom when I was young, because I dropped out of school and joined a band, and those of us in the band hung out in barrooms and sneered at high school kids.

Today, as an owner of such a kid, I'd rather he be here than in a bar like I was. I was a feral child though, and he is not.

The female next to him is Masha, his girlfriend at that time. Masha's mother teaches Russian at Amherst College, and they live with Vikka, who is old.

Vikka and her husband were refugees from Stalin's gulags. They came here and he found work at Amherst College. Back home, he'd been a professor. Here, he was a college janitor.

Vikka went to school here, and became my friend Aaron's Russian teacher when he went to college, 30 years ago. She's retired now, but she brought Masha's mom here when the Soviet Union fell apart.

My friend Aaron subsequently went to work for the government, and then Radio Liberty, and helped bring about the fall of communist rule.

Anyway, one result of mom's arrival in the states was the later appearance of the girl who would become Cubby's date for this evening's prom.

As nice as he looks in these photos, you have just seen the good side. He is also vulgar, rude, and cannot clean his room. He seldom mows the lawn, and it's a fight to get him to take out the trash.

Woof!