The Yelling in the Other Room

{Prompt: What things did your parents argue about when you were little?}

What did my parents argue about when I was little? That’s a great question. It’s harder to answer than you might imagine.

Undoubtedly, they did argue. Many times my brother and I heard yelling in the other room. But what was it about? That is hard to say.

Usually the other room was the master bedroom, in the corner of the house, across the hall from the bedroom that we slept in. The substance of the altercation was hard to make out from that distance when the door was closed.

Let me explain. The size and layout of our house is important. Our house was pretty small. It had two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. There was a square-shaped hall in the middle of those four rooms, with access to the furnace below and the fold-down attic stairs above. And there was a one-room addition on one side, that my father used for a workroom, which had a connecting door to the kitchen and our bedroom.

My dad, at his enormous desk in the “office.”

If you wanted to run in circles in our house, you could do it by running through the kitchen (avoiding the linoleum-covered countertops and the dangling cord of the phone on the wall)… running through my Dad’s man-cave (scooting around the sizable vintage wooden desk)… taking a hard right into the children’s bedroom, and straight through to the next door (watching out for Legos, Hot Wheels cars, or unsorted clothing)… another hard right into the central hallway (being careful not to slip, or stub your toe on the 3-by-5-foot metal grille of the floor furnace grate)… then through the slatted, folding doors to the living room (where it was best to pass slowly beside the TV set, or risk the retribution of the parents)… one last hard right at the front door, and back into the kitchen. Clockwise always seemed like the best way to run this route.

It’s even better when you are being chased.

(Credit: Getty Images/istockphoto)

But notice that the parents’ master bedroom was never a part of the circuit. In fact the master bedroom had a single door (to the central hallway), and it was usually closed. At night, if there was yelling, it most likely came from that mysterious chamber — untouched by the scampering feet of circling scoundrels.

But what was the yelling about? I honestly don’t know. It was muffled and inaudible. And as the youngest child, I wasn’t really trying to find out. I guess I took a better-off-not-knowing approach to family arguments.

And I don’t think that we were meant to know. I think if an argument was brewing, it either took place in our absence, or it was put off to the evening, after our bedtime.

I would guess that most arguments were along these lines:

Mom - “You play with them too much. They need to do their chores.”

Dad - “Aw… come on. I’m tired. I just want to relax.”

Or this:

Mom - “Why did you have to spank him?”

Dad - “What? I barely touched him. He needs to behave.”

But I really don’t know. Usually the argument sounded like the teacher on a Charlie Brown special:

Mom - “Whaa whaa whaa-whaa?”

Dad - (in a lower pitch) “Well, Whaa whaa whaa-whaa-whaa.”

Clearly they agreed, at least on one thing; which was to keep the arguments out of earshot.

There were disagreements, of course. For example, my mother didn’t like to be around my father’s cigarette smoke. Consequently, I only saw him smoking at his hobby shop or in his car. He had that talent for flicking a lighter and holding it to the end of the cigarette, while shielding the flame from the wind. It’s not easy to do. At least not without a bit of practice. And he could roll down the car window a crack and flick the end of a cigarette so that the ashes fell out the window. So, even though he didn’t smoke in the house, he smoked enough to know what he was doing.

Perhaps they argued about his smoking.

Close up of a cigarette break.

My father probably wanted some time on his own. Of course my mom probably did too. But my mom had gone to college to be a teacher, and she had experience with children in elementary school. She expected to take care of the children.

My father, I think, had less experience with young children, in comparison. Don’t get me wrong. He was there to help with Boy Scouts and other activities. He enjoyed drawing (calligraphy, in particular), leathercrafting, model-building, car-mechanics, and home-repair, and he was happy to share those things with us.

But he also found ways to be away from home. Besides his regular job, as a draftsman at Stackpole Electrical, he opened a military-themed hobby shop (The Armoury) as a side gig, probably to spend a little time out of the house.

Perhaps they argued about how much time to spend together… or alone… or with the kids.

The Yamaha— a great way to get away.

My parents came from different backgrounds. My Mom grew up in the South, in Columbia, South Carolina. She enjoyed grits. She cooked with plenty of salt and butter.

My Dad grew up in the North; in Baldwinsville, New York. He enjoyed bagels and Dunkin’ Donuts. He put pepper on his eggs. Perhaps they argued about their food preferences. Or the merits of the different regions where they were raised. Perhaps they argued about the reasons for the Civil War!

You see, they met in Wilmington, North Carolina; while my father was serving in the Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune, and my mother was working as a teacher for the schools in Wilmington. My father, the ‘Yankee’. My mother, the ‘Southern Belle’.

They were married in 1959, and had their two children in the next five years. North Carolina is famous for welcoming folks from both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line, so when they bought a home it was in Raleigh, the capital city.

Their families were quite different in social class, as well. My mother’s parents both had a college education. Her father was a college professor and a lifelong Methodist Sunday school teacher. He could tell you what elements made the colors of a wood fire as it burned. Her mother had a degree in chemistry and enjoyed crossword puzzles. She knew the names of all the rivers in Europe and Asia that could be found in a crossword puzzle.

A grainy photo of Willard & Mary Whitesell and their first son.

My father’s parents both simply finished high school. His father was a foreman in the test and maintenance department of General Electric, and he was working in a studio called “Designs for Listening.”. He enjoyed recording vinyl records in his free time. He died in 1953, when my father was only 17. My father’s mother worked for the New York State Department of Civil Service, and she had received awards for her stamp collecting skills. She died when he was 40.

A grainy photo of Emily and Leonard Gallup

So my mother and father were really from different places, geographically and socio-culturally. Somehow they made it work.

They probably agreed on most matters, far more than they disagreed. They kept the arguments (mostly) under wraps, out of sight, and (usually) out of earshot. To be fair, the arguments were really quite few, and far between.

They were obviously in love when they married (after a relatively short period of courting). They were in love when they had two children. And they loved one another enough… cared enough… to argue over a problem until they reached an agreement.

They showed their love, too, in hugs and kisses, in conversations at the family dinner, in participation in games and activities, and in child rearing.

So, even though I remember the muffled sounds of angry parents on a few occasions, I don’t really remember what the fighting was about. And for me, it didn’t matter. It always seemed like a part of the process; a brief tempest in a season of sunny Spring weather.

The fighting always ended; and my happy parents returned to their jobs with sanity and normalcy. My pleasant childhood would continue, unperturbed.

Photo in front of the fireplace of (L-R) Gerry, Mike, Steve, Meg.

(Photo of Mike in our living room, which had cabinets with honey-colored sliding wood-paneled doors, with the TV and World Book Encyclopedia volumes on top, and pottery, speakers, and record albums on the shelves above. But look at that backpack.)