Mama Partridge, Wherefore Are Thou?

So here I am having one of those middle-age epiphanies I seem to have a lot of lately, watching a “Partridge Family” rerun and discovering that for some reason Shirley Jones looks better to me than Susan Dey, a stunning change in personal taste no less extreme than, say, joining the Reform Party or suddenly following the American League. A defining moment. A philosophical triple reverse.

“You know, Mama Partridge looks pretty good,” I tell the boy, who thinks of the Partridge Family the way I think of Benny Goodman or Bix Beiderbecke. “I don’t know why she never remarried.”

“I don’t know, Dad,” he says.

And we watch a few minutes of the Partridge Family singing, with the youngest Partridge Family daughter hitting the tambourine at all the wrong times. The rest of the Partridge Family is singing one song, and the little girl seems to be singing another. I hate to say it, but this poor kid is the Ringo Starr of the Partridge Family. Excess baggage.

“Who’s that?” the boy asks.

“Ringo Partridge,” I tell him.

“Oh,” he says, not really getting the reference.

*

Which is when my lovely and patient older daughter comes along, pencils in her fist, homework in her eyes. Like a lot of older daughters, she quickly senses that something is wrong.

“Dad, are you having a seizure?” she asks.

“No, just an epiphany,” I tell her.

“Same thing,” she says.

I take small satisfaction in realizing that at least she recognizes the word, that she didn’t say, “What’s an epiphany?” An epiphany is different from a seizure. But at least she recognized the word.

“What’s an epiphany?” the boy asks.

“A seizure,” his sister explains.

“It’s more like . . . a revelation,” I say.

“Whatever,” my older daughter says with a shrug.

And she snuggles up next to me on the couch, with her homework and her four kinds of colored pens, little notes jotted on her wrist. Smelling like gum.

“Sorry,” she says, accidentally stabbing me with her pens.

“That’s all right,” I say, accustomed to being stabbed.

She is a good student, a hard-working 11th-grader with one eye on college, preparing for the outside world with gigantic doses of biology and calculus and Spanish--stuff you need in the 21st century if you are going to amount to anything. Ceramics, too. She also takes ceramics.

“Dad,” she asks.

“Huh?” I say.

“Is your seizure over?” she asks.

“Pretty much,” I say.

“Can you help me with ‘King Lear’?” she asks.

“Shirley Jones looks pretty good,” I say, turning back to the TV.

Now, like most people, I remember bits and pieces of Shakespeare. A little “Othello.” A little “Macbeth.” Twenty years after college, that’s what I remember of Shakespeare. Mostly snippets.

“Great play,” I tell her.

“ ‘King Lear’?” she says.

“Unbelievable,” I say.

I am trying to psyche her up for Shakespeare, because if you remember high school, Shakespeare was a tough sell. His works feature a lot of beautiful language, spoken by adults more than 300 years ago. It’s hard for a teenager to believe that anything an adult says can be all that fascinating.

“ ‘King Lear’s’ the one with the poison sword,” I tell her.

“He is?” she asks.

“No, wait--that’s ‘Hamlet,’ ” I say.

“Oh,” she says.

“ ‘King Lear’ is the one with the ungrateful daughter,” I tell her. “In the end, he dies of a broken heart.”

“Wow, a broken heart,” she says.

“They can treat that now,” I assure her.

But in Shakespeare’s plays, I tell her, people are always dying from broken hearts, or deceitful lovers, or poison wine.

“It’s not exactly ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ ” I say, “but I think you’ll like it.”

“Sure, Dad,” she says skeptically.

So we sink back in the couch and read a little “King Lear” together, and it is indeed slow going, with that complex secondary plot about Gloucester and his two sons, one faithful and the other evil.

We stop at certain points to talk over what has happened, then read some more--elegant and sweeping language, some of which we doth decipher.

Tell me, my daughters--since now we will divest us both of rule . . . which of you shall we say doth love us most?

“What’s that mean?” she asks.

“You tell me,” I say.

“He’s giving them his kingdom?” she asks.

“Right,” I say.

“But only if they kiss up,” she says.

“Exactly,” I say.

After 45 minutes of this, my eyes grow weary. It’s been a long day. Two soccer games. Now, a heaping dose of Shakespeare. The little book we’re reading from seems to weigh 50 pounds. Like poisoned wine, it makes me drowsy.

Sir, ‘tis my occupation to be a pain.

“Dad, you’re inserting wrong words,” my daughter says.

“Huh?” I say.

“My occupation to be plain,” she tells me.

“You sure?” I say.

“Yes, Dad,” she says. “I’m sure.”

We read a little more Lear, the glorious words growing bleary on the page. No matter how hard I try, the words grow fuzzy on the page.

This is not Lear. Does Lear walk thus, speak thus? Where are his pies?

“Where are his eyes, Dad,” she says. “Not pies.”

“Pie? We’re having pie?” I ask, suddenly awake.

“Yeah, Dad,” she says. “Go have some pie.”

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.