By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
My oldest graduated from college last weekend so my family and I attended the convocation for the College of Business on Friday and the commencement on Saturday. It was a great few days with us hosting a dinner party for family and friends at a restaurant in the lively college town after the ceremony; and followed by relaxation in and around the hotel pool later in the evening.
With the college courses taken during high school, my graduate finished a semester early with two majors and a minor, Magna Cum Laude (3.89 / 4.00 GPA), and with Honors (i.e. – through the Honors Program); plus, was nominated by the faculty to be a Convocation Student Marshal for the College of Business.
Amidst all of today’s ceaseless millennial bashing and never-ending doom porn, I was reminded this past weekend regarding the relevance of milestones, of personal achievement, and succession, against the larger cincture of generational gyrations; this current Fourth Turning in particular.
The main commencement speaker was a regional celebrity and recently retired after a thirty-year, nationally distinguished career. The speech was the usual fare and delivered in quite an informative and entertaining fashion. The speaker spoke at length regarding the importance of friendship and advised the students, in the end, to make friends, to vote, and to make their bed every morning. Although I had heard the making the bed speech before, the lesson remains valid: If you make your bed every day, at the very least, you will retire that evening to a perfectly made bed at the end of a long day.
As one would expect, while sitting in the audience in the very impressive facility, my mind wandered and I thought of the various station-points that delivered my eldest child into the sea of black gowns stirring far below. In my imagination, I conceptualized my own commencement speech; which I soon deemed important enough, in fact, to be delivered personally by yours truly. But I realized I would have to be patient. I would need to wait knowing it would be some time before I could corral my eldest child privately in order to impart my wisdom.
But I didn’t want to wait. Maybe I could call. No. That wouldn’t work because millennials never answer their phones. Oh. I know! I could send text messages! Yeah. That’s the ticket! All millennials read their text messages. But wait. I had even a better idea. I will insert the text messages into a typed letter! This way I can cram in more words.
That’s the plan. Here goes:
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Hey Kiddo,
Your mother and I are sooooo proud of you. More than you know. I can’t help but reminisce and wax poetic regarding your life’s journey thus far. As this turning ends, another circle closes, and new a passage begins. There is so much I want you to remember, and this is why I am writing you now; in tribute to all of the important wisdom you have heard so many times before. Yes, the words are familiar to you; but, even still, I must ensure that you will never forget them.
These messages were sent to you during the various stages of your life and I am now texting them to you once again. You were pretty patient with your mom and me not getting you a smartphone until your high-school sophomore year. I realize you, and all your friends, thought we were cray-cray, but look at you now!
Of course, some of these messages you will recognize from when you were much younger. They came to you from my Blackberry to your $49 pre-paid burner phone. And some were shared with you privately, around the dinner table and before you went to sleep at night.
I still remember you telling me about your first day of school:
“Hey Dad!”
“Yes Kiddo?”
“Today was my first day of Kindergarten!”
“I know…we walked you there, remember?”
“Oh yeah…”
“What did you think of Kindergarten?”
“I thought it was GREAT!”
“That’s great, Kiddo”
“What was your FAVORITE part of Kindergarten?”
“Playing outside at recess and activities. I got to be a LEADER!”
“Awesome! What did you have for lunch?”
“Pizza!”
“Well… it’s time for you to go sleep now Kiddo’”
“OK Dad. I love you.”
“I love you too. See you in the morning time.”
“Good night dad!”
“Good night my little KINDERGARTEN LEADER PIZZA EATER!!!”
“OH DAD.”
I also recall when you were in your early years of elementary school and all of your best buddies and BFF’s kept moving away. Year after year. One after the other. Then, one night at dinner, you’re Mom asked you who you played with at recess and you said: “I played all by myself”. I remember you looked sad as you stared down at your food. But if you had looked up, you would have seen your mom and me biting our own closed fists and looking panicked.
Do you remember what we told you then?
I’ll never forget you trying, initially, to jump on the pogo stick, and later, trying to hit to the ball over the swing-set in the back yard and, much later, attempting to parallel-park MY car. None of these went very well. But why did you get so mad at ME? Remember what I always said?
