Wisdom can convert a liberal to conservative

Here is an email sent to me from a friend of mine who used to be a liberal:

Yes, john.   I was a liberal even after daddy and I were married.   I learned you can't listen to what other people say you have to ask yourself, do I really believe this.   What do I believe?      Liberals aren't what they used to be.      A lot of what you all say is just common sense.   (don't think I spelled sense right)   there's a   lot I don't know, I'm not even as smart as you kids..   There's some good things, even O'bama isn't all bad.  but I have to say,  I really think Romney could have turned the economy around.

That person is my mother.  

I disagree with my mother on one thing here: that liberals have changed.  Liberals have not changed, democrats have.  I wrote back:

Wow, mom, I must have missed this email. So you pretty much took the same path as Ronnie Reagan.  

Here's a little history about the progressive movement:

One thing I'd like to note, however, is that I think some people get liberal confused with democrat.  There is a difference.  Liberal is a faction.   Liberals have never changed, they used to be called progressives.  I have read about ten books about the history of the progressive movement, and it's to take baby steps to change our constitution, because that's the only way they can get their agenda passed.  Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR were the first progressive presidents.  Actually, much of Stalin's agenda was copied from Woodrow Wilson.  Only the Constitution stopped Wilson, and Stalin didn't have a Constitution to stop him.  Actually, when FDR was president was when the word progressive became a bad word, and FDR changed it to liberal (due to the socialism scare).  So for a while liberal was a good new movement.  Now I think the word has gotten out that liberal is the same as progressive (socialism), and people don't seem to care (as evident by Obama being re-elected).    After JFK was assassinated, liberals took over the democratic party.  That's about the time Ronald Reagan switched from being a democrat to a republican.  JFK was actually a very conservative president as a democrat.  

Why can't we afford large houses?

When I grew up we lived in a huge house, and each of us kids had our own rooms.  We had a huge basement, large living room and a family room.  There was plenty of room for all of us.  When we wanted alone time there was always somewhere to go.

My grandparents likewise had a large house. They lived in a large Victorian house with lots of rooms.  Like ours, the kitchen and living room were separate, which I think is a good thing.  You could run around that old house all day and get lost in it.  And both my parents and grandparents could afford these homes on their modest wages.

So here I am with four kids and my house is a clutter.  It's a small ranch house that has a kitchen and living room combination room.  It has only four rooms, which means I have to stack kids up.  The rooms are so small there's no place to put my kid's toys but as cluttered messes on the floor.

I do, however, life in a nice subdivision.  That I love.

Now I'm not complaining, merely making an observation.  Thus:  Why is it my parents and grandparents could afford big houses, and I have to stuff my family in a small one?

I think the answer falls in value of the dollar and real wages.  I think the value of the dollar has diminished greatly in our time.  I think what you used to buy for $2 now costs $4, so your money goes less far.  Thus, the value of the dollar is lower than it was 30 years ago.

Likewise, there has been no increase in real wages in several years.  When adjusted for inflation, the wages I'm making are less than my parents and grandparents.  Likewise, the cost of living is more.  The result is I can't afford to live the way they did.  And they struggled to, but still were able to have a big house with many rooms and a deck.  My parents even had 10 acres for us kids to play on.

A new president, perhaps, will come up with solutions to help us live better.

Discussing politics with my son

I once wrote that I don't like to discuss politics with my kids. I didn't want my kids to know my political stance because I believed it was important to grow up and learn and think for yourself and make an educated decision based on the information presented before you.

However, in light of the fact the progressives are making a war charge to inculcate their values in my kid's heads, I've decided I have no choice. Also, in light of the fact my kid is a heck of a lot smarter at 10 than I was at 30, opportunities have opened up for discussion. I've decided it's better to just be honest than to be humble.

It actually started the last election cycle when I gave in and decided to put up a McCain sign in my yard. Sure, I didn't want my son to know my political views, but he's smart. He said, "So, dad, I think I'm going to vote for McCain too."

"So, you like McCain, hey!"

"Well, not really," he said. "I was going to vote for him though. Most of the rest of the class is voting for Obama. There's something about Obama I don't like."

That impressed me. However, for some reason, I had a feeling he was voting for McCain because of me. Perhaps he heard his mom and I talking. However, if he did, he would have learned that I didn't like McCain. The only reason I was voting for him was because I absolutely hated Obama. I'd rather have a progressive republican than an all out socialist democrat.

