By “I” I mean me, the author of this blog. A husband, a dad.
By again I mean this seems to be a regular occurrence.
You see, it is because of the “husband” and “dad” part of that equation that I write this evening. This weekend is my wife’s 20th reunion from college. Man, we’re getting old. And although I began my college life at the same prestigious school I only lasted one semester before many other things called me elsewhere. My wife still envisions me as a member of her class. “Our reunion is coming up,” she’s said to me. “You remember so-and-so from our class,” she’s asked. In a way I’m touched to know that she was thinking of me at all those many years ago that one semester I was in the same location. And the truth is that I do remember those people – if not from the depths of my brain then at least from the stories she’s regaled me with. But I am nothing if not a man who tries to be a dutiful husband and so I am heading to that reunion.
But I’m also torn. I’m sad because I have to leave the kids for the weekend. We’ve been having so much fun lately – more than usual. My son is rapidly becoming a man before my eyes. My daughter and I get to spend so many precious moments together during the day. That happens when you’re the vice principal of her school. And I love it and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world EVER. But I hate leaving them. I’m jealous. I worry that something will happen even though I know it won’t. They’re with Granny and they’re fine. But I still miss them.
And guess what? I also miss my wife. That goes without saying. You see, she’s already on the East Coast for business so I’m the one who’s joining her. And by joining I mean I’m flying on a flight that is already delayed, has changed gates to a different terminal, won’t land until 2AM (and an hour away from my destination at that)… Do you see my dilemma?
I love the three of them and I’m torn. I want to see my wife even though I’m sure she’ll be quite busy this weekend as one of the organizers of that reunion. I want to be with my children even though they’re totally fine and I spend more time with them than most dads I’ve ever known are blessed to spend with their kids. What on earth to do?!
This is how we fly.
Fortunately I’ve found a happy medium. I’m sitting in an airport bar. This one – the Fridays Express across from my gate – is practically empty tonight. OK, that’s depressing. But, my waiter is super chill. They have gin. And I have a hotspot so I’m reading articles about the Canadian PM election.
My advice to all the widower and single dads out there? Pick a drink and follow Justin Trudeau. Boy is he fascinating… You may just learn about world events.
Or you may just find the thing to distract you from whatever tears you apart.
Oh well… At least the weather where I’m going is supposed to be nice. And it’s only for two days. That ought to be long enough for the kids to miss me sufficiently.
And here’s where I end with a big LOL. I love my life and I know I’ll be fine despite my crazy neuroses and fears.
I wanted to address the topic of sleep this evening; or rather, my lack thereof. This is one of those things that I KNOW my fellow teachers will understand. Summer’s going along nicely and then BAM! All of a sudden you have to wake up at some ungodly hour and shift your daily routine forward by an hour or more. And you think you’re cool and you’ve got it under control. But you really don’t. School started for us one week ago. For the past few days I have felt like I was running a marathon every day. My daughter and I have dutifully gotten in the car at 7 each morning and driven then mile to school. By 3:20 when I’ve matched the last of the kids to their carpools and locked up the buildings I scratch my head. I look at my little girl and say “I’m beat… Wasn’t it just 7AM?”
This afternoon I came home, sat down on the couch, and crashed harder than MH 370. Too soon? I only slept about an hour and that didn’t seem nearly long enough. I spent the next hour or so in a daze. Fortunately my lessons are well planned so I didn’t have any “work” to attend to. I have intentionally removed most distractions from my daily life, too, so that I can devote all of my time when not in school to my kids. Hence, I felt a little down on myself tonight for sleeping. But I’m sure they understand.
Then came bedtime — their’s. Fortunately they haven’t been giving me a hard time about this lately. My son did, however, approach me at 9, asking me to read him a book. OK, it turns out that he hasn’t gotten the whole “homework should be done when you get home from school” routine. In school today he had been given a book by his teacher and asked or told or whatever, I’m really not sure, to read two chapters by tomorrow. Now that it was late and he was tired he wanted yours truly to read it to him. He tried playing the old “Daddy, remember when you used to read to me?” card. It worked.
Tonight’s bedtime story: an old classic I read as a boy in my grammar school. It’s called Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims“. Except when I read it the title was Squanto: Friend of the White Man. It’s a fascinating tale of love, murder, and deception. At least it was when I got through with it. I hope he doesn’t have to make an oral presentation on this thing. But if he does, it will be phenomenal!
