Dylan Stafford

So we survived Christmas, traveling from Los Angeles, to New Jersey, to Connecticut, to Dallas and home. That’s what we do, living away from our families and wanting to have holiday family memories, we travel.

It is now 2012 and our son officially begins kindergarten this year, this fall. That means it is time to get serious and let the kindergarten open houses begin…

I’m an admission director at UCLA and I make MBA open house presentations for a living. Now it is my turn to be on the receiving end, and sit in the audience.

Our first open house was right here in our little town of Culver City. It was a Thursday night and we got our friend Herb to babysit Jackson. Marisa was cooking dinner until the last minute, and by the time we left we were already going to be late.

I get hormonal when I’m late. All my manners and civility are forgotten and I turn into a jerk quickly. We were on a one-way street close to the elementary school and there was an open parallel spot.

“Should I park here?” I asked.

“See if you can get a little closer,” said Marisa.

Why did I ask? When you’re the driver, drive. Make the decision and let the passengers be passengers. I was chastising myself silently while we circled the block, getting closer to the school, but finding no parking spots. See, if we would have parked and walked, we would almost be there by now. I was thinking it, but not saying it; restraint of pen and tongue and email, that’s recovery 101.

We followed the one-way street as it went up to the school–and then away from the school–until we found a side street with open spots and we hurriedly jogged back. Someone was standing out front with flyers who I thought was a greeter. We try to have greeters at UCLA for our events.

“Are you voting in the election? Have you considered your choices for school board?” the campaign volunteer asked.

“Sorry, we’re late for an event. Do you know where the open house is?” I apologized as we scooted past. She nodded over her shoulder.

We walked in and it smelled like a school, like the 1970s and Hyde Park Elementary in Denison, Texas. At check-in, there were several stacks of pastel-colored papers and we grabbed one of each and only at our seat realized half were in Spanish.

Marisa went ahead but I stopped at the bake sale and fortified myself with cookies. What’s an elementary school event without a bake sale? I thought as I gratefully munched on a chocolate chip cookie. I rationalized that these weren’t empty calories, these were small contributions to making the world a better place.

The open house was in the cafetorium. The most horrible word ever, cafetorium, a strange combination of cafeteria + auditorum. I hear cafe- and I’m ok, but I hear -torium and deep in my mind I’m thinking crematorium and I’m unsettled, like death-by-school-cafeteria-food. Who decided that was a good word?

We sat down on long picnic tables in the back half of the cafetorium. We were actually only a few minutes late and the principal came up and addressed us. She was a young woman, probably still in her thirties, and she was full of passion and love for kids and teachers and learning. I liked her because she reminded me of me.

“For how many of you is this your first child in kindergarten? You’re probably realizing this is a lot different than when we were all children. For many of us, we just went to the school down the street. And today you have more choices,” she said.

Good, she is aware of her audience, I thought. I was trying not to judge her, but I make university presentations for a living and part of me was still evaluating the whole experience: parking, signage, cookies, volunteers, slide projector, sound system, all of it. We are going to send our son here for seven years and look at the artwork on the wall. Will Jackson do well here?

There were four kindergarten teachers. They were the highlight of the evening. Each took turns introducing themselves. They talked about sharing the curriculum and developing it together. Music and math are taught together, as one fortifies the other. There is recess. There are after-school programs. Once a month families meet in a park and all walk to school together. Marisa was taking furious notes, while I ate cookies.

The audience, the evening, felt like America to me. There were probably 120 people attending. There were lots of hispanic families in the audience, with the tiny little Mexican-American moms sitting with their arms crossed over their purses, listening intently. I wondered how much of the excited, caucasian-teachers’ presentation was hard for them to interpret. I lived in Mexico to learn Spanish, and when people get excited it’s hard to understand a second language.

The website had said the open house was from 6:30-7:30. At 7:30, my men’s meeting starts each Thursday night. I’m the treasurer and that group is one of the highlights of my week.

About 7:15, I started looking at the agenda and looking at my watch and wondering how they were going to wrap up by 7:30. I’d be late, but only a little, if the evening ended at 7:30.

The principal spoke after the teachers, then a director of after-school events and then a man who was in charge of the mysterious process of how everyone gets assigned to the several kindergarten choices in our town, and how vouchers work for intra-city transfers.

In my seat my critical-annoyed brain was suddenly up and running again. Maybe it was the cookies wearing off, or maybe it was Thursday night and I was tired, or maybe, deep-down I was just irritated that choosing a kindergarten in Los Angeles, like most things here, was a big production with too many choices.

Don’t they know public-presentation basics? Always respect your audience’s time. The worst sin in public speaking is to go too long. Aaah… My thoughts were gritchy, but Marisa and I were in one car and there was nothing I could do but wait.

My recovery sponsor always tells me, when someone or something is bothering me in life, “Dylan, that person or that situation was put in your life today to teach you to be loving and tolerant.” That is what he’ll always say. It doesn’t always make me feel better, but maybe it isn’t supposed to. Maybe it’s supposed to make me grow up.

About 7:55, the evening was winding down. The voucher-supervisor was still speaking, but it was getting detailed and down to the level of family-specific Q&A. The principal intervened and let us know we could leave if we needed to, or stay for more one-on-one time.

Marisa and I made our way to the door.

It was my first kindergarten open house. I’d ridden the roller coaster from annoyed-being-late, to high hearing the principal and teachers, back to low when the evening went past 7:30.

Marisa and I were de-briefing and as we got to our car in the darkness. I started laughing, half humorously and half bitterly, because on the windshield underneath the wiper was a white piece of paper glowing in the darkness.

I reached for the paper as Marisa walked around to her door. It was either a flyer or a ticket and as I opened it, I read the love-note from Culver City’s finest after-hours meters maids.

$60 ticket for parking in a no-parking zone.

Dylan, you can be a jerk and blame your wife or you can shut your trap and go home and catch the last 15 minutes of your men’s meeting. I tossed the ticket in the back seat and did my best to not let my body language slip over into righteousness.

Recovery 101 again, you can be happy or you can be right. Whether we were late, or whether we’d taken the first parking spot, I can still read and somehow I’d not seen that this was a no-parking zone. I earned this ticket fair and square and putting blame elsewhere wouldn’t help a thing.

I dropped Marisa at home and made it my meeting. Recovery is all about living now, in this 24 hour unit of time, and not getting too far into the future. How do I balance that now-living with making a good choice for Jackson’s future?

I don’t know.

But I know that we took the actions. We attended our first Open House. We listened. We got the process started and did some footwork. The results will come, if our own house is in order.