Advice Given

I’m currently reading Gilda Radner’s book “It’s Always Something”. In it she tells the story of her experience with ovarian cancer. In the book she seeks and is given advice by many people. It started me thinking about some of the advice I got during my life.

We are given advice from many sources. Some is good, some bad. But some advice comes from the heart. Hopefully it is heeded. Other comes from experience and is given to make things easier or to prevent making the same mistake.

In the latter category fall things like my mother advising me on the proper way to iron a shirt just before I left for college. Or my father’s friend showing me it is smart to screw the lampshade holder back in place after removing the lampshade – that way it doesn’t get lost.

The more significant advice involves personal decisions. When, in 8th grade, it was time to decide whether to go to Bassick High and take the college course or go to Ludlow trade school, most of my neighborhood friends, including my best friend, Robert Mester, were going to trade school. I was leaning that direction too, until Mrs. Seward, my science teacher, pulled me aside one day and advised me to go take the college courses. She said I would waste my talent if I didn’t. Besides she had been there when my mother went to school and knew she did not have the opportunity I did. She was looking out for me.

Then there was Alan Vogel one of my roommates in college. When I had to decide whether or not to work out at Cape Kennedy (not really a difficult decision). Alan bluntly advised me that any of my classmates would give their left nut to work out there.


When I failed my first college course one term from graduating I got really upset. Penny came to see me and told me it was OK to cry. As silly as it sounds it was advice I needed to hear.

When I was getting ready to graduate from college there was the question of how it would affect my relationship with Penny. One day as I was parking my motorcycle, a good friend, Vic Petillo, started talking to me about Penny. He looked me in the eye and said if he ever had someone like that, who cared for him, he wouldn’t leave her. (I didn’t follow his advice immediately but it stuck with me.)

When Karen started school at Kenwood we had a teacher’s conference with one of her teachers, Mrs. Brown. She told me that Karen really loved her Daddy and put me up on a pedestal. Before that could go to my swelling head, she went on to explain the awesome responsibility that came with this. She warned me not to let her down. She was looking out for Karen.

I can’t leave out my mother’s advice. One day she handed me a piece of straw from the “baby Jesus’s manger.” She told me to carry it with me and I’ll never be broke. I smiled and stuck it in my wallet. I know this is superstition, but it meant something to her. Now after decades of changing wallets and Mom not being here any more, I still carry it. It is a little ragged but still together. In fact, I consider it one of my prized possessions. (And I never went broke!)
Looking back over this blog it stands out that two significant pieces of advice came from teachers. They can have real effect on students' and parents' lives.