Dad's wisdom

Dear friend,

Before we go any further, please understand in the irony of life, the little gem in play here is called a "Double Edged Safety Razor." It's strange how one word can make an entire phrase a great lie. Here, the offending word would be "safety." Keep in mind, this was during an age seat belts were thought to be a general nuisance, and the high school library had a book you could check out called "The Poor Man's James Bond" which told you how to make gun powder and smoke bombs from easy to find ingredients, so safety was still an emerging concept.

I was shaving with these when my father and I had what would be our only spiritual conversation for a period of about three decades. I was a junior in college, getting ready to go out with a girl I'd gone out with as a freshman. She was never a family favorite. My down the hall, and stood outside the open door of the bathroom. He waited until he was able to make angry eye contact with me in the mirror. And then blurted out, "Do you know what the Proverb says? A fool returns to his own folly like a dog to his own vomit." And then he turned on his heel and stomped out of the house. As he passed my mother, who was stirring up pizza dough, he said, "He's got to know, Patty. He's just got to know." And the the door slammed. And I was left to stare in the mirror, where the safety blade had just taken a six inch slice across my chin.

Now, to me, there are a lot of better things that could be quoted from the book of Proverbs at that point. "Don't give your son life advice when he's holding anything sharp near his jugular vein," would probably be important, at least if your son already struggles with fine motor control. Or "If you're stupid enough to try to date three girls at the same, one of which is a high school senior who has given you an 11X15 senior picture that is currently sitting in a frame on your desk, maybe put it away, or you're not going to have to worry about dating either of the other two after a hot minute" But that wasn't Dad's style. And I don't think they're in there. Probably, because those are the things that "everyone should know."

There's the reason you're not going to get that from me very often, friend. Because I've got plenty of my own folly to deal with, and I'm not going to camp out waiting to make angry eye contact with you waiting to fix yours. You'll figure it out. Or your dad will tell you. Forgive him if the cut stings. Because he means well. Even if the cut really stings. For what it's worth.

thus spake,

me