Goodlett Family 2012 Collage
I suspect that like me, you all are having a hard
time getting past the massacre of 20 innocent children in Newtown, CT. The
innocence of my own kids at Christmas time when they were that age leaves me
unable to get this sadness out of my mind. For me the idea of a child’s
innocence is seared into my memory from one Christmas morning when the boys
were about four and five years old. Mint ran down stairs and on seeing a
construction set displayed on the floor yelled to his brother “Graham! He
really did come. He really did come!” …
Of course, guns don’t kill people. People kill
people. This time in Connecticut and earlier this year in Colorado and before
that in Virginia, and before that again in Colorado … mentally disturbed young
men massacred innocents. So while some form of gun control is needed, its also
clear to me that President Reagan’s vision that communities and local
governments would take care of their mentally ill isn’t working. His actions
abolished the provisions of the National Mental Health
Systems Act that were signed into law by President Carter and stopped existing
government aid to care for the mentally ill. So while its true that the
lethality of readily accessible weapons is part of the problem, our national
discussion has to include mental health care reform because the combination of
a mentally deranged person with an assault weapon is like yelling fire in a
crowded theater. It should be illegal.
Mental health issues are something
our family hears about on a frequent basis from Donna who has continued her
efforts working with the homeless community this past year. From my perspective
I can see that it’s rather easy to get them the food and shelter they need, but
nearly impossible to do more. Doing more requires establishing relationships to
help them get out of their behavioral loops, but such meaningful relationships
cost time and money that local governments and charities lack. Most homeless
are not mentally ill, but simply down on their luck. Others though are in deep
dark emotional holes that they can’t climb out of alone. Climbing out requires
individualized help for which society currently has no answer beyond family,
community and faith organizations all of which are overwhelmed. Barring
requiring a license to reproduce, which would be more controversial than gun
control, teaching people how to be good parents would help a bit with some of
the homeless issues we have, but not mental illness. Many of the homeless
simply had bad examples set by their own parents that in turn sent them
spiraling down poor behavioral paths. Most are really good people who are down
on their luck and can’t get ahead in this economy.
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While one can argue that being a
good parent is the most important job we do for society, the training for
parenting is as haphazard as genetic recombination. No license is required to
be a parent like is needed for driving a car, but doing both badly is dangerous
to society. Unfortunately, it is often the case that being parented well
depends in large part on the luck of being born to good parents. I still marvel
at the apparent randomness in genetic recombination that gave us our boys.
Parents with a dozen kids will tell you the same thing that each one is unique.
From a scientific perspective even identical twins raised in the same household
will have unique differences. With our boys who don’t look alike, its easy to
see the differences. One is artistic and gregarious, while the other is logical
almost to a fault. We can see these traits in ourselves, but there are no hard
stops between the traits. In Graham’s case his phenotype is randomly matched to
his middle name, Robinson, which was my Mother’s maiden name. Grandpa Robinson
was a bit of a math genius from the back woods of Mississippi. Like all my
Grandparents, he didn’t finish high school. He did however become a master
automobile mechanic, which after being drafted saved him going to Europe in
WWII, and later an ironworker. He had an inherent understanding of math and
logic that you cannot teach, nor can hours of parents helping with homework
instill. Recently, the argument of which is more important nature or nurture
has been turned on its head by the science of epigenetics. There are now many
documented examples where nurture, by which I mean here being a good parent, is
much more important than nature, i.e. your genetic make up. In fact this
science is beginning to explain some of the old wive's tales of inherited
traits skipping generations. To catch up on this, I recommend you read “The
Epigenetics Revolution” by Nessa Carey.
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| David eating in Baltimore's Little Italy |
Not so random were a bunch of E’s
(same as old-school F’s) that showed up recently on Graham’s new-school, online
real time grade report. Being analytical, he had a perfectly logical
explanation. He calculated that because his math homework only counted for 30%
of his grade he could afford to take some E’s on homework assignments. He
rationalized these omissions by explaining that 1) he already knew how to do
the assignments for that topic and so they were a waste of his precious time, 2)
he could explain them to everyone in the class better than even the teacher and
3) doing so would hurt neither his grade nor his education …… tsk, tsk, tsk.
While I appreciated the logic, I made an on the spot correction to his
innocence in rationalizing. Of course this is one way innocence is lost – jaded
parents who superimpose their learned behavior on kids – or try to. In this
case I am at least recording his feat to be feted by him at a later date, but I
do appreciate his time management skills because I make those type decisions
every day.
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| David and Graham eating at the bar at the Hilife in Ballard |
In another testament to parents being more
“correct” than not, Mint joined the drum line and the school’s marching band.
