After giving birth to twins, Cathy Ames stands up, shoots her husband Adam in the shoulder, and leaves. And Adam is sunk, silent, hollowed out, even abandoning his newborn sons. And Samuel Hamilton, the prophet-mechanic of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, tells him, “You’re doing no good, Adam. A man has a lifetime in him. And you’re blowing yours up on one woman.”
My kid has been complaining about their honors English assignment, Catcher in the Rye.
“Holden Caulfield is the stupidest main character!”
Okay, well, explain that.
“Well, Dad, he’s just stupid. He goes around complaining about how nobody likes him, but then he just keeps doing stuff to make people not like him.”
Caulfield is probably the antithesis of Steinbeck’s Adam. But both characters sit on the same ethos seed: you fix your life by doing the next task, not by feeling differently.
The week before Thanksgiving, I’d just returned from a four-day trip back to Ohio to visit my parents. Dad had three stroke-like events, the first of which he had while driving. From what Mom described, he passed out and pulled the car over to the roadside all in the same moment. Then drove himself to the hospital. And the day before I arrived, it was another trip to the ER.
Besides the blackout moments, he’s been falling quite a bit as well. Turns out, the vertebrae are disintegrating and pinching nerves in his neck, which are causing the blackouts, the stroke-like events, and the falling.
That Saturday night, I took them out to dinner, and of course, Dad drove, because that’s what Dad does. On the way out to the restaurant, in the pitch darkness of the evening, driving down a country road ribboned with empty cornfields and copses of wintered-bare trees, Dad, telling me you really have to keep an eye for rogue deer on this road, his phone rings. The phone is pushed against the windshield above the steering wheel. He reaches for the phone with both hands. Puts all of his focus upon the small glowing screen to see who it was that called. The car careens across the double yellow line and towards the ditch, towards the ditch, the rough field, the hidden deer. I’m yelling at him, screaming at him to put down the phone, to pay attention to the road.
He listens to me, but his response is mild annoyance.
Mom tells me they wanted to give him fentanyl for pain at the ER, and how she wouldn’t let the nurse give him the pain meds because she had heard all those were blackmarketed up from Mexico and were being sold on the streets. She called my sister, an RN who has worked in the medical field for more than 30 years, to make sure that fentanyl was okay to take. Mom controls how much of the pain meds Dad takes at home too, while I’m watching Dad walk at weird angles—not hunched over but crooked, stiff. They just bought a new car, and have to drive to Lima to make the down payment, and ask if I want to come along. If I can drive, I say. No, Dad will drive, he’s a good driver.
I visit my sister instead and ask her about Mom and Dad’s condition. I tell her I think our parents need in-home care, and Dad’s driver’s license needs to be taken away. She informs that her husband’s grandfather is a worse driver than Dad, and therefore Dad is fine.
“This is not a comparative analysis,” I said.
I tell Mom I’m going to call the ER discharge, their PCP, and the local council on aging and have them do some follow-up visits at the house, and tell them they are still 100% in charge, and are more than welcome to refuse the home visits and services. The following morning, I get a text from my sister telling me that she has the power of attorney and she’s putting her foot down, and my concerns are ridiculous.
At the supper table, Dad starts getting phone calls every few minutes. He answers every time. “Health insurance coverage?” he says. “Why do I need that? Oh, does it cover sexual therapy as well?” Every time, that is the script. It is driving me nuts. I take the phone and put him on the Do Not Call registry, then schedule his phone for a sleep cycle where he’ll still get calls from family and friends, but no more telemarketers.
I’m left wondering why if my brother and sister have it all taken care of, why they didn’t shut down the telemarkets. I mean, what I did was a five-minute fix.
Story continues after the book ad…
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Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
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This is my mindset when I return to New Hampshire, and the next day I have real estate stuff to do. I have an interview with the deputy city manager, and a listing appointment later that day. I totally forgot about the monthly all-partners meeting at Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes & Mountains, because to be honest, I’d originally scheduled that Wednesday as a recovery day. The interview, the listing appointment—stuff that was rescheduled due to other people’s schedules. Which is fine, roll with the punches, you know. My sister is texting me asking me why I am upsetting Mom and Dad, reminding me she has 30 years experience as a nurse, and that she has POA and is putting her foot down.
“Don’t be dead while you’re alive. A man has work, and the work makes the man,” Samuel tells Adam. And so I just keep putting one foot in front of the other you know. The work day does not stop for your feelings.
Just do the thing in front of you because that’s how you become yourself.
Then Susan Kenyon texts me the PowerPoint from the All Partners Meeting and tells me congratulations. At first, I thought she was just making a joke, pulling my leg, but eventually the accomplishment sinks in.
The moment feels somehow magically unearned. Year after year, I wished myself up on that board. Strategized and wondered about how to make that moment happen, but somewhere in the hope, I just gave up, decided my name on a PowerPoint was not as important as me just doing the work.
I, of course, read a lot (if you hadn’t noticed). Once I got into sales, one of the first books that was repeatedly recommended to me was Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.
Hill claimed he collected the secrets of 500 titans—Carnegie, Edison, Ford, Morgan. Except, there’s no credible documentation that most of these interviews ever happened. The secret Hill promises is mostly vibes, implying the universe is a vending machine that accepts affirmations as payment. The book mixes psychology with metaphysics like a cocktail you’ll regret later.
I heard that patter before. In the Christian church, actually, with the lable of the prosperity gospel. Hill says thoughts become things. The prosperity gospel says faith becomes a blessing. Hill frames wealth as the natural reward for the right mindset and burning desire. Prosperity gospel frames wealth as the natural reward for faith and obedience. if you’re rich, you did something spiritually or mentally right. If you’re struggling, check your belief system.
Both are products of American Success Mythology. The ideology emerges from the self-made person concept, manifest destiny, hustle as holiness, and optimism as moral duty.
And where Holden fears transformation, Adam is constantly made and remade in East of Eden: from soldier to wanderer, to lover, father, shell, man reborn through his sons.
Adam is: doesn’t matter how you feel or what you are going through, just go fix the damn fence, and you will become by doing and not simply being.
“Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” – John Edgar Wideman
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Why Your Realtor Might Be In Over Their Head
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About this publication.
Coffee with Steve is an independent publication by Steve Bargdill. Views are my own and do not represent Keller Williams Coastal & Lakes & Mountains Realty (“KWCLM”) or any other organization. Each Keller Williams Office is Independently Owned and Operated.
Not advice. Content is informational and educational; it is not legal, tax, or financial advice and does not guarantee results. Talk to a licensed professional who knows your situation before you act.
No agency created. Reading this does not create an agency relationship or agreement for services. Brokerage representation requires a separate written agreement with KWCLM.
Licensure. I am licensed in New Hampshire. Equal Housing Opportunity.
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You can reach Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes & Mountains Realty at 603-610-8500 or Steve Bargdill directly at 603-617-6018.
Steve Bargdill | Realtor & Author | Dover • Portsmouth • Somersworth • Rochester • Seacoast NH | Licensed in NH as Stephen Bargdill Jr., with Keller Williams Coastal & Lakes & Mountains Realty.
Pronouns: he, they
