Jim – Our Second Adolescent
Mark Twain once gave advice on raising children that went
something like this. “When a body is 13,
put him in a barrel and feed him through a hole. At 16, close up the hole.” I never seriously contemplated that
approach, but raising adolescent children was the big challenge of the eighties
for us. During part of that time we had
three teenagers in the home. I’m happy
to share the philosophy of that great psychological genius, Willie Nelson. Willie
offered this psychological analysis of himself. “After taking several readings
I’ve discovered that my mind’s still fairly sound.” Me too.
Jim was our second child to reach adolescence. He and Elliott approached adolescence much
differently. Elliott prided himself on
being different from the crowd. While he
wasn’t exactly a loner, neither was he a groupie. To him it wasn’t any big deal if people
didn’t like him. He was determined to be
an individual. If someone else thought
that strange or weird, he figured that was their problem. I sort of think Elliott used that excuse to
get out of doing things he didn’t want to do.
Jim, on the other hand, cultivated lots of friendships and
liked to fit in with his peers. What
others thought was important to him.
Once we attended a Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra concert. At that time I had a blue and yellow checked
cashmere sport coat. Jim hated it, but I
wore the coat that night. As things
turned out we had an opportunity to meet the conductor. Jim was thinking, “We get to meet the
conductor and Dad is wearing that coat.”
Imagine his surprise when the first thing the conductor said to me was, “Man,
I like your jacket.”
On the other hand he was fearless when it came to standing
for principle, and he had a clearly defined sense of right and wrong. He really didn’t care whether you liked his
point of view or not. If that offended
you, he would simply say, “Get over it.”
Jim was always an excellent student, more highly disciplined
than any of the other children. I would
also have to admit that he was more highly disciplined than his mother and
father.
During adolescence, Jim participated in the performing
arts. During that time we helped start a support
group at Washington High School. It was “Parents
of the Performing Arts.” The
organization is still in existence today.
We plunged headlong into supporting all the children in the performing
arts. Our big task was fund raising,
although one year, we were asked to perform on stage and offer a number that was something of a parody of our
children. We were supposed to do a “song
and dance” number. Dancing is on
activity I cannot do, but I tried. I
stole the show without intending too.
During my soft shoe attempts, I go tangled up the curtain. Everyone thought I planned it that way. It went over big time.
We were strong supporters of the arts. The only time we ever missed a performance
was when all three of children were doing different things on the same night,
and we couldn’t split ourselves us three ways.
Jim sang in the concert choir, and the show ensemble. He was president of the Thespian Club during
his senior year, and acted in several productions. Jim has an outstanding tenor voice, and won
numerous awards, including selection to Iowa’s All-State choir.
He has a strong work ethic.
All three of the younger children decided to try their hand at
detasseling corn. That’s a way young
people make money in the summer time in Iowa.
The seed companies have to detassel certain rows in order to produce
hybrid seed corn. It’s work that has to be done by hand. Ruby and Gary both tried it and pretty soon
discovered they didn’t want to do it every summer, but Jim kept after it, and
even did it one summer after he graduated from college. He made some pretty
good pocket change that way.
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