You’ve probably heard of “helicopter parents,” those clingy moms and dads who hover over their older children, supervising every move.
Well, here’s a story about what you might call “surface-to-air missile parents.”
Anne Ferguson, who grew up in Fairlawn and graduated from Copley High School, is the senior associate director of college counseling at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. Many of her students move on to the country’s finest colleges.
Ferguson is in frequent contact with folks in similar jobs at other top prep schools, and sometimes they share horror stories about parents.
One of her colleagues in another part of the country told her a story that should curl your hair.
Ferguson insisted on changing the name of the prospective college to protect the guilty, but otherwise passed along her colleague’s email verbatim:
“You know how we all have ‘those stories’ that people say should go in a book? Here’s one that blew me away yesterday that I just have to share with people who would understand.
“We talked to the seniors about opening their [college acceptance or rejection] emails in the privacy of home with their parents. ‘Just don’t do it at school with a crowd around.’
“One of my seniors told me that she’d rather be with friends than parents, because she’s afraid of her parents’ reaction. You see, her parents are both Swanky Selective College alum and she applied for Swanky Selective College early decision.
“The student knows she’s a long shot. She’s realistic. But her parents did this: They took two different family photos for the Christmas card, one where the senior is wearing a Swanky Selective College sweatshirt and one where she’s not.
“The parents had both sets of cards printed, 200 of each, and they addressed and stamped both sets of cards. Every day her parents say, ‘Which Christmas cards are we going to send?’
“You can guess which holiday cards will be sent, and which will be kept around as evidence of their daughter’s failure.”
Ho, ho, horrible.
Christmas coda
As we previously noted, the person TubaChristmas was created to honor, pioneering tuba player William Bell, was born on Dec. 25.
Akron’s version of the event has been led for more than three decades by Tucker Jolly — birthday: Dec. 30.
For more than two decades, the guest conductor on a couple of carols at each Akron show has been Robert Jorgensen — birthday: Dec. 26.
Coincidence? We think not.
Funky plate
Reader Eric Weber filed this report:
“Seen in Cuyahoga Falls on the back of a pick-up truck: ‘LICNPL8.’
“It’s ‘license plate’ on a license plate, of course. But that’s not what I saw first.”
Kind of like an ink-blot test, isn’t it?
Magic stat
Now, maybe I shouldn’t say this, because I haven’t taken the time to really examine the methodology, but some research claims make me laugh.
A recent report in the Springfield News-Sun (one of the state’s best mid-size newspapers, by the way) is a case in point.
In a story about new anti-littering billboards aimed at young folks was this sentence:
“The benefits, however, help everyone — a national study found that litter can decrease property values in a community by 7 percent.”
I would have sworn that litter decreases property values by only 6 percent.
Seeing double
Akron’s Eddie Vidmar was prompted to pass along this tale after reading a column about whacky fortune-cookie sayings.
Over dinner, he was interviewing prospective musicians for a country-music project he has in the works.
“I went through some of the song titles with them. One of the songs I wrote has the hook, ‘Before you get to see the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.’
“Ten minutes later, dinner was over and I opened my fortune cookie.
“The message: ‘Before you see rainbows you must endure rain.’
“Whoa!!!!”
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