When I was 10 I remember sitting at my desk in class looking at a pamphlet with all the democrat and republican candidates. I decided I wanted to vote for Reagan. My reason: he was the oldest and wisest.

I stuck by Reagan and fell in love with the guy. I debated my friends that Reagan was the best candidate. Then, in class, Reagan won. In my 5th grade class, Reagan was the president even before he won in a real landslide in 1980.

So, while I had no clue where my dad stood politically, my mom was a democrat. She wanted to vote for Carter. I don't know why mom was a democrat. I don't think she did either, other than her parents and siblings were democrats. I have no clue who dad voted for, although I bet he voted for Reagan.

Dad dropped hints from time to time. When an opportunity presented itself, he would pounce with a one liner. One day I was watching the CBS evening news with dad, and Clinton was president. Dan Rather reported that Bill Clinton has signed into law a tax increase, then he followed this with a report about how the economy was doing well.

Dad said, "A lot of people say they don't like Clinton, but he hasn't done anything to get in the way of businesses, which has allowed the economy to become as good as it is. I think I'm going to sell my business while the economy is good, because I think that tax hike might be a sign of bad things to come."

He never expounded, yet since he was pithy I remembered that statement almost word per word. I rolled it around in my head. I smelled it. I drank it. I bought books and read them so I could more fully understand what dad was talking about. That's how I was. I believe that's how he was.

Whatever the big issue of the time, even back in elementary school I wanted to understand it. Although back then it wasn't easy to get accurate information. You could ask an adult, but you'd get the bias. You could turn on TV, but you'd get the one sided news. You could open a newspaper, yet you'd get only the liberal view.

That's a problem that plagued me when I was in college debating politics with my friends. I remember saying, "I know I'm right, yet I have no way to prove it."

My friends would say, "We know we are right because it's right there in the newspaper."

Debate over. I had no resources to prove I was right. And then along came Rush Limbaugh. Then along came Fox News. Then along came the Internet. Now we all have plenty of resources. There's no reason to be ignorant about any issue.

Eventually, as I continued reading as much as I could, I realized that I'm more than just a republican, I'm a Constitution loving, god fearing, conservative. One day, when I was about 24 or so, I spent some time with my mom discussing what I learned, and she's been a good conservative ever since.

Yet some of us continue to be ignorant. When I say ignorant I'm not referring to the well educated democrats and liberals and socialists. If you studied and made an educated decision to support those views, that's fine by me. Unlike many progressives, I don't hate and want to get rid of people who have other views. What irritates me is when people have no clue why they support the views they do, or why they vote the way they do.

Yet many of us are that way. I said to my neighbor the other day, "So, what do you think of the health care reform?" He said, "I don't really have an opinion. I don't really like to keep up on things that don't really have an impact on me."

Of course then you watch the Jay Leno show and listen as he interviews people on the streets to prove how stupid people are. "Hey, who's the president," Leno will ask. "I don't know," the stupid person will answer.

I pray my kids don't become that stupid. I want my kids to care. I want my kids to think. I also don't want my kids just to repeat what their teacher said. I want them to drink it, eat it, smell it, and to swallow it only if it is a reasonable statement.

What I'm referring to here is progressivism. I don't want my kids to believe in global warming just because a teacher tries to inculcate the fact global warming is real. Is it? What are the facts? What are the statistics? What do other people say about this? Oh, it's the same as what you say. Still, does that make global warming real?

"Well, McCain and Al Gore and the Principal and the newspaper and CBS News and the New York Times all believe in global warming, so it's therefore fact," the teacher will say. "It's our responsibility to slow global warming. It's a crisis!"

I want my kids to think the way my dad wanted me to think. I don't want my kids to believe people when they say that world peace is possible, or that poverty will some day be ended, or that the constitution is antiquated and needs to be changed, so it's okay to make laws that heed no attention to it. It's okay for the government to force people to make sacrifices for the good of the state. It's okay to change the "rule of men" to the "rule of man." It's okay that I call myself a progressive because I didn't teach you the true meaning of the word "progressive."

I want them to think, drink and smell those words first. Knowing my kids are thinkers, I'll feel much better when they hear this stuff. It'll be okay because my kids will know. And, then, while knowing, if they still want to believe what the teacher says, then that's fine by me. At least he made a well informed decision.

