A Dynasty?

My kid sister called me yesterday to excitedly tell me that she'd been offered an academic scholarship to a private high school. This would make her the first in our family to go to private school. Now as we're far from a family of ballers (but are all pretty ok in the brains department) it's good that the school has agreed to pick up the tab for her. But it's even better that we're moving...forward.

"I was so happy to know that there won't be any more bathroom with "Dante left Keisha" written all over the walls," she said. We both laughed about it. While I came up in the best schools the DC system had to offer, it in so way saved me from the boxing bouts, thefts, catfights, food fights, after-school jumpings etc. that comprised my public school experience. My baby sister being far away from all of that is a good thing, a very good thing.

Riding with my Pops over Christmas (with a huge spruce on top of the Yellow Bug) we discussed the future of the family, not in terms of our individual goals, but about us as a collective. As products of both the military and various degrees of self-employment we've been check to check people like everyone else. But as my father's gotten older he's begun to truly thing past himself, about us building some companies from the ground up that we hope will create a pool that will keep us all out of financial ruin whenever we face it. Though it didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time it suddenly occurred to me that if we succeed we'll be stepping the game in our blood up a notch. It's weird to think about trust funds and long-term investments, collective property purchases and the like. This isn't because I'm not aware of all of the possibilities, it's just that they weren't a part of the world I grew up in.

Glass and I were having this conversation the other day about being the kinds of folks who can seemingly weave in and out of any environment. But when it came to the privileged I understood that while I would always know how to speak the language, that it would be merely an acquired tongue. No ascots or butlers or vacation homes for the kid. All I wanted was a 9 to 5 covering the news and maybe the chance to publish a book or two before it was all over. Yeah, I was aiming a little low.

But now as the folks on the other side has been dragging me through the kind of boot camp that drove the fat dude crazy in Full Metal Jacket, I see that my life and the lives of my siblings and children, might actually be more comfortable, that we might have a shot at having some cake with our coffee every once in awhile. And that's a good feeling, even if the seeds for such fruit aren't even close to germinating. It's no different than my own financial plans for the next two years, as I've been coming to realize what my biggest mistakes have been in both life and money.

My boy O, after reading yesterday's blog, joked at just how old the both of us have become and how having one set of dreams realized only makes way for the next way. Hell, you're a success if you get to do half of what you've set out to. And when it comes to my father and I, that probably makes us two of the most successful men in the world. So I guess we're building a dynasty, one begun in a single conversation, as most thing are. Whether we succeed or fail we at least stayed true to ourselves. Most folks can't say that.