High school athletics and state-level competition; honors classes, homework, and helping around the house. What was the magic acronym? And what must never be forgotten?
How about the time when your friend needed your understanding and you didn’t know how to let them down easy? You asked for my input and what was my advice? I still remember typing it into my Blackberry:
How about all your important meetings and your first big job interviews?
And, as you now begin your new career, I hope you will never forget what I texted you on the very first morning of your first college internship:
These are the only ones I remember now, Kiddo. As you know, there were so many more. You did it! You totally kicked ass. You were born and raised for brave and mighty things; and for such a time as this. You got this. I couldn’t be more proud.
Can’t wait to have you home for Christmas. Let me know when you leave. If it’s easier, just text me.
Love,
dad
That was just great.
Congratulations to your son.
My son will be here tomorrow… his last Christmas before his own graduation into “life” next May.
Holy Moly. How did this happen? And what has taken so damn long.
Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.
Oh, my… did I say that out loud?
Congrats to your son and to you.
I can appreciate that sentiment Maggie. Our oldest graduated in May and is now in graduate school locally, living at home to save money. My wife and I miss our empty nest! We only had it for a year, while our youngest was an undergraduate freshman and the oldest was a senior.
She complains about how loud it is when they’re home, but she secretly misses them when they are not here. She’ll always be Mom first…
Your daughter sounds awesome. Congrats.
Milestones such as this validate not only the individual child, but the parents as well. Congrats to all!!
Great post, Unc. I tried to determine if your kid was your son or daughter, and I couldn’t.
I’m guessing, like Alex, it was your little girl. And so with that, I’m posting a tune here that might reflect some sincere love from a Father to his young adult daughter.
If a young lady ever gets married, this would be a good one for the Daddy-daughter dance at the reception, imo.
For privacy purposes only at this time, I purposely did not specify the exact gender of this particular offspring. Perhaps all will be revealed one day. Until then – whether Patrick or Patricia, or Alexis or Alexander, is beside the point. Either way, I appreciate the sentiments.
I am not concerned about you not revealing gender as long as your graduate is not still deciding.
Congratulations mom and dad! And your hard working student..
Like you I just went thru a ceremony for my Son at my, and soon to be his, Alma mater. Like your Graduate, my son is an Honours student as well. Mathematics is his forté. His thesis right now is on applying an algorithm to describe the synchronicity of birds in flight…
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Not even sure where one would even start….
He puts my efforts at school and University to shame. Right now Profs, parents and friends are trying to convince him to go on to Graduate School. Hopefully he will go. The millennials, are indeed getting a bad rap. Way too many dispersion’s being cast. Then again has it not been always this way.. Kids these days are as they always have been and some are doing amazing things.
This world is in a rough patch for sure but there are some really talented young folks out there who will find a way thru and get us all to the other side.
Congratulations to yours, Uncola
Thanks Rob. It appears we both have amazing kids. Maybe there is hope for the future after all.
Congratulations Dad! My kids are millennials, as are their friends, and I have found them to be a talented and pretty hardworking group in general, so I am not surprised at your child’s success…If he/she goes to work at a corporation or another likely SJW infested place, however, maybe you should give him a copy of SJWs Always Lie to prepare himself for the insane politics….
At several points along the way, all was near lost; but then, in response to some of my finest work, my kids stepped back and away from the brink of snowflakedom. Haven’t heard of that book. Will have to check it out
Hey,uncola … nobody likes a braggart!!!
heh heh… you know I’m kidding. Many congrats to both your child, and to you for a job well done.
Hey, I really loved the format you used with those texting graphics!! Very creative. How did you do it? I imagine … you typed in your phone, and then took pictures of it? Probably only took you five minutes, right? Lol
Heya Stuck – is it bragging if it’s true? ? Maybe so. But I texted the link to my graduate last night and was texted this back:
For the text graphics I DuckDuckGo queried something like “fake text generator” and found a link. I am not at my desk now but I think it may have been this one:
http://iphonefaketext.com/
Then, I just screenshot and saved each one.
