Skits At the Bus Stop - A Great Dad Story

In the fall of 2006, we were sent a story about a Dad, Mark Blasetti, who makes the time every morning to put on a goofy skit for his daughters on their bus route to school. (Mark has done some great skits, it seems. One scene was a “cowboy campfire, complete with a stuffed horse, a log and tissue paper fire, a guitar, a sleeping bag and roasting marshmallows.”)

We recently interviewed Mark for the full story.

RRR: Tell us a bit about yourself.

MARK BLASETTI: I’m 40 years old, have been married to my wife Bridget for 10 years, and we have four beautiful, healthy daughters. I graduated from Harvard in 1989, then got my MBA and CPA, but quickly decided after 2 + years in the old BIG 8 accounting world that pushing numbers wasn’t my thing. So I joined my father’s insurance agency, and later bought the business from him when he retired. I changed its name to form my own identity, and the Atlas Insurance Agency, Inc., was born in 1994.

My agency is relatively small, with only 2 other employees, but it affords me great flexibility with my time and my business approaches. The agency is in Weymouth, the town right next to Hingham, where I live, so my commute is minimal. (I can’t think of a worse waste of time than commuting.)

I like the interaction I have with my clients, and strive for the relationship approach to building my business, and not just churning out as many policies as I possibly can. In the end, if the public searches long and hard enough, they’ll always be able to find insurance that is cheaper somewhere else. However, with our agency, we strive for the relationships built on service, because that is what we pride ourselves on. We give people (and their businesses) piece of mind that they can always talk to us, always ask us questions, and that they can sleep at night knowing they and their assets are adequately protected and insured.

RRR: How long have you been putting on skits for your daughters’ bus, and what prompted you to begin?

MARK BLASETTI: My two oldest daughters, Sydney and Haley, catch the bus in the morning at the end of our driveway, and I’ve arranged always to be there when they do. When the bus pulls away, I get in my car and head to work in the adjacent town. In our travels, we’d inevitably pass each other as the bus doubled back around this giant loop during its route. So I’d always beep, and the bus driver and the kids would all wave.

Then last school year I decided to pull over to the side of the road in a gas station parking lot, get out of my car, and just wave to them as they passed by… Then I thought, hey, next time, maybe I’ll do a little trick for them, entertain them. So I just grabbed a few tennis balls and started juggling, there on the side of the road.

The skits just took off from there. The kids (and the bus driver) just love the little diversion in their morning routine, and they always beep as they pass by, laughing and screaming out the window. It very quickly just became part of their (and my) daily routine.

When this school year rolled around, I asked Sydney and Haley if they wanted me to continue doing the skits. Their answer was a resounding YES, their friends like it, Sydney and Haley like it, and they want me to continue. They even seemed “proud” of it.

So, when the bus pulled up to start this school year, the same bus driver pushed her window open and sympathized with me. “You’re not going to do this all year again are you? That’s 180 days!” I told her, laughing, “We’ll see… one day at a time!”

RRR: Your initiative struck us as being quite entrepreneurial, and knowing your personal background now, we can see how it fits in.

MARK BLASETTI: Yes, I suppose you could say I’m an entrepreneur by nature. I tend to want to work for myself, and to be artistic with all my endeavors, but more than that, if I am going to do something, I’m going to do it all-out, the right way (at least what I think is the right way), or I’m not going to do it all.

These bus skits are no exception. The kids have come to rely on me, and I don’t want to let them down. I wouldn’t want to do it only when I felt like doing it… it has not become just part of my routine, but theirs, one which I consider a daily requirement.

As far as the content of the skits themselves is concerned, I tend to have a pretty good imagination. You have to, to come up with ideas every night for the next morning. My favorite skits are the ones that are simple, but really entertain the kids.

For example, one of my favorites, and a favorite of the bus driver and kids too, was when I turned a full-sized trash barrel upside down in the parking lot, with a pair of my sneakers sticking slightly out from under the barrel, as if I were hiding under the barrel. I wasn’t, but they didn’t know that. In fact, as they slowly passed by the scene, the bus stopped, as they were waiting for the punch line. Wasn’t I supposed to jump out and yell “surprise,” or something? Well, I didn’t, and they couldn’t wait any longer, so they started driving along their merry way, perhaps a bit confused. About 50 yards down the road, I jumped out from behind some bushes and gestured, “Ah ha! I got ya!” They loved that one.

RRR: What is the highest or most important thing that you hope to accomplish in performing the skits for your children?

MARK BLASETTI: Excellent question. I think, first and foremost, my kids need to know how much I love them. They’re certainly old enough to understand commitment and love, and I know they love us and that they know we love them, but that is on their child-like level. I need them to know, when they get older and get married and have families of their own and really understand the daily struggles of parenting and of life, just how much we really did love them. So, I guess that is my most important goal, just to provide another venue which shouts, “WE LOVE YOU!”

