Shit my dad taught me
If you feel like driving fast, don’t do it in the neighborhood. Actually, for that matter, the coolest way to drive through your own space is between 8 and 13 miles an hour. Leave driving fast for the mountains, but pass on the uphills, not the downhills.
To be a man, you don’t need to know how to use tools. Or play sports. Or like sports. Though there is some story about my dad changing a car battery. And he did play catch, and would watch tennis. Be a man by vigorously folding sheets of paper for bulk mailings. Be a man by writing in three line paragraphs. Be a man by laughing uproariously around a table.
There are a lot of rules about traveling too. Get to the airport early. Have a plan. Keep your wallet in your front pocket. Don’t overpack. Wash your socks in the hotel room. Read the history of where you are at.
He always tried to teach me that you should create your own job, your own work. I could never quite make that happen for myself. But instead I follow the lesser work commandments – work in half day, or whole day increments, never by the minute. Know the pay up front. Bring your own paper. Take a job for what you can learn there, use it for what it allows you to do.
There is something about loyalty too. To one another, to connections. There were always people on the outs, people who were not welcome, or whose politics were terrible. But there were also people who didn’t have politics, or were democrats, but who made the cut because they were our people, or connected to our people. Don’t draw too hard of lines, because we need each other.
