History Lessons

So, Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton stuck a “Rosie the Riveter” button on the hat he wore to work on Sunday in Detroit.  Earlier in the week, Newton reacted to a question from a female reporter by saying, “It’s funny to hear a female talk about [pass] routes.”   The pin he intended as “a shout-out to all the strong women,” many of whom presumably let him know what they thought of his routes-remark.

Newton said he wants to be a good role model for his two daughters.  OK, the pin’s a start, but we’ve had a metal sign version complete with the slogan “We Can Do It!” hanging in the basement probably from the time Clare was four.  Come to think of it, maybe our daughter likes lifting weights because that image of Rosie flexing her bicep made an impression on her at an early age.

But if you really want to have a positive influence on your athletic kid, one button by itself won’t do.  As parents, Michele and I took Clare to Cooperstown, dragged her to all sorts of architecturally significant buildings, including the Old State Capitol in Springfield; you would have thought she saw Abraham Lincoln in the flesh that day.  Maybe she did.

And we didn’t let travel ball get in the way.  One summer found us in Kansas City, so we went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.  Another summer it was Maryland, which led to Annapolis, which led to Washington, which meant the Smithsonian and the Manassas Civil War battlefield.  Yet another summer it was Chattanooga, which led to Lookout Mountain another Civil War battle site.

We wanted our daughter to have a strong sense of what it meant to be an American.  Her subsequent love of country and western wasn’t intended, but, hey, you can’t ask for a more American genre.  Oh, and I think she talks pass routes with her fiancé at dinner sometimes.