Obama Gets a Dad and Other Life Lessons

Every year, just before Thanksgiving, my kid's school has a special day called "Great Friends Day." It's a big deal, complete with cookies and Kool-Aid, a Christmas Carols choir, and valet parking.

Now, this special day started out with a fairly conventional name: "Grandparents Day." Which is precisely what it is. But over time it transmogrified into "Grand Friend's Day" and, finally, the current and peculiar "Great Friends" that it is today.

The well-intentioned, loving thought behind the nomenclature was that to have a Grand Parents Day when some children don't have grandparents -- much less grandparents who are alive -- would do too much to emphasize this heartbreaking disparity among our little ones.

Fact is, some kids have grandparents, and some don't. But God forbid we do anything that acknowledges that fact -- no matter how benign -- and pour salt on the wounds of the grandparent-less. Life's not fair, but don't tell anyone. Just pretend it is.

In high school I suppose they'll hold a "No Cars" Day, in hat-tipping tribute to the pitiable teenagers without four wheels. Except that would rather emphasize the point, and "Great Friends Day" seems to be highlighting the great divide already, quite nicely. Ah, best that we not talk about such things.

Another hard lesson in life's inequality? Some of us don't have fathers. The most fortunate of the fatherless are left with dreams, but dreams we can only posthumously celebrate. So it is with great delight I am able to report that yesterday, Leon G. Cooperman, a wizened old fellow, stepped up to serve as Obama's dad.

Here's the letter he wrote dear Barack -- I hope you'll read the whole thing. This spade-calling man doesn't mince words, and I can only imagine what he'd say about our school's Great Great Something Day.

Warning: although the letter is suitable for workplace viewing, your monitor might start smoking.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.