We were there for a visit to determine if Alison might want to attend the school, and for all I knew, it was the last we'd see of Alison until the end of the day.
She was super chill about it and strolled off with a quick smile. Jeff was doing his cool dad thing, but I know he was desperate for her to turn around and ask him something ... anything that would reassure him that she still needed his advice. He got nothing.
I really, really tried to keep it together, but it was one of those terrible/wonderful events where another thread ripped free of the slender cord connecting us. I could see it unraveling and flying off in the breeze as clear as day. He turned around and saw me and started to laugh.
He positioned himself so she couldn't see my face. It's not that I wasn't proud of her or don't want her to live her life, but man, the milestones are hard. The division of parents and students was short-lived, and my weepy moment passed. I tried to keep back and let her do her thing.
We ended up having a really good day and we only embarrassed her a couple of times. That I know of.
At one point, we were in a small group, and Dr. Beatriz Cisneros was querying parents and students about what they wanted out of the day. Were were only about a dozen people, and as an ice-breaker, she asked us to give a fun fact about ourselves. Mine was that Mitch Daniels had once fired me. The adults in the room thought it was a super fun fact. Alison was not amused.
"Why did you say that?!" she asked me later.
She knew the former governor had invited me and my fellow Democrats to leave when his Republican regime took over, but she didn't realize he was now the president of Purdue. She gave me that "uh-huh" look when I explained the hilarity of my fun fact.
I can't remember exactly how Jeff embarrassed her, but I'm sure he did. I mean, it couldn't have only been me...
Anyway, I'm mostly over my anxiety over her imminent departure. I have another year and half before it's time for college, and we have more visits to make. I'll have to work on my fun facts for them. It's doubtful I'll have a better one.
In an ironic twist of fate, I had an actual Mitch encounter a week after our visit to West Lafayette via a work project headed by Bill Oesterle. The event was the Brain Gain Talent Summit, the first event of a larger project designed to keep talented people in Indiana whether they're natives or come here for college or university. It's a concept Bill and the former governor have been talking about and working on for years and I'm happy to be helping with it.
As the event wasn't about me and I had a job to do, I didn't take the opportunity to tell the governor/president that Ali is considering his university as her next educational institution or that he met her years ago. Not that he was the first governor to make her acquaintance, of course.
I was working for Governor Frank O'Bannon when Ali was born. There was a Day Nursery school in the state office building next to the Statehouse, so she and I had "gone to work" together since her enrollment there as an infant. She was a frequent visitor to the governor's office, once marking it as her territory when her diaper leaked all over one of the couches.
One night when I was working late, my friend Cindy Athey was dispatched to pick her up. That was the longest walk in Cindy's life as Alison apparently screamed most of the way. In later years, her Day Nursery class visited with Governor Joe Kernan. So the entire state complex was just a playground to her and everyone -- even the security detail -- was just another potential playmate.
She was four-years old and Mitch had just taken office as governor when they met. I was still licking my wounds from the election lot and was freshly unemployed. Jeff, who was still working downtown, had taken over getting her to Day Nursery and back.
When they came home that night and he told me that he'd encountered the new governor that day. Not only had they traded cordial greetings, the governor had leaned down to talk to Ali and then taken HER HAND and walked with them to the cafeteria, chattering about this and that like you do when you meet an adorable little kid.
I was not amused.
"You let him hold her hand?" I asked, outraged. "Did you tell him that he'd just fired her mommy?"
I'm pretty sure the eye roll he gave me at Purdue the other day was the same one I got that day back in 2005. I like to think I've matured since then.
Jeff has abandoned us for a few days for a work trip that has a special side bonus of being in Portland, Oregon, home of our good friend Sami Khawaja. It'll be a mix of craft beer, wine, jazz and, of course, important work.
Ali left me too, for an overnight with a friend of hers. It wasn't a problem because their absence left me open to monopolize my nephew Jason, who was in town for his weekend with the naval reserve. Even though I knew what he was here for, seeing him walk toward me in uniform was a bit of a shock. There's a big welcome home party for him next week, but it's also Alison's prom so I'll miss it.
I was thrilled to be able to spend some quality time with him ahead of the party, which he pointed out, is something I probably wouldn't get at the party. So it couldn't have worked out better.
I don't think I have words for how proud of Jason I am. Don't tell him because it would embarrass him, but he's the kid every parent hopes to have. He's not a kid, of course. He's a grown-up. A husband. A parent. A grandparent, actually. He's a frickin' soldier.I'm pretty lucky to be surrounded by all kinds of people doing good things. Ali needed service hours for National Honor Society, and my friend Karin Ogden didn't hesitate to put her to work around the Athenaeum YMCA.
All around me, people are doing amazing things, and it's making me optimistic even on this rainy Sunday when all I have to keep me company is my laptop and my NYT.
There's a lot this world has to work on, but I'm glad to know a lot of folks who are making a positive difference in whatever way they can.
It even seems Old Man Winter is about to be wrestled back to his cave after one last battle tomorrow.
Even if there's more snow in the forecast, spring IS coming. There's more good ahead than bad in the days to come. I'm sure of it.
Cheers to a glass that's more than half-full today. Hope yours is, too.
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