A former colleague once told me, “You are a blip on your child’s radar.” At the time my kids were young, but it wasn’t all that long after that I understood what she meant. 

Those words came back to haunt me earlier this month when my husband Jeff and I dropped our son Jackson, the family’s youngest, at college more than 1,000 miles away for his freshman year.

Dropped is a misnomer. As carefully as we helped him pack, we unloaded his belongings, including a giant Cardinals flag he brought to “remind him of home” and the equally giant framed “Free Dotem” bumper sticker and autographed T-shirt of local sportscaster Doug Vaughn, from “The Morning After,” a radio show that Jackson, his brother Jesse and their dad Jeff never miss. Jesse carefully arranged this work of art and framed it as a gift to Jackson for his 18th birthday. The bumper sticker is in reference to Deke Dotem, a fan of “The Morning After” who Vaughn suspended indefinitely from calling, texting or emailing the show (listeners then formed a movement to Free Dotem #freedotem). Both the flag and the framed T-shirt/bumper sticker are now hanging on Jackson’s dorm room walls.

As we drove to Fort Myers, Fla., where Jackson is attending college, we live-streamed the radio show because, well, when you’re as big a fan as the men in my family, you never miss. In addition to Vaughn, who also reports on sports for KMOV-TV, the show features Fox Sports Midwest’s Jimmy “The Cat” Hayes, Fox 2’s Charlie Marlow and Tim McKernan, the station operator of CBS Sports 920 WGNU-AM, where the show currently airs (it moves to 590 The Fan, KFNS-AM on Sept. 1). 

“The Morning After” is the kind of show where a cast of quirky characters fade in and out — with names like Timberfake, Timmy the Tickler, Barnhart Brawler, Iggy and Plow Boy — as well as national and local sports personalities and B-list celebrities.  Much of the talk centers on sports, pop culture and current events though it often digresses to raunchier territory.

Regardless of how goofy the conversations get, and they do get goofy, my guys love it.  While I roll my eyes at some of the lowbrow humor and fuss at having to listen, the show can be very entertaining. I have tuned in enough so I’m familiar with the shtick and find myself looking forward to Vaughn’s random suspensions and the show’s “emails of the day,” a mainstay segment.

Mostly though, I have come to realize that “The Morning After” is part of the glue that connects me with the guys I love, which in turn has provided all sorts of insider jokes and new expressions. For example, instead of yelling, “be quiet,” or worse, “shut up,” I now simply say, “pod it down,” and my guys respond appropriately, knowing I am channeling their beloved Doug Vaughn, the poster child of Jackson’s dorm room (literally!).

Speaking of Jackson, while acclimating nicely to college life, he admits to some homesickness. He knows it will take time to get used to his classes, manage his workload, develop a group of friends who he feels as close to as the ones he had in high school, and become familiar with his surroundings. The conversations Jeff and I are having with him now are much more substantive than the ones we had before he left. He understands getting comfortable with college life is a process, and there’s maturity in his logic and reasoning that seems well beyond his 18 years. 

In my heart I know he will be fine. Still, I can’t help but want his life to fit together, perfectly, and right now. Recently, when I asked him who he would be eating dinner with that night, he calmly replied, “Probably, myself.”

I felt terrible. As his mother, I wanted to cry. My baby had no one to eat with. How could this be? So I suggested he scope out the dining room, locate a group of kids who looked friendly and ask if he could join them.

“Mom, it’s OK,” he said. “I’m making friends organically. Trust me on this. I keep my head up and smile so I’m always approachable. 

“Besides, I have no problem eating by myself. I’ll put on my headphones and podcast (‘The Morning After’) like the dickens. It’s all good.”

And with that I knew I needed to pod it down.