The JamKid

Posted August 10, 2006

Here is the JamKid. Roughly normal for 14. Perhaps a bit too influenced by our current Governor, hard to say. Very into computer graphics at the moment.

A wonderful, sweet guy, although the forehand is getting nasty and the topspin on the hard serves can surprise the heck out of you. Almost as tall as the jamwife now.

For his 14th birthday, I gave him the card I got on my 14th. Saved it nearly 40 years. It had Rudyard Kipling inside:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

"Thanks, Dad — I needed a sermon from the Poet Laureate of British Empire. You know, sometimes the guy who ‘keeps his head when all about him are losing theirs’ is the one running the guillotine."

True. It’s complicated out there. Values matter more than rules; integrity more than philosophy. The JamKid will do fine.