Category Archives: Parenting

Something BIG is Coming…

Posted on July 24, 2020 | 2 comments

Miss me?

I kind of did as well. I just checked and it seems that my last entry on this blog was posted March 1st, 2020. That’s “pre-COVID” if you hadn’t figured it out. I guess, like a lot of people, I was just focused on other things for the past few months. It’s the height of irony for someone who loves to document life. Think about it. The most bizarre year of any of our lifetimes comes along and I can’t bring myself to write a solitary word about any of it.

I believe in the silence, we sometimes find answers to the big questions in life.

These past five months have been a blessing for me. They have been filled with many wonderful memories – memories that, for now, will remain untold on these pages and bound up only in the collective mind of my family. You all know by now that this blog has been a way to document the life of my family as my kids have been growing up. Don’t worry, they’re not quite grown yet. There are many more stories to record and to share.

But I think these times God gives us – times like a national lockdown – force us to confront the question of what is most important in our lives. For me it has always been God. It MUST be God. He is at the center of all that I hope to do and be – “my first beginning and last end,” to quote the daily missal. To love is to sacrifice, to give oneself to God, whole and entire. We do this in giving ourselves to our spouses, our children, the Church, society. I have always harbored a desire to be loved. It is a desire with which I have struggled in many ways. And yet I know that it is far greater to love. I hope that my love for my wife and kids has shown through in the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve committed to this space over the years. But to love them means to sacrifice myself for them. Now I am preparing to embark, for them, on what is perhaps my greatest task in life fully realized. Let me tell you.

Christ, the Great Teacher. “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” (stained glass, Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic church, Newark, NJ)

Two things in particular have happened in the past few months to spur this realization. First, there were the hours and days and weeks spent with the kids. My wife works from home in a cozy office off the back of the house. We try not to disturb her during the work day. But yours truly is a school administrator/teacher. We got shut down. Just like every other parent in America I found myself suddenly teaching my own kids. My situation was a bit different. For starters, I had always wanted to teach my kids in a formal setting. It’s why I went to work at the school were I did – so the kids would be with me and one day I would have them in class. I know, I’m that dad. Although they say they think that’s a “cool” idea now, I’m not sure how they’d feel in high school. And I have even reached “Master Dad Joke” level within the International Society of Dad Humorists so I was just waiting to lay puns and set snares with an intellectual bent that would make anyone’s head explode. Yet here we were, unexpectedly getting that chance; while I was simultaneously teaching other kids online and helping to run a K-12 school.

Three months. We did this for three months. We got creative and got plenty of exercise walking around the neighborhood or riding our bikes. We laughed. We cried. We struggled. But it was sooooo worth it.

Another thing happened recently. This one affected me more than the kids. Two weeks ago one of my older brothers committed suicide. He had a wife of 27 years and two grown kids. I will never understand why he did such a thing. Please pray for his soul and for his family. Something shook me about this. Did the lockdown mess with him? He was one of the most social creatures I’ve ever known? There’s no sense trying to find an answer, though. It is over. It is final. Pray for him. When I say something shook me, I mean that the fragility of life came to the fore of my own life once again. We’ve lost so many over the years. We cannot go forward as though all is doom and gloom. Yet at the same time we have to use these moments to focus on what is truly important, just like we might see good in the lockdown if we understand that we got more time together as a family. Don’t get me wrong. I think the lockdowns were useless and politically motivated and you can call me a nut but the curve was flattened a long time ago. Nonetheless, it gave me time and his death gave me pause to reflect.

I have one solemn charge in life and that is to get my wife and kids to heaven. I need to teach them their faith and about the world around them. I need to pray with them every day, go to mass with them every day like my dad taught me. I need to give them everything I have. And I’m the one to do it. Just look at me! Every moment of my life prepared me for this. And right now you’re asking what I’m talking about…

Wait for it…

After fifteen years in education as a teacher and administrator, after more than a decade of documentary blogging, after years of working in broadcast media, having served varied school communities, television networks, and a brief stint driving live lab mice to the airport; I am leaving it all behind. Starting in a few weeks, I will be the principal of my home. Since I was only ever vice principal, I guess I just gave myself a promotion. My two kids will be getting up with me every morning to do what is most important – praise God and live out our family life together – while I teach them the “Three R’s” and try to keep them away from Mommy’s office. I’m excited beyond belief. I know I can do this. I hope they’ll be cooperative when the going gets tough. And you my dear readers, both of you, already know that there’s no way I’m starting this new chapter in my life without chronicling all the gory details. Look for a new blog to start soon (either right here or under a new domain). And if you have any friends (like the million or so Americans who are also crazy enough to try this same stunt) who want to follow and read along, send them my way. The adventures of a now-former vice principal who quits his job to be a homeschooling dad might just be anybody’s cup of tea in these insane times.