I almost didn’t write this because it was too personal, but after reading Robert Gore’s “They Learn What They’re Taught” article again yesterday, I decided to give it a go. The text idea came to me in the afternoon – and yes- it did take longer to format, resize, and place the text/graphic photos than it did to write the post.
Doug,
Your son is lucky to have a dad like you. What a different world it would be if all parents took the time to not just raise their children but to _teach_ them too.
So far we’ve had three votes for “son”, two for “daughter”, and one for “human”, with others playing it safe using terms like “graduate”.
Some of you are correct. I wonder if projection plays a part because, when we read about kids, we think of our own?
In any case, once we all get to FEMA camp I will set the record straight via proper introductions. Promise.
EDIT: ooops. I reverted back to my doom porn ways with that FEMA mention. My bad. Too soon?
Hey, at least no one referred to your offspring as “spawn”.
Xir?
Greetings,
Gosh, do you think the killbots will allow us to congregate in the FEMA camp? If so, I’ll start reading up on how to make grape juice prison wine. Bring your cups!
Nickle, you had us worried. Glad to see you back here!
Nothing makes a parent swell with pride as when a kid does great things. And it IS great. The whole world and a lifetime of opportunities and challenges await- best of luck to her/him (luck does play a role, but prep and attitude maximize the good and minimize the bad).
Thank you Uncola. I’m going to forward your piece to the parents of my grandchildren.
Regarding the Millenial generation: the worst examples are, I believe, those who have been raised by the culture. Oh yes, parents provided the necessities of life and maybe some luxuries besides. What they failed to do was intentionally teach their kids the enduring values and morals that are in direct opposition to popular culture. Instead, they left this important job to peers, television, movies, pop music, and the public education system. There was a time when presenting a contrary view to these teachers was not so important, but it absolutely is now. Not only do these young adults have a false view of reality, they have been given no tools to think critically about the world around them.
In the meantime, the blessed ones who are not victims of this neglect will do well. Cream rises you know.
Gayle- exactly right. “It takes a village”- NOT!
It takes dedicated family (preferably both parents) and the occasional mentor to raise them right.
Sounds as if you raised an industrious child to adulthood. Congratulations.
Doug,
They grow up so fast. Congratulations and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.
In the blink of an eye. Thank you, Robert. And happy holidays to you and your family as well.
Many congratulations ter yer. I bet ze will do awesome things with hir life.
What I really want ter know though is why Sturky has turned inter such a niggertive whiny bitch. Where’s the love that once flowed so freely thru yer Cap’n Noodledick?
Piss poor imitation of the bard of the boonies. How sad.
Oh mah gawd, I got dopplebanged. That’s totally awesome. I have decided ter make Uncola uh special project cuz his ass has pertential but he’s too gawd dammed needy and he’s goner fall inter the previous Hardscramble trap uh:
Verse ‘things er bad but I try like hell ter be uh force fer good. Here’s mah writin’
Response ‘you are good and yer gawd dammed writin’s awesome’
There’s uh real danger uh gettin inter uh niggertive feedback loop that eventually dwindles yer comment count like uh coat hanger ter unflushable turd and it’s goner be real tough ter git this gawd dammed comment count past 50.
Few folks believe in the curse of the trailer park temptress. However, I have seen few writers prosper in comment count after they received the hoary hex of the hillbilly hedonist. Hopefully, Andrea Imnotirani can avoid this calamity.
BW, This place can both elevate you and cast you down so low that you wish you’d be banned for 6 months. It is very gratifying when you wake up and find a medal on your dick, by that I mean – you get a whole lot of thumbs up overnight.
The problem with beautiful writing, like with beautiful music, is that lowbrows don’t understand it or appreciate it; current tastes run toward autotune posers. So the audience for HF and, as you predict, Unappreciated is going to be of a finite nature.
I think I read yer scrawny anus beaner – Hardscrabble and Uncoola are writin poetically and from the heart, and that kinder shit ain’t no match fer Cap’n Noodledicks horse fukken articles, people uh walmart (I hate that condescending shit) and all the soft porn advertisin that keeps poppin up on this gawd dammed interweb site. Well, against mah better judgement in the spirit uh the season I’m givin yer illegal, job stealin, burrito breath blow job givin, Maid Marion booty kickin anus uh major thumbs up. Merry Christmas El Coyote.
