Have you ever noticed that we often end up doing and saying
things we vowed we never would?
When I was a teenager I asked my Dad for a ride to school
after a severe snowstorm covered Sault Ste. Marie to a depth of six miles. The
school was about two miles from my home and I was trying hard to convince my
Dad that my death would be on his conscience if he made me walk in that kind of
weather. His response was predictable. “When
I was your age I walked to school in snow drifts up to my neck. ”
I always doubted him
when he said this as I knew he grew up in Ingersoll in southern Ontario. I don't think Ingersoll ever got snow drifts
as high as Dad described them. Anyway, I
got his message and headed out to school under my own power. I recall thinking
as I ploughed through snow, I will never, under any circumstances, say to my
kids, “When I was your age.”
The years rolled by, I got married and fathered four
wonderful children. On many occasions I
found myself uttering the very words I vowed I would never would, “When I was
your age.... ”. I am sure their thoughts
were the same as mine, “I will never utter those words when I have kids of my own.” But, I was wrong.
Years later when my son Kevin was in his early twenties he
got a summer job harvesting tobacco. It
was a long, hard, dirty job and he would come home each night with his buns
around his ankles.
One evening he stood in front of me with a smile on his
dirty, weary face and said, “Well now I've got my own, when I was your age”.
Someday I'll be able to say to my kids, “When I was your age I worked on
tobacco from dawn to dusk in the heat and humidity, never complaining.......”
And so it continues
This is just one of the stories from my popular book, “Light
Up with Laughter”. Check it out at
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