In just a few weeks, I’ll have to come up with a new excuse to keep from doing any chores around the house. I know you have heard this before, but this is my last semester (I hope) at school. The way it is now, when my child bride asks me to mow the lawn or wash the car, I can always stumble around the house and say I have too much homework. I wouldn’t be lying because these last few weeks are getting hard. So many papers to write and my muse has run out of things for me to say.
I really like going to school, but the homework is not made for a person that still has to mow the lawn or wash the car or hoe the weeds or whatever. Some folks ask me why, at my age, I’m going back to school. Well, it’s because I didn’t do it in the normal way. I thought I knew it all by the time I was 17, so I thought I would try something besides working in the fields. Of course I wish I had done things in line with expectations: finish high school and go to college. If I had gone to college, I would have majored in some agricultural field. That was the only thing I was any good at during high school. I even won $5 once on some test I took and had not prepared for. I guess the others had studied less than me.
Isn’t it funny how one thing leads to another when you are writing? I have to turn in a 20-page thesis about my time in the Army and my time in college. It won’t be hard. All I have to do is write about what I am going to do when I graduate. There’s no job waiting for me like my sons had. I can tell you, again, that I am going to write a book or story of some kind because it is cool to learn new things when you are my age. The teachers and counselors are always asking if I want to go to graduate school.
I didn’t particularly like school when I was young. I’m not too crazy about it today, but I will get through it. Right now it is the final things you do before you graduate. Of course I wish I could invite you, but the ceremony where you get to wear a robe and mortar board won’t happen until next semester. I would be lying if I said I’m not excited. When my boys walked out on the stages of the schools they were graduating from, I was so proud my shirt wouldn’t fit around my chest. I hope they are proud of me.
You know, it occurred to me that you loyal readers know about as much about my family as I do. You have read about almost all their activities since they were infants. Raising the boys was certainly different than raising my daughter.
When Tara was a very young girl, it was her and I. I taught her what I knew about girls. I discovered I didn’t know all that much about girls, but it was still easy because she was my wingman. She probably would have dressed in combat boots and leather shorts had I not met Lorraine. However, I did meet Lorraine and she showed me what it is to be a young lady.
The thing I discovered about kids is that I wanted to be one again. I forced myself into almost every adventure they ever had. I wanted to be a kid every time I taught my boys something, I learned something too. I rode a motorcycle right beside them; I took them to the landfill and let them drive my pickup. I taught them how to drive on a highway right out there on the 101. I get to reach back into my memory almost every week when I get to tell you what we have been doing as they got older. Now they are on their own.
Tara has given me two wonderful grandkids, and the boys are out on their own discovering that the plastic card that always worked for Lorraine and I doesn’t work if you have no money in the bank. Wow! That reminds me of a great story, but I have to quit because I don’t have any more room to write. Tell you about that next week.
God bless.
