Rambling Josh

Finally, the episode of This Old Camper I’ve been looking forward to since I started on the remodel of the 1966 Aristocrat Lo-Liner my parents bequeathed us a few years back. The episode where the camper is moved from the spot in our yard that it was backed into 5 years ago, when we brought the little rascal home to whip it into camping shape.

I whip slow, but every episode has been a process of learning processes that only seemed to lead to yet another process of processes. Now the time is drawing near, the time to make a reservation at a campground, drag the comforts of home out to the woods, and hob knob with campground folk.

Our sixteen-year-old son’s suspicion of our fun family camping intent has heightened since noticing the camper’s ceremonious move from the backyard to the driveway. I fielded his first question, “Does that thing have an air conditioner?” by pointing out that it had seven windows that are all in perfect working condition, and that the air does change condition from being outside the camper air to inside the camper air when it passes through them. So yes, there is “air conditioning”.

When he asked, “Where do you plan on taking it?” he seemed to put a lot of emphasis on “you”, but, like any good dad, I’m quite adept at ignoring noise from my children that doesn’t fit into the family fun scheme. It’s for his own good. Maybe for the first outing I’ll leave the camper hooked up to the pick-up at the campground, then if he decides to make a break for the comforts of his electronics riddled room in the middle of the night at least we won’t have to call a cab.

This travel trailer has done a lot of traveling over the past 50 years. It began its journey in California, where it was manufactured by the I.B. Perch Company. They sold five different models, and ours, the Lo-Liner, was called such, because it came with a set of small wheels that you could put on the camper so it would fit in your garage. “Stores in your garage as an extra bedroom for guests, a quiet place to study for the student, a playroom for the children, or a comfortable office for the salesman.” Handy-dandy indeed.

Sadly the lo-liner wheels have disappeared over the past 50 years, but we have used it as a guest room from time-to-time, our daughter spent the better part of a summer sacked out in it as apparent preparation for her separation from the main house when she went to college, and I’ve used it as a man cave when man stuff needed to be pondered.

All of the owner registrations for the camper, since it was rolled off the lot, are in a drawer in the camper. A couple in California were the first owners in 1966, it made a jump to Powers Lake, ND in the 70s, then to Minnesota, back to North Dakota in the 90s, and now South Dakota. It’s been around, but it’s been well taken care of by all that have owned it, and we are quite pleased to have been next in line for the Lo-Liner.

I’ll keep you posted on the “Goin' Campin'” episode of This Old Camper. Tis' the season.

A warm, sunny semblance of summer is beginning to trickle in and take shape. School has been kicked to the curb, and for a few glorious months kids can revel in the unbridled joy of being as dumb as a sack of hammers in an ungraded, academic free Eden of ignorance. Some have taken up permanent residence in this Eden of ignorance, and spend thirteen months a year (give or take) gazing at the hammer’s in their sack. Hammers are fun.

I believe it was Mark Twain who once said, “When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.” Mr. Twain may have had a point, when my brother and I had hammers our Tonka trucks looked like nails. When I had a rubber hammer, my brother’s head looked like a nail, a big round mouthy nail that pushed my buttons until I was left with only one obvious choice. Obvious to all my big brother brethren living in relentless irritation from a little brother.

Every year around this time we hear scuttle about how much learning is lost over the summer, and that we should go to school year-round like other countries. Do you know the source of this scuttle? I have a sneaky suspicion it’s parents that are terrified of the prospect of being the entertainment director for their kids all summer. I’m fairly certain it’s not teachers, and if it were, they would be silenced right quick by their co-workers who would suddenly see them as big round mouthy nails.

“The other countries score better than us in math” the do-gooders lament. Well jolly good for them, but they have to live in other countries. We get to live in America baby! I’ll take our freedoms over long division supremacy any day. You want to sacrifice everyone’s summer so your precious child can score a few points higher in standardized math tests? I have something for you in this sack of hammers I like to lug around. Without summer break things would get ugly quick. To be more specific, teachers would get ugly quick.

As they say, “If you can read this thank a teacher.” If you can’t read this, it’s because the math score ranking lunatics had summer break abolished, and all the teachers quit to pursue their karaoke careers in bars that serve two-for-one fishbowl Kamikaze’s and half priced happy hour bacon and jalapeño poppers. So it goes.