My daughter busied herself with some craft she was working on. I believe she was knitting. She kept muttering something about the Evremond’s and Charles Darnay and how it was “right to revenge”. I really wasn’t paying attention. Squanto apparently caught her ear, though, and she looked up every now and then to listen in. “Daddy,” she would say, “what’s a firestick?” “Huh?” I would ask. “Oh, yeah, sorry… it’s a gun.” Back to her knitting. A few moments later: “Daddy…” This time she did not look up but was transfixed on the knitting with a wild look on her face. “How did Squanto know English?” “Sweetheart, it’s a fictional account. It’s like how you pretend to clean your room when I tell you to.” Slowly she roller her eyes towards me, still feverishly knitting in her lap. We locked eyes and both laughed briefly before I returned to the page.
I wanted to read this old classic but the school book won out. This boy seems like the REAL friend of the white man.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Squanto just went from leading Charles Robbins and the other Pilgrims toward the village to teaching them how to plant maize. Seems like there should have been some dialogue or other build-up in between. Also Squanto is now a grown man.” It also seems several pages had fallen out of the book. OK kiddos, enough of this…
For my bedtime entertainment I went with some remarkable lighter fare. A found a Youtube video of an epic disaster to help me relax. Ever heard of “Balloonfest ’86”? In Cleveland in the 1980’s a group of people got together to help the city shed its “Mistake by the Lake” image. Hey, I grew up in New Jersey. I get it. You get tired after a while and you want to do something over the top to show them all “We’re #1!” However, inflating 1.5 million balloons with helium and then releasing them en masse moments before a major shift in weather over a major American city is probably not the brightest way to accomplish this goal. The balloons all blew out over the lake and sank before deflating. 70% of the balloons washed ashore in Canada. They loved us for that. But then again they gave us Bryan Adams so I think we’re even.
Ah… one of these days we’ll adjust to the new daily schedule and we’ll cheerfully wake up refreshed at 5:30 AM to tackle the day. We won’t be exhausted when we come home from school either. We’ll have energy and plenty of time for fun and games as a happy family.
There is in my home tonight a great excitement that has built. I’ve been doing this teaching thing for a long time but the first day of school (the one with the kids and not just in-service meetings) is always a terrific time for me. This year it’s a bit different. Having walked away from education a couple of years ago this is my first “first day of school” in 2 years. And even though I started working at this school in January it wasn’t quite the same, jumping in mid-year. This year I am the vice principal. This year my nine year-old daughter (she of broken wrist fame) is joining me at this school. This year Netflix will hopefully release season 3 of The Crown but that might just be wishful thinking.
Tonight my sweet little girl and I ate dinner and then began what I hope to be a nightly ritual. We packed our lunches together. I still can’t believe how fortunate I am. All parents are the primary educators of their children. But I get to do it in a very real way. Short of homeschooling this is a great option for me. It combines two things I love – teaching and my kids. I can’t wait to drop by her table in the cafeteria and drop dad jokes on her and her friends. She’s a little nervous but she’s also excited and I think she’s happy because what other little girl gets to bring her awesome dad to school every day?
Speaking of the broken-boned one, we picked up her new eyeglasses today. Before getting out of the car at the ophthalmologist my daughter asked ever so kindly if I could help put pants on her stuffed bear. I don’t even ask anymore. But the cast was getting in her way. I may not be the best dad but I try as evidenced by the picture she took.
The tail has to go through the hole. Don’t ask.
After packing lunch we gathered her uniform and I ironed her shirt and mine. Then she brushed her teeth as best as she can with that cast on and I read her a book before watching her drift off to sleep. This is going to be awesome. My wife and son? They were out shopping, buying us a big bag of fun things to keep in my office like Twizzlers and protein bars. I didn’t see any pony bottles of gin but that might come later.
I got myself a “nun Bell” for recess!
Speaking of my son… I’ve been prepping mentally that I should probably deliver some kind of father-son talk to him one of these days. He’s 11 and it certainly seems appropriate. The only thing is how to do it. I prayed about it and discovered a wonderful (if not someone older) book called Listen Son. The book, written by Cardinal Stritch (yes, Elaine Stritch’s Uncle) in 1952, is a series of conversations between a father and his son. What I like is that it presents the facts in a straightforward way while focusing on the virtues of manliness, chastity, and honor. I can work with this.
