What I Still tell my Son when Dropping him off at School - updated June 2010

Here's what I tell my son every morning when I drop him off at school. I've recited these words of advice hundreds, if not thousands, of times since he was in kindergarten -- with a few modifications along the way. He's a Sophomore this school year.



Have a nice day.
Play nice with the kids.
Help the teacher.
Follow the rules.
Be smart. Act smart. Raise your hand. Ask good questions, including "What could possibly go wrong?" And remember, if an idiot would do it, don't do it.
Learn some high school sh**.

No unauthorized leaping, prancing, dancing, dashing, mashing, pouncing, jouncing, jousting, rousting, skipping, bipping, ripping.

If you see any of the following falling from the sky, run for cover: giant construction cranes, lawnmowers, chain saws, frozen donkeys, dump trucks, refrigerators or other large appliances, dump trucks, derelict Soviet space satellites; pretty much anything.

If you see an alien spacecraft, let me know. If elephants parachute into the parking lot, give me a call.

Do not knock the building down; do not flush your shoes and/or electronic equipment of any size down the toilet (this took on special meaning after he flushed his cell phone down the school toilet--it's a funny story).


Eat all your lunch. Don't eat any giant bugs, worm spaghetti, eyeball soup, weasel spit, beaver barf, fish entrails, platypus lips, hippopotamus hips, buffalo chips, or squid lips. Don't eat anything that Andrew Zimmern, Les Stroud, or Bear Gryll would eat on a regular basis. Anthony Bourdain is not totally insane; Rachael Ray is certainly okay.

Do not put peanut butter in your butt crack, honey in your belly button, or cactus in your underwear. And remember - bananas and coconuts are not armadillos, do not dance the rhumba, and do not change the oil in daddy's car on a regular basis, or any basis for that matter.

If you follow these simple rules, you will have a fine, marvelous, wonderful, inspirational, fun, exciting, memorable, educational, swell .........day at Bellevue East High School, Bellevue, Ne, United States of America, North American Continent, North American and Atlantic tectonic plate which also includes Japan, on the planet Earth, which is 2/3 covered by water you can't drink, in the solar system of our sun, a medium sized yellow star, one star among 400 billion stars in our galaxy, located on the Orion spur of the Sagitarius arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, a typical spiral galaxy, a member of the local group of galaxies, one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe most of which are moving away from each other at rates of speed higher than that predicted by the best minds of modern science. Some of which appear to be moving away from each other at speeds greater than the speed of light. Which has very smart people stumped. So work on that.

And, I love you.



As I said, I've recited this message hundreds if not thousands of times now and Jeremy still listens patiently, and corrects me if I make a mistake, and still smiles, and still gives me the occasional good-bye kiss or hug before heading off into the world.

Bud