My son learned a lesson I wish I had learned in time

My son called from the Southern Hemisphere on Christmas Day. Virgile and his wife Sterling are halfway through their third and final year in Asuncion, Paraguay, where it is early summer.

Sterling and Virgile

He has been in the Foreign Service for 10 years now and in his early 30s, he has either lived or visited every continent except Antarctica (no embassies there) and maybe Africa (I'm not sure).

Virgile is an amazing guy. People say things about him that most of can only dream about hearing about ourselves.

On his first tour, his supervisor wrote in his evaluation that "Virgile is the best young Foreign Service officer I have seen in 20 years."

Eight years earlier, in his first year of college at Cal State Northridge, his roommate told me that "Virgile is the nicest person I have ever met."

Wow.

I can't claim credit for that. Nobody ever called me the best young (or old) anything, and certainly no one ever said I was the nicest person they ever met.


One thing I will take credit for, since he has told me numerous times it was true, was giving him the best advice he ever got. It was definitely advice in the vein of do as I say, not as I did.

When he first started college, I told him that my problems always came when I started cutting classes. I told him about the spring of 1978 when I went back to school and told myself that for one quarter, I would attend every class without fail and see what happened.

What happened was a 4.0 average, the first time since sixth grade in 1961 that I got A's in all my classes.

The advice I gave him was a quote from Woody Allen.

"Eighty percent of success is just showing up."

When I said it, I actually misquoted Allen. I said it was 90 percent, but the point is still the same.

Show up.

Do your job.

Do your job the very best you can, and most of the time, things will work out for you.

Both of my children are exceptional people. On Facebook the other day, I saw a post that Michelle Obama had been named Americans' most respected woman. Her husband -- the president guy -- won most admired man.

I said that was nice, that I certainly admire the Obamas, but Pauline and Virgile top my own lists.

I am an extremely lucky man.

***

When Virgile and I talk, one subject that often comes up is student loans.

My son graduated from CSUN in 2007, and one thing for which he has never stopped thanking us is that he graduated debt free.

We told both of our kids when they started college that we would pay all expenses up to a certain amount for four years and then, assuming they graduated, we would give them the financial equivalent of a fifth year as a gift.

For Virgile at CSUN and for Pauline five years earlier at UCLA, the certain amount covered all their expenses.

Virgile tells me he has friends from his graduating class who still owe up to $100,000 when grad school is added in. To make it worse, most of them have been unable to find work in their field of study.

That's something that has to change. We are saddling a whole generation of Americans with debt that will cripple them for 25 years.

I am very thankful we were able to save our kids from that.