The Happy News thread

[honeybee]

I have the feeling she knew exactly what your dad needed at that point in his life.

To this day, she says he's the smartest person she's ever personally known and that even as a teenager - she couldn't figure out why he didn't do better in school or didn't appear to have any ambition. My dad's parents were old school - failure in school meant failure in life and stupidity - and my mom, the future special ed teacher, just recognized that my dad needed something different than what he was getting.

With all the heat the Catholic Church is getting these days, deservedly so, the Jesuit Brothers at the prep school and later Boston College somehow were able to connect to my Dad in a way that his public school teachers didn't. I'll always have a soft spot for those brothers - who were doing what they were supposed to be doing.

[aadarshinah]

There's something to be said for religous schools. I went to a Moravian boarding school for high school - and am most certainly not a Moravian - but there was definately a higher moral standard expected... Maybe not solely applicable to the religious element, but definately a part of it.

[honeybee]

There's a very fine Moravian school in Bethlehem, PA where many of my colleagues send their children. And my maternal grandmother went to a Moravian school in Wisconsin - back in the 1920s.

Oh, and here's a picture of my Mom & Dad. My Dad was totally adhd, frankly. He never drove fast - but he loved boats and planes.

[aadarshinah]

Wow! Love the picture. My parents, well, there are no good ones of them - not together, at least.

My school was in North Carolina... all-girls too. Loved it. But, as they say in M. Butterfly, "Well, there’s no guarantee of failure in life like happiness in high school."
... And, on that note, I have to be up at o'dark-thirty tomorrow again, so... nite all

[Kotik]

Anyway, get well soon, Kotik! I hope someday you find true love.


edited to add: No matter what sympathetic position you are in, insulting someone's mother is liable to squander it.

Nobody was intending to insult your mother. If that sounded like that, please accept my appology. To me it just sounded like "I'm not gonna marry you because you didn't go to college." - which sounds odd.Saying "I will marry you after you finished your college." would have had a different ring to it.

It was never out to insult someone. I merely expressed the impression that this sentence left on me.

[honeybee]

Actually Kotik, your response insulted not only my mother, but any woman or girl who dared set a standard for herself. But you've been through a lot - so you can be forgiven a crabby and incorrect assumption.

[Kotik]

Actually Kotik, your response insulted not only my mother, but any woman or girl who dared set a standard for herself. But you've been through a lot - so you can be forgiven a crabby and incorrect assumption.

I misread the sentence as sounding elitist. Sometimes it pays to read things twice before responding, I obviously didn't do it in that case

[justTripn]

Is is safe to step back into the happy news thread? *Desperately tries to think of some happy news* OH! My horrible, horrible deadline at work will be met today if I can focus. And then I plan to start enjoying my summer! I'm going to swim every afternoon after work and finally finish Season 4 of Farscape by staying up late doing movie marathons. Ahhh . . . . Summer.

[honeybee]

Oh it's all safe in here, JT. Swimming is the perfect exercise for summer. It's nice that things will slow down at your work and you'll be able to enjoy yourself.

[Kotik]

Maybe the summer is a tad too good this year. I like it when it's warm, but we had almost 2 weeks of scorching hot temperatures already:? 40°C exceeds my idea of nice. Hope there'll be some happy news tonight, when the semifinal against spain is done

[Silverbullet]

Honeybee, your Father was lucky he found someone who believed in him enough to encourage him to better himself. Someone believing in a person is like alight being turned on.
SB

[Aquarius]

The night before she left for college, he said no stay and marry me. She said no way - I'm not marrying someone who didn't go to college.

Sorry to sound mean, but if any girl threw that one at me she'd be toast. Either she loves me for who I am or she doesn't love me at all. That's not love that's female, cold hearted calculation and I have ample (painfull) experience with that. True love looks different.

There's loving someone for who they are, and then there's watching someone you love go on a self-destructive path toward becoming a loser an a deabeat. Not being crazy about someone's choices doesn't mean you don't love them.