Our daughter opted to come home from college this summer and occupy her rent-free room. She seems to be enjoying Mom and Dad’s reduced rate meal plan, complete with laundry service and dog petting privileges. Our son has not had the opportunity of fending for his own room and board thrust upon him as of yet, so he is blissfully unaware of the potential hunger and hardships life can saddle one with outside the confines of a house owned and occupied by two gainfully employed adults that have a vested interest in his wellbeing.

It is good to have the whole family under one roof for the summer. I know summer’s like this are becoming a precious commodity. As the kids get older, the variables that pull them away from home seem to increase more and more, so I’ll take what I can get when I can get it. What more can we do? Enjoy your summer…it’s hammer time.

When I think back to some of the earliest memories I have of my mom, they generally involve her sitting at her sewing machine surrounded by fabric, zippers, buttons, thread and all the other necessary “stuff” needed to create everything from elf aprons to leisure suits. The creations that fill the gap between elf aprons and leisure suits is not well defined in the sewing literature, but rest assured, if it could be constructed of cloth my mom has probably made it a time or two.

As a child I took the creativity and talent of my mom’s sewing abilities for granted. Mostly because she made it look so easy, but also because children are generally self-absorbed, and lousy judges of creativity or talent. In the eyes of a child, someone that can fart the first verse of Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” is vastly more talented and creative than someone than can sew a one of a kind Rhinestone Cowboy satin snap-up western shirt with tassels and a velvet yoke. My mom did the latter, my brother attempted the former.

Actually, it wasn’t “one-of-a-kind”, my brother had one as well. Mine was black, his was cream-colored, and, “yes” we asked our mother to make them for us. We held those shirts in such high regard that we wore them for our school pictures that year. Thankfully, by then everyone in town had grown accustomed to our “special ways” and we were spared ridicule or tassel tearing scuffles with satin and velvet opposed bullies. Lignite was such a nurturing, caring community. As they say, “It takes a village to raise an idiot.”

After a recent weekend project my appreciation of my mom’s sewing abilities has been elevated another notch or two on the Martha Stewart-O-Meter. This appreciation elevation was prompted by my attempt to sew curtains for our 1967 Aristocrat Camper. Technically, it was not an “attempt”, as I was successful in completing the curtain project, but I’m sure in the eyes of someone more skilled it would be classified as an “attempt”. I gave myself a C-, but I will have to wait for Mrs. Larsen, our high school home economics instructor, to swing by and issue the official grade.

I would have graded the project lower, but I gave myself extra credit for hardly using any foul language. I’m quite confident my mom could have completed the project in half the time with half the cursing. She could out-sew and out-curse me any day of the week, especially Saturdays. Keeping the people of Burke County in high fashion and raising nitwits prompted perfection in both arenas.

While I was sewing the curtains, the sound of the sewing machine kept taking me back to our old house in Lignite. The metallic “click” of the presser foot on the feed dogs (I googled sewing machine parts) slightly muffled by the fabric held firmly between them was a sound that was heard often in our house. I got so engrossed in the entire process that half a day went by without much notice.

Half a day. Precisely the time between the noon siren and the six-o-clock siren that marked the passing of each day during our youth. Now I know that when mom said, “Come home when the whistle blows” it was probably meant more as a command than a request. I had complete silence with no interruptions the entire time I was farting around with my curtain project. No worries of nitwit whereabouts, no progress interrupting lectures needed regarding why the sewing scissors should not be used to cut open freezie pops or trim your brother’s singed hair.

No fires to put out (literally), just peace and quiet punctuated by the “click” and “hum” of the sewing machine. I am my mother’s son, but thankfully, my kids are not like my mother’s nitwits. “Like a rhinestone cowboy…”

Norm was a good dog. I don’t say that about a lot of dogs, mainly because a lot of dogs bark unnecessarily, and unnecessary barking is unnecessary. I’ve tried explaining this logic to barking dogs in a calm civil manner, but have found it as useful as using reason with a toddler. There is no reason, there is no reasoning, there is only noise. Norm was not noisy, Norm was reasonable, thus, Norm was a good dog.

Dogs are said to be “man’s best friend”, but I have a sneaky suspicion that if dogs had opposable thumbs, and could read well enough to pass a driving test and order carry out, our friendship would turn cool, leaning more towards acquaintances. Someone they used to know, someone they hung out with before life got so complicated.

