A radio station recently was doing a feature on Mother’s Day. I was asked what advice my mother gave me that has stuck with me. I gave them 10 rules.

Meanwhile, public (and private) debate on the school budget in Scarborough has resembled the early rounds of that Friday night smackdown wrestling TV show that is on each week (the School Board debate ends up getting much nastier). Each topic reminded me of the other.

Here are the 10 pieces of advice from my mother, and how they apply to the school board debate.

No. 1: Always do your best

The debate is hard. I tend to think all points of view are correct; we need all the programs and teachers we have. Also, people cannot afford increases, nor the present level of taxes in some cases. Argue your position. Let the public decide. Be content with that process.

No. 2: Are you getting piggy?

I always look for people in these debates who are being unreasonable. Helps me decide which side to be on.

Do you want everything? No room for compromise? Chicken Little, the sky is falling? Are you never wrong?

Don’t be piggy.

No. 3: You cut the dessert cake in half, then your sister gets to pick the first piece.

We need a process similar to how Mom divided dessert. One cookie left, two people fighting over it? That’s easy. One cuts it in half; the other gets first pick. How do you think the first one does the cutting? Very, very, very, very fairly!

How can we work this principle into School Board money politics?

No. 4: Careful! Somebody is going to get their eye poked out!

Democracy is fun. Duke it out. Say mean things. But remember we all have to live in this town. The person whom you shell in an e-mail to your 250 closest friends might be sitting next to you next Thursday night at the school Spring Concert. Be careful!

No. 5: It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

The threats of cuts are always the most entertaining – limit our funding at this current proposed level, and we will cut out wheelchairs for needy students, or plates for food in the cafeteria, or tissues for sneezing kids with the flu! It’s a healthy, though over-dramatic, part of public policy, until somebody’s program or favorite teacher is penciled in for the ax. Ouch!

No. 6: Wear clean underwear in case you get in a car accident and get rushed to the hospital.

I’m not sure how this applies, but my mother wasn’t the only one who said this 50 or so times, was she?

No. 7: Always say please and thank-you.

Some of the e-mails are nasty! And the late night phone calls! Manners, people, manners!

No. 8: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

I regret some in the process are shortsighted.

Here’s a pointer from the Society of Former Political Knuckleheads. There are two ways to oppose a program: One is the Karl Rove/James Carville Approach of Bare Knuckles Politics. The other is from the Rodney Quinn School of Small Town Diplomacy.

Rove/Carville first: “This program is so bad and horrible and evil and bad-intentioned, I would rather drink my own bathwater than be in the same school system that supports it.”

Now for Rodney Quinn (secretary of state, circa 1984): “I have the greatest respect for Mrs. McGillicuddy. She is wise, insightful and has a kind heart and futuristic view about our children’s education, and all matters political and social. Due to severe budget restrictions, however, I am compelled – regretfully – to oppose her program. I hope that changes in the future. Her brilliance and savvy are exceeded only by my melancholy at not being aligned with her today on this.”

Which is the better course? Send answers to P.O. Box 1, Scarborough 04070. First winning answer gets a prize!

No. 9: Make that sour look again and your face will freeze like that!

Be open-minded. Say things you want repeated about you. Be prepared to have your e-mails printed out and put on the Jumbotron in center field at Hadlock Field at a Sea Dogs game before 6,000 people.

The flip side: Be a poop, and you will be remembered that way a loooooong time.

No. 10: Eat your vegetables

Some things are good for us, whether we like them or not. This could be in the form of bus drivers, parking lot additions, special education programs, budget cuts, portable classrooms or staff.

Don’t do what is popular or easy all the time. Eat your asparagus. It will make you grow up big and strong – adults too.

On final note on Mother’s Day and kindness – the mother’s milk of local politics …

Packy McFarland, former SHS teacher and coach, would often say, “I don’t know anything about politics, but …” Of course, he needed to be ignored when he said that – he was a kind, fair and smart man who liked people. That is the textbook definition of a successful politician, isn’t it?

One Mother’s Day at some point in the l990s, long after he had retired, but 10 years or so before he was to pass away, he saw me at Shaw’s on either Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. I can’t remember which. I am not sure it matters.

I had my three then-little kids with me. He came up to me, grabbed me by the arm (he was almost legally blind, and could never hear well).

“You know the nicest thing a father can do for his kids on a day like this? Love their mother,” he said.

I remember being taken aback by the bluntness and uniqueness of his message, though I knew him well.

Today, when I think of what he said, it makes me want to cry.

Doesn’t know anything about politics indeed!