My neighbor's son is a case in point. He's a nice kid, fun to hang out with, but he's hell bent on not doing his homework, hanging out with losers, being disrespectful toward everyone (and in the end, toward himself), and disregarding his responsibilities. When kids are high school age--especially boys--the prevailing attitude is "What's in it for me?" So I told him: on his current path, he's looking at nothing but a series of go-nowhere minimum wage jobs, will attain nothing higher than the status of trailer trash, an forget attracting a good woman because any female with low enough self esteem to put up with a man with no ambition will be batsh*t crazy and full of issues.

It doesn't mean I don't love him or care about him; I just gave him a reality check about his choices, and what his lack of ambition is ultimately going to do to him. He may figure it out the hard way eventually, or he may never aspire to be anything more. Time will tell...but if he never aspires to anything more, then it's a waste, and yes, I can understand why a woman wouldn't want to waste her time on that.

So it sounds to me like honeybee's mom saw that there was some ambition in there, just that the right motivation needed to be supplied for him to realize his potential.

True love, Kotik, builds you up and makes you feel like you're something more than you were without it; it doesn't leave you there to sit and rot in your own stink. Unless of course you refuse to do anything but rot and stink...then true love is perfectly justified in not wanting to have their life destroyed in the process, too, and move on.

ETA I didn't revisit this to come down on anyone; the story just reminded me of my neighbor, and the conversations that both my ex and I had with him, hoping to do some good since we're the "hip" adults in his life and not the dorky parents and teachers who, when you're that age, don't know anything. Apparently we're dorks who don't know anything, too. I sort of figured that it would go down like that...but we had to try. I do have a feeling that if a girl was involved, it may get his attention.

[honeybee]

Thanks, SB and Aquarius. To be fair, Mom was pretty surprised that Dad ended up doing as well as he did. She did know he was smart and certainly thought he was wasting his abilities, but those were the days before learning disabilities were widely understood.

Dad needed some motivation and a new environment, and he was able to get his act together. So, the real happy news in this story is that schools are now aware that poor marks and poor behavior doesn't necessarily mean someone is stupid or lacks ability.

Weirdly - I'm picturing my teenage father as a LolCat -"I go to college. Can I haz pretty girl and boat now?" A much as I'd love to see teenagers motivated by love of learning and self-improvement, sometimes a pretty girl and a boat works as a better carrot!

[Silverbullet]

Honeybee it can start very early and depending on the environment. When I was a boy rules applied and were enforced regardless:

When in the third grade I was in the school Library (raining outside as usual for Washington state) I was happily reading a book. Librarian came by and asked what I was reading. Innocently I showed her. It was a 9th grade level Astronomy book. It got ripped out of my hands. I was told that it ws a higher grade level than I was supposed to be reading. I protested that I had already read three other 9th grade level astronomy books and understood them. Nope. I was taken by the ear to the third grade level book section and told to never again try reading 9th grade level books. She watched me like a hawk whenever I came in to the Library.

she was simply folowing the rules of the day. She never considered I mayhave been above average just that I was not supposed to be reading those level books. This was in 1943 a diffferent world. (BTW, I have always been able to read at least six years above my age level. when a sophmore in high school I tested at the level of a Senior in college.) Anyway that and the fact that I ws in a blue collar neighborhood and received a blue colloar education designed (then in the late 1940'sand early 50's) to graduate boys to work on the shop floor or in a steel mill and females to be telephoneists or shop girls. did n't need much education for that and didn't reveive much. Same thing year after year. NO math just basic arithmatic year after year. When I got to High school I was so far behind those who came from a better school system I couldn't keep up. No one believed in me so it was a waste.

Your father was lucky, very lucky.

SB

[Alelou]

When in the third grade I was in the school Library (raining outside as usual for Washington state) I was happily reading a book. Librarian came by and asked what I was reading. Innocently I showed her. It was a 9th grade level Astronomy book. It got ripped out of my hands. I was told that it ws a higher grade level than I was supposed to be reading. I protested that I had already read three other 9th grade level astronomy books and understood them. Nope. I was taken by the ear to the third grade level book section and told to never again try reading 9th grade level books. She watched me like a hawk whenever I came in to the Library.

Okay, it's totally uncivilized of me, but I can't help thinking that someone like that ought to be taken out and SHOT.

But of course she was probably squashed brutally herself at some point ... or maybe she was just the stupidest woman in town.