Tonight I came in from grabbing a smoke on the porch and son asked “Daddy will you read to me tonight? I don’t care what it is.” Perfect opportunity, I thought. So I grabbed the book and sat down with him. Two things happened.
First, about mid-way through the first instruction my son stopped me and said “It sure sounds like you’re reading a script.” Perceptive, that boy. In fact it kind of is a script. I brushed it off by saying “Yes, son, this is an important topic and I want to get it right for your sake.”
Second, I concluded with the line “remember that what we will discuss is sacred and does not need to be talked about with others.”
For some reason at this point the boy asked “Where’d you get this book.” And without missing a beat and with as much honesty as I could muster I said “Amazon.”
We both immediately burst into laughter.
“A sacred topic brought to you by a minimum wage factory worker,” replied my son.
Readers of this blog (both of you) will note by now my penchant for orthopedic insult. That is, doctors trained in the fine art of examining deficient skeletal systems and then mending them tend to have a field day with yours truly. Scratch that – most bone docs hear my name and look for the nearest window out of which to leap headlong.
We could start, of course, with the traumatic injuries suffered when I was thrown from a burning building at the age of 4. I’m sorry, I’m just taking in that last sentence and realizing how awesome that makes me sound. Seriously, it could well be a source of great sorrow and the wellspring of a thousand phobias but I look upon it like a phenomenal story to tell at a bar. “Hey Harvey, what’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you?” Me (thinking for a moment): “Well, let’s begin…”
Any X-ray techs want to play spot the fracture?
That fall resulted in hundreds of microfractures which eventually manifested themselves in degenerative disc disease. This led to my first spinal fusion at the age of 23. And another spinal fusion at 36. Together these two surgeries accounted for the complete removal of two discs from my spine, an autologous bone graft from my hip, countless titanium rods and screw that sometimes set off airport magnetometers, and the delightful fact that inside my body right this minute can be found 1) cadaver bone, 2) my brother-in-law’s blood, and 3) a bovine bone “donation”. I know you’re all caught on that last bit too. Yes, there’s a freakin cow bone in my spine. Moove on. Modern medicine is udderly fascinating.
Along the way and since then I’ve broken several ribs, a collarbone, the wrist on my dominant right hand (even though I’m naturally left-handed), and every toe on both feet. Come to think of it, I guess I’m a pretty tough dude. For instance, just three weeks ago I broke a toe on my left foot while jumping out of bed one morning to answer the phone. I lost my balance and slammed it into the leg of a table. Ironic that I’d break a toe on a leg… At this point, though, I don’t even bother to get stuff like this checked out. They’d just slap a boot on me, place me under all kinds of restrictions for six weeks, and NOT even give me a decent painkiller. No thank you. I’ll take my chances with sufficient rest and Motrin. Harvey doesn’t have time for such things as six weeks off from jumping rope and lifting weights.
Also, I really can’t afford to be taking it easy when the school year is only two days off. Recall that I am a high school teacher and the vice principal of our school. This school year is especially exciting for me as my precious daughter will be coming to school with me as our newest fourth grade student. Let’s refresh for the occasional reader who isn’t one of my two kids.
Don’t worry. It will be wrapped in pink shortly.
Although I do have a twin sister, I also share my birthday to the exact minute with my little girl. This is great fun considering my twin died when we were young. What fun is celebrating your birthday with someone who isn’t even living anymore? I mean, I made the best of it but when God decided to give me another young lady to share the birthday with that was about the coolest thing ever. Factor in that said little girl appears to have received way more than 23 of my chromosomes and things get really fun. We’re looking forward to our drive to school every morning and having Daddy visit her on the playground at recess, and all the fun things that come along with your father being the guy all the other students love but you get the special knowledge that he loves you a little bit more for a whole lot of reasons.
One of the reasons I love my daughter is that she seems to want to be just like me. There was the time she started playing the piano when she was 4 (like me) or the time she mastered roller skates at 6 (like me) or the time she distilled her own blend of botanicals into bathtub gin (like m… OK, you get that point. What I don’t love is when she tries to copy the dumb things like breaking bones. With her it seems to be a straight up thugfight to the death. It’s like “Hey old man, I WILL dominate in this so step off or I will cut you.” Such a sweet girl.