And that's why I decided I have to take the same approach as my dad and not keep my politics to myself. I have decided it's okay to put up signs. It's okay to read "Liberal Fascism" in front of my kids. It's okay to yell at the TV when Matt Lauer says, "This is the worst recession since the Great Depression." I can yell, "That's a lie. It's not the worst recession since the 1930s, it's the worst since the 1980s."

I can do that because I don't have an agenda like Matt does. I can also do it because I have read a lot of history books, enough anyway to know what the real history is, and not just what the progressives want us to know.

I won't expound as my son looks at me. I won't defend myself as my wife says, "You're an idiot!" I won't. Although the seeds have been planted. After he drinks, eats, and smells those words, perhaps he'll make the right decision. If not, I can live with that too, so long as he made a well educated decision.

Wisdoms of the son

When I was a kid I hated when my dad was modest. As a parent, I find that I'm just like my dad, especially when it comes to politics. Kids don't need to know about politics, and what they do know they can figure out on their own.

"Who are you going to vote for for president?" my son asked. He's nine.

"You know I can't tell you that," I said.

"I know," he said, "You're gonna vote for McCain."

"What makes you think that?"

"Dad, I also think you are a republican."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because I read your blog."

"When do you read my blog? It's just a bunch of boring politics." You just told me the other day you hated politics.

"I read it all the time." When do you have the time. "I see that all your stories are either about republicans or McCain. So, I figure that you are a republican and you like McCain."

"I've written 12 posts about Obama."

"Are any of them good things about Obama?"

He got me there. However, I have agreed with Obama from time to time.

"I've written some not so nice things about McCain," I said.

"But, dad, you haven't written anything good about Obama. That makes me think that you like McCain."

"You're too smart for me, boy."

"So, who ya gonna vote for?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

-------------------------

The discussion continued later that day:

"So dad," the son said, "Who are you going to vote for for president?"

"You know I cannot tell you that," I said.

"Well, I think I'm going to vote for McCain," he said.

"Why is that?"

"Well, it's not because of the Reverend Wright thing or anything like that. It's because I'm not quite sure Obama knows where he stands on the issues." He rattled off a bunch of facts, and impressed me with his knowledge.

When he completed his reasonings, I said, "How do you know about Reverend Wright?"

"Oh, from talk radio that you make me listen to."

"I never make you listen to talk radio."

"No, but you always listen to it on the way to school, and when you pick me up. You know, the talk radio you listen to."

"I didn't think you even listened. I figured you were too busy playing your game boy, or picking on your sister, or picking your nose."

He gave me his, "you-are-a-doofas look. ""Well, yeah, I do all that, but I listen to the radio at the same time. I can get the jist of it, dad. I know what's going on."

"So, you're admitting you pick your nose."

"Yeah, I do sometimes. But you're avoiding my question: Who ya gonna vote for?"
---------------------------
During the 1980 election cycle I was 10. My mom told me she was going to vote for Carter or Anderson. I had no clue who dad was going to vote for. I never even knew his political affiliation until I was an adult.

I liked Ronald Reagan because -- get this reason -- he was old.

I never talked to my parents about politics at all. Then again, my dad didn't have talk radio to listen to, the Internet, and he didn't read political books all the time like I do.

He did, however, have Walter Cronkite (of whom I remember watching), and he did get the newspaper every day. But those things were boring for me.

I sat down to watch TV, and, to be cool, I turned on my son's favorite cartoon. He sat next to me, and grabbed the remote from me.

Click. Lou Dobbs was now on the screen.

"What are you doing, Jordan?"

"I'm watching the news with you."

"Why?"

"Because it's fun."

"I had your favorite cartoon on."

"I'd rather watch the news with you."

"Yeah right."

-----------------------

I imagine I'll be having political discussions with my son long before he ever had political talks with me. I hope so too, because I love politics.

I suppose there are two approaches to politics when raising your kids: 1) brainwash them 2) encourage them to think for themselves.

Oh, wait, there is also a third, which I'll call the Jay Leno approach. Once in a while, Leno sets up a crew, and asks people simple questions. Many have no clue about common knowledge information like: who's the president? Who's the VP?

My son reads Time for Kids, and makes me read them when he's done because he knows I like that kind of "boring" stuff.

