Admiral Farragut’s revenge

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life

Note: I took a little editorial license and shared a lesson I did learn earlier in life.

Dinner went pleasantly enough; as we passed the rolls and reached for the butter, Mom and Pop maintained a light dialogue about the day. It was as though there wasn’t a black hole floating over the table, threatening to swallow my future.

Even Doug looked uncharacteristically concerned. He shot me glances across the table as he ate his meatloaf.

This was serious. I was in uncharted waters and my next steps needed to be played very carefully.

I checked the mail one afternoon coming home from the bus stop, and was pleased to see that my monthly issue of Boy’s Life magazine had arrived. 

Boy’s Life—the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America—was right up my alley. It had interesting articles about everything I was into; outdoor survival, camping, orienteering, wild animals. 

Perplexingly, it also had an entire page with advertisements about military schools. It was always beyond me why the people at Boy’s Life felt it necessary to include that knife in the back each month.

But it wasn’t beyond Mom.

It was her favorite disciplinary weapon. Whenever things got too out of control, she’d make a show and peruse the military school ads after dinner. Now and then, she’d read one out loud to Pop.

But it was a card she had played too many times. It was an empty threat and we all knew it. Doug and I stopped even listening as we  sprawled on the couch watching TV. Even Pop simply grunted as he read a book or worked on one of his acrylic paintings.

When I was eleven, I had one of my biggest screw ups…the popcorn debacle…when I was left alone for the first time and almost burned the house down. About a month later, I checked the mail. There was a thick manila envelope in addition to the usual bills and junk mail. I looked at it and my blood ran cold.

It was from the Admiral Farragut Military Academy in St. Petersburg, FL. With rubbery knees, I came in through the garage door and handed the mail to Mom. She looked at the manila envelope with a pleased expression.

“Ah,” she simply said, then put it to one side and resumed sniping off the ends of green beans. No further explanation was given; no light-hearted comment, no eye contact, just an ominous silence. 

Before dinner, the envelope mysteriously vanished and nothing more was said. It was just the usual hum-drum supper conversation about the usual stuff. I hadn’t even had time to discuss it with Doug, who got home from work later than usual that day.

The next day, I came home from school to a scene that made my toes curl. Mom was not around, but the Admiral Farragut brochures and papers were spread out on the kitchen peninsula. Mom had started to fill out some of the forms.

I picked up a big glossy brochure and turned the pages in horror. Words like discipline, honor, and motivation were sprinkled liberally through the verbiage. There were pictures of kids my age with buzz cuts, wearing uniforms, doing pushups and eating at long barracks-type tables with stern expressions.

I heard the electric garage door go up as Mom came home and hurriedly put the stuff back how it had been. I stayed in my room until Doug got home. I knocked on his door and slipped inside; his expression wasn’t reassuring.

“Oh man, Dar,” he said. “I think they’re serious. I heard them talking the day after the popcorn thing…it wasn’t just the fire, it was the gun, too. They were really pissed.”

I felt a cramping in my bowels. “You don’t think they’d really… I mean, that place is in over in St. Pete!” I said. “I’d only be able to come home a few times a year.”

He shrugged. “I dunno, man,” he said. “If there was ever a time to be on your best behavior, it’s now.” I nodded.

That night at dinner was the one with the black hole. The fact that Admiral Farrabutt…Doug’s hilarious moniker…wasn’t mentioned even once was nerve wracking. After dinner, I pasted on a ghastly smile. 

“I’ll do the dishes, Mom,” I said. Her cool gaze swept over me for a second. 

“Hmm,” was all she said as she removed her apron, hung it with the dish towels, and left.

Later, she and Pop went into the living room and talked in low tones. I strained to hear, and I heard “Farragut” mentioned several times sotto voce. I went to bed early, curled up, my stomach a tight knot.

A few days later as I came through the door, Mom was again in the kitchen. The phone rang and she picked it up.

“Hello?” she said. She paused, and her face brightened. “Yes, I did!” she said. “Last week.” She sat down in one of the kitchen stools, twirling the phone cord. “My husband and I are very interested. It looks like a lovely school.”

I winced and headed back for my room. “He’ll be going into 7th grade next year, so that would be perfect—“ I didn’t hear any more as I quietly closed my bedroom door.

The next few weeks were hellish. I sat miserably in the cafeteria as my friends swapped desserts, passed notes, and laughed. I thought about the poor bald Admiral Farragut kids in their uniforms, grimly eating at their barracks tables. 

Square meals was how Pop—who had attended a similar place for cadet pilot training—described it. You sat up ramrod straight. You picked up a forkful of food and raised it vertically until it was at the level of your mouth. Then you moved it horizontally to your mouth; then reversed it: Up and over; out and down, making a rough square. Great.

My usual hobbies held no interest. Instead of looking for raccoon tracks and places to set my traps, I laid on my bed, picturing myself marching off demerits in the rain with a fake rifle over my shoulder. Even the Hardy Boys and my half-finished model battleship failed to break my funk. Every night I expected to be summoned into the living room.

Goodbye minibike, hello sit ups.

When no more calls from Admiral Farragut came after almost a month, the tiniest bit of sun peeked through the clouds. But I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet, not by any means. I continued with my very best behavior, doing all kinds of chores without being asked and eating even the hated slimy Chung King chop suey without complaint.. 

I studied hard, got good grades, and slowly sensed a thawing. The day I saw the glossy Admiral Farragut brochure in the magazine rack with the Ladies’ Home Journal and the Sears catalog, I knew I had turned the corner. I slowly throttled back from maximum effort/best behavior and by the time summer vacation came, I knew I was in the clear.

Years later, Sue and I were newlyweds and out at Mom and Pop’s for a cookout. The Admiral Farragut thing came up and as Pop was flipping the burgers, he turned to Mom and laughed.

“I gotta tell you, honey,” he said. “That fake phone call…pure genius.” He took a sip of his bourbon and Coke and turned back to the burgers.

I looked at Mom. “Fake phone call?” I said.

She grinned. “Don’t you remember how we used to make the phone ring?” she asked. “You dialed your own number, then pound, then hung up. Your phone would ring.”

She picked up an imaginary phone and put it to her ear. Her voice became annoyed, stern. “Oh, hi Admiral Farragut people,” she said with a smirk.

I thought back to that awful day. “You mean the day the Admiral Farragut people called—“

“Oh honey,” she said. “I made it ring just before you came in. You shoulda seen your face. I thought you were going to have an accident.”

She and Pop looked at each other. They both snorted and spoke at the same time.

“All our talks in the living room—“

“The silent treatment—“

“The way he bent over backwards —“

Mom stood up and went over to Pop at the grill. The two of them trailed off into helpless laughter, leaning on each other, hugging, tears streaming down their faces. I stared at Sue in shock. They had faked the whole thing.

That day I learned something about parenting worthy of Sun Tzu: Nothing was off the table; always be three moves ahead; and experience beat stupidity every time. As the laughter died down and they wiped their eyes, my admiration of them went up a few notches. Well, dang.

And though none of my kids thankfully ever needed such a sophisticated psy-op, I filed it away with all the other life lessons I had learned the hard way.

And somehow I think Admiral Farragut was just the tip of the iceberg. 😎

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