Remember when I mentioned breaking my wrist as a child? Well that was just one wrist. She matched that last Christmas when she fell off her scooter and snapped the left one. Today I had her with me up at school setting up some things in my office. We had just swapped the 7th and 8th grade classroom signs (no it wasn’t a prank) and I asked her help mounting a whiteboard across from my desk. “Sweetheart, can you hand me that screwdriver?” I asked. But instead of a “yes, Daddy” I heard the sound of tears. And it was the hard, painful tears of a “oh no, something’s horribly wrong” variety not the “I’m hungry and bored” variety. I’m a Dad; I know the difference.
I turned around to find my baby girl on the ground. Seems someone had decided to wear a pair of (let’s see if I’ve got this right) wedge heels? You see Mommy had already told her not to wear these shoes she had found from her aunt but someone opted to let human nature put on a great big show and disobeyed Mommy. How did Daddy not see this when they left the house together? Dude, Daddy can’t find a giant can of coffee in my pantry when it’s in the same spot for 8 years running. You think guys – even dads – pay attention to shoes? In any event, my genetic minion, unsteady on her feet in these clod-hopping death traps, tripped over herself and landed on her backside. In the process she put her hands out to soften the landing and incurred what’s known as a “buckle fracture”. She’s getting good at this. Once she stopped crying she said very calmly “Daddy, it’s broken. My symptoms are identical to when I broke the other one.” A trip to the orthopedic urgent care confirmed her claim. So I brought her home to rest with her pretty new pink cast that stretches almost to her shoulder. Five weeks from now and at least $600 later perhaps she will have learned her lesson on obedience. Meanwhile I have to be both discipline dad (instilling the lesson that she really should have listened to her mother) and kind and sympathetic dad (trying to comfort her and console her that the first few weeks of a new school won’t suck because of this). In fact tonight at Parent Night her new teacher already told me that she would be fine with my daughter dictating her homework to me if writing is too difficult. What contest in hell did I just win? I don’t want to do 4th grade homework!
On our ride home from the doctor’s office my daughter asked me to run down all of my broken bones with her. “But you did break your wrist, right Daddy?” I replied: “Yes I did,” and told her that fun tale. I was just at the point where my mom threatened to “demolish” my older brother Sean for goading me into taking a shot at him and then jumping out of the way so I’d slam my fist into a brick wall possibly leaving me unable to play the piano again when my daughter cut me off.
“So wait, Daddy… You just broke the one wrist? Then I WIN!”
Yes, sweetness, you win. For now.
Talk to me when the few strands left on your scalp are all white because your kid decided he wanted to be just… like… you.
Well I’ll tell you what I didn’t do. I didn’t write much at all. I have my reasons. Lots going on this summer; and usually that’s a recipe for more writing. But this summer was different.
I could say that a lot of what was going on was travel. If you read my last few posts a couple of months ago you know that we were well on our way to another amazing family road trip. And one day I promise to write all about that from the spot right where I left off. The Big Apple, the Garden State, my time at “Relaxation House and Spa” (AKA: my sister’s house in central PA), the rolling Blue Ridge foothills of Northern Virginia, a wedding, a long return drive through a place that is nowhere along the route home (Peoria, IL?), a journey down old Route 66, home again… And that was just us getting started with an incredible time for me and the kids (and my wife when she wasn’t buried in work). A few days later my wife and I set out for Southern California for another wedding, a major earthquake, some Hollywood sightseeing, and another trip home. A few days later my wife set out back to Virginia for a funeral and more work. Then a week and a half later and she returned to California for a vacation with some old friends while I entertained one of my nephews with his cousins (my kids). And like that, summer’s over. But I won’t say it was any of that.
One of my favorite moments from this summer.
I could say it was the near 1,000 degree heat and high humidity to which I have NEVER become accustomed. The stickiness of this literal hot mess slows down every molecule in the deep south to where typing out a few sentences is a major undertaking. It’s why we sit on our porches and drink gin. I did a decent amount of that this summer which also contributed to my bronzed appearance. I saw an old friend yesterday. We seem to lay eyes on each other about once a year despite living 4 miles apart. He noticed the tan. Some might say skipping sunblock is probably bad but it’s how I get my Vitamin D. And I’ve soaked in about as much as nature will allow. And like that, summer’s over. But I won’t say it was any of that.