Sometimes I wonder why I blog, or why I read about politics. Then I see my son reading, and my son showing an interest in history and politics, and the answer comes to me.

The Jay Leno method is out. And, however much I'd love to do the brainwashing technique, I really do think it's better for kids to learn to think for themselves.

Happy Easter to all my valued readers

I would like to take this opportunity to wish my valued readers a very happy Easter.

I have taken the past week off from reporting here, but I hope to get back to it very soon. We here at Freadom Nation are a little burned out from work as an RT, and we will be loafing around this Easter Sunday, the earliest in 95 years, and hope to get back into the swing of things tomorrow.

This blog is my #2 priority behind my Respiratory Therapy Cave blog. So, when my family allots me one hour on the computer (the modern boob tube), I usually report there first, so if you really want to know what I'm up to, you can check over there. Sorry, though, I try not to talk politics on my other blog.

Like you guys, I love politics. I try not to just focus on things that you can just read about on other blogs, or other media outlets, but rather I like to analyze the news and report at an angle you might not get anywhere else. Mostly, this is my thinking blog and, if I do a good job, I get my readers to think too.

Now, I understand that you guys aren't going to agree with me on everything I write. I understand that when I review history here, you might rather believe what you read in the New York Times as opposed to what I think is a more accurate history. That's fine. If you want to disagree with me, then we can at least have an intelligent discussion.

Intelligent discussion. That was the purpose of me starting this blog. My wife tries to stay away from politics, and I tell her that that is a good idea. And my nine-year -old son wants loves to have intelligent discussions with me, but I absolutely refuse to discuss much of what is politics with him. My reason there is I want him to learn to think for himself.

He asks me on a daily basis who I'm going to vote for for president.

"I'm sorry, Jordan, I'm not going to answer that," I say.

He smiles and changes the subject. "Let's play a game."

I understood my parent's value system, but neither my mom nor my dad told us kids who they were going to vote for for president, nor what political affiliation they were. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s when I started to put two and two together. My mom grew up in a strictly poor democratic family, and my dad tended to lean more conservative, yet not nearly as conservative as the William F. Buckley Jr crowd.

I have five brothers and one sister, and my sister, like my wife, tries to stay away from politics. Four of my brothers agree with me on most of the issues of the day, so what fun is that. My youngest brother is a true Independent who told me his is having trouble deciding between Obama and McCain. I have some good discussions with him, but I try to be fair in our discussions as to not offend him nor sway him.

That's real life. Even at work, where I have many opinionated co-workers and patients, I tend to try to avoid politics. I usually smile, listen, and agree or disagree, yet rarely do I let these people know my opinions.

For example, just the other day I had a patient who was stressed because she had to go for a scope of her lungs in a few hours, and I was watching Fox News with her. I thought since she was wathcing Fox that she'd be a republican, but I found I was wrong. And she said, "I don't like Obama, and I don't think McCain has a chance of winning."

"So," I said, "Who do you like." I thought she would say McCain.

"Oh, I like Clinton."

"She has a good chance of winning," I said. I wanted to be politically correct. I know that she is stressed out as it is, and if she can go into that surgery thinking good thoughts about her favorite candidate rather than fearing that McCain will win, then I have done a good deed.

See what I mean. I am unable to have a true intelligent discussion throughout the course of a normal day in my life. I occasionally do manage to slip one in, but not enough to satiate my needs. So that's why I created Freadom Nation.

So, that leaves Freadom Nation as my sole place of escape, a place where I can write about whatever is on my mind, be it politics, history, philosophy, or whatever. This is my home. And when I started it I thought I'd be writing only to myself, but I seem to have found a small following, and that's cool. You guys bring joy to Freadom Nation. Even you guys who disagree with me, you get me to think, and that's good -- right. We get each other to think.

Just for the record, I try not to be stubborn on any single issue. And, in the past, I have been known to change my mind from time to time. Hopefully, you guys are equally open minded. I wish, and hope, that our politicians are the same way.

I also have been slacking on my reading of other blogs lately, but, as I've mentioned before, I have to prioritize my time, and you guys, however great your blogs are, get put behind my other responsibilities: God, Wife, Kids, other people, other things.

For now, I'm avoiding politics, avoiding history, avoiding reading up on my philosophy, avoiding reading anything that might get me thinking, and I'm enjoying a day with my children and my wife. I'm enjoying the day God has set aside for us to celebrate his gift to us.

