Posted on: Wednesday, June 12, 2002
Volcanic Ash
Priceless advice — ignored
David Shapiro can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.
The night my grandson Corwin was born, panic set in.
My sacred grandfatherly duty was to provide him knowledge and wisdom, but the unhappy fact was that I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I should about life's mysteries.
I stayed up all night scanning for universal truths worthy of a first grandchild. I finally came up with a column offering five rules of life about which I felt certain.
This week Corwin turned 6, one of the most important years of passage in a child's life. It seemed a good time to inventory how my guidance is serving him. I can only conclude that life is a work in progress.
My advice and how it stood up:
• To learn to write, read a lot as you're growing up. The writing will take care of itself.
Despite coming from a family of early and avid readers, Corwin has stubbornly resisted all efforts to teach him to read.
On the other hand, he has a fascination with numbers that goes against the family grain. He learned young to distinguish bills between $1 and $100, and asked for a cash register for his birthday.
• To accumulate wealth, get a job that pays more than you can possibly spend. If that fails, put a little away in a good growth mutual fund every chance you get. You'll be amazed how it piles up.
Obviously, Corwin is a step ahead of me on this one. Good thing.
I took my own advice and started him a college account in a go-go mutual fund. The stock market was going gangbusters then, and I had visions of Stanford. Since the market crashed, I've been talking up the priceless intimacy of a community college education.
• To hit a baseball, never fear the pitcher or the ball. Once you commit yourself, swing aggressively.
Corwin swings the bat aggressively, all right, but he hasn't figured out yet that the game also involves a ball. I'm resigned to a sporting future of nodding off through youth soccer matches.
• To find fulfillment, serve others before you serve yourself. Follow the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." It is the best single piece of advice mankind has ever concocted.
I was thinking of this the other night when Corwin sweetly asked if I would like one of his Doritos. I gratefully accepted and he lifted the chip to my mouth. Just before I bit, he gobbled it down himself as he laughed and laughed and laughed. This repeated until the whole bag was gone. I was left with an evil craving for nacho flavoring.
• When you know what the right thing is, do it. Every time. People today are too quick to excuse themselves for not doing what they know to be the right thing.
Corwin loves board games and usually comes out the winner — often by claiming re-spin rights if the first turn of the dial doesn't go his way. I plead that there's no satisfaction in winning by dishonest means, but my words are belied by his gleeful fist pump after each tainted victory.
The consolation is that these games play out on my lap and end with a warm hug, a scene I'm sure he'll repeat with his own grandchildren some day.
He'll tell them it may have taken him a lot longer than six years to learn the wisdom of his grandfather's advice, but in the end, the old man was right on the money.