There’s no pleasing you, you don’t like HF’s reprise of Walton’s Mountain and you don’t like POW; you find them both condescending. How about Mama’s (Maggie) Place? Surely you loved her adventure of the Quad or the moose hunt adventure featuring two Amazons. Is, is that too threatening?
Maggie’s Place… I kind of like it. Merry Christmas Me Hoe. And YOU HO Too, BW, whomever you are bonded to here on the platform.
As I said, I am expecting “decent people” for the holiday and had to take a trip to Oklahoma City to go to 3434 East Reno for the rest of my new furniture. Anyone who has ever gotten accustomed to Mathis Brothers furniture will appreciate that when I found the Broyhill set I wanted for my unique bedroom (with all the cedar and oak, I felt we needed to minimize the woodlook a bit. I went with a four-poster wrought iron set. The wooden chest, dresser and stand are a very dark wood. I am not sure if it is maple or walnut. But it is gorgeous. Ignore the boots… I’m still working on Nick about the Boot Box by the back door. He isn’t charmed by the idea, but is I keep leaving my boots laying around, he’ll see that a nice chest by the back door might make sense for Mags to drop whatever she needs to drop coming into the house. Anyway… it is just the one corner, but I think you can see what I mean about all the wood!
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The hardwoods around these parts are AMAZING. Look at this oak tree I was standing beside when me and my AMAZON cousin were hunting. I heard that Me Hoe.
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By the way EC? How’d you know I was on Tulsa time? You know how to track my IP addy? See what I did there, Stucky? I annoyed YOU by saying addy. You big lumberjacklooking dude from Nu Joysee. Since I grew up in Misery, visited Misery annually all of my life and have now retired in Misery, I find some small comfort in making fun of other people’s states, names and characteristics. It helps alleviate the misery. MC knows because she is in Misery too. She and I are going to meet and greet because Misery loves company. See what I did there HSF? By the way, my neighbors love the syrup too. My son loves the syrup and has already confiscated a quart for his apartment at college. I am sure my friends from Maryland are going to love the syrup.
I’m actually thinking about freaking HIDING the syrup. Seriously.
Back to my little missive about travelling hundreds of miles to get furniture because we can do multipurpose things in Oklahoma. We spent the majority of our lives there, with Nick’s origin Cleveland instead of Missouri. When we decided to settle in Missouri (Ohio land prices, tax policies and general political atmosphere made it unattractive for our retirement goals, though there is a large Amish presence there. However, we are NOT Amish, though we admire them greatly), well we decided to purchase our home local in Missouri as well. Turns out, our logs were grown in Missouri on a huge oak and cedar forest further north, closer to the Missouri River.
In the spring of 2011, I drove from Oklahoma to visit my builder on site at a log home he and his crew (5 sons) were building on a stunning plateau in the true Ozarks (I really consider these low hills kind of cheating). Omer was the best, a few people had told me, and since he was Mennonite, communicating to him about building our home some time in the next year or so over the cell phones in remote locations such as where he lived (in a log home build on a ten acre lake) was challenging. I had visited three other builder sites and Nick and I had ranked them by price, reputation and customer reviews and by my photos of their work. I hadn’t been able to connect with the Gastineau-recommended Yoders and I decided I was just going to drive to where he was working. (By the way, everyone knows some Yoders around here. There are a number of Amish and Mennonite settlements in this region. Many of them have migrated here from Pennsylania and the Upper Tier because of immigration issues. Good for us… sad for Minnesota.)
I drove to see the home and stayed over a night with his wife, at home with their three youngest children and one older son, for assistance and protection. Mennonite men know the women are not safe at home alone. His wife could shoot as well as I can, with both the 8 and 10 year-old daughters already displaying their trophy antler carvings (some antlers were mounted, but the girls made nice doodads with theirs. I am just not really that artistically gifted, but I admire their craftwork.) But, why would a man with a wonderful wife and young children take ALL his able-bodied sons? He wouldn’t.
