punctuality and timeliness, part 2


Punctuality is not one of my strong points but it is much on my mind every morning as I get ready for work. One morning my daughter Allison, three and a half years old, awoke early and followed me around as I was preparing for departure.

Daddy I put my notebook and other odds and ends into my attache case and shoo her away from the chair that she is trying to pull out and into my way I'll get I close my attache case and push her hand away from my your keys and put them into my pocket I'll help I grab my pen and pencil as she reaches for them and put them into my pocket I'll just sit like this. as she sits awkwardly on the edge of the chair Someday I walk around her and reach I'll be a big girl for my coffee and then walk and then back around her and out the study door I can reach things and she follows me all by

and I stop. myself.

My daughter was talking to me... my daughter! Speaking to me of her future, a child's dreams. And my only thought was to get to work on time. I stopped. I stopped and I sat down with her for a few (too few) minutes and I talked with her, and I thanked her for helping, and then I gave her a big big hug and a big big kiss, and then I hit the road.

Yeah, I was late again. Tough.

- William Walter Patterson, 1996.