I completed the first draft of Novel and Note on my daughter Cheryl's eighteenth birthday in late Mayhem.

(My daughter Penny's birthday is in OctOgre, of course. I believe I mentioned that the Ogre does things in such months, with maybe a bit of help from my wife, who is another Mayhem.) All that remained was the editing, which I did after we moved—on my wife's birthday. My birthday gift to Cheryl was enough of my time to get her through her driving license. Penny was pushing to drive at fifteen, but Cheryl wasn't as eager, so still wasn't licensed. She also had a problem with coordination of the clutch and gearshift. We pondered, and decided that it would be best to teach her with automatic shift. We also wanted four-wheel drive, because our tree farm has some back roads and sugar sand that can be treacherous. We had each feature, but not in the right cars. We wound up trading in both car and van, to get auto-shift in the first and 4W drive in the second. Two trade-ins and about $25,000 took care of it.

Ouch! But at this writing, Cheryl is learning. Oh yes, my time is precious—but so is my daughter.

It happened that the school year was wrapping up, and the Citrus High School Senior Awards Ceremony was held on Cheryl's birthday. Now Cheryl, despite her record SAT score, was not the top student in her class, or the second; in fact she wasn't in the top five. Grades can be a chancy thing, depending on a student's luck in the draw of classes and teachers, absence owing to illness, conformity to the system's expectations, and the vagaries of the grading curve. The most intelligent or motivated or honest students are not necessarily those with the highest grades.

But what Cheryl lacked in height she made up in breadth. I counted the number of times she was called to the stage, and it became apparent to all present that this was indeed her day. She had a total of 18 awards, scholarships and recognitions, from the National Merit Scholarship on down, nicely matching her birthday age, far outstripping those of any other student. Among other things, she had assumed the editorship of the moribund school newspaper, the Whirlwind (a minor echo of the name of the school's football team, the Hurricanes) and brought it up to second in its class in the state. Not only had I not been doing any of this for her, or even helping her, I had hardly been aware of her school activities. It is not that I am a neglectful parent; I will help if asked. Rather, I am busy with my own work, and Cheryl is an independent cuss. I wonder where she inherits that from?