On the way home from a baseball game for one of my other sons, I get a call. It is my oldest son letting me know that I have an assignment for school. His class is doing a time capsule, except it isn't a capsule, it is a file folder, and it isn't going in the ground, it is going in a filing cabinet. I am to write a letter to him. He is to open it when he graduates in four years. I guess it is an ok idea. A lot can happen in four years.
He told me it didn't have to be much, a few sentences. Mind you it is about 9:30 at night and my bed time is rapidly approaching. I tell him he is crazy and that his teacher wil just have to wait a day or two.
I finally got around to doing it and it turned out to be rather fun for me. I guess that they expect a parent to give words of congratulation and perhaps a few words of advice. I took the opportunity to give lots of advice. Four typed pages of advice. Twenty five hundred words of advice, and still didn't get it all in.
It included things such as advice on saving, education, marriage, health, friends, character, and much more. Nothing earth shattering, but rather a compilation of all the thing that I have been teaching and showing him for the last fourteen years. At fourteen they know everything. Perhaps at eighteen it will mean more. Who knows?
I'm thinking about posting it, but I don't want to bore anyone. Plus, he's not to read it before graduation. Well see what kind of comments I get. I am also thinking about finishing it so I can be ready for the next five kids. You now, just touch it up to make it relevant for that particular child and print it out.
I would like to call it a lecture on steroids, but it much more than that. One of the things I mentioned in "the letter" was that everything in doesn't have to be experienced first hand. Careful observance or study of others successes and failures can teach us a great deal, hopefully shortening the learning curve, without having to go through he pain and heartache that accompany bad decisions. Not that I have been through so much, but you don't have to look hard to find someone that has been through what you are about to face, or at least something similar. You don't have to divorce your wife to see how it destroys a family. There are plenty of examples around. That may be the extreme, but you get the idea.
Anyway, I got a kick out of doing it, and if it help him just a little I will think it a success.
El Toro Negro
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