Awk Sauce is a phrase my children use to describe an awkward situation, often involving their parents. Earlier this week I had a breakfast meeting near my daughter’s school at the end of Regent Street. So I thought I’d take the occasion to pop by.

At the front desk I asked if she’s around and they wanted to know if this was a scheduled visit. I told them no, that I was just in the neighborhood and thought it would be nice to see her in her natural habitat away from home.

“Oh, how nice, she’ll be so excited,” the office secretary told me.

So we climbed the three flights of stairs to her Spanish class and looking in I could see her big smile through the sliver of window. She, however, had not seen me.

The secretary peeked in and asked for Natalie. A chorus of “woo, woo” went up from her classmates, suggesting she was in trouble.

When she saw me the reaction was pure Awk Sauce: “Whaaat are you dooooing heeere?”

We stood outside the classroom and had our moment:

“I just wanted to see you since I was down the street.”
“Why??”

“Because I missed you.”

“Oh God Dad, really.”

We exchanged hugs and kisses and she was off. My day was elevated, her day was, well interrupted.

Later that night I heard her re-telling the story to her sister. “It was total Awk sauce. When I got back into the class everyone asked if that was my dad. I told them ‘No.’”

Tell your kids to “get off their path.”

That was the message from this 75 year old CEO I went to see. A Brit who ran public companies on three continents said we are all born on a path, and all too often we stick to it. “A banker’s son is born in Boston goes to Princeton, to Wall Street and to Florida where he plays golf and dies.”

He told me of a young man who came to see him asking for career advice. The freshly minted graduate came to his office with a report card full of A’s and a specialty in Geography. He asked the new graduate: “Where is the Irrawaddy River?” And when the young man fumbled and guessed wrong, the old CEO admonished him: “Go do something! You’ve spent all your time in a classroom. The Irrawaddy is in Myanmar (Burma) and I know that because I swam across it.”

He questioned the rush to leave school and get a job, commenting that young people believe they are entitled to a job upon graduation. “And now that the jobs aren’t there, they’re angry."

“Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains,” is his favorite quote.

Sometimes your children go off their path, and then you wish they hadn’t. That is the emotion every time our son hits the Rugby pitch. The season is a demolition derby of broken bones, concussions, bloody noses and torn ears.

When the final weekend arrives the theme of my pre-game pep talk is victory is walking off the field under your own weight. Tennis tryouts are a week away, a sport where I see a brighter future.

But he is fifteen and like everyone his age, he is indestructible. So when I lose his jersey under a pile of sweating boys, I gasp When I see a large man/child run off, his first stride atop my son’s barren ankle, I want to jump the fence.

When I hear a “pop” after his wind is shaken by a shoulder to the gut, all I can do isturn my head.

The tournament ends with a second place finish and an overall healthy corpus. And we move on watching him take these detours. Hoping these risks allow him to walk his own path, even with a small limp.