Second, we need to relieve some stress in this world. We all have our daily stresses of life, and none of this is helped, indeed it is only compounded, by everything around us. Newspapers, television news shows… it is all so negative, so stressful, so gloomy. I try not to watch most of the regular news shows. It’s all death, murder, rape, DWI, arson, war, Iraq, terrorism, Triple EEE (mosquito disease here in the Northeast), etc. Even if this stuff is just on or available in the background, it seeps into us, including our children, by osmosis. And the kids themselves, besides all this, have some pretty heavy workloads at school. My wife and I can’t remember having even a fraction of the demands on our daily school life as our 8 and 7 year olds already have. It is exhausting for them, and for us. Don’t get me wrong… in many respects I like the increased academic focus, but at the same time, we need to make sure they don’t lose their childhood.

When that bus rolls around, and I am in some goofy costume or otherwise making a fool of myself, and I see and hear the reactions of the bus driver and all those kids, especially my kids, I know that for at least those brief 5 or 10 seconds, they weren’t thinking about anything else but laughing or smiling.

RRR: What has been the public reaction to your story since your TV and newspaper interviews?

MARK BLASETTI: The public reaction has been wonderful. I’ve received emails from all over, and they are all positive. People are giving me ideas, and many of them are very good, and I’ve already used some of them. They’re even donating costumes or props, things they’ve dug up from their basement that they think I might be able to use.

Since this hit the newspapers and television, I have people coming up to me all over town, thanking me for doing what I am doing. They say they can’t imagine the effort it must take to pull this off every day, and I appreciate that sentiment, even though there is that little thought in my head that wonders if they all think I am crazy!

People tend to notice my morning skits a little more now, as they may have heard about it and want to check it out. Some people will say things like “Keep up the good work!” as they sip their coffee walking back to their car from the Dunkin’ Donuts nearby, and others will beep as they drive by.

However, to be honest, even after all this, much of what I do every morning goes unnoticed by the majority of people during the chaotic morning rush hour. That, in essence, is a big part of why I am out there, at least for those kids on the bus, and it is ironic that almost everyone that drives by still doesn’t notice a thing. They’re in their cars, tunnel-visioned, talking on their cell phone, combing their hair, fixing their tie, sipping their coffee, even reading the paper! Now, I often get caught up in all this hectic “business” too just like everyone else, so I can’t fault anyone… but we all need to slow down, if just a little.

RRR: You mentioned in an interview that you and your wife had decided to make it a priority to "be there" for your children, rather than pursue the "rat race" lifestyles that some of your friends had chosen -- even if it meant having a more modest lifestyle. What advice would you give parents who want to "scale back" on material things and professional commitments, but aren't sure where to begin?

MARK BLASETTI: I remember, even in college, knowing that I wanted to have a wife and raise a family. I also remember deciding on this philosophy: “I would rather make $50,000 a year and see my kids grow up and have them know me, than make $500,000 a year, leave before my kids get up in the morning and get home after they have gone to bed, and see them at their college graduation and think – I don’t even know this kid!”

In the end, I suppose it is all about moderation. And in this case, when I say moderation, I guess I am talking about the number of activities or commitments you let creep into your life. None of us can really do it all, even though we think we can. We have to accept this. There are only 24 hours in a single day. Nothing can change that. More importantly, there are only so many years to each of our lives, and none of us knows how many years we will get. Because of this, we need to strike a balance between the present and the future.

My wife has been pretty good for me in that regard, and I suppose I have been good for her, in that she is more of a “live in the present” kind of person, and I have always been a “plan for the future” type of person. This dichotomy can cause considerable stress and disruption in a marriage, but at the same time, if handled properly, it can also be a fulfilling way to see the alternative to every situation.

We need to first define what is important to us, at a very base level. Is if family? Is it friends? Is it money? Power? Fame? It could be any number of things, or a combination of these things, but we need to realize that we can’t do it all, we can’t be all things to all people. Once we understand this, we come to realize that certain aspects of our life just might not fit in. We need to cut certain things out. Maybe not completely, but certainly to a large extent. Sometimes, however, it’s like pulling a Band Aid off… you just have to pull… RIGHT OFF! It’s the core priorities that have to be the outline for our lives, otherwise we’ll never accomplish the things that are most important to us.
So, for me, meeting that bus on the side of the road for those brief 10 seconds every school morning simply fits into the framework of my priorities. I know this might change (I am running out of ideas!), but for now, I consider it a responsibility to satisfy my number one priority in my life… my family.

If my life were to end today at lunch, as I quite tragically choke on a big bite of a dill pickle, at least I would know that my kids smiled this morning as they watched their Dad performing for them on the side of the road.

RRR: That last line seems like a worthwhile epitaph to us, and something for a father to be proud of.
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Mark would love to hear your suggestions for his morning skits, at atlasinsurance (AT) aol.com, with “Bus Stop Ideas” in the subject line. (You may also, of course, contact him with any insurance questions.)

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