One of the things that really helps is finding friends and other parents who are willing to pitch in, to volunteer with the troops or the club, to pick up or drop off our kids, or to just have them spend the night before they're all supposed to go someplace.
This weekend has been a pretty good example. On Friday night after work, Kathleen drove over to Grand Ledge top watch Rosie perform in the high school concert band competition, while I went home and fell asleep in the recliner.
I was supposed to be taking Emmy and her friend Alisha shopping for the various supplies they were going to need the next morning for the softball club round-up and pancake breakfast, an event that they organized as their Silver Award project for Girl Scouts. But it was a long and busy week, so I dozed off. And Emmy let me sleep until Kathleen got home.
Then we all went out and did the shopping—Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, Kroger and Meijer, each place for different things that the girls had researched and identified as the best prices for what we were going to need—after which we went over to the high school to pick up Rosie at a little after 10 PM when the bus brought her and the rest of the band back from Grand Ledge. (They did well over there, BTW—scored all "ones," which is the top score.)
When we got home, we unpacked all the groceries and then repacked and arranged them with the roaster oven, the griddle, a couple of coolers, various utensils and other stuff we were going to need the next day. By around 11 PM, the rest of us went to bed, while Emmy and Alisha stayed up and worked on some posters. Alisha spent the night at our house, so we all could be back at the high school at 7:30 AM to start setting up for the breakfast.
That meant we were up at about 5:30 AM on Saturday to get everyone ready and pack the cars, so we could be over at the high school a little before 7:30. But it was worth it. We had a little better turnout than we'd hoped for (we planned for about 75 and got about 80), signed up 30 girls (including a handful of newcomers to the club—more registrations this early than any time in recent memory), and made back all of our expenses plus about a hundred bucks, which was good because this was intended as a marketing event, not a fundraiser, and it was possible that it would end up costing us money.
Best of all were all the coaches and parents who came out and volunteered, assuring that everyone got fed and that anyone with any questions about teams or leagues could get them answered by someone who was actually involved in the club.
After getting everything cleaned up and cleared out, we went home and put away all of the stuff. I updated the club website, then headed back out to take Emmy (and her friend Elena) shopping for an outfit to wear to the symphony on her middle school band trip to
Emmy is a good kid, and has learned to be responsible about stuff like this. She actually did the research online and found some slacks and a shirt that were on sale at JCPenney. As it turned out, she got a different shirt—silk, regularly $50, marked down to $15—and the slacks that were on sale for $20 were marked down to $15 as well. Kathleen picked up a couple of other things, and that totaled enough to reach the $50 threshold, which meant we could use a $10 off coupon that the cashier directed us to. Then we got 15% off the final price for using the Penney's card. By the time we left the store, I was wondering if they were going to have to pay us to carry the stuff away!
Next it was down to the Girl Scout cookie booth at Sam's Club on the south end of town, where Emmy and Elena had to work for two hours. When Emmy got home, we took her over to Alisha's house to spend the night. (She was invited for dinner as well, but they were having fish and Emmy doesn't like fish, so she kinda dragged her feet. As you might imagine, Fridays during Lent are tough on her.)
Next I headed over to Kroger to do a little more grocery shopping—we'd invited some friends to join us for a late St. Patrick's Day celebration with corned beef and cabbage on Sunday night. By the time I got home, I fell into bed and didn't get up until nearly 8 the next morning.
It was actually a pretty quiet morning on Sunday. I checked my e-mail, did another update on the website, had some breakfast, got a shower, then headed over to the high school again for the weekly softball skills clinics.
It was a beautiful morning, a little chilly, but bright sunshine and whiff of spring floating on the breeze. So naturally we spent the next couple of hours indoors. But it was a useful couple of hours, probably the best single day we ever had at the clinics in terms of kids attending and coaches and parents showing up to help out.
We had a huge crop of first-time pitchers, and that’s a good thing. Most of them were girls who will be playing U10 this summer—the age when they start pitching—and one of the goals we have is to develop not only players, but pitchers who can one day pitch on the high school teams. Pitchers win the games for you in softball, and the more we develop, the more successful both our program and the high school program will be in coming years. We also had two batting cages going in the auxiliary gym, and a handful of coaches in there, taking them through some work on the batting tees, then soft toss, and then into the cage. Good pitching is important, but you have to score runs to win as well.
Emmy and Alisha missed the clinics this week, because they were working at the cookie booth. Rosie brought her friend Kam, who is playing softball for the first time on the high school team. Sarah was there as well, her usual autonomous self, going from station to station on her own, working on her hitting, her throwing and her catching.
I heard good things about all three girls who were there.