I could say it was physical in nature; that I spent hours each day jumping rope shirtless (see tan above) outside, sweating bullets, hoping to see the slightest reduction in body fat percentage For the benefit of my fused spine. I also lifted weights, did a bunch of HIIT cardio, and a few other things just for fun. You’re probably wondering why I mentioned my lack of upper body clothing. Well, it’s funny you should ask. I have really come to rise above my self and my natural laziness and aversion to hard, physical work over the past few years. And something about stepping outside into the hot Texas sun and sweating everything I’ve got is incredibly rewarding. Unfortunately I still hate wearing sweat-soaked clothes. Since I can’t workout in public without shorts I opt to ditch the shirt. I promise it’s not a vanity thing. There’s not much to be vain about. But I mention this fact in particular because while entertaining that nephew I mentioned I traveled with him to stay at a friend’s house in Austin for the weekend. He wanted to workout with me so we bought a jumprope and some gym shorts at Walmart, stepped out onto our friend’s patio, and I trained him – a strapping young fireman – in the finer points of jumping rope. He was learning how to master the classic boxer skip; I was racing through double and triple-unders. My friend in who’s house we were staying texted and asked what we were doing. Her next door neighbor, unaware that we were houseguests or who we even were, texted my friend (the homeowner) to ask why two studly shirtless dudes were jumping rope on her patio while she was in Napa with my wife. Did I mention that I only had one rope and so my nephew and I took turns with it, and that while one of us had the rope the other simply jumped in place? It must have been a strange sight indeed. So I worked out like a beast all summer. And like that, summer’s over. But I won’t say it was any of that.
In fact it might have been a combination of ALL of that and it might have been NONE of that at all. Part of it is that I’ve been living life with my kids, knowing I could continue to chronicle this life of ours a little later. True I don’t like to wait too much longer lest I start to forget details or the stories don’t sound as incredible. But there’s something to actually living it and then writing it down. Not everything needs to be documented in the moment. And we’re still here and still fine. My wife has been beyond occupied by her job, traveling a full quarter of every month away from us and the kids and I have had to learn to adjust to that. It’s not ideal but we’re managing to have fun together even though we miss her terribly. We’re kind of developing our own groove in our communication and our interactions. I went back and read old posts from when the kids were babies. It’s funny that now we have inside jokes with each other, we sneak in “Dad-treats” to get ice cream, and play games. And Dad tries to keep them on track with their chores, hopefully inspiring them to help keep our house a home. And when Mommmy gets home we all breathe a sigh of relief because everything is back to normal. So it was some of that.
But perhaps the biggest reason I haven’t written in a while is that I’ve been on a quest of late to re-tool my digital footprint. One way to do this is to step away from blogging for a bit, trying to rediscover why I started writing in the first place. Toward that end I’ve spent months re-reading the old stuff and getting a good laugh. I’m happy to say my style hasn’t changed much. I think I’ve become a better writer but the old stuff was still good – and some of it even still makes me laugh very hard. There was the dark summer last year where I wrote so many memories of my time in McCarrick’s seminary; stories I eventually took down so I could organize them into a book, a book that will come eventually. Mentally recovering from that mess was some of it too. I spent about a year reading every single article, watching every Youtube clip, searching out news, caught up in one of the darkest scandals in Church history. After a while, it’s time to just stop and reflect. And I did. I’ll still write about it, the truth; but I need to write about my blessings too. And speaking of social media, I deleted my Facebook after 12 years. Now that’s another story for another day. I’ll say that a friend of mine commented right before I pulled the plug that “I’d be back”. He’s probably right but when I am back it will be right for me, on my terms, as a platform to stay in touch with family and people with whom I am actually friends in real life. I think I know how to do it to. So was that any of it?
What did I do this summer? Man alive, what didn’t I do this summer? School’s starting next week. I’m so ready to have my kiddos back. I’m a teacher. If they didn’t return to me every year around this time I’d be talking to an empty room for an hour at a clip because I kind of have to teach. Say a prayer for all of us.
I’m thankful for this summer, thankful God gave me this time with my kids, this time truly to miss my wife, thankful for gainful employment (hers and mine), thankful for returning students, for travel, strange roadside attractions and the St. Louis Arch, thankful for a gift of writing, and thankful for all of you who read.
Missed it’s procession over the line where sea meets sky but still snagged a neat pic.
