My parents disapproved of naps. For themselves, anyway. I never saw my mother lay down in the middle of the day until she was well past the age of eighty. Dad was always in a semi-slumberous state when at home anyways, from a combination of late night work at Aarone's Bar & Grill and a determined disinterest in any aspect of homemaking and home owning that might involve him. He could pose like an oriental statue of the Buddha, sitting in his chair in front of the TV for unending hours, round-bellied, inert yet sentient. A nap would have been more of an interruption than a rest for him.
At some point, probably before I turned seven, my parents had given up on molding their children into responsible citizens, so if we wanted to snooze our lives away with catnaps and siestas it was all the same to them.
But I had caught their spirit of disapproval, and it was many long years before I could bring myself to enjoy forty winks while the sun was still out.
Of course in kindergarten we had a mandatory nap time. Mostly, I think, to give the harried teacher a chance to recover some sanity. Our little red mats were neatly lined up in rows on the floor, where we were required to lay down, cover ourselves with a thin cotton blanket, and remain still as mummies for an hour. This was an impossible task for me. The minute I was on the mat I began humming to myself and rolling back and forth as if in a storm-tossed boat. The teacher eyed me sternly, so I would modify my actions somewhat, but I never slept. My young blood percolated with energy, so trying to abruptly stop in the middle of an exciting foray into the sandbox or a struggle with a recalcitrant lump of clay was not only unreasonable but cruel.
This experience also prejudiced me against naps in later life; I associated them with restrictions, not rest.
Branded one of the laziest teenagers in the Western Hemisphere by my mother, I could loll in bed half the day if given the chance; but deliberately laying down again once I was rousted out of bed I considered to be totally uncool.
Then it was off to the circus for me! I joined Ringling Brothers Blue Unit as a clown in 1971, and a nap under those exhilarating circumstances was out of the question. My cohorts and I were way too busy busking for thousands each day, then struggling to find a laundromat to wash our clothes and someplace cheap to eat when the pie car fare grew unpalatable. Plus there were showgirls to pursue. Even regular sleep became elusive. Every veteran of the tanbark has said at one time or another: "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Morbid, but pretty accurate for that kind of career.
The exception to the rule was the old lion tamer turned clown Swede Johnson. To me he looked to be right around one thousand years old, with a face ravaged by more crevices than the Badlands of South Dakota. Between shows he crawled into the clown prop box containing a foam rubber dragon and several layers of thick canvas for a siesta. We knew better than to disturb his rest and risk his premature awakening. When disturbed he boiled out of the prop box like a swarm of hornets and began hurling curses and his wooden clogs at everyone in sight.
Next I volunteered as an LDS missionary in Thailand, where there was no sanctioned napping whatsoever. We knocked on doors and held street meetings the length and breadth of the Kingdom without respite, from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. -- with a few hours spared for meals and the study of the Thai language. To say that in that tropical heat, after a heavy meal of fried fish, sticky rice, and rambutan, I never once fell into an exhausted sleep while studying that intricate language would be to stretch literary license beyond the breaking point.
And so it went. I came back to the States after my mission, traveled to Mexico to study pantomime, met my beautiful bride in Williston, North Dakota, and together we raised eight magnificent children. With no naps. At least, not for me.
Whenever Amy was pregnant I took it upon myself to see that she was able to get a nap whenever I was at home for the day -- usually weekends and holidays. Mid afternoon I would gather up all the kiddies to take outside for two hours, no matter the weather. We went to the park or walked along lonely railroad tracks picking milkweed or pestered the firemen at the local station or just walked aimlessly around until we found a grocery that sold Popsicles.
Looking back, and tooting my own horn for once, I have to say that was probably the only noble thing I ever did during my marriage. When called before the Judgement Seat at the Last Day I will be able to face the Lord when he thunders: "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" and reply: "Well, I may have messed up a lot -- but I gave my wife the chance to take a nap when she was pregnant every day that I was home."
I think that will earn me some brownie points.
