Today is my father's birthday. He died in 2005 at the age of 98 1/2, and I add the half year because it's as significant in the later years of life as in the beginning years. He was already planning his 100th birthday party, but in the end he didn't get to have it. This blog post is a tribute to his influence on my life.
It's such a pity the way children are growing up these days. This younger generation – tch, tch, tch. Now when I was growing up, my father knew how to raise children. His methods deserve to be more widely known, so I give to you now "Ken Coogle's Ten Rules for Raising Children":
(1) Raise them on a bizarre vocabulary and gruesome literature. Tell them they're "perspicacious" and "impudent" before they understand "doggie" and "Daddy." Teach them to recite "Butel-rotten-lotten-gitter-wetter-cotter-Hotten-totten-stridel-trotter-muder-ottentater.” Dangle them on your knee not with "Jack Be Nimble" but with "McGinty," who drowned in the sea "dressed in his best suit of clothes." Send them to bed dreaming of Sam MacGee dancing with glee on his funeral pyre in the frozen Yukon, and leave echoing through their lives the croaking refrain of the grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore, "Nevermore!"
(2) When they ask for a kitten, don't give them a cute, cuddly little creature. Give them a wild kitten that bites and scratches, and tell them they'll have to gentle it and tame it if they want it to love them.
(3) Don't ever rescue them from trees or let them climb back down the steps to the high dive. Tell them, "If you climbed the tree up, you'll have to climb it down," and "If you go up the steps, the only way down is off the diving board."
(4) If your adolescent daughters think they're not popular with the boys, give them a pinball machine.
(5) When your children ask questions, pull out the encyclopedia – and persist in spite of all groans and protests.
(6) Never make it easy for them. If they ask for a swing, give them one that turns upside down. If your feet are dirty, take all your children with you to the Yukon River so you can wash your feet. Canoe with them past alligators in the Okefenokee; catch snakes, turtles, and chameleons to show to them, and encourage them to explore dark, dank caves.
(7) Play games with them. Get down on the floor for jacks tournaments. Play pig, spoons, canasta, bridge, ping-pong, and badminton with them. But never just "let" them win. If they complain that you always win, just play left-handed to even the competition a little.
(8) Make them spend every Sunday afternoon talking about family business.
(9) Don't just give them piano and clarinet lessons. Get out your saxophone and play music with them.
(10) Wear comfortable, old, tattered shirts, and when your children put their fingers in those holes and rip the shirt to shreds right off your back, just sit there and laugh.
They're pretty good rules, I think. And so I'd like to offer a toast to the man who originated them:
“Here's to the man who taught me to relish the sounds of words, to know the worth of gentleness and patience, to think about the way out before going in, to probe for answers and challenge my intellect, to take risks, to love nature, to value differing points of view, to win and lose fairly, to make music, and to laugh. Here's to my father.”
It's such a pity the way children are growing up these days. This younger generation – tch, tch, tch. Now when I was growing up, my father knew how to raise children. His methods deserve to be more widely known, so I give to you now "Ken Coogle's Ten Rules for Raising Children":
(1) Raise them on a bizarre vocabulary and gruesome literature. Tell them they're "perspicacious" and "impudent" before they understand "doggie" and "Daddy." Teach them to recite "Butel-rotten-lotten-gitter-wetter-cotter-Hotten-totten-stridel-trotter-muder-ottentater.” Dangle them on your knee not with "Jack Be Nimble" but with "McGinty," who drowned in the sea "dressed in his best suit of clothes." Send them to bed dreaming of Sam MacGee dancing with glee on his funeral pyre in the frozen Yukon, and leave echoing through their lives the croaking refrain of the grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore, "Nevermore!"
(2) When they ask for a kitten, don't give them a cute, cuddly little creature. Give them a wild kitten that bites and scratches, and tell them they'll have to gentle it and tame it if they want it to love them.
(3) Don't ever rescue them from trees or let them climb back down the steps to the high dive. Tell them, "If you climbed the tree up, you'll have to climb it down," and "If you go up the steps, the only way down is off the diving board."
(4) If your adolescent daughters think they're not popular with the boys, give them a pinball machine.
(5) When your children ask questions, pull out the encyclopedia – and persist in spite of all groans and protests.
(6) Never make it easy for them. If they ask for a swing, give them one that turns upside down. If your feet are dirty, take all your children with you to the Yukon River so you can wash your feet. Canoe with them past alligators in the Okefenokee; catch snakes, turtles, and chameleons to show to them, and encourage them to explore dark, dank caves.
(7) Play games with them. Get down on the floor for jacks tournaments. Play pig, spoons, canasta, bridge, ping-pong, and badminton with them. But never just "let" them win. If they complain that you always win, just play left-handed to even the competition a little.
(8) Make them spend every Sunday afternoon talking about family business.
(9) Don't just give them piano and clarinet lessons. Get out your saxophone and play music with them.
(10) Wear comfortable, old, tattered shirts, and when your children put their fingers in those holes and rip the shirt to shreds right off your back, just sit there and laugh.
They're pretty good rules, I think. And so I'd like to offer a toast to the man who originated them:
“Here's to the man who taught me to relish the sounds of words, to know the worth of gentleness and patience, to think about the way out before going in, to probe for answers and challenge my intellect, to take risks, to love nature, to value differing points of view, to win and lose fairly, to make music, and to laugh. Here's to my father.”
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| My father and mother with me and my siblings, about six months before he died. |
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