Parents & Sons

‘The last time we smoked weed together, my mother passed me a joint and said, ‘Son, smoking is bad for you.’’

My mother and I in Moscow, some 25 years ago. She is younger here than I am now. But isn’t she beautiful?

Hear the words “90s in Russia,” and instantly, images flood in — crime, theft, bloody violence on the streets. And with that, the sense of opportunity, business, and status — a chance to change your life.

I imagine it felt the same for those first American settlers heading west.

You’re in a bar, sipping bourbon, when some ragged-looking man motions you closer.

“Psst,” he whispers. “They say there’s gold in California.”

“Gold?!” you say, leaning in. “Tell me more.”

That night, you go home, bang your fist on the wooden table, and proclaim to your wife and eleven children: “Family! That’s it! We’re moving west!”

By morning, your worldly possessions are packed into a caravan covered in stretched animal skin — and you’re off.

On the way, nine of your eleven children die of hunger or dysentery. Somewhere around the Rockies, coyotes eat your wife, leaving only a mud-stained dress. You don’t care — where you’re going, there will be plenty.

After a year — hollow-eyed, half-mad, dragging your last two children behind you as makeshift wagon…