So, that in mind, I have to get off of here now. I have to cuttle up with my little girl in front of the TV. I have to turn off my Detroit Tiger spring training game and spend the rest of the day with them.

I hope you all have a great day, and I hope to hear from you soon, and we can get back to making each other think.

Pinheads are bored and winners read

When I was a kid my grandma hated when we laid around bored. She also hated it when we had the TV on all day. So, for us, that was a double edged sword, because what better way to stave off boredom than to watch TV.

"Shut that TV off," she would say when we turned it on when she was out of the room. "If you can't find something to do I'll find something for you."

She was good at finding things for us to do. One time she took me down to here library and had me look through history books. Another time she had me go through the house counting all the doors. In her old home, there were hundreds. I'm pretty certain I never did get an accurate count.

One day she took me to the store and bought me a notebook. "Write down your thoughts," she said as she handed it to me. "There's no reason you should ever just sit there. You have a of ideas in your head, write them down. Make a list."

Like my parents, grandma was frugal too. She didn't just take us shopping and buy us a bunch of junk we didn't need. For the most part, I'm certain she treated us the same way she treated her own kids.

"You don't have anything to write, draw a picture of that clock on the wall," she'd say. "Find something in this room and draw it for me."

In a lot of ways, when I'm reading Bill O'Reilly's books, and when I'm watching his show, I'm reminded of my grandma. Especially the way he's always using big words and telling us to "look it up. Grandma used to do that all the time.

Perhaps that's why I love vocabulary, and why I love history, and why I love to write, and draw, have intelligent discussions, think, read, learn, etc. It's also why I'm frugal myself. I learned it from my grandma, and my parents too.

While some people may think O'Reily is a blunt hotshot, I think he's a great and noble person doing something someone should have done a long time ago.

And my grandma loved books. What a better way to stave off boredom. Not only can you entertain yourself, you can learn in the process. Even if you're reading filth, you can't help but to learn something by reading.

In, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids," O'Reilly explains to kids that there are four different reasons to read: 1) to get facts, 2) to get ideas, 3) to learn something 4) for excitement and entertainment.

He writes that, "according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the adul around you are likely to spend seventeen times as many hours watching the tube as they do reading books. And a Gallup poll taken in 1999 found tht six out of ten adults read only ten or fewer books a year."

Sometimes I fall into this category, but even when I do I'm still reading magazines, newspapers, and news on the Internet. Like I said, I love to learn. I can't help but to keep up on the latest news and politics. I love it. I suppose I have grandma to thank for that.

I love the following paragraph from O'Reilly's book:

"If you read on a regular basis, you'll be smarter than most of the people on the planet. And being smart is good. It leads to financial success and, most importantly, to a life full of adventure."

He also writes:

"A Pinhead is a kid who is bored. Even if you don't live in the most exciting part of the world and don't have a gazillion bucks to spend on entertainment, you have more than almost anyone else did in all of history. You have gadgets, libraries, clubs, and sports teams. You have community filled with activities and, most of all, you have a mind. A bored kid, I admit, is hard for me to understand. Look around. Think. Do something. Learn. If you're bored, you have only yourself to blame, which gets us nowhere. Forget the blame. Rev up your mind.

He's right. I can hear my grandma saying the same thing.

Not everybody has a grandma like mine to challenge them, and that's why I think Bill O'Reilly is definitely a winner in my book.

If you are reading this, you are not bored, and you are nota pinhead.

Grandma's quilt

Jane, my coworker, said that she woke up in the middle of the night unable to get back to sleep and came up with a great idea for a title for her autobiography: “Up Hill Both Ways.”

“Why would you call it that?” I asked.

“Because when I was a kid we had to go up hill both ways to school and back home,” she said. Then she explained why she had to go up hill both ways, but I couldn’t tell you what she said. Well, I could make it up, though.

I’ve been telling Joella for years she should write a book, and she keeps telling me she will. But she hasn’t. I’m completely honest when I tell you she is one of the smartest people I have ever known, and I think she could easily harness that brilliance into a book.

“I’m going to,” she said, “I’m going to sit down one of these days and write a book.”

I said, “At least a short story.”

That was two years ago. Now she tells me she’s going to write her autobiography “one of these days.”

I remember grandma, back in 1997 when she was first diagnosed with MSA, telling me that there were so many things she wanted to do that she couldn’t possibly do them all. She took me into her living room and showed me an old quilt she had picked up at a yard sale.

“I love to fix up quilts,” she said, “But I’m probably not going to be able to fix this one.” Her muscles had just started to become feeble at this time, and she was finding herself less and less able to do the things she loved to do -- like sew.

“It’s sad,” she added, “That someone would throw something like this away. Someone worked so hard at making this quilt and all it needs is a little TLC. I know if I don’t finish it, it will probably end up in the trash.”

She never did finish it.

When I was in high school, grandma and grandpa lived just a block away from the school, so I’d go there for lunch nearly every day. One day I went there and grandma told me to leave, drive around the block, and go pick up the chair in front of the neighbors house.

“They’re getting rid of it because it has a leg missing, but it’ll give grandpa something to do.”

At first I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but then she took me out the side door, and pointed to the neighbors front yard. They had a bunch of junk out there for the annual spring garbage pick-up, and, among the junk, was the old chair she described.

I hopped in my car, backed out of the driveway, drove to her neighbors, tossed the chair in the back seat of my 1980 Dodge Charger (my first car), and drove back to grandmas. As I write this, I can picture grandma laughing at my naivety at that moment.

“I wanted you to drive around the block so they wouldn’t know it was me who took it,” she said, smiling.

“Oh,” I said.

I took the chair out, and set it on the ground. She inspected it. It was an old rocker, and not only was one of the legs missing, the seat was missing. “Grandpa can fix this,” she assured me.

I am sitting on that chair right now as I write this. Grandpa had cut off the rocking parts, whittled a seat, and turned this into a really nice chair. That was his hobby after he retired.

Many times I remember spending the night at grandma’s, and she’d get me up very early in the morning. We’d be at yard sales when there was dew still on the grass, and a chill in the air. She’d buy old dolls, antique bird cages, old picture frames, antique bottles, lamps, cuckoo clocks, and lots and lots of books. You know, all that stuff people have no use for any more.

"One person’s junk is another person’s treasure," the old addage goes.

My grandma treasured many things. Or, as she’d probably say, she "appreciated" them. She’d see something that looked like a bunch of junk to me, take it home, and incorporate it into her own personal museum that was her home -- her hobby.

And she loved books.

“It’s a shame someone would ever throw away a book,” she once told me.

That’s one of the things I loved most about grandma is how she appreciated things. She’d go to yard sales and pick up other people’s junk and put in among her collection of antiques and make her house look so cool. Yes: my grandma could make junk look cool.

One of the running jokes in my family is that grandma had this nice collection of antiques in her house, and it looked cool, but everything she had had a crack in it. Many times you couldn’t tell just by looking at it, but upon further examination you’d find the flaw.

A few days ago I found an old book among a collection of grandma’s things dad and his sisters had put into his garage and were in the process of going through. Aunt M. told me I could take any books I wanted, so I took a book from the 1880s called “Ben Hurr.” Upon further inspection of the book, however, I found the cover was loose.

If it weren’t for my grandma this book would have been in the trash 30 years ago. Now, if not for me, it would be thrown in the trash again. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it though, considering I don’t have any furniture to set it on.

Jane thought it was cool when I showed it to her the other day at work, the same day she told me about her “Up Hill Both Ways” idea. I sure hope Jane’s book doesn’t go the way of grandma’s quilt.

Copy write © Rick Frea 2007. All rights reserved

Learning how to parent from the best

We can only parent to the best of our abilities and no more. While our ultimate goal is to be a friend to our children, we still have to be a parent.

I'm always thinking about how or where to draw that fine line.

I like to read all sorts of things, and so does my son. And, since he shares many of the same interests as me, I thought about giving him "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids" for Christmas.

Yesterday I found the book in the library, and decided to read it before my son did. So I hadnded it to the librarian.

"Let me know what you think of it," she said as she glanced at the cover.

"I will," I said.

"I know some people think he's a little to short or blunt for their tastes."

"I think he reminds me of my grandparents."

She smirked and went about her business.

Now I've decided I will not give it to my son for Christmas.

I got home and left the book lying on the couch. When he saw it he said, "I hope you didn't get that book for me for Christmas, because I'm not reading it."

