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I HAVE A BONE TO pick with Douglas MacArthur.
The late general kept me up well past my bedtime last week after
Actually, now that I think about it, my irritation may have been misplaced. My apologies to the general.
The young historian
Me: So why'd you choose MacArthur?
Her: Because he was a great man.
Me: Well, tell me something about him.
Her: He was a man.
Me: Uh, yeah, well that's probably a good thing. Girls named "Douglas" tend not to turn out so well. But what kind of a man was he?
Her: A great man.
Me: OK, yeah, well you sort of covered that. But why was he great?
Her: Because he did great things.
Me: What things?
Her: Great things.
Me: But what kind of great things?
Her: The kind of things that are great.
Me: Permission to declare the witness "hostile," your honor.
I sensed that the project lacked a bit in the way of specifics and suggested that the young historian spend a few days acquainting herself with MacArthur's actions during World War I, World War II and the Korean War.
That's when I learned the project was due in two days. Hence, the late nights, spent plowing through biographical information and trying to distill 50 years of military history down to a half-dozen five-sentence paragraphs.
It'd be easy to get mad at her for waiting until the last minute if I hadn't done the same thing myself once. OK, maybe twice.
I vividly remember sitting with my mother at the dining-room table late one evening in 1984 when I, too, had waited until the night before it was due to start a school report.
I think it was on the Panama Canal, which, as I recall, was also a great man, though perhaps not as great as MacArthur.
I'm sure you can imagine the conversation:
Mom: So what can you tell me about the Panama Canal?
Me: It's a great canal.
Mom: What's so great about it?
Me: It does great things.
Mom: What kind of things?
Me: Things that are great.
Mom: When did you say this was due?
The table was littered with reference books and old National Geographic magazines, and after a few hours of mother-directed research, I'd managed to patch together a passable essay.
That's when my mom quietly shut her Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia and fixed me with a gaze known to her children as "The Silencer." Generally only leveled for the most serious offenses--talking back to
"This," she said quietly, "will never happen again."
No yelling. No threatening. No long, protracted lectures about how irresponsible it was to put off the work until the last minute.
Just a firm promise that the next time I procrastinated on a project of this magnitude, I'd be up the Panama Canal all by myself, without a paddle.
Message received loud and clear. I've certainly pulled my share of all-nighters since then to finish a project, but I've never waited that long to start one ever again.
After spending two late nights with Gen. MacArthur, I was eager to impart the same lesson to the young historian in my own house.
So I quietly shut the laptop computer and fixed her with my own version of The Silencer--not as practiced but still pretty effective.
We both agreed that as tough as MacArthur was, even he would've balked at being dragged through three major wars in 48 hours by a frantic 11-year-old.
We also both agreed that history would not repeat itself and that the next school project would begin and end well in advance of its due date.
All of which is just great. Perhaps not as great as MacArthur, but pretty great just the same.
Edie Gross: 540/374-5428
Email: egross@freelancestar.com