PART TWO
I well remember my first real nap as an adult. It was after I had turned sixty. The kids were grown and gone. The wife was gone and remarried. I was living in a basement apartment, and no longer owned a car. It was a raw March day and I had a job interview. Looking at the bus schedule, which was a crazy quilt of several different lines I'd have to take to get to the interview, I decided to walk. My stroll would take me along the Provo River Trail for most of the way, which would be pleasant indeed.
I allowed myself an hour and a half to get to my interview. I bundled up well and set off walking. It was farther than I thought. Much farther. As the time raced by I no longer enjoyed the gurgle of the river or the faint tentative notes of returning songbirds. I was in a mad rush to get to my interview in time. I barely made it, out of breath and with sweat pouring down my face. After the interview I staggered back home along the same river path, this time too exhausted to heed the wood notes wild. Back at last to my little hole, I peeled off my shoes, unwrapped my coat and scarf, and fell into a chair. I still had to go grocery shopping that day and had scheduled several hours to write up the history of the door knob. But one look at my comfy, disheveled bed, with the fluffy pillows scattered about it like clouds in the sky, and the die was cast. The rest of the world could go hang -- I was napping.
(FYI: I did not get the job.)
Since then I have learned to overcome my aversion to daytime napping, and now consider myself to be somewhat of an aficionado.
My nap strategy is simple. When I have to get up at 3 in the morning to use the bathroom (which is most nights) I know I will not be getting back to sleep again. So I brew myself a cup of Bengal Spice herbal tea, sit down to my laptop, and start writing. I write limericks, quatrains, memoirs, essays, apothegms, as well as committing many other literary offences. Then I take several pills the doctor insists will keep me from inflating like a blow fish. And then I carefully plan out breakfast. Will it be bacon and eggs, with buttered toast and a glass of prune juice? Or shall I indulge my ethnic bent with a fresh bagel and some lox, washed down with horchata? Perhaps several toaster waffles are called for, drowned in butter and molasses, with a side of Jimmy Dean's pork sausages and a mug of hot chocolate. Once this delightful chore is finished, I immediately go back to bed until about 10 a.m.
Then arise to prepare and demolish my breakfast. Or brunch, if you want to be persnickety about it.
On the rare days I manage to sleep until a decent hour, I do not schedule a nap, but simply wait for a delicious drowsiness to overtake me whenever it pleases in the afternoon, and then go lay down on top of my bed, covered with a thin cotton blanket (shades of kindergarten!) Once I'm up again I take another set of pills that my medico assures me will prevent goiters and keep my prostate in line. And then I read something edifying for several hours until dinner time -- right now I am perusing Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, as well as Thurber's My Life and Hard Times. Dinner is often nothing more than ramen noodles with some pickled vegetables and a hard boiled egg. I keep my culinary extravagances strictly to the mornings. I spend my evenings distributing alms to destitute Green Party candidates, or watching Netflix. I'm in bed by ten.
With so many of my kids scattered up and down Utah Valley, I often have to deal with dinner invitations and birthday parties for the grand kids. This sometimes puts a kink in my napping regime, but I've learned to be flexible. When I am invited over I immediately wrangle the most comfortable chair in the living room and remain there throughout the proceedings. I even eat there instead of at the table, claiming the prerogative of a decaying pantaloon to sup where he pleases.
After long years of practice with my own kids, I have learned to tune out the bedlam my grand children create at the drop of a fruit roll up. So I snuggle into my chair if the mood hits me, and drift off into a grandfatherly nap. My kids think this is rather cute. It adds a folksy touch to the gathering, what with dear old grandpa slumped over in his chair, a thin thread of drool issuing from his mouth.
Unfortunately, little children seem to have a fascination with elderly eyeballs. At least my grand kids do. Whenever I begin to snore and burble like a stream in spate, one of them is bound to crawl into my lap and give me a gentle poke in the eye. Not out of malice, mind you, but simple curiosity as to what's under the lid. Maybe they think I keep Hershey kisses there. Once they are satisfied that it is merely a common, garden variety eyeball, they jump off my lap and go back to their video games. And I try to go back to my nap. Unless there's some leftover dessert . . .
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