Once I finally got settled into my life it was already halfway over. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention? Maybe I was daydreaming too much? Maybe my parents didn’t parent me enough?
Most of us are given a plan, a roadmap, a blueprint for life and if we use these instruments our lives will be a success.
Get an education, get a career, get married, buy a house and have children. The perfect route to success.
What I didn’t know was how quickly all the time goes.
For years I judged time on how slow third period algebra took. The speed of life was caught perfectly when the minute hand ticked back on Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.” That is how the first twenty years of life seemed.
The minute hand might click backwards, but time does not. Time clips away quicker the older we get and with the backload of responsibility that comes along with it.
I don’t tell the Shepkids that a college degree and a good job will make them successful. I tell them it will make life a little easier.
I also want to make sure I give them a better sense of time management.
They need to know if you get caught up in what life should be they will miss out on what life really is.
Life is about riding your bike fast and misjudging the jump over the curb. Skinned knees, skinned elbows and a bent handlebars will continue throughout life.
All the advice my dad gave me growing up and the one thing he forgot to tell me….
“Oh Moose, at some point I’m going to die and you’ll have to do this without me!”
I mean there were hints of this. One Saturday morning I was having breakfast with my parents in the restaurant of the Pittsfield building. When I was a kid my parents went to see Dr. Kling every other Saturday morning. For me it was an adventure, for my parents it was a marriage counselor. Dr. Kling ended up sucking at his job.
Back to the breakfast table. I asked my mom to put butter and grape jelly on my toast and even though I heard her say it, I wasn’t listening…
“You are going to have to learn how to do this for yourself honey. I won’t be here to help you with your toast when you are older.”
That was the foreshadowing of life that I just didn’t follow. To me, my mommy will always be around to put jelly on my toast. I can’t remember the last time she did it, but it wasn’t long after that morning in downtown Chicago.
Every time I put jelly on my toast I think of that morning in the Pittsfield Diner. If the Shepkids are with me when I’m putting grape jelly on my toast they will hear the story of Gramma Ce Ce.
I would stop in the Pittsfield Diner every once in awhile for a bite to eat. Usually after a busy day at work on the trading floor.
The older I got the smaller that diner became. The desk where the building attendant sat was replaced by a touchscreen directory and the comic book stand was really a newspaper stand that sold rolling papers.
George, Fritz, Hazel… pay attention.
You won’t be successful in life without happiness.
You won’t be successful if you are full of hate.
You won’t be successful if you ignore the shadows of the sun.
You won’t be successful without hard work.
You won’t be successful without Faith. Faith in God and faith in yourself.
You won’t be successful without friends and you won’t be successful until you realize the clock is ticking.
It is the last day of June. How many more last days of June do we have?
The last thing I thought about just know and how I’ll end todays Chalkboard.
That fucking now it all owl in the tree. He doesn’t know shit. You know the owl I’m talking about. The arrogant prick that takes the kid’s lollipop. I want to scream at that kid.
“Don’t give that fucking owl your Tootsie Pop! He’s going to lick it three times and bite it”
That owl symbolizes life’s mistakes and that kid captures our wasted youth.
George, Fritz, Hazel…. Please learn for yourselves how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Roll lollipop.