Rosie’s summer coach told me she saw improvement in Rosie since the last clinics two weeks ago, most likely attributable to her practicing every day with the high school team. None of my daughters are particularly gifted when it comes to natural athletic ability, so it makes me proud when they work hard and are successful as they’ve been.
I heard from two different coaches that Kam was doing well, and that she listens when they coach her and seems to pick stuff up pretty fast. She’s a martial artist and a good learner, so I’m confident she has what it takes to be a good player, despite her lack of experience.
And Sarah’s coach said she did a great job in the batting cage, really hitting the ball. That was good, because she didn’t hit much last year, although in the tournament, when they really needed a hit from her to keep the rally going at the end of the championship game, she came through and they won.
After the clinic, I headed back out to the grocery store. I’d invited Alisha’s family to join us for dinner as well, so now we were up to 14 people and I needed a couple more things. Then it was back home to make Irish soda bread and rice pudding. I had the corned beef already cooking in two crockpots up on the counters and a big casserole dish in the oven, each one with a different mix of vegetables; cabbage, red potatoes, carrots and onions. There was even a little garlic in one dish, although I’m not sure garlic is typically part of Irish cooking. But I find it hard to cook without garlic.
Meanwhile, Kathleen worked on laundry and finished cleaning the house, then was off to the cookie booth again, from 4-6 PM.
People started showing up at 7, we served the food by 7:30, and everyone was fed and on the way home by around 10. We didn’t play Apples to Apples, which disappointed Rosie, but these are folks we really like, so it was good just sitting with them, talking and kind of unwinding. Kathleen and I worked on the dishes, and for the first time since Thursday night, we went to bed with all of our daughters home and with no extras.
Anyway, I was reminded over the weekend that I’ve been working somewhere for the last 36 years, since I was 14 years old.
I started in a movie theater as a janitor and an usher for $15 a week back in 1969, and helped out a friend of mine at a local bakery a few times a week, in return for him helping out at the theater on particularly busy days. From there I went to work in a bed factory, at a ski resort, and back to the theater again, this time as assistant manager.
In the early seventies, I tried going to college for a few years, but bailed out in flames in early 1976 because my heart wasn’t in it and my GPA was bottoming out. I stumbled across a temporary job in a community college bookstore in March of that year, and parlayed that into a regular civil service job there by August, after spending the summer working on the river boat.
That December I began freelancing as a advertising designer, brought a friend of mine out from NYC to help me manage the workload in fall of 1977, and eventually opened up a Studio 1050 in downtown St. Paul for a couple of years in the early eighties, where I hired a variety of freelancers, including, for a time, my dad. I closed the studio but kept freelancing when I went back to college to finally get my degree, and kept working in the bookstore at least three-quarter time during the entire period, even when I eventually went to work on a retainer as an art director for a direct marketing company in Minneapolis for a few years. Then I was hired by the Foreign Service in late 1988.
I served in the Foreign Service—in both Washington, DC and Mexico City—until summer of 1993, getting married to Kathleen (who was a fellow officer) and having two kids along the way. When we left government service and moved to Texas, I became “Mr. Mom,” but also opened a home-based business called River City Advertising and freelanced for local businesses around central Texas, as well as for a I guy I knew from back in Minneapolis, who was now out in San Diego.
When we moved to Indiana, we had a third daughter and I kept on as Mr. Mom, but continued freelancing (dumping the River City name and going back to calling myself Studio 1050).
And a few months after we moved up to Michigan, I started freelancing here as well, picking up a contract with a local school district that ran from just before Thanksgiving to mid-March. A year later I got hired by Michigan State, which was the end of being Mr. Mom. But I still do some freelance work for my pal out in San Diego.
People tell me I’m a team player and that I work hard. I think I do a good job at the things I undertake. I’ll also admit to being an organizer, but I like to think that’s because when I see something that needs doing, I want to help get it done. And if I can get others to join me, it’s going to get done quicker.
My oldest daughter and I were talking about softball this weekend, and one of the things that came up was another player who was on one of our teams—a skilled, even gifted athlete—who I always thought had the capacity to be a leader, but who never led. And we talked about another girl who was on the same team who had a lot less skill, but who was never afraid to speak up and take charge when the team started to lose its focus.
I have no idea what it is that makes people do what they do. I don’t think people set out to be leaders (or not be leaders), I think they just respond as they’re able to the needs of situations in which they find themselves—they offer what they have.
Kathleen and I have been married for 16+ years now, and when people say that’s pretty good, I tell them that our secret is that I just do what I’m told. And while that might be a bit of an exaggeration, that is my comfort zone. I’d much rather have someone else do the thinking and the planning and just tell me what they need me to do. I’d rather be part of the team. But that’s not always possible in every situation, so when something needs to get done and no one is stepping forward, I’ll go ahead and do it and try to get others to join me.
And near as I can tell, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 36 years.
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