ROLE MODEL: THE JOB THAT NEVER ENDS AND NEVER SHOULD

Role Model is what you do when you put your best foot forward, your best self.

People want to show their best side when it’s most important.

Weddings, birthdays, any celebration worth showing up for, calls for good role modeling.

If you show up and look around, but don’t find role models doing what role models do, then it’s you. Step on up.

But what the heck do role models do that’s so important?

Funeral Role Models

This is pretty straight forward most of the time. Show up on time, be patient, talk to the bereaved, and call it a day.

But, that’s not how it worked at my Dad’s funeral.

One of the adult kids from his new life dug the old man’s grave as a labor of love. His mom had died and based on tribal traditions of which he was half-connected through her, he wasn’t allowed to attend her funeral.

But the elders allowed him to dig her grave. It was an honor then, the same honor as digging my Dad’s grave.

At the end of the funeral ceremony the crowd sang Amazing Grace. You know the song?

After the first verse, someone sang it over again, then again, leading the gathering like a repititious role model.

Then, instead of going to the parking lot after placing a handful of dirt on the casket, one of the sons asked for a shovel. More shovels arrived and those who could did the burial instead of the backhoe parked nearby.

There’s a finality in doing the deed by hand, plenty of time to sweat out a last good-bye.

Again, instead of calling it a day, a small group traveled out to the property one last time, the hundred acre field of dreams on former reservation land that he called home at the end.

Sometimes letting go is a long process no one tells you about.

Now you know.

Birthday Party Role Model

For a kid’s birthday party someone has to step up. Usually a parent.

The choice is either hiring a creepy clown, or taking a chance on a dad organizing things.

It helps if the dad knows how role models work. If they do, they find a pole, tie a string around one end with a clothes pin tied to the end of the string.

Then hang a sheet in the corner of a room, and when no one is looking, get behind it with small presents. The kids line up to drop the fishing line over the sheet and pull up presents clipped to the clothes pin.

Do it right and it feels like magic to the partiers, and doing it right means keeping out of the way and letting the kids experience the fun.

Snoop Dogg As Role Model

Have you seen anything funnier than Martha Stewart hanging out with Snoop Dogg?

Even better are the beer commercials where Snoop talks about his Corona and his ‘attitude.’

This is the same guy who pushed the boundaries of stoner culture, who openly celebrates weed, Mary Jane, pot, Ganga, reefer, hippy lettuce, and he’s still going.

The attitude he must be referring to? Attitude adjustment, or smoking the chronic. Even though legal weed is under consideration at the national level, some states are already there.

Oregon is one of them.

Here’s the tricky part: weed, legal or not, is consciousness altering.

Places and times you don’t want to see smoke?

In the cockpit of the jet as you board.

The über car you called for.

Running around with a baby in your arms.

A stoney airline pilot is a bad role model. Dear Captain, we don’t want to smell anything but Old Spice in the cockpit.

Uber driver? All we want to smell is peppermint gum in the car, or maybe that pine tree smell from one of those mirror-hanging tree air freshener.

What about baby? Hold baby in a seat, not running around unless you’re the mom and dad and know what to expect from their kids.

Find a comfy seat; not too hard, not too soft. Find a warm place in the room; not too warm, not too cold. And stay put like Goldilocks in Baby Bear’s bed. Just right.

It’s that easy, and if you can’t follow those simple rules, you’ll hear about it. Go ahead and adjust your attitude, but don’t expect a green light to go where you want with a baby.

Find the right seat, sit down, and if you need to stand up, hand baby to the person sitting next to you waiting for their turn.

The right baby pulls a whole room together, and everyone in it.

What would Martha say?

“Fo shizzle my dizzle.”