The Old Hippies Corner: Labor Day Road Race to Paris Texas – thoughts for my Son on Going to College – How to Make it in the Parcheesi of Life

The lyrics from a song I can't find: "everyone falls down some time"…and the game Parcheesi keep coming back to me.

Remember when we played, "Trouble" and a player's piece would get sent back?

Or the game of Life, in which a player would pick up a card that said: "Midlife crisis – you lose your job. Choose a new career."

The midlife crisis card was usually followed in short order with: "Choose a new salary card."

Oh yeah, both of those are likely to happen.

What makes your age difficult is trying to find a balance between the fun you want to have, knowing, too, that everything you do counts.

You will learn that balance the same way you've learned how to do everything else: in steps that seem small, but which take you farther than you've ever been before.

Time was I was with you on your first steps: when you learned to walk at 14 months, your first day in kindergarten, your first day in middle school and high school.

They say that America is a land of second chances. Sometimes we fall down, get sent back, or stand, running in place, double time, just trying to get ahead.  Never give up.

When you've been pushed to the bottom or you find yourself on a different rung other than that which you want: never give up. It is within your power to climb those rungs.

You will be offered many opportunities. Some opportunities wave a carrot and entice you with possibilities. The worst of these are Scratch tickets.

The best of these opportunities will never even announce themselves until you have proven yourself worthy. Always know the path ahead is not straight: it is curved, crooked even, with promises and pitfalls.

Always have a goal in mind. Every choice you make will propel you one step closer to your goal or one step further away.

In sports, you've always hustled – whether you score a goal or not, people remember the hustle and the effort you put into the game. You made the game better, more enjoyable, and one step closer to a win.

 It is the same with life – professors and employers don't care that you're smart – only how hard you work, how much you hustle.

Last week, we ended up at a Laundromat because the dryer broke and we shared a few moments between songs, goofing around, making the best of the situation.

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah came on the radio. I've always loved Cohen, because his lyrics haunt, because his music makes the soul soar; yes, too, because he grew up not far from where I lived in Montreal.

So simple a song, yet it  moves.

"Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah…

"Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah...

"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah…"

I was your age when Cohen's Suzanne was popular  -- a song we knew in Montreal was about the island of Montreal as much as it was about Suzanne.

"Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
 You can hear the boats go by
 You can spend the night beside her
 And you know that she's half crazy
 But that's why you want to be there
 And she feeds you tea and oranges
 That come all the way from China
 And just when you mean to tell her
 That you have no love to give her
 Then she gets you on her wavelength
 And she lets the river answer
 That you've always been her lover
 And you want to travel with her
 And you want to travel blind
 And you know that she will trust you
 For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

"And Jesus was a sailor
 When he walked upon the water
 And he spent a long time watching
 From his lonely wooden tower
 And when he knew for certain
 Only drowning men could see him
 He said "All men will be sailors then
 Until the sea shall free them"
 But he himself was broken
 Long before the sky would open
 Forsaken, almost human
 He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
 And you want to travel with him
 And you want to travel blind
 And you think maybe you'll trust him
 For he's touched your perfect body with his mind…"


Never give up.