You would wave as they drove by with heads poking out of every window, one of them would ask, “Who was that?” Your dog would pull his head in, reflect for a moment as he stares down the road in front of him…humming softly to the radio, and say, “He used to be my best friend, but you know how it is…we grew apart.” The other dogs would slowly nod as thoughts of their former best friends flittered about with long ago memories of fetch, sit, roll over, and rope tug-o-war.

One of them would lament, “Man, by best friend could throw! He could have played centerfield for the Yankees, but he hit the sauce more consistently than he could hit a curveball, so I spent a lot of time trying to cheer him up. It was exhausting, and slightly humiliating, but what’s a dog to do?”

I suspect dog’s, like people, have other dog’s that they enjoy hanging out with more than others. Dog’s they can just be dog’s around. Run full tilt, wallow in a muddy creak, roll in something rank, chase a few cat’s…whatever…no judgement. I suspect this because my dog, Pre, a quiet, mild mannered black lab, is not very chummy with other dogs. Any dog, other than Norm that is. If dog’s can have a best friend, Norm was Pre’s. They never had a spat, they shared water and food dishes without so much as growl. They were best friends.

Norm was my good friend Paul’s dog. A quiet, mild mannered yellow lab, who loved a bumpy ride through a pasture in a pickup box above all else. Recently, Norm wasn’t feeling well, and it was discovered that he had developed several inoperable tumors on several major organs. Paul had to have Norm put to sleep. Just because a decision is for the best doesn’t make it any easier to make.

Paul and I have known each other for over twenty years. We’ve never had a spat, we’ve shared a lot of laughs, spilt a bit of rum, and traveled near and far without so much as a growl. Although, unlike Norm and Pre, we’ve never been compelled to sniff the south end of a northbound friend. Every good friendship has boundaries.

Norm, you were a good dog, and you are missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing you.

Possessing the ability to order beer, chicken, eggs, or coffee with milk in Spanish does not make me bi-lingual. After all, besides counting to ten, that is about the extent of my Spanish language skills. Skills that took me two college courses in Spanish to attain. Not Spanish 101 and Spanish 102, you have to pass Spanish 101 to advance to 102, but rather Spanish 101 dos times.

I take solace in knowing that at least I won’t starve if I find myself in a country that speaks Spanish, and doesn’t understand English, no matter how many times I repeat a word or how much I increase the volume. If that worked I would have learned Spanish, because it is the technique my friendly, but frustrated, Spanish professor was reduced to almost every day in class. Dr. Linares was a nice man, but even nice guys have their limitations, and I found his.

He probably had dreams of being a code breaker for a spy agency or a suave government diplomat, but instead he was in Aberdeen, SD, ensuring that I, at the very least, could obtain employment as a very, very short-order cook at a Mexican resort that didn’t have more than diez rooms. I would have learned more than numbers one through ten, but as fate would have it, I only have ten fingers, so anything beyond that seemed excessive and unnecessary.

Although, the first time around, I believe Dr. Linares took some delight in failing me, I am fairly certain he passed me the second go round out of fear that my North Dakotan accent was beginning to rub off on him. He would have been laughed out of Taco John’s. I don’t think I’ve ever taken delight in seeing a student fail one of my classes, but as an older brother, I may have taken delight in witnessing my little brother fail a time or two.

The reason I witnessed the failures may have had something to do with my instigating the failure in some way, shape, or form, but let’s not quibble over details. The German’s have a word for pleasure derived from the misfortune of others, “Schadenfreude”. Ironically, I would hazard a guess that there are a few automotive companies experiencing some schadenfreude in regard to Volkswagen’s “exhaustive” issues.

I experienced schadenfreude the other day while watching my son’s tennis matches. A few courts down from where my son was playing there was a young man that wasn’t being very sporting. He was losing, which may have contributed to his angst, but I think the fact that he was losing to kid three feet shorter and five years younger may have pushed him over the edge. Schadenfreude began to grow with each of his angry outbursts of unsportsmanlike frustration, and peaked when he broke his racket by slamming it against the ground.

It is questionable as to whether his racket breaking qualifies as a “misfortune”, since he was the one that broke it, but I can say, without question, that I found great pleasure in it. Pleasure that bumped up to yet another level of schadenfreude when the kids coach gave him a very thorough and very animated talking to regarding his behavior.

Schadenfreude was enjoyed by all, well, almost all.

