Here’s
a great idea for someone for a movie plot or a book. How about if we do a story
based on an animals in the wild showing how the father tries to get the kids to
leave the den and the mother trying to keep them for some longer period of time?
You know kind of a human-interest type of thing from an animal point of view. We
could interview lions, bears and birds. Set cameras out and see what happens. I
suspect we’d see the same thing no matter what we tried. Momma bird waits
until the babies are almost too big for the nest until she gets to the point
where she starts to teach them to fly…On the other hand Poppa bird wants them
out and gone as soon as possible.
Now, the point of this discussion is to point
out that we are all the same, animal or human. Case in point. The other night
about 11:30 the phone rings. Now, if you’re like us, the phone ringing after
9pm generally means something is wrong somewhere. I know for a fact that we
don’t get over 2 or 3 calls after 10 PM in any given year. So, when it rings,
I get alert real quick. In the old days, when I was a kid folks used to feel the
same way about telegrams. They generally meant death or dying. When I was
little, my Grandmother showed me the telegram from the War Department telling
her that her son (my Uncle) had been killed. No wonder people were apprehensive
about the Western Union truck pulling up to their door. Well, enough of
that.
The emergency from the other night was one
concerning our 26-year-old. Seems he had gone to eat somewhere, and while he was
in this place his keys come up missing. No car key, no door keys, nothing. So
here he is close to midnight, stuck in a café and thinking if he leaves that
someone will drive off with his new car. I’m ok with the story until this
point. Now, he wants his mother, not me, to get up, get dressed and drive to his
apartment, wake up the apartment manager and get a key to his place. Go inside,
get his extra set of keys and bring them to him. This plan does not make sense
to me. First off, if someone did steal his keys, then they can figure out where
he lives and use the keys to get inside and steal all of his stuff. Also some of
our stuff, which is on loan. Second, since he will have to have the locks
changed, why not call a locksmith and do it now?
Might as well bite the bullet and get a
locksmith to open his car and change the locks and then go home or over here
until the next morning. This seems like a reasonable plan to me, but not to my
wife. She thinks she should go and get the keys from his apartment and solve the
problem. Me, I want to go back to sleep. In the first place he’s 26. Second
place, he’s been in the Navy for 4 years and it’s not like he’s stranded
out in some remote part of the world. He’s with some friends and he has money.
Problem solved. Come back to bed and let’s get some sleep. Poppa Bear wants
baby bear to get his berries on his own. Momma Bear wants what? You got it. She
gets up, gets dressed and heads down to where he is; leaving me to answer phones
and coordinate the rescue from the home headquarters. Turns out some guy who
came into the place picked up my son’s keys by accident and discovered them
once he got home. Really nice of him to drive back and return them.
This whole episode kind of reminds me of kids
with mittens. Moms worry about their little, tiny hands getting cold and Dads
think they should do a better job of keeping up with their cold weather gear.
Serves them right for losing them. Let that be a lesson to you. Moms want to
make certain they are ready for the world and Dads feel they can only learn by
being out there in the world. Two different points of view on the same subject.
Somehow it all seems to work and usually the young ones find their way out into
the real world at some point or another. Kind of like Fathers and swimming
isn’t it?
I remember that our kids took lessons to
learn how to swim from some swimming academy. I learned at the Red Cross. Now,
there isn’t anything wrong with either approach. It’s just that Father’s
would toss the kids into the lake and expect them to sink or swim. Moms don’t
do that. Moms sign them up for lessons and drive them to and from. It all works
out in the end doesn’t it? If you’ll notice at the Super Bowl….whenever
they focus in on some player, they always shout…
"Hi Mom…." It’s never
…"Hello Dad." Maybe there’s a reason, maybe Dad’s are sometimes
just too hard on our kids. Some young kid came over this morning to do some work
for me. It was cold and I asked him where was his jacket? He said he had
forgotten it. I told him it was probably because his Mother wasn’t there to
remind him. He kind of stared off into space and said.."Yes, I wish she
had…." I walked back into the house and got him a coat to wear while he
was here. So much for that old …throw ‘em in the water and see what happens
theory. Maybe the older you get, the easier you want it to be….I don’t know.
I can still learn. As always…send comments, suggestions on directions on where
I can pick up a check to me at
