GIRLS IN WHITE DRESSES WITH BLUE SATIN SASHES..AND PIERCINGS

[Daanyeer]

....“I’m not talking just about money. I’m talking about something more valuable: time. You will have greater choice in how you spend your time and more opportunities to spend your time doing something that is really meaningful to you.”

Girls In White Dresses With Blue Satin Sashes Goth Paint And Piercings On Nose And Eyelashes

Source: mensnewsdaily

2009-09-12 at 6:06 am · Filed under Jerry Fino


Reading, Riting, Rock & Roll

“It’s about having choices in your life, Tara, and the only way you have choices is to have better paper than the next guy. I didn’t invent that, your parents didn’t invent that. That’s the way it is. The more inferior or non existent the paper you have, the fewer options you have. The world isn’t going to care that you mean well, are creative, or have a great personality. It’s just going to want to see your paper. The paper determines how big is the pinata that you get a chance to wack. It’s that simple. No tickey no laundry.”

She didn’t get that last part. Too young.

This, an excerpt from a recent dog walk I went on with the seventeen year old daughter of a friend of mine who consented to a ‘talk’ with me about her reluctance to return to traditional high school. I’ve watched Tara grow up most of her young life and care very much about her. She went from a wide eyed little kid to a curvy metalhead with pink hi-lights in her hair and at least two dozen different cut away, one shoulder tops. Not being her father, she seemed to allow me some access, and her parents were open to my passing on what I thought about her either returning to finish high school, pursuing the fly weight GED or “other” which has been where she’s been at for about the last year. “Other” has earned her food service and retail jobs, a skinny-ass bass playing boyfriend who has even less drive than she has and membership into the less-than-elite group of non-contributing Americans best described by my father as “deadbeats,” verbiage of a bygone era when the lack of a work ethic rightfully earned one derision. (Now, it appears, one can just reclassify one’s self as misunderstood, a victim of some kind and wait for ‘society’ which is, of course, to blame, to award you with some kind of Obamaesque bailout.)

“I’m only going back to school for my parents, you know,” she said as we shuffled along with my terrier, Emma, blazing the trail ahead of us.

“I have news for you, Tara, your parents are going to turn you out into the world in a handful of years regardless of what you do, ready or not. That’s what good parents do, and they’re good parents.”

Hmmm.

“You have only a handful of years to determine just how far the world will let you go on the Monopoly board. No high school diploma or GED keeps you at Baltic and Mediterranean Ave. A high school diploma at least gets you to the light blues.”

So as to not minimize what seems like a daunting task to her, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that, frankly, Zippy the Chimp could graduate from high school in the United States. Nonetheless, according to the Manhattan Institute, Only 70% of all students in public high schools graduate, and only 32% of all students leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges.

“A high school diploma is the minimum paper that you need. If you go on to college or to get some other kind of specialty that makes you more exclusive than others, you get a shot at the gold or even the red properties (Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois Avenues). Tara, it means you don’t have to settle. It means you can have access to better people and opportunities.”

“Money isn’t everything.”

“I’m not talking just about money. I’m talking about something more valuable: time. You will have greater choice in how you spend your time and more opportunities to spend your time doing something that is really meaningful to you.”

Silence.

“Tara, the thing you are deciding for yourself right now in your life is how much choice you will be able to have. It comes down to just that.”

Silence.

“Do you want to be beholdened to douche bags like the guys you’ve been dating for your survival?

Silence but still listening. I had to go for the kill shot.

“Would you want your little sister Sophie to be stuck with the same choices in guys and jobs for the rest of her life that you’ve had so far?”

“Sophie is different. She’s, like, a sweet kid, ya know? I mean, she doesn’t always stand up for herself with people. (I didn’t anticipate the red herring response.) Me- I don’t put up with crap. I’m in someone’s face if they’re messing with me.”

“So you’re pretty tough.”

“Ya, actually, I am.”

“But not very strong.”

“What?” she vapor locked.

“Are you strong enough to follow through with something that really is hard and stay with it long enough to finish it? Like school? Are you tough enough to go back to the traditional classroom and decide you’re going to get after it and when you don’t get something to go see your teachers and hit it again and again till you do get it?”

Silence. Drag off of cigarette.

“Ok, but what about you, Fino. You’re a teacher. You make less than other college graduates and less than a lot of high school graduates.”

“Yes, but this is what I have chosen to do. I could have also chosen to go into a family-owned wholesale business that was very successful, but I chose not to. Therein lies the difference. I had choices and I still do because I have a paper that 77% of adult Americans don’t have, a college degree.”

Phone call from the latest ex boyfriend. “What.” Pause. “Ya, well, I don’t have to listen to you any more. Are you in front of my house?” Pause. “You’re a creep.” No end of conversation salutation, just a hang up.

“S’aminute,” she said, dialing.

“Dad, is Dirk outside in front of the house?” Pause. “Well tell him he better not f**k with my car. He’s a psycho.”

It breaks my heart to think that Tara could end up being just another of America’s many angry nonconformists whose most lofty ambition is get another tattoo or piercing.

So, it appears that Tara will next week be starting back at the conservative, elite independent school where I teach. She’ll be in her school uniform and feel strangely out of place with the kids who don’t know what it’s like to be the chick with the band and don’t have urban primitive body art.

Tim Allen said it best of men: “We have always had only two choices, work or prison.” Even deadbeat males know and accept this from a tender young age. I don’t know through what prism the Tara’s of the world are looking through when they approach the on deck circle of emancipation from home and being on their own with no plan, without even a nano-unit of seeming interest in anything beyond the very immediate future. Perhaps they think that there will always be a ‘daddy’ out there- either the real one or skinny, bass-playing, going nowhere boyfriends. I just don’t get it.

We approached our neighborhood with Emma guiding us like a sled dog. Only time for two last thoughts.

“Tara, the world can always use one more Pancake House waitress, but is that what you really want for the rest of your life?”

Eight more steps.

“You can do this. You really can, Tara.” I gave her a little hug and walked up my drive way wondering how much was ‘caught’ of what was taught.

It brings to mind of the the best inspirational speeches I’ve ever heard in a film, one from Rocky V when Stallone gives a talk to his son on life and quitting, losing and winning.

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you!”



This is a Youtube clip that every parent should play for their kid starting at age 2. Daily. Yes, even our daughters. Perhaps especially our daughters. Somewhere along the line fathers were blown back by the post-feminist harpies that hissed “hands off” to dads regarding managing their little girls because the female, feelings-based structure that is uniquely female is, aledgedly, destroyed by any meaningful interface from dad because he’s male (read: the enemy.)

Lord, I hope Tara makes it. I really hope she does.