Here we go.

Again.

I know summer is upon us because my offspring are prepping to begin their Annual Season of Shenanigans. Cell phone check-ups are being ignored, curfews are being surpassed, limits are not only being tested but leap frogged over each other.

And, so begins my own Season of Sermons.

I was lecturing my older son yesterday about not making any fatal errors this summer because, between you and me, he’s not been so smart in summers past.

He was trying as hard as a testosterone-laced 14 year-old boy could try to make me understand that making mistakes was all part of the Grand Scheme of Teenagerhood.

He was explaining that he was apt, in fact he felt compelled, to make errors because, he claims, that’s how he’ll LEARN.

Oh, please.

“Mom,” he reasoned. “You always tell me that Gramma and Grampa let you make your own mistakes. They never warned you about consequences. They just let you go and LEARN.”

“Well, that was so stupid,” I said. “I mean, yeah, in theory it all sounded so evolved, but, just look at how I turned out. Now do you want to take that chance?”

“You have a point,” he sighed.

Not to be outdone, my (one-foot-out-the-door) daughter shared: “Forget it, Nick. You’re trying to reason with a woman who’d get in her car every morning, in her ugly pajamas and follow my school bus to kindergarten. Do you know how humiliated I was? PSYCHO is not just the name of a movie, you know.”

I defended myself. “Well I needed to know you got there safely…”

“Mom. The school was 1/2 mile away.”

“Yes, but it was completely feasible that you could have run out of gas or been kidnapped.”

She declared: “You are on your own, brother. I’m outta here in 56 days. Good luck, man.”

Yes…a long, long summer has greeted me and with it, a handful of rebellion, a pocketful of dread with a sprinkling of bleeding ulcer.

Still, though. My son was right.

I was never followed around nor smothered by my parents. No one ran interference for me at every turn. I did make all my really good and really awful decisions on my own.

Did I learn anything?

I still don’t know.

One memory, I’ll tell you, is seared forever onto my frontal lobe.

My sister and I were walking home from school. (In those days, children really did that). We were in 2nd and 3rd grade.

As we skipped along, my sister noticed something on the ground. There, amidst branches and dried-up foliage were dollar bills. One right after another; a path paved with currency.

My sister began retrieving these bills until I noticed they were leading right to a big, black sedan. I wanted that new Mrs. Beasley Doll as much as she did, but those bills were leading us directly into the bowels of Purgatory, I was sure. Something was very wrong.

I made her throw the cash down and we ran home like our Cinderella underpants were on fire.

Upon reaching our safe haven, we recounted this near-death experience to my parents and I remember with complete clarity what my father said to me. He said: “Maria, I’m proud of you. You made a smart decision and you may’ve saved your sister from a very scary situation. Good job.”

Wow.

I made a smart decision!

And I learned from that choice to trust my instincts, even when a Mrs. Beasley Doll was within very close reach. (My entrepreneurial and fearless older sister, however, had no such instincts. She ran out of the house, determined to find that money, black sedan be damned! She risked her life and green banana seat Schwinn for one retrieved, soiled dollar bill. She had the courage that I lacked, and made a buck for her bravery).

Throughout my young, stupid life, I’m certain I made many mistakes and I perhaps learned a thing or two.

For instance, I learned never to tattle on my older sisters for smoking in the attic because this resulted in them never giving me a ride anywhere, ever again! Not even to my Brownie meetings…which led to my mistake of walking home by myself in the dark, getting lost and wetting my brownie pants. Brown cotton tights and beanies still make my bladder clutch in spasm.

Older, more seasoned mistakes in my twenties would include thinking Canadian Club was my friend, which led to the big, fat mistake of introducing it every weekend to my delicate intestinal system.

Bad mistake; this led to many episodes of “bad shrimp”…if you catch my drift.

My parental mistakes have been varied and monumental. I have learned from the mistake of following my daughter’s every move that this may have cost me her trust. I wish I’d actually learned that lesson right after the school bus tailing. (I also learned that I should have used a decoy car during my surveillance and not my own. Just saying…)

So, yes. Children learn from stupid mistakes.

But is it so wrong for me to want to pick up those proverbial dollar bills to circumvent their big mistakes?

I don’t know the answer.

But I do know that in this big, old school bus of life, I will always follow them, over hill and over dale, if only in my head.

About the Author

Maria Heck covers for the Times Leader. Reach her at or .

Archives

Judge not

Dress for stress

Let’s try this again

A Very Heck Christmas

Twist & Shout

Giving thanks, Heck style

Aging (dis) gracefully

Breast case scenario

Sad precipitation

In Memory