Dependant

"This is why man will prevail, and why your kind will never dominate the earth. This is what you can do if you've got thumbs."

-- Turner & Hooch

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My first July 4th with my family in years. I've always been working summerstock. We're in Wisconsin Dells, and for the Day we went to Mt. Olympus, a Hellenistic theme park. Poseidon's Rage, an unreal wave pool, was the highlight for me. Huge surges and leaps into white overtows, limbs slamming unheard beneath a pulling muscle of water.

Watched a TV special last night after the fireworks: Thrill Rides of America. Parks featured were Cedar Point, Hershey Park, Mt. Olympus and King's Island.

An odd quadrilateral on the map, and a casual coincidence. Cedar Point is in Sandusky, near where I worked those summers of summerstock. Hershey Park has been a family favorite for years. Mt. Olympus is where we are now.

And King's Island is in Cincinnati.

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Dependent and dependant are homonyms, and I used to think they were interchangeable. They're not. The ending -ent is adjectival, the -ant nounal. So it would be right to say that most dependants are dependant upon others.

Yesterday was my first Independence Day as a non-dependant. When I turned 23, my military ID went bad, expired. And I'm on my own as far as insurance goes. That was the date of my independance.

This is on my mind because of the holiday. I wonder when was the moment or period in my life when I became independent. And then I wonder if you can really count yourself independent if you still consider your hometown home, if you're tethered to the same folks for vacations, if you still split the hotel room with siblings and parents.

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Woke this morning to Turner & Hooch, some childhood glee. I couldn't see the screen from my spot on the blue inflatable mattress near the window, but how can you mistake a young Tom Hanks screaming about barking and dog food and how "this is not your room"? You can't.

For the scene where he and the woman (was it Mare Winningham?) start to make out in the kitchen while they're wearing bathrobes and underwear, my mom changed the channel. She skipped over CNN and stopped at the Cartoon Network. "There you go," she said.

Sharon looked at me. I looked at Sharon. We both covered our eyes in a mock gesture of seeing no evil.

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I guess the answer to the riddle is that you can be independent and still get a dependant's treatment. It's a matter of realizing you are a subject and an object always, that all your furious pushing is someone else's pull.

If the knots are tight enough, you can never escape the ties that bind.

In fact, there can be joy in bondage. Dependants don't pay admission to theme parks, and they don't pick up the dinner bill.

Happy Independance Day.