Gifts for the SA kid?

Maplerock said:

You're right of course. My opinion is no better than anyone's. I should learn to keep some of them to myself. Thank you.
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Academy classes always say, "My class was the last class that had it hard, etc....The more recent years have been easy." I'm pretty sure that happens literally every year, and has gone back decades. To take that saying and run with it is pretty far fetched.
 
flieger83 said:
I'm going to skip all the rhetoric about "who's a what kind of father/mother/parent..."

I entered USAFA in 1979. I went to prep school in the late summer of 1978; and that November I received a HUGE box in the mail. All my classmates wondered "What did Steve get?"

So I opened it in my room with my roomates (Northwestern Prep, six of us in that room). It was a lawn/leaf bag filled with fresh (okay a week old) popcorn; salted to perfection, just like my dad used to make when we'd watch football together. In the popcorn (enough to feed a room of six for a week) was a note that said "dig deep." So I did and found an aluminum foil wrapped bundt cake. It was my mothers pound cake; an entire one, and it had a birthday card attached.

From that year (1978) until November 2008 (three months before my mother lost her battle with cancer) I received a cake for my birthday; wherever I was in the world: Guam, Saudi Arabia, Alaska, Kuwait, Egypt, CONUS locations by the grouping...it didn't matter, that cake always arrived and I always was transported back to my youth. When I received my cake in November 2008, my mom had a note attached: "I almost didn't make this, the pain is so bad, but I've done it for you since you were a small boy...and I wanted to do it one last time."

I froze each piece and it lasted three years.

Don't listen to folks that say "oh, it's silly, it won't mean much" and "it's no big deal..." FIND something that relates to their youth, their family, and closeness...and go with that, even if its only once per year. Mom taught me to make that cake when I was a kid...I've done it for decades; and I do it each year for my birthday.

But it never tastes as good as hers.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83
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Outstanding. I tip my hat to you Sir.
 
My mom's care packages were well known in the dorm all 4 years I was at USAFA. She would basically peruse the clearance and classic toy sections of every store she went to and buy anything that looked funny, entertaining, representative of somewhere cool she or a sibling went, or useful, and make that into a care package using the large flat rate USPS box. The best part was the element of surprise when a package came. I could always count on some kind of food (cookies or brownies with a slice of bread in the bag to keep them soft were the norm) and a whole lot of fun and useful items. Some examples include:

Nerf gun (this came in my very first package with a pile of darts and remained on my desk and in constant use all 4 years)
Mini nerf gun (for when you need a nerf gun on the go, obviously)
Nerf desktop missile launcher (one of my favorites)
Pen with a remote control car attached to the end
Tide pens
Dry erase window markers (for physics on the windows)
Lots and lots of tea bags
Yoyos
A heating element (to make hot chocolate/tea/oatmeal in the room)

I would say this was nothing like being a helicopter parent, it was a way for my mom to show me she was thinking about me (by always being on the lookout for some good stuff for these packages) and for me, while I clearly didn't NEED this stuff or these packages, I worked my butt off at USAFA and while I am generally pretty upbeat and happy, the academies wear on you no matter who you are, and even a brief lift in mood from a care package can turn a crappy week around.
 
flieger83 said:
I'm going to skip all the rhetoric about "who's a what kind of father/mother/parent..."

I entered USAFA in 1979. I went to prep school in the late summer of 1978; and that November I received a HUGE box in the mail. All my classmates wondered "What did Steve get?"

So I opened it in my room with my roomates (Northwestern Prep, six of us in that room). It was a lawn/leaf bag filled with fresh (okay a week old) popcorn; salted to perfection, just like my dad used to make when we'd watch football together. In the popcorn (enough to feed a room of six for a week) was a note that said "dig deep." So I did and found an aluminum foil wrapped bundt cake. It was my mothers pound cake; an entire one, and it had a birthday card attached.

From that year (1978) until November 2008 (three months before my mother lost her battle with cancer) I received a cake for my birthday; wherever I was in the world: Guam, Saudi Arabia, Alaska, Kuwait, Egypt, CONUS locations by the grouping...it didn't matter, that cake always arrived and I always was transported back to my youth. When I received my cake in November 2008, my mom had a note attached: "I almost didn't make this, the pain is so bad, but I've done it for you since you were a small boy...and I wanted to do it one last time."

I froze each piece and it lasted three years.

Don't listen to folks that say "oh, it's silly, it won't mean much" and "it's no big deal..." FIND something that relates to their youth, their family, and closeness...and go with that, even if its only once per year. Mom taught me to make that cake when I was a kid...I've done it for decades; and I do it each year for my birthday.

But it never tastes as good as hers.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83
Click to expand...
What an amazing story. I wish I had read this a year ago when my daughter was just starting at NWP and I would have done the same for her birthday dec 7. She had 20 roommates in the girls NWP dorm but I could have worked it out. I will be starting the tradition this year for her plebe year at usma and for all her years forward! Thank you for sharing!
 
flieger83 said:
I'm going to skip all the rhetoric about "who's a what kind of father/mother/parent..."

I entered USAFA in 1979. I went to prep school in the late summer of 1978; and that November I received a HUGE box in the mail. All my classmates wondered "What did Steve get?"

So I opened it in my room with my roomates (Northwestern Prep, six of us in that room). It was a lawn/leaf bag filled with fresh (okay a week old) popcorn; salted to perfection, just like my dad used to make when we'd watch football together. In the popcorn (enough to feed a room of six for a week) was a note that said "dig deep." So I did and found an aluminum foil wrapped bundt cake. It was my mothers pound cake; an entire one, and it had a birthday card attached.

From that year (1978) until November 2008 (three months before my mother lost her battle with cancer) I received a cake for my birthday; wherever I was in the world: Guam, Saudi Arabia, Alaska, Kuwait, Egypt, CONUS locations by the grouping...it didn't matter, that cake always arrived and I always was transported back to my youth. When I received my cake in November 2008, my mom had a note attached: "I almost didn't make this, the pain is so bad, but I've done it for you since you were a small boy...and I wanted to do it one last time."

I froze each piece and it lasted three years.

Don't listen to folks that say "oh, it's silly, it won't mean much" and "it's no big deal..." FIND something that relates to their youth, their family, and closeness...and go with that, even if its only once per year. Mom taught me to make that cake when I was a kid...I've done it for decades; and I do it each year for my birthday.

But it never tastes as good as hers.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83
Click to expand...

I’m sorry for your loss. That is a beautiful story. God bless.
 
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