Gifted People Are Still People

… and many of our feelings are shared by others.

Here are two father-daughter stories from my own experience.

Anyone old enough to remember watching Cheers in 1982 — and you can still watch it in reruns — will remember when Nicholas Colasanto, who played Ernie ‘Coach’ Pantusso on the first couple years of the series “Cheers,” said some very magic words to his daughter, Lisa. She was “putting up with” a ridiculously awful man, her new fiancé named Roy, and Coach had seen how unworthy of his daughter Roy was. Coach was a real sweetheart and didn’t say much, but when he did speak up it was always so wise.

Here’s the conversation between father and daughter:

Lisa Pantusso: Look, Daddy. I’m not dumb. I know Roy’s abrasive. I know he’s insensitive, and I know he’s probably only marrying me so he can get the Pennsylvania territory.

Ernie ‘Coach’ Pantusso: Why would you want to marry a man like this?

Lisa Pantusso: Isn’t it obvious to you?

Ernie ‘Coach’ Pantusso: Nothing’s ever obvious to me.

Lisa Pantusso: Daddy, don’t make me say this.

Ernie ‘Coach’ Pantusso: What, what?

Lisa Pantusso: I want to be married and I want to have children. Roy is the first man that ever asked me to marry him, and I’m afraid he’s going to be the last.

Ernie ‘Coach’ Pantusso: Oh, come on honey. There must have been dozens of young…