I didn't know if he was being serious or not, but I decided to heed his warning.

I read it anyway. And decided that there are two other reasons I don't think he's ready to read it. First, O'Reilly talks about things -- like sex -- that I think my 9-year-old is not ready for yet. Second, I don't want my son to feel like I'm lecturing him via this book.

Regardless, I read the book myself. In this book, more so than his others, O'Reilly certainly does remind me of my grandparents.

I remember when I was a kid going to my grandparents, and the TV was never on. I never even asked to turn it on because grandma would be sure to find something else for me to do, if she hadn't done that already.

"There are better things you can do with your time," she'd say.

She'd always have us coloring or drawing in a notebook. Once, while she was cooking dinner, she had me and my brothers running around her Victorian home counting doors. I don't know that we ever got an accurate count.

Another time I was bored she took me to the store and bought me a notebook. "I want you to write in here all your thoughts," she said. I'm convinced that's why I still write today.

Sometimes she'd take me to her library and show me books on the history of Shoreline, or she'd simply take me to the library and wait patiently while I mulled over which book to take out.

As I was reading the chapter on "TV" in O'Reilly's book, he very much reminded me of grandma.

He writes, "I make my living on the tube because I want to talk about people who cheat and people who get cheated. I want to talk about ideas. I want people who watch my program to think, even if they disagree with me."

Then he added, "But most TV is not designed to make anyone think... it's designed to give you dumb ideas so that you will spend your money on stupid products and never learn to think for yourself."

He writes, as my grandma once lectured in her own pithy way, that TV is good if you are watching it to dull your mind for a short time, and it's good if you are watching something that will educate your mind and get you to think about things, but either way "TV is only good for you if you control it. It's a powerful tool. Use it. don't let it use you."

This morning I found myself telling my son to clean up his mess in the kitchen, to quit watching TV. "If you have time to watch TV then you have time to pick up your room. Pick up the clothes that are all over the floor. If you don't do it, mom will have to."

He picked up the clothes, and then I had him clean up his papers and books from the kitchen table. He cleaned parts of it and was back to watching TV. I was about to have him finish up, but his mom took over:

"Get away from the TV," she said, "and get your hair combed." Once that was done he was loafing around again, and she chimed in, "Come on! Get your stuff ready for school. Robert, come on! This is getting old. I have to tell you the same things every day. You're old enough to do all this stuff without being told."

I didn't say anything more to him because I didn't want to come at him from all angles. Believe it or not, I remember when I was a kid.

I didn't mind it when my parents or grandparents give me their advice, or a pithy lecture. Often times these are the one's I'd think about most, and more often than not incorporate them. Most of the time my family didn't say much and hoped that we'd learn from their real life example. But, when that didn't work, we got the pithy talk.

Except for my mother. She'd sometimes go on and on and on and on. Okay, so I'd rather get a spanking from dad and be done with it.

So I had to say something to my son. I didn't want to, but I knew it had to be done. It would have been far easier to say something like, "Remember why your mom got mad this morning?"

"Yes," he'd say.

"Well, don't do it again." Done. There that was easy.

That doesn't always work. It does on Home Improvement, but not in reality.

I looked at the clock. I would give myself 30 seconds. I took a deep breath:

"Robert, your getting to the age in your life where you need to figure out that things you don't do someone else will." I waited for his response; I didn't want to get ahead of myself and confuse him.

"What?" he said.

"Well, if you leave your clothes on the floor, your mother will have to pick them up. When you leave your clothes inside out, your mother will have to put them right side in."

I paused. He said nothing.

"When you leave your stuff on the table, mom or I will have to put it away for you."

I paused again. He said nothing.

"When you don't brush your hair or get your stuff ready in the morning, mom or I will have to make sure you do."

I paused. He said nothing.

"I don't really care if your room is clean, so I don't bug you about that. But your room being messy says a lot about you, Jasper. It makes you look sloppy. If you want to keep a messy room that's fine. It's your life.

"All I'm saying," I continued, knowing I'd better wrap this up soon, "Is that you should start thinking about this kind of stuff."

I looked at the clock: 45 seconds. I thought of more to say, but my time was up.

"You have a great day at school," I said as I pull up to the curb.

"I will dad," he smiled. He showed no ill effects to the lecture.

We're still pals. Cool.