Jack Stallard: Welcome to the neighborhood | Opinion

A letter to my new neighbor:

Dear Micah,

You’re only a couple of weeks old, and you’ll probably need your parents or your big sister to read this to you later, but I just wanted to take a minute to welcome you to the neighborhood.

I haven’t been able to meet you yet because of my work schedule. Plus, I don’t want to take a chance on waking your mama up from a nap if she ever gets to take one. Your mama is an angel, but I’ve seen women go from angel to Tazmanian Devil in a heartbeat when someone wakes them or their newborn baby up and disturbs a rare moment of peace.

Your sister, Hadley, got a note from me when she turned 1, but I didn’t want to wait that long to say howdy to you.

Like I told your sister, your parents are awesome, and I know they’ll tell you all you need to know about life when it’s time (including not to be afraid of the large, scary guy who lives next door and sort of looks like a Tiger Bigfoot Werewolf Monkey), but I wanted to add a few things.

You can ask Hadley about the house, the town and the neighborhood you live in. I covered all of that in her note, but be sure and ask because all three are special to me and I think they’ll be special to you.

I gave your sister a little advice, but since I’m 57 and still don’t understand women, I didn’t get too carried away with it.

That said, since I’ve somehow managed (with help from his mama and a lot of prayers from others) to not mess up my own 22-year-old son, I feel pretty safe in giving out advice to the newest boy in the neighborhood.

Let’s start with your sister. You will eventually realize, regardless of how many fights you have over stupid stuff through the years, your sister was your first best friend. That doesn’t mean you can’t occasionally put a fake spider in her sock drawer or run off any undesirable boyfriends.

As for other girls, they have cooties. But, believe it or not, one day you’ll wake up and realize that’s not a deal-breaker, and you’ll fall in love with one of them. That also opens up the door for a broken heart. I pray that doesn’t happen, but if it does, I bet your first best friend wouldn’t mind having a black-eye discussion with the perpetrator.

Your dad is an avid sports fan, and I’ve been a sports writer for almost 40 years, so a lot of our conversations will involve sports. If you decide to play sports, I’ll come to as many of your games as possible. Heck. I might even stay in the newspaper business long enough to write about your games.

But promise me one thing. Don’t automatically pick professional athletes as role models.

Most of them are great folks, and it’s absolutely OK to admire the talent and hard work they put in to become the best of the best. But, there’s a good chance you’ll never even meet a professional athlete, so I urge you to let your role models be people you know. Start with your mom and dad. Even if they make you eat veggies and go to bed early, they love you like no one else on earth could. Teachers and coaches are also great role models. The good ones will drive you crazy with their expectations, but be proud when they refuse to let you do anything halfway. That means they know you have the potential to do great things.

I know this is a lot for a 2-week-old kid to take in, so I’ll stop for now. We can discuss trucks, barbecue, why we hate the designated hitter rule in baseball and the proper execution (and timeliness) of the perfect “pull my finger” trick later. For now, just know I’m proud to be your neighbor, and I can’t wait to meet you.