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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Joshua Rivers, I’m going to be a father again, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. And in the words of Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned from my daughter.
Today’s Fun Fact: For today’s fun fact, I’d like to share some Shawshank Redemption goofs.
- Federal income taxes were due on March 15th in the 1940s, not April 15th as they are today.
- The stamp used by the parole officers in 1947 prints in the Helvetica font, which was not invented until 1957.
- When they are on the roof during the tar job, in either 1949 or 1950, Andy tells Hadley that the IRS allows a gift to a spouse tax free. At that time, the IRS was known as the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It did not become known as the IRS until the 1950s.
- When the warden says the roof of the license plate factory needs resurfacing, the Boom Mic can be seen reflected from the left side of both eyes of his glasses
- Andy Dufresne is obviously a very intelligent man and fond of playing chess. However if you take a good look at the shot of the (nearly) completed chess board in his cell, you see that he put up the chess board the wrong way. The board should be turned 90 degrees in order to have the pieces stand right. The square on the lower left should be black, the one on the upper right too, which they are not, they are white. Anyone fond of playing chess would never make that mistake.
- When Andy breaks into the sewer pipe, it erupts like a full pipe under pressure. Once opened, only a small flow is going through it. No eruption would have occurred.
- At one point, one can clearly see Andy aging – his hair becomes more gray – but a few minutes later, there is less gray and he looks younger again.
What I Learned Yesterday:
I enjoy spending time with my in-laws. I know, that is counter-cultural in today’s society, but my wife’s family is great. We all live within an hour from each other, so we try to get together periodically. Holidays, OU and Packer football games, and birthdays. Some think we get together too much, but, if nothing else, it’s an excuse have cake and eat too much.
Birthdays are generally spread out pretty well throughout the year, and there are a few that we combine because they fall in the same month. But we also like to keep the kids’ birthday celebrations separate if possible. Usually, this isn’t a problem.
But we have issues in March and April. We have four birthdays: March 5, March 31, April 1, and April 8. One is my niece, one is my mother-in-law, one is my daughter, and one is my wife. Because of the ever expanding schedules of each family and the random placement of Easter each year, it can sometimes get complicated to plan the parties without overloading everyone.
This year, it just wasn’t going to work out to keep things separate, so my wife, daughter and mother-in-law were going to combine and have one celebration. This means less cake and ice cream, but that’s probably better for my bathroom scale. By the beginning of March, we set the date for Saturday, April 2nd.
Everything was in place. Presents were bought. Cakes were ordered. We even decided to postpone our Easter egg hunt in the yard to that day to reduce the number of get togethers in a short amount of time.
Then I got a call from my brother on March 26. My grandma was in the hospital and unresponsive. It turns out that she had hip surgery a little while back and had refused to follow the plan for physical therapy, and, as a result, she developed a blood clot in her leg. The only options that the hospital had were to either amputate her leg – which she wouldn’t survive the surgery in her condition – or to do nothing, allowing the clot to go to either her heart or brain. Neither option was good, so the family was all called in. I live 900 miles away, so I couldn’t do much at that time but wait and pray.
She passed the next day, Sunday. On Monday, funeral plans were made. The service would be on Saturday. The same day as the parties.
There was no question that I was going to travel for the funeral. My wife was unable to go, so the question was with the kids. Do they stay home and have the party on Saturday, or do they go with me to the funeral? We gave them the choice.
My daughter was turning 7, but she might as well have been turning 37 with the maturity she displayed. After she and my son contemplated the pluses and minuses of each choice, she said that she would cancel her party and go to the funeral. How many 7-year-old kids would chose to cancel a birthday party in order to see weird extended family members they hardly knew?
My wife and I were so proud of her, we went out to one of her favorite places before we hit the road as a mini-birthday celebration. Yes, we did plan to postpone the party rather than cancel it outright, but we wanted to do something right away.
Not only did we reward her selflessness, but my family heard what she did and celebrated her birthday while we were there. Twice. It wasn’t much, but she felt so special for it.
Here’s what I learned:
You can learn from anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re the child or the parent; the student or the teacher; the employee or the boss. You can learn from those around you.
I also learned that it pays to be selfless. No, there won’t always be rewards or parties if people notice your selfless act. But God is keeping record and will reward you someday. If not here on earth, in Heaven.
By the way, this was the second time my daughter postposed her birthday to benefit someone else. She did a similar thing last year so we could throw a surprise party for my mother-in-law’s 60th birthday.
I’m Joshua Rivers and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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