The Smith Girls!!!

Moose and Goose

            I tried to google “having kids quotes” so that I could start this with some pithy statement that would make me seem wiser than I am – which is not a high bar.  I noticed that about 95% of the quotes were about the problemscaused by having kids.  That was not my experience at all.  Both of my girls are wonderful, personable, helpful, powerful, smarticle,…….  Well, there are not enough positive adjectives so I will move on.  My wife, Amy, gets all of the credit for this.  I do understand the biology of child production and offer Faith and Mary Ann as proof.  Still, I am reasonably certain that should they be genetically tested, somehow 99% of their makeup comes from Amy.  

            Because my becoming a father lined up roughly with my taking the job at Houston, my kids were raised with and grew up with many of you. A great number of you babysat for them when they were little.  This was always a positive experience for them.  I noticed that, when Mary Ann moved to Florida for medical school and we redid her room, there was still a sign on the door made by her and Alaina Thetford during a babysitting stint.  In the ‘maybe it wasn’t always a positive experience for the babysitter” world, I recall Kathryn Anderson allowing Faith to do her hair.  Kathryn had really long, thick and curly hair and Faith (3 years old) took a comb and teased it out into an enormous afro. Probably took days to tame it back into shape!

            They spent many hours in the band room as kids. Mostly they just ran around but sometimes they would help clean or sort music.  The music part stopped when Mary Ann brought me a piece of music with Mr. Smith is a Great Big ______ (not a compliment) written on it and asked what the word after “Big” meant.  Yeah, I know we had days where I was a great big ______, but I didn’t want my kids to know! 

As we raised them, we became aware that they had negative athletic potential. What I mean by that is that if you had athletic ability and stood next to them, your talents would be diminished.  So with me as a father, being in band was almost a given.  My wife had hoped that one of them would pick the clarinet as an instrument but I used them to plug instrumental deficiencies (horn and baritone) in my own band.  They went on to become All State players so, while it may not have worked out perfectly for Amy or the girls, it worked out great for me!

            Both of my girls attended Collierville schools until coming to high school.  They were both very successful in middle school, which meant going from a hero to an unknown when moving to Houston.  They got to spend one year together at Houston, which was a dream year for their parents!  Having your parents teach at the high school you attend is not an easy thing.  When a teacher would mistreat them or they had some other issue, they would just have to suck it up.   Both even experienced some disappointment at the hands of their father who would have to hedge when giving them chair positions or leadership positions in an effort not to complicate their lives by making them look favored.  I do, however, remember Mary Ann telling me that a kid had stolen her lunch out of the instrument room so I picked him up and hurled him across the band room (as any father would do for his little girl).  There is not a parent handbook for this sort of thing and without their understanding and unconditional love, none of this would have worked.  To the extent that this hurt them, consider this a long delayed public apology.

            They are alike in many ways.  Both are extremely talented musicians and both were over the top successful as students.  They are, however, very different in demeanor!  One is more likely to listen thoughtfully when being confronted with a problem person and the other is more likely to stuff that person in a trashcan! I’m not telling which is which! Faith had the added difficulty of dating (and eventually marrying) a young man who played trumpet in the band. I often marvel at the bravery it took to ask MY daughter out while playing in MY band.  When Faith and Luke (said trumpet player) went off to college, Amy and I got something we had not had since Faith was born:  one child to focus all of our love and attention on! I am certain Mary Ann was thrilled. Her senior year, I threw showing favoritism to the wind and wrote a marching show just for her (Porgy and Bess). Maybe the best time I ever had putting a show together.  When it came time for her to graduate it also came time for me to be done.  I did not know that yet and wouldn’t for over a year but teaching a band without my kids in it suddenly, and through no fault of the kids in band, became a job and not a passion.

            Both of the girls are doing great.  After spending a year in Austin, Texas working for Intel, Faith and Luke are moving to Orlando where Faith will begin her dream job as an engineer for Disney!  They have a dog named Waddles that is perhaps the most photogenic dog ever.  Mary is working on her MD/Phd in Gainesville at the University of Florida.  Her cat, Sushi, is just like her – both cuddly and bloodthirsty at the same time! I am so extremely proud of all they have and will accomplish.  If only they could do all of that accomplishing 5 miles from home, I would have a perfect life.