After five years of trap set lesson, we encouraged him to get involved in the
music program when he started high school. “Life’s not a spectator sport” he
heard me say over and over. In spite of or because of my parenting skills, when
he started 9th grade I had to make him sign
up for the percussion class. In hindsight this was my last lesson applied by
force with him, but in my defense I knew that he might need an easy A. I won
the battle, but he refused to try out for jazz band or marching band even when
his older classmates encouraged him. At the end of 10th grade the rules for
being in percussion class changed and he was forced to try out for drum
line or leave the class. For some reason – maybe he liked being in the class
after all? - he tried out for and made the drum line. While he didn’t make the
premier snare position he wanted, this came to us as no surprise. In
preparation for the try out he played hours and hours of xbox and only the
night before the try out went over snare parts for about 30’. When I asked
about his preparation he exclaimed …. ”whaddaya mean I didn't prepare well? I worked
for an hour or more!” … Fast-forward to the end of Summer 2012 when tryouts
happened again for those seeking redemption and the same game plan produced the
same outcome - a bass drum slot. There is something similar going on with math,
but then I didn’t quite get math or music sorted until college. So, I don’t
want to say much knowing that neither my apple nor his fell too far from the
tree of reproductive randomness.
Young David in Turku
Young David and I spent a month away from Mom and
Graham this year. Three weeks in Turku, Finland and a week in Dubrovnik,
Croatia. For me it was mostly “work”. Not my Dad’s definition of work, but work
all the same. When asked by his Mom what did he like about Finland he replied …
“the pickled onions on hamburgers and the blondes”. Coming from Seattle, which is the 5th
whitest city in the US including nearly 40% Asians, the preponderance of
blondes in Finland was probably shocking right off the plane. The pickles I
can’t explain except that the Finns even make pickled herring taste good. In
Croatia we swam every day in the crystal clear, cold sea and all signs of his
Seattle-based sinus problems dried up. We also had our first Father-Son beer
moment. Or I could say that I had a beer with my sandwich and he had a sandwich
with his beer. Regardless, during this week I had a glimpse of the Man who
will soon emerge from the Boy and I liked what I saw. Besides the pickled
onions and blondes in Finland, in Croatia he gained a taste for fish, which
also is no surprise because in Croatia they do fish right.
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| Dave and Donna on the Piazza del Campo, Siena |
Some of you will have heard that next year we are
moving to Baltimore. After nearly 20 years in Seattle, I never imagined
leaving. The School of Pharmacy at the University of Maryland – Baltimore (aka
UMB; www.pharmacy.umaryland.edu) though had other ideas. After nearly two years
of back and forth discussions, I finally agreed that the best thing for both
parties was to leave the School of Pharmacy at the University of Washington
(sop.washington.edu) where I have been for nine years. Part of the long
time in discussions included trying to convince the family to move. Convincing
the boys was easy because they didn’t really understand what they were agreeing
to J. That’s not completely true, but given that we
don’t move until July of 2013 our visit in April 2012 was so far away that they
probably didn’t quite get the reality of the visit and move. Regardless, all of
us enjoyed our tour because the folks at UMB showed us wonderful hospitality
and the locals we met really loved to talk about their city. This despite the
dangerous reputation of Baltimore that dates back to the white-flight days of
the 70s and more recently the TV show “The Wire”. For the record, I’ve
not seen that show and probably won’t until I move there! The real challenge of
moving a laboratory and a family without dropping the ball on either is now a
reality for us. The lab has already started the transition.
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| Dave and Donna 25 years on |
Donna and I had time to reflect on the future
move and 25 years of marriage when in August when we went once again to Siena,
Italy for a scientific conference and Turku, Finland. We also spent a day in
Milan shopping and site seeing as well as a day in Helsinki on the way home.
The week spent in Turku opened her eyes to the Finns who are at first glance are
quite reserved. For example, after walking me into the lab each day she said
“No one looks at you or even smiles.” For Americans who are in large part
overly friendly to strangers, this military-like coming and going bothered her.
However, after dinner in the homes of a few Finns she realized they are pretty
much the same when it comes to hospitality but all business when it comes to
to’ing and fro’ing. If you’re wondering what I am doing in Finland, you can
read more about it here http://goodlett.proteomics.washington.edu and
below that even is a link to a farewell lecture I gave to a local mass
spectrometry group. We are excited and apprehensive about our fourth
cross-country move, but I’m certain all will be well in the end.
That’s probably enough reviewing for this year. When I started to look for photos form the year, it seemed that most were of us at dinner. Maybe we eat out too much? Anyway, we wish you all a happy holiday season and prosperous new year.
Dave, Donna, David The Younger, Graham and Trixie
The 100 lb Lap Dawg.
David the Younger after swimming in Cavtat Harbor
Dave the Elder and Graham at Chinooks -
Fisherman's Terminal, Ballard
