Date Night

To my son Tommy,

Before you were born, your mother and I went out often.  Some would even suggest that we were out more than we were in, which made nights staying in all the more special.  I tell you this not to make you feel guilty for our lack of external social life.  Nor do I tell you this to try to convince you that we were at one time the cool kids on the block.  I just mention it so you get an idea of how excited I am to be going on a date with your mother tonight.

To celebrate your mother finishing this semester of nursing, and just to celebrate us being us together, we are headed out to a restaurant tonight.  We enlisted your godmother Aunt Na to watch you as we head out and just get to focus on us for a bit.  Of course date night is going to be quite different than our days of yore.  Before we would drink tons of booze and spend money galore and be merry for hours on end.  Tonight we will be ecstatic to share a half price appetizer and a crummy margarita from some chain restaurant for an hour or so.  We have come to realize in our life that all we need is good company.  We have also come to realize that since we don't have occasion to drink much anymore that one tequila drink may make us suffer the hangover effects even before the check comes.

Yesterday I mentioned how it is great to try to help out whomever you can even if they are a stranger on the highway.  The reason we try to help people is every person is more alike than we are different.  Ignoring the superficial differences and honing in on what makes us human allows us to have compassion and love for all.  If you imagine how you would like to be treated, it is easy to pick the right course of action to treat others.  Tis the golden rule set down by a Man much wiser than me.  "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

But you should take this concept of being alike and the golden rule out of the obscurity of theory and apply it to all your real life relationships everywhere.  Applying it to the woman you love will give you an ability to decipher a small part of the psyche of a woman (which of course understanding a small part is the best a man can hope for).  You will realize that everyone wants to be loved and wants to share love.  If you act accordingly with the core concepts of life and how you would want to be treated, and you do this with your wife and family as well as all strangers, you will go far my son.  All people enjoy being appreciated and made to feel special.  And what could make someone feel more appreciated, more special, than a half price appetizer shared with yours truly.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo