Maggie's Farm

At a July 4th party last night, saw the daughter of friends - hadn't seen her in a year or more. Last time I saw her, she had purple hair and body piercings, acted sullen, etc. She graduated from Princeton two years ago, and has been working at a media company in NYC since graduation.

At the party, where we all took part in reading pieces of the Declaration of Independence and drank gin and tonics, this nice young gal - who no longer has purple hair, etc., told me that she is joining the US Army and beginning Basic Training in September.

I said "God bless you." I asked all about how they do boot camp for gals, etc. Some is co-ed, and some is not. Interesting. She wants to go into Army Intelligence. She should.

She said "They didn't quite know what to make of my resume."

I said, "Read Illario Pantaro's Warlord."  She didn't know about it.

What a fine thing to hear about on the Fourth of July. The moral of the story for me was: Never judge a kid by what they're like as a teen-ager, because most of them grow up.