I found that immensely comforting to know and grasp. Their place was amazing, with all the animals and the milking and the chickens and the lake and oh my stars! That was pretty much what I wanted anyway. So, the Yoders said they prayed about whether Omer should bid to build my home and when the Lord said “Build that nice lady’s home and live in her treehouse while you do it”, Omer sent me a bid that was HALF PRICE of the one that we were considering accepting. It was a well-planned investment of our time and effort, my willingness to travel alone with Lt. Beretta to show Omer we really wanted him to build our home, and also to my ability to both make, bake and break bread with the man’s wife. Nick acknowledges we might not have gotten Omer to commit to what essentially was a tiny little job for him (he builds enormous ranch log homes and barns for Clydesdales and those Lippizzaner horses… I kid you NOT! Check out this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=24&v=gogIZALj7WY )
But, that is the sort of person I became once I realized that the people who manage to get things done do bold things. Others whimper and whine about how so and so just walks all over them and if they would just stop whining and walk up to someone and express an idea, things start happening. Bad or good… they happen. Haha… and I mean that from the bottom of my National Labor Board Lawsuit against Management suing IAM Steward who got suspended for doing it and IAM union sent me a letter declaring NO PART of my insubordination. What a bunch of losers. Big FatAss Tony still gobbling the donuts and coffee with the government negotiators behind management’s back. In a corrupt world, the regulators themselves (which is what the government negotiators are to the NLRB) are corrupt from the gitgo. By the way, his name really is Tony. And, he is a fat ass. Refrigerator crack level fat ass.
So that’s what I was doing for a living until I got myself suspended for insubordination while filing a grievance on behalf of a shop worker. My black co-editor and USAF comrade and dear friend even now… remember? the one management called a little monkey. Well, the union refused to even look at that issue, but that manager paid a whopping fine after I walked into the company site manager’s office and said either he would do something immediately or I would. I suppose I was still enough of an idealist to think those union principles I read upon being literally “assigned” the position of union steward as part of getting the job meant something. (the old guy leaving was steward, so it came with the chair, I suppose. I’m betting they changed that policy after I showed up ready to kick some ass and take names.) That crazy ending to my first job post college really cemented the need to get ourselves retired into a rural setting as soon as our son graduated or would let me talk him into testing into junior college. (He said NO.)
So, we picked out the design and worked with an architect and got what we wanted. The plans are gorgeous… we kept them, of course. But, I had those in hand when I met Omer in 2010. I also had a delivery date of sometime 2013.
Do you know we bought this place on a LAYAWAY PLAN? I am not kidding. Lynn Gastineau has a layaway purchase plan (at least she did then and if not, I’m betting she’d work with you) for people like Nick and I who loathe paying banks interest. When I told a coworker (hey, Dorothy) about the 3 year layaway plan we’d contracted for the logs and kit, she picked up the phone and called her husband (who was a Chief, EC… and in the honor guard as well!) and told him she wanted to put a log home on layaway, just like I was doing. She said “I don’t CARE what we do with it in three years. I want a log home on layaway like Martha’s because that is just a freaking awesome thing to have on layaway!” She was hilarious… made the entire office laugh out loud.
And she was right… it was a freaking awesome thing to be planning. And that desktop image on my screen saver on my computer kept me sane while I revised technical manuals for airplanes which were being retrofitted with unclassified “doodads” in order to be sold to foreign nations. The work was tedious, thankless and required the patience of Job to clean up drawings in AutoCAD or to edit via some really horrid photo-editing programs and Word Doctoring programs the company could get via SHAREWARE (a contract for revising publications both for printout and for online access and the company went cheap on the TOOLS needed to do the job.)
That image of that log home plopped onto a field of fescue with a pond in the foreground kept me going to work and changing happy to glad and United States to other names along with equipment details changing along with some functionality, which our technical support materials could NOT address. (How do you remove classified capability from an aircraft designed for classified capability and call it functional?)
Our military aircraft and other assorted weaponry, sold by the Obama Administration to various nations to which I never want to travel again. Approved by the Secretary of State, whose husband happened to be giving speeches in some of those nations coincidentally. So, I did the stupid thing I was paid to do by the company which won the bid for the contract to declassify and rewrite the technical manuals in a coherent way for people who could not read them. Their engineers who sometimes attended our monthly progress meetings relied heavily on our US military liaison in Defense Contracting.
