Michele
and I always play the “she’s your daughter/no, she’s your daughter” game when
it comes to discussing Clare’s makeup.
But, truth be told, the girl who looks like her mother (a good thing,
that) thinks and speaks more like her old man, who has never been that big a
fan of privilege.
Yesterday,
Valpo traveled down the road to South Bend to play Notre Dame and another area
college team. “They’re going to feed us,
just like New Trier,” Clare said beforehand, recalling her time as a Morton
Mustang. For some reason, her high
school team played nonconference games against one of the wealthiest schools in
the state of Illinois. Come lunch
between games, we had everything short of caviar and linen tablecloths.
It
was a perfect life lesson on the haves and have-nots of the world, though no
one in the visitors’ dugout had a foot in the poorhouse. We just didn’t have what the North Shore
does, in terms of stuff and opportunities.
Not to worry. We raised our
daughter to seize what chances come her way.
Therein lies the
paradox: I want Clare to succeed time and again until she can afford a house
the likes of which the kids from New Trier call home. I just don’t want her to live there.
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