The year was 2006. I had only one week earlier proposed to my wife (well, she wasn’t yet my wife; that’s why I proposed). She had been in the habit along with a handful of friends from college and their ever-growing families of traveling to the Outer Banks of North Carolina every year around the end of summer. They would all rent a house and enjoy a week of fun at the beach. Now that I was entering into this fray I, too, would be invited along. It was lots of fun for about two days. And then… a tropical storm struck the Carolina coast. One of the group, heeding the weather reports early, decided to pack his family and bailed. He’s Canadian, though, so I think tropical storm warnings are especially traumatic. I had been assured that “these things happen all the time” and that there was “no need to worry” and that I should “stop being such an amazingly good-looking but dreadfully cautious killjoy”.
The storm came. The
roads flooded. After one day of looking
out the window and NOT seeing water recede I decided I should probably try to
make a break for it. I got in my car and
headed south on the beach road for exactly one-half mile. Attempting to drive through standing water
that didn’t look that deep my car – a brand new Dodge Magnum – shorted out
and died. Long story short: I walked
back to the beach house, a friend of my wife helped me push the car to a local
supermarket parking lot, and I borrowed my new fiance’s pickup to drive back to
New Jersey. The insurance company sent
an adjuster who deemed a new engine was in order. Turns out it just needed spark plugs. A few weeks later I had reclaimed my vehicle
and life went on. The following summer,
as a newly married man I returned to the beach with my wife. We were already expecting our first child
(though we had not yet told anyone) and we enjoyed a few days of sun and
sand. The summer after that, with a six
week-old boy in tow we ventured on the first of many family cross-country road
trips and I began documenting them in writing.
Which brings us to today – Monday or Day 5 if you like.
The thing is that even though nothing much happened yesterday, even less happened today (hence the long and winding intro). We played on the beach During the day and in the pool when the sun went down. My wife and I prepared dinner and drinks for 50 people. You know, typical stuff. But one thing that did happen struck me as ironic considering how this all began…
I always have a hard time sleeping on vacation. I don’t know if it’s the change in bed or the
change in atmosphere. Something just
seems to prevent me getting a good night’s sleep. Today was no exception. I woke up around 5:45 because of the sunlight
pouring into the room “like butterscotch” as Joni Mitchell would say. I was excited because at least I would see
the sunrise over the Atlantic. Look, it’s
not like I go looking for these things but when they happen in my presence I try
to make the most of them. I’ve seen the
sunrise before but there is something really awe-inspiring watching it come up
over the ocean. It truly gives one a
sense of the majesty of God. I stepped
outside onto the balcony. And I
immediately realized that Mr. Golden Sun was already over Mr. Horizon by a few
degrees. Damn. I missed it.
No worries though. I opened my
laptop, went to Youtube, and entered “sunrise ocean corolla nc”. Within moments I was watching what I had just
missed – time-lapsed, no less! Saved me
the trouble of waiting through the whole boring thing. Then I went upstairs to the kitchen for my
black coffee, then downstairs to the driveway to jump rope for a half-hour.
In 2006 there was no going to Youtube to watch a
sunrise. I mean, I think there was a
Youtube then but it wasn’t a part of everyday life as it is now and there wasn’t
nearly as much content. There also was
no “black” coffee. Until four years ago
I used to give my dad a coronary every morning when I’d pour cream and sugar
into my morning Joe. “Why not drink it
like a man?” he’d ask me. “Dad, I’m 37
years-old. You shut up because I am a MAN!” I likely never said those words but if I did
I likely said them like the guy from that episode of Law & Order
called “American Jihad”. Yeah, you’d
have to have seen it I guess. In 2006 there
certainly was no jumping rope for this guy.
I think at the time I fancied myself being “in shape”. I also fancied myself having great
flexibility despite already having had my spine fused five years earlier. I did not care what I ate (which included
nothing that wasn’t meat). If you had
asked me to pick up a rope and jump over it for 30 minutes I would have
accepted the challenge and then promptly died.
Times change. People change. The sun still comes up. Man always desires to better himself. And Dad will always be right. I still can’t imagine why I ever put anything
into my coffee.
One more thing that wasn’t a thing in 2006 was you,
son. And yet, this morning after I did
all of my ridiculousness I walked into your room, shook you from your sleep as
only a dad of an 11 year-old young man can, and said loudly “WAKE UP!!! It’s time for fun!” See the thing is I didn’t care if you
slept. I wanted your company. I love hanging out with you and my
waking hours are kind of boring if you’re not a part of them. You grumbled.
