I noticed on the SB Tribune website that eventually that link will go away. So I wanted to post it now.
MOOR OR LESS
By BILL MOOR
Tribune Columnist
I was driving my third-grade daughter and first-grade son home from school that snowy afternoon when I caught my fourth-grade son in midshove.
He and his buddy, Adam — or former buddy — were having a bit of an altercation right there in Leeper Park.
A push here. A swing there.
With both of them in their snow gear, they didn’t look as if they were doing much damage, but I pulled over anyway.
I grabbed both of them by the arms and yelled at them to knock it off. I don’t think I said anything noteworthy, but the froth from my mouth apparently got their attention.
I’m sure I was the last person they expected to land right in the middle of their little feud.
They both look embarrassed. They both walked home — heads down. As the years passed, they went their own ways, no longer close buddies but not adversaries, either.
When I drive by Leeper Park, I occasionally remember that little scene — just one of those hundreds of mental snapshots I keep from my kids’ formative years.
Adam McLane, my son Steve’s buddy back then, remembers it, too.
But what he remembers most was the following day — a Saturday afternoon.
I took Steve and Adam to the movie “Rocky IV.”
You know the movie. It’s when Rocky outboxes the Soviet wunderkind and then says to the Russian crowd: “If youz can change and I can change, then wez all can change.”
An end to the Cold War almost immediately.
I don’t think that the theme — spoken so eloquently by the Rockster — was why I took them to see that movie. Quite frankly, I didn’t even remember seeing it with them until Adam recently e-mailed me.
He is now an associate pastor of student ministries at a Baptist church in Romeo, Mich., with a wife and two children. He says he retells that little episode often to his church groups.
“That simple little lesson taught me an awful lot about forgiveness and grace and life.”
Maybe that’s what I wanted out of getting them together after their tiff. Or, who knows, maybe I just wanted to show them how punchy a person could get if he went through life banging ribs and butting heads like Rocky.
Adam did want to know if I could explain what was going through my mind back then and if I thought Steve also learned a lesson that day.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I did tell him that it was probably my way of showing that I believed in both of them — that I wasn’t taking sides — and that if they quarreled again, they would be letting me down as well as themselves.
I’m sure I also didn’t want them to dwell on their bad blood — that the sooner people make up, the quicker feelings heal.
After the movie, I didn’t know if it helped or not. Just a few days ago, Adam told me it did.
So I called my son, Steve, and asked if he remembered the episode. He said that every time he sees a Rocky movie, he does. And even if he didn’t say so back then, he says he did learn some lesson, too.
Hmmm.
When I think back to those parenting days, I tend to remember the mistakes I made — of being too strict … or being too pushy … or being too flippant.
I think we all do that as parents.
We measure ourselves against Ward Cleaver of “Leave it to Beaver” or Jim Anderson of
“Father Knows Best,” and we come up wanting.
It is easy for us to remember the times when we think we could have done better as parents.
But then we occasionally are reminded that maybe we did a few things right, too.
Steve even mentions now that I wasn’t such a bad guy back then after all.
I told him if he continued to get mushy like that, I’d send Adam down to finish their fight.
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