Our daughter, Sierra, is nearing the end of her sophomore year of college. Unless she ends up on the “scenic route” that I took to reach the end of my undergraduate degree she is half way to the finish line of her bachelor’s degree, and the starting line of what some refer to as “real life”. Of course, if one isn’t quite ready for “real life” there’s always graduate school.

Sierra is enjoying her college experience, and is gaining a lot of valuable knowledge and experience. Knowledge and experience that I hope translates into a satisfying, fulfilling career that provides enough income to make monthly payments on her college experience with enough left over to put me in a retirement home that changes my diaper at least once a week and allows a daily ration of whiskey and a cigar. A parent can dream can’t they?

I knew she would enjoy college, and I know she has chosen a program of study that suits her well, so I am excited to see what the future holds for her. I am excited to see what the future holds for both of my children, but not so much so that I would wish away a minute of time in the present. As I’ve lamented in many past columns, the future will come soon enough.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting out of Sierra’s college experience as a student, was that it would change me as a professor. This change has been for the better, and can be summed up in with the word “empathy”. Being privy to her various experiences, good, bad, and down right frustrating, trying to navigate all the working parts of a university from a parent’s vantage point has increased the empathy I have for my students.

It’s not that I didn’t care about my students before, I just didn’t really concern myself with all that was vying for their energy and attention outside of my classroom. I knew what I wanted them to learn about the subject I was attempting to teach them, but beyond that it didn’t seem like much of my business. After twelve or so years of blabbing in front of young adults, that has changed, and empathy has made me a better teacher.

A teacher that doesn’t just see the students sitting before me in class anymore, but one that sees them, and the bleacher full of people behind them. The bleacher full of family, friends, children, spouses, and former teachers cheering them on and wanting nothing but the best for them.

Having a daughter in college has motivated and inspired me to take a seat in the bleachers behind each of my students, and not be another pain-in-the-posterior professor holding yet another flaming hoop that they need to jump through on their march towards “real life”. I focus much less on what I feel they should know, how they should learn it, why they should learn it, and who I feel they should be striving to become, and instead, focus on, and take sincere interest in, who they want to be and what they need to know to navigate their world. Their “real world”.

College may exist outside of the “real world”, but it is a world, and any world can benefit from a little more empathy.

I often hear, “the music nowadays is terrible” and “these kids don’t know what good music is”. These of course are personal opinions, and like all personal opinions, they are strongly biased and generally void of any semblance of objectivity. Opinions on politics, religion, and preferred brand of saltine crackers also fall into this void. To avoid an inbox full of hate mail I’ll just keep my opinions on the crackers to myself.

Despite the fact that tuning into the radio is free, my wife and I subscribe to satellite radio for our car. Mainly because the endless car dealership and furniture store advertisements that obnoxiously overtake the airwaves between every song makes me want to chew my radio nobs off. This angstful aversion to advertising is also why I can’t watch television. New televisions don’t have any nobs to chew off.

I know the money from these advertisements are necessary to keep the radio waves waving, or whatever it is they do, but I’m also aware that car dealerships and furniture stores exist and that they are rarely not having a super blowout sale of some sort.

My point, I think I had a point, is that with satellite radio I am able to listen to music from the 1940s to the most recent flavor of the day. Over 75 years of music available at the touch of a button. Bringing me to the point I thought I had, music and kids today don’t have exclusive ownership of crappy music, there are turds all over the dial from 1940 to today.

I like some of the music my kids listen to, they like some of the music I enjoy, and we all manage to tolerate that which doesn’t fall into the “some” category. They’ve been subjected to my preferred choice of music since they were wee lads and lasses, and I’m glad they are able to enjoy some of it or at least tolerate it without too much of a ruckus.

I attempt to extend the same courtesy of tolerance towards their choices of music, and even if it doesn’t strike my fancy, I try and hear why it might strike the fancy of my children’s auditory palate. Maybe it gives me deeper insight into the minds of my children. Maybe that’s insight better left alone, but curiosity never hurt anyone, other than the cat.

In honor of my Uncle Tim’s birthday, and St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to share with you a song that Tim and I like to sing when our vocal chords are properly lubricated. It’s called “The Wild Rover” and I expect your well lubricated voice to join in the next time Tim and I give it a go. Sláinte.

