{"id":1641,"date":"2010-12-31T01:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/?p=1641"},"modified":"2011-01-02T17:50:57","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T21:50:57","slug":"hed-grown-up-just-like-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2010\/12\/hed-grown-up-just-like-me\/","title":{"rendered":"“He’d Grown Up Just Like Me”"},"content":{"rendered":"
“My child arrived just the other day.\u00a0 He came to the world in the usual way.\u00a0 But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay.\u00a0 He learned to walk while I was away.” [1]<\/p>\n
{And he was talking ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew, he’d say, “I’m gonna be like you, dad.\u00a0 You know I’m gonna be like you.”}<\/p>\n
“When you coming home, dad?”\u00a0 The father replied as he was leaving “I don’t know when.\u00a0 But we’ll get together then.\u00a0 You know we’ll have a good time then.”<\/p>\n
\n{My son turned ten just the other day.\u00a0 He said “Thanks for the ball, dad, come on let’s play.\u00a0 Can you teach me to throw?”}\u00a0 The father replied “Not today.\u00a0 I got a lot to do.”\u00a0 The boy surprisingly said {“That’s ok.”\u00a0 And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed.\u00a0 Said, “I’m gonna be like him, yeah.\u00a0 You know I’m gonna be like him.”}<\/p>\n
As the boy grew, the boy asked again {“When you coming home, dad?”\u00a0 “I don’t know when.\u00a0 But we’ll get together then.\u00a0 You know we’ll have a good time then.”}<\/p>\n
{Well, he came from college just the other day, so much like a man I just had to say, “Son, I’m proud of you.\u00a0 Can you sit for a while?”\u00a0 He shook his head, and he said with a smile, “What I’d really like, dad, is to borrow the car keys.\u00a0 See you later.\u00a0 Can I have them please.”}<\/p>\n
{“When you coming home, son?”\u00a0 “I don’t know when.\u00a0 But we’ll get together then, dad.\u00a0 You know we’ll have a good time then.”}<\/p>\n
{I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away.\u00a0 I called him up just the other day.\u00a0 I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind.”\u00a0 He said, “I’d love to, dad, if I could find the time.\u00a0 You see, my new job’s a hassle, and the kid’s got the flu.\u00a0 But it’s sure nice talking to you, dad.”\u00a0 It’s been sure nice talking to you.”}<\/p>\n
{As I hung up the phone, it occurred to me, he’d grown up just like me.\u00a0 My boy was just like me.}<\/p>\n
{“When you coming home, son?”\u00a0 “I don’t know when.\u00a0 But we’ll get together then, dad.\u00a0 You know we’ll have a good time then.”}<\/p>\n
I first heard this song “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Sandy & Harry Chapin more than 25 years ago when I was attending a “Time-Management” training course while working at Bell Laboratories.\u00a0 It made a great and lasting impression on me even though unlike the father in the song, I did spend time with my sons.\u00a0 But the song always makes me wonder whether I had my priorities right and whether I should have spent even more time with my sons.<\/p>\n
To read the lyrics of this song, click on lyrics<\/a>.\u00a0 To hear the song sung by Harry Chapin, click on song<\/a>.<\/p>\n ____________________<\/p>\n [1]\u00a0 This article contains many quotes from the song “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Sandy & Harry Chapin.\u00a0 Since the song contains a lot of quotes, in order to distinguish quotes within quotes,\u00a0 the inside quotes are placed between “…”, and the outside quotes are placed between {…}.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “My child arrived just the other day.\u00a0 He came to the world in the usual way.\u00a0 But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay.\u00a0 He learned to walk while I was away.” [1] Thus began the relationship between the baby boy and his father.\u00a0 But you expect that this is just a coincidence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1641"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}