Have you ever received one of those forwarded e-mails about how “back in the day”, you could go outside to play and absolutely take off around the neighborhood and Mom and Dad trusted you to be safe, play nicely and be home by dinnertime?

How many of you did fundraisers as a kid? For a sports team? School? Boy Scouts? Girl Scouts? Were your parents like mine? Were you cast out the door with your catalogs and order forms…having to go door-to-door around the neighborhood? Hoping you’d get one or two sales in a 3 hour trudge-a-thon?

It was great when my Dad would take my Girl Scout Cookie order form to work, or to his ship…he said he could just sit the form on his desk, or post it on the wall outside his office door on the ships on which he was stationed…and by the end of one day, the form would be filled.

But that worked well when Dad wasn’t out to sea. For some reason, I seemed to do a lot of fund raising when my Dad was out to sea. Which meant I was back to door-to-door…ugh. I really truly hated doing that. I’m not great about asking things of others (babysitting while I drill in South Carolina not-withstanding), especially their money.

I guess I was shocked, but understanding, when I saw printed on the form that the parents and adults should be doing the fund raising legwork. I think I caught a glimpse of my future: Jacob and Timmy…for whatever activity they choose to do in the future, will have plenty of fundraising for me to do. And guidance will be for me (and Dave, hopefully) to do the legwork.

Hated fund raising then, I will hate it in 4-5 years when the boys start getting involved in it.