I’ve been a wild rover for many a year
And I spent all me money on whiskey and beer
But now I’m returning with gold in great store  And I never will play the wild rover no more 

Chorus:
And it’s No, Nay, never,
No, nay never no more  Will I play the wild rover,  No never no more 

I went into an alehouse I used to frequent  And I told the landlady me money was spent  I asked her for credit, and she answered me nay  Such a customer as yours I can have any day 

Chorus

Then from out of me pocket, I took sovereigns bright  And the landlady’s eyes opened wide with delight  She said “I have whiskeys and wines of the best  And the words that I spoke were only in jest” 

Chorus

I’ll go home to my parents, and confess what I’ve done  And I’ll ask them to pardon their prodigal son  And perhaps they’ll caress me as oft times before  And I never will play the wild rover no more 

Chorus

I have coffee with my Grandpa Ardell and Grandpa Fritz every Sunday morning. I don’t have Miss Cleo on speed-dial, I’m not neighbors with the Long Island Medium, nor do I hold séances or hover over a Ouija board. I simply pour a cup of coffee, look towards the north, hoist the cup once in my left hand and once in my right, and let thoughts of them rise up with the warm, gentle swirl of steam coming from my cup. Black coffee with two heaping spoonful of fond memories.

The cup is not actually mine, it was my Grandpa Ardell’s. It’s a souvenir cup that was sold by St. Mary’s church during the 1982 Lignite Diamond Jubilee. Some of you most likely have one amongst the menagerie of coffee cups we seem to acquire through the years. One side of the cup has a picture of St. Mary’s church, which includes the brick bell holder that my Grandpa Fritz made. This one cup covers a lot of bases and effectively conjures up a lot of memories.

That church was where my parents were married, my siblings and I baptized, and my brother and I not-so-willingly served as altar boys. Its basement is where we attended catechism, partook in more potlucks than you can shake one of Marlene Schmidt’s delicious finger sandwiches at, and attempted to be “wise” and “men” while wearing dresses in the Christmas pageant.

The part of Joseph was a speaking part, and was reserved for someone they could trust to stick to the script and only say what was supposed to be said. Our mom was one of the catechism teachers, so my brother and I were not on the short-list for that part. Casting us as the silent wise men was an attempt to shut us up for about 15 minutes a year. Our mother’s gift to herself, and a true Christmas miracle.

That church is also where I broadcast my first, and last, live performance of Elvis Presley’s hit “Hound Dog”. As an altar boy I was privy to how to access, and crank up, the church sound system. My classmate, Travis Chrest, the only fan in attendance, and who also happens to be the one that bet me fifty cents that I wouldn’t do it, enjoyed the brief show immensely. Our catechism teacher, apparently not a big fan of “The King”, pulled the plug on the whole production before I got to the second verse.

All of these memories from a simple coffee cup. I’m not suggesting we spend an inordinate amount of time living in the past, shutting ourselves out from the present, but rather just setting aside a few minutes here and there to tune into those “golden oldies” and enjoy that station that is unique to each of us. I guess that coffee cup is my amplifier, it helps me see and hear all those memories a little louder and a bit clearer.

I speak and write of them often, their influence is ever present. My Grandpa Ardell’s entertaining “gift of gab”, my Grandpa Fritz’s preference for the solitude of his woodshop. Two sides of the same cup.

There have been a few “special days” this past week; International Darwin Day was celebrated on February 12th, my brother Jarvis’s birthday on the 13th, Valentine’s Day the 14th, and President’s Day on the 15th. All worthy days of recognition and celebration to various degrees, for various people, for various reasons.

International Darwin Day implores us to celebrate “intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, and hunger for truth”. No matter your understanding or stance on evolution those three tenants could easily be a means to increase the joy and fulfillment in most any facet of our lives. Living an unexamined and unexplored life in opposition of these suggestions is another option I suppose. As my high school shop and history teacher, the Reverend Leonard Savelkoul, who passed away on February 6th, 2002, used to say, “Ignorance is bliss.”

He was not an ignorant man, and always uttered this saying in a heavily sarcastic and exhausted tone when a student didn’t see the necessity of learning the knowledge Mr. Savelkoul was attempting to impart on our teenage minds. I admit that I would not be nearly as troubled if I chose to remain ignorant of some of the goings on in this world, but if we know we just might be able to help, and helping others is a blissful enterprise as well. Unless you’re trying to help middle schoolers. I substitute taught for those hormone riddled monsters once, and experienced no bliss whatsoever.