I resigned from that lovely position to care for Nick’s dad. It was by far the job I did best and loved most. His gift to me was to pay Omer in advance so that our home could be built early. He died three months before Omer took delivery of the logs. I asked him to bless this place on his way outta here and I truly believe he did it. He was one tough little Italian dude and he left me the pick of his own litter.
So, here, on this very hillside, in a spot chosen by my oldest best friend in the world in Spring 2011, before her breast cancer metastasized to her spine, then her throat, then her brain, taking her from us all in June 2012, sits that log home. I suppose, somehow it is a testament to our being able to agree upon a goal and commit our time, energy and funds to to achieve that goal. I don’t feel what we did was exceptional, though I will admit I always aim for “extraordinary” over the ordinary. But, the jubilation we feel is tempered by the sadness and losses incurred along the way. Those losses are painful still, with my own parents’ loss occurring in the four years since I came here to live in a treehouse and build a dream. But plodding on is what we plodders do.
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*There is more but there’s never time right now. Where’s Suzanna? And Bea? What’s that bickering I saw? Unmentionably Doug, I like the stuff you are writing greatly. As you see, I’m dipping my quill again. EWE…Stucky, get your mind out of the gutter that’s gross.
Here’s one for Admin and HSF… If you aren’t a Brian Regan fan, at least admire him for accurately demonstrating the demise of the intellectual capability of the majority of our species. But, I don’t care who you are… he is one funny dude.
I really wanted the clip of him explaining String Theory was the stuff that Einstein couldn’t understand but if Einstein couldn’t get it, Brian can’t imagine he’s gonna get it there on the couch eating Cheetos. He’s hilarious.
Merry Christmas or Marry KissMoose
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Merry Christmas ter you too Maggie. We might be neighbors in this great state. And Merry Christmas ter Uncoola, whose dipshitted mono back slappin article finally made it ter 50. That was tough. Gawd dammed I need uh bump.
Maggie that was a long post, you should have submitted it for publication. Please include more pics of your cousin.
My kid is amazing too. Took AP classes in High School, finished her 4 year degree in3 years. Honors college, Law school and passed the early Bar Exam so she was a lawyer the minute she graduated. She is a great cook, I started her making dinner when she was 12, the first few were “interesting”. Now she is pregnant so I get to be a grandpa. Who could ask for more?
You dudes rail against the status quo. You are the status quo. Cozy and comfy, sending Jr. off to university to graduate to the corporate gig or government tit. Just like you. Intellectual juggling on TBP convinces you you’re not part of the problem. Smiley faces in an echo chamber. Smugness, it’s an eyeball killer.
Says the smuggest motherfucker ever to post a comment. Dennis thinks his opinion matters. It doesn’t.
Take a breath, Dennis. Sometimes it is good to look away from all the doom and remember the important things; especially around the holidays.
One of the best quotes I ever read was one that was posted in a blog comment and paraphrased from somewhere without the commenter (Hardscrabble) remembering exactly where. Here it is:
“History appears to be a raging, bloody river, choked by the bodies of innocents and tyrants alike, but most of it is lived high upon its banks, where people tend gardens, raise their children and whisper to one another in the darkness.”
You guys make the apocalypse sound so poetic. That must be what drives BW nuts. I mean, how can you put that in trailerese and make it sound just as good or gooder?
Shitballs uh mercy. Uncoola is down fer the count. Anybody got some extra nalmefene cuz his ass is in critical condition. Admenstruater, time ter pull the plug on Uncoola’$ posting priverledges cuz the TBP hive has declared self congratulatory boomers persona non grata and he better ask Francis Marion fer one uh his famous bung hole massages cuz this is goner hurt.
BW’s a comment whore. Who knew?
EDIT: Btw – I’m Gen X
I’ve been trying to convince my wife that she could use a bung hole massage, she says, ‘no dice’.
My co-worker could really use one but I say ‘no dice’ to that idea, she’s just going to have to stay fucked in the head.