I jumped on the bed. You muttered
something about hating life. I pulled
the covers off. It was great fun. And where did we go from there? Well, since you share my DNA I’ve often planned
our time together based on what I want to do. The thought is that if I enjoy it, you will
too. And if you don’t we’ll blame your
mom. In short order you were dressed and
we were off on a morning walk. The
Dunkin’ Donuts is only a mile away and I was craving something more than black
coffee. Figured you’d like a donut and
we could enjoy some father-son time together.
What I didn’t count on was your determination to be even
less physical at that hour of the morning and on vacation than I was at any
hour of the day when I was in my 30’s.
Three blocks from the beach house and you dropped this gem on me: “Dad, when
we get there do you think we can Uber back?”
Yes, I did just hear that correctly.
Uber wasn’t a thing in 2006.
And it wasn’t going to be a thing today either. We got to DD, grabbed our breakfast, and
WALKED back to the house. And you know
you’re happy we did because along the way we passed something really neat. We took a slightly different route and
encountered the rather sizable fire/rescue station. Since the Outer Banks are kind of isolated
one might figure that a rescue station would have to be well-equipped to handle
any kind of life-threatening emergency.
What neither of us figured was that they would have “it” right out
front. “It” was a concrete pad – but not
just any concrete pad. “It” was a
concrete pad with a giant letter “H” painted in an even gianter circle smack in
the middle of the pad.
“Look!” we both said in unison. “A helicopter landing pad!!!” Like two little boys excited over the dumbest
thing we both squeeled with delight at the prospect that a helicopter might
swoop in at any point during the day. We
walked a little further. “Of course, son,”
I said, “that would require someone to have to kind of die or something.” We paused in sadness for a moment. And then you looked up at me.
“But it would be kind of awesome.”
It would indeed my boy. It would indeed.
For moments of clarity when God allows me grace to compare
my life today with my life before kids and to know that it’s so much better
now; I am most thankful.
As the Good Lord says, there is no rest for the weary. Actually I’m not sure that was the Good Lord
who said that. I think He said something
about making sure to observe the Sabbath.
Truth be told, there’s nothing wrong with a little rest and, I am also
informed, sleep is possibly necessary for human existence. Although I’ve never been able to verify that
claim it seems worth checking into.
As for me and my house we will see the lop. Only two people in this world would
understand that last sentence. One is my
sister. The other is my dear friend
Kelly. So I am dedicating today’s
installment to Kelly’s son who is a fellow blogger. I’m sure at this very moment he’s wondering what
we did all day Sunday (Day 4). So I’ll
tell you.
Nothing.
We did absolutely nothing.
Having been to mass last night and having driven over 1500 miles in the
past couple of days, taking in kitschy sites along the way, we thought today
would be ideal to laze about the beach.
I woke up at the ungodly hour of 0800, said my prayers, grabbed my black
coffee, and busted out a new jumprope I had purchased in Alabama the other
day. This one is weighted. A treat for me! After burning through a half-hour of cardio I
showered, put on my 1910-era bathing suit (have to cover myself up), picked out
a boater hat from the closet, and headed down to the beach with my ukulele. Along the way I packed a bag with my pipe,
the Wall Street Journal, and some sarsaparilla ale. Humming Civil War hymns, I gleefully strode
across the sand, found an ideal spot, and laid my blanket down. For the next several hours I basked. Basking is fun with the ones you love.
I mean, come on… The reality isn’t nearly as
interesting. My bathing suit is from J
Crew and barely covers my rather long thighs, there is no pipe. Haven’t read the Journal since my dad died. And the drink in the bag was a tumbler of
margarita. I basked all right. A tiny bit of sunblock to protect my
shoulders but otherwise I took in as much sun as I could. Vitamin D is good for you.
And that’s about it.
By day’s end I had counted both of my kids to make sure they
had made it back in from the beach. We
had a lovely dinner. And, totally not
burned, I went to bed thankful for this time.
God is very good to me. He’s
given me people whom I love and time to spend with them. The overactive imagination? That’s just a bonus.
Folks, I got off all that social media nonsense a while ago. Sorry but I'm not on Twitbook, Facepalm, YouHu, WingWang or any of the others. Maybe an event will happen to make me change my mind like Peter and Paul coming down with flaming swords and commanding it be so. Until then, read the blog and if you feel a comment is in order or you feel like sharing a tip or suggestion for a topic, email me at harvey@harveymillican.com.
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 