As easy and comfortable as ignorance may be, I encourage you to give the Darwin Day suggestions a whirl, and see how you evolve. I have a feeling the changes you incur will outlast any changes the box of chocolates, negligee, and roses from Valentine’s Day brought about. I have nothing against negligee, it’s a bit drafty and lace chafes something terrible, but it gets you plenty of personal space in the changing room at the YMCA and might get you out of chaperoning your kid’s school field trips.

Although, curiously venturing into a Victoria Secret to buy negligee for your wife on Valentine’s Day is brave, it is far from intellectual, and might reveal a truth your wife would rather not reveal. So I would caution applying the Darwin Day suggestions to that area of your life. Besides, it will just end up wadded up in that dresser drawer that houses all the other Valentine’s purchases you’ve made in the name of love over the years. The Victoria Secret drawer, a drawer of blissful ignorance.

Thankfully my wife is not a big Valentine’s Day aficionado, so I don’t have any expectations of glitz and grandeur to try and unsuccessfully live up to. Husband’s don’t need a special day set aside to unsuccessfully live up to expectations our wives have for us. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s not that we don’t love you, we’re just ignorant. Blissfully so. Besides, women live longer, you have plenty of time to mount a search for a less ignorant, more evolved substitute. Good luck.

As the great Irish writer Oscar Wilde once said, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” His full name, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, is hardly a moniker of moderation, and he seemed to be conflicted by the idea of moderation, as he was also quoted as saying, “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” He probably uttered those words after his visit to the United States in the 1880s.

This country of ours is not without issues, but overall it is a great success in many ways. Many of these successes have been the result of people not being complacent with a moderate amount of success. A continuous insatiable appetite for more, seems to be the prevailing force behind many of our countries great successes…and its failures. How does one know when the gap between success and excess has been bridged? When is enough of anything truly enough? At what point does positive success turn to negative excess?

I have been involved in sports in various capacities for a large portion of my life, either as a participant, a coach, a parent, or professionally, as an athletic trainer. Each of these modes of involvement allows for a varying and unique perspective regarding the sport in question. I believe that the perspective I have gained as an athletic trainer has offered me the clearest, most unbiased, view of the culture of sports. This view is not concerned about winning or losing, not concerned about how much playing time one kid is getting in comparison to another, not concerned about much of anything, except for the safety and well-being of the athletes.

What I have seen from this perspective is that moderation has given way to chronic excess, and in many cases the act of simply playing for the enjoyment of playing has been taken from our young athletes. I believe that sports are great for building character, teaching the importance of teamwork, and provide a means of expressing talent and hard work. For a very, very small percentage of the population, sports can be a way to make a living, to become famous, to make money…a lot of money, an excessive amount.

Is this small percentage of professionals being paid large amounts of money the driving force behind making the sports experience for many kids a miserable apathetical slog towards achieving the hopes and dreams of others? If a kid needs to be regularly coerced or forced to practice and play a sport “for their own good” they will not enjoy the experience for their own good or for yours.

Young athletes are not voiceless, brainless material goods brought into our lives for the purpose of living out the life we feel we could have had if our parents hadn’t been so busy trying to make something of their own lives. Instead of wastefully funneling the family’s financial resources into food, clothing, and education they should have been flying me around the country to year-round baseball camps in support of my dream to play shortstop for the Yankees.

To be fair, my parents drove me to Minneapolis for a tryout with the Twins, flew me to Colorado for a tryout with the Rockies, and willingly funded my travels to Reds and Braves tryout camps. They did not make me do any of this “for my own good”, rather, they let me do it out of support for something I thoroughly enjoyed. My parents have always been supportive of whatever it is that interests us. Supportive, not excessive, and I have tried to toe that same line with my children.

Let young people explore their interests and curiosities. Resist the urge to make them specialize in one sport or activity early on “for their own good” and the good of the professional career you have planned for them. Exploration of diverse activities makes for a more interesting and well-rounded individual (research indicates a better athlete as well). Also, resist the temptation to view every single interest and talent a child has as the beginning of a lucrative professional career.

The ice auger that has been hanging in the rafters of my garage for the past four years was not bought because I had aspirations to be a professional ice fisherman. It was bought because I thought it might be enjoyable. I found out that what I enjoyed was eating fish, not fishing. As adults we allow ourselves to explore various interests and hobbies for the sake of curiosity and personal satisfaction. Let’s allow our children to do the same.