Ready... or Not

Not long ago, one of my Facebook friends celebrated her 21^st birthday – believe it or not, not all of my friends remember black & white TV and rotary phones. Of course, I had to remark on this milestone from the lofty perspective of my double-21-plus, so my response was: “You’re an adult now… go pay some bills or something.”

Ah, if only it were that simple.

The adult part, not the paying bills part – that never gets any simpler. The fact is, I’ve found myself continuing to struggle with all that’s involved with the word “grownup”. And there’s no question that it’s getting pretty late in the day for that; there aren’t too many places I go any more where I’m the youngest person in the room! It’s probably more common for me to be the oldest.

My daughter is in 2^nd grade and she’s told me several times that she’s worried about multiplication, i.e. 3^rd grade. I always tell her: don’t worry; when it gets here, you’ll be ready. I figured that growing up was the same way -- I just assumed that when you got to be an adult, with adult responsibilities, you’d feel somehow ready for it. When I was a kid, the adults around me (and I actually spent a lot of time, with many different adults in my life) seemed so grounded and serious and, you know, grown-up. They went to work every day because that’s what adults do – dressed in very serious grown-up clothes — and they made decisions without seeming to wrestle much with it, and just generally appeared to me to be in charge… masters of their domain, if you will. And really, really old, too, of course, but that’s just the default kid perspective.

I get this thrown in my face frequently, in a lot of different ways. Parenting is the daily one; being a parent is a constant series of “Is this allowable? Is that a good idea? Is the other necessary?” kind of decisions, and of course unrelenting responsibility… you need to come up with the Right Answer, quickly, and in a way that at least leaves the illusion that you’re in control!

Over the last 6 months or so, I’ve had several trips for work: flights, rental cars, hotels, business meetings. It seems like especially in the airport, I’m conscious that I want to look like a smooth, confident, well-traveled businessman… but inside I’m pretty sure that I’m going to trip over my shoelaces or have my briefcase fly open or something.

I still have a little video playing in my mind of the time I was rushing to the gate because boarding had already started, slipping into my place in the moving line just in the nick – only to realize that my flight was boarding at the gate across the way. Got almost to the agent taking boarding passes before I figured that one out, and as a result just barely made my (correct) flight!

And I’ve mentioned before that our camp is something of an ongoing project; recently we’ve concluded that there are some things we need to do that we can’t really do ourselves. So we need to hire someone to do the work… and I realized: I have no idea how to do that. Doesn’t it seem like a grown-up would know how to find someone and how to evaluate whether they’re fit for the job?

For that matter, a mature adult would probably know better than to write 600 words about how he doesn’t feel very competent.

I suppose this probably sounds like the typical mid-life crisis – a guy gets halfway (oh, all right, a little more than halfway) through his life, assesses the cards he’s been dealt, and asks for a new deal. But I want to make clear that’s not really what I’m talking about. I like my cards; I like being a husband and a dad and having a good job and owning cars and the like. If this is the hand I’m dealt, it would be hard to imagine a much better one.

I just can’t shake the feeling that everyone knows how to play their hands but me…

Running the Four Corners

When I was a kid -- you know, in the days before ESPN -- I'd end up watching whatever sports event did show up on TV, and I enjoyed most of what I saw. Somehow, though, in those days I never got too interested in college basketball.

One big reason was named Dean Smith. He was the coach of the University of North Carolina basketball team, and he was famous for a strategy called the Four Corners. Basically, whenever his team got ahead late in the game, every time they got the ball they'd hold it as long as they could. Eventually.................. I'm sorry, did I doze off? eventually someone might get open for a layup, but if not he was content to just let all the time run off the clock.

At some point, everyone realized that this tactic was really against the spirit of the game (and boring), and a rule was passed that the team with the ball had to shoot within 40 seconds (later 35).

Stall tactics were back in the news recently with the story of Roman Polanski, the film director who pled guilty to a rather unpleasant crime in 1977, but fled to Europe before sentencing. A couple weeks ago he was captured in Switzerland and the process has begun to have him extradited to the US to face justice.

I don't generally comment too much on the news in this space; this blog doesn't exist for the purpose of antagonizing people or shoving my views down their throats. But there has been much blather (oops, did I tip my hand there?) in the press, much of it prompted by the Moral Compass of Our Nation -- Hollywood celebrities -- about how we should leave the man alone because he's suffered enough already. One French official even chimed in that America should stop persecuting such a gifted artiste.

Now I can see how it would be difficult, even wearing, to move to the country of your birth. And continue pursuing your livelihood without interruption. And travel around Europe to various film festivals to receive applause and awards. So perhaps we can agree that reasonable people might disagree about how much Monsieur Polanski has suffered; then let's add in one more inconvenient fact:

He's still a criminal.

Most crimes have a beginning point and an ending point, but since he's a fugitive from U.S. justice, every day he didn't surrender himself to authorities was itself a felony. Remember, no "innocent till proven guilty" like your common street criminal: being a fugitive proves itself.

In that sense, he's piled up over 10,000 crimes since he was convicted -- so I'm afraid I have to come down on the side of "No, he hasn't suffered enough". I still don't believe it's fair to run out the clock.