I put off doing my homework...again. Math homework...hard...best to be avoided. Besides, there was TV to be watched. So I settled down in front of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and left the deserted math homework on the dining room table.

Off in the distance, I heard my mom asking me if I'd completed my homework. "I'll do it later!" I whined back. "I'm watching something!" She called to me again, but I tuned her out.

With only 10 minutes left to go in the program, my dad stepped in front of the television set.

"Turn it off," he said in a low voice.

I did.

"Now get out there and do your homework."

"But there's only a few minutes left! I want to see what happens! I'll be right out--"

I didn't get to finish my sentence, because I was yanked off the couch and escorted over to the table.

A lecture ensued in which my dad outlined for me the perils of procrastination. I didn't listen, though. I stubbornly looked at the TV until the show would have been over, as if I could still see Charlie in the pumpkin patch. I refused to give my dad's words any recognition, caught up in my defensiveness at being told I was doing something wrong.

Why didn't I listen?

• You have a job to do? You do it. And you do it right the first time, even if it takes longer. Especially if it takes longer, because that means you're doing it well.
• You don't use credit cards unless you can pay them off each month. You especially don't use credit cards if you're a college sophomore with no job.
• You don't have that second piece of chocolate cake. The third? Good christ!
• You don't fight with your mother.
• You put the dishes in the dishwasher. If you don't, they end up in your bed. (If you're my older sisters, you clean up your room or your clothes go out the window--even if it's wintertime. Especially if it's wintertime.)
• You don't call in sick to work. You just don't.

What was so hard about all of this?

He retired from the Chicago Fire Department when I was seven. I remember it being normal to have him smell like soot and ashes when he'd come home late at night, or to go running out of the house after hearing key words on his police scanner. The sound of the scanner was just background noise to me. I never considered what was going on behind the scenes. Hm, there goes dad. Boy, he's running fast. See ya!

Now that I'm an adult, I'm impressed by all those newspaper clippings with pictures of him fighting fires or lying under collapsed walls. His stories about fellow firemen being sucked up by flames or plummeting through burning floors right before his eyes scare the crap out of me. His stories about taking tests and rising up the ranks to captain make me wish I knew him back then...as an adult, not as an oblivious kid.

But I'm even more proud of him for the job he did as a dad--modeling the values that are so important to me as an adult.

Meticulousness. Responsibility. Moderation. Respect. Cleanliness. Professionalism.

Happy 80th birthday, Dad. I still have some credit card debt, but overall, I think you did a good job with me.