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Posted in Catholic Blog, dad blog, Dad Stuff, Family, Kids, Parenting, Teaching/Education/School

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New York 1901: A Family Game Night Review

Posted on January 6, 2020 | 1 comment

Last night my wife, the kids, and I decided a family game night was in order. It’s been a while. Most of the time when we can agree to play a game we never seem to come to any consensus of which game to play. You see, Daddy (that’s me) would love to play his favorite game, Trivial Pursuit, but everyone else in this equation always claims to be stupid and so Daddy is outvoted 3-1 and never gets to play his favorite game. It’s not his fault that he has a fantastic memory and can whoop your fannies with his stellar knowledge skilz. Then there’s son’s favorite game, Monopoly or as he calls it “Capitalism 101”. The problem with this one is that it takes forever to play. It especially takes forever to play when an 11 year-old boy and his 10 year-old sister decided to take every opportunity to make “deals” with each other and Mommy and Daddy. No, son, I will not sell you Boardwalk for $50. Sorry, that’s life. Daddy grew up in Jersey and he knows exactly how much those properties in Atlantic City are worth. My daughter really couldn’t care less as most of the time she gets bored and walks away. And my wife? Well, she’s the most adventurous among us. She usually “researches” games online before buying them. Most of the time her choices are spot on. Sometimes it’s a miss; like the time she made us play something called “5 Minute Rule”. That’s a game where each contestant is asked to name one thing in five minutes. It’s infernal.

For Christmas my wife gave me a new boardgame – from the online researched division – called “New York 1901”. The object of this game is to acquire land, build skyscrapers, and then demolish and build more skyscrapers. Take a look at the pictures below…

Look carefully and you can see my drink. It helped me through the instructions.

As you can see, the box is beautiful. Artwork is phenomenal. The game pieces – little Empire State Buildings – exhibit exceptional craftsmanship. The cards… Ah, you noticed that. Yes, there seem to be 800 playing cards broken into 30 different categories. Well, it is a real estate game. I suppose it’s not supposed to be “easy”. I mean, building New York City into the metropolis it is didn’t happen overnight. I was assigned a character named Robert Fletcher. I like his mustache. I even gave him a backstory. He was rich, shredded, loved by all. It’s good to assign qualities of oneself to a fictional character every now and then. But those cards…

I spent the first thirty minutes reading and then decoding the instructions. Then I dealt the cards. No joke, there were at least six different piles in front of each player. After a rough start where we came to realize that the colors of our game tokens did not and would not necessarily match the colors of our initial properties we seemed to get the hang of it. Good thing my wife is part German or we never would have figured out how to keep our tracts of land at right angles straight. In fact, my daughter actually played for a good half-hour before storming away angry that she just did not understand this “nonsense”. Fortunately, she continued to mix cocktails for her old man so he didn’t have to get up.

The rest of us, however, got the hang of it and enjoyed playing this game for the hour or so it took us to build up the lower end of the island of Manhattan.

Bottom line: if you’ve got patience, a sense of history, a fascination with architecture, and depth perception then a career in archeology is in your future. If you simply have patience and are looking for a good time with your family then take a stab at this game. If nothing else, you’ll become familiar with the street grid of Manhattan south of Pearl Street. Also, if you have a ten year-old daughter you might want to pop a movie on in the other room for her because she’s not going to have any of this “nonsense”.

My son won last night’s game. Obviously we had to have a rematch this morning. This time, Daddy snagged the Metropolitan Life Building and won. I will always be victorious… until I’m not. And when that day comes I think I will suddenly lose interest in boardgames.

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Save Timmy!: A Harvey Classic Post

Posted on November 12, 2019 | Leave a comment

*Having mentioned that my kids have been getting a kick out of old posts, here’s one I wrote in July of 2012. My son was 4, my daughter was 2. Timmy was apparently a 5 year-old Navy Seal. And I have no idea what I had gotten myself into. Reading posts like this reminds me of what a beautiful life God has given me. Here’s to good health, good fortune, and God’s blessings on you all!*

I took my kids to “the Tubes” this morning for some playtime. The Tubes are, as I’ve written before and as you might imagine, a large, indoor playground consisting of an endless series of large plastic tubes. Children climb through the tubes, scale the netting, and slide down another long tube. Somewhere along the way, I am convinced they are required to capture a flag and then plant it at the summit as a mark of their paramilitary prowess. It’s not unlike Marine Corps boot camp.

On this fine 102 degree Texas morning the tubes – in the air conditioned and fairly dark interior of the local Bible Church – seemed like the place for a quiet and energy-zapping excursion. Tire them out, bring ’em home, nap time.

Glad to know my daughter once thought of me as the sun god Re.

From the moment we arrived, however, I could tell something was different than most other times we’ve been to these tubes…

High above me I could hear the faint whispers of Alpha Company.

“We’ve got to rescue Timmy!” cried one excited yet hushed voice.

“Here’s the plan,” whispered another “we come at them from the yellow slide.  Landon, you’re the tallest.  You go down head first and punch them in the teeth.  Then Skyler will follow with his signature throat chopper…”

What exactly was I listening to, I wondered.  From another section of the tubes I could hear the counterassault being planned.

“Chris, guard Timmy with your life and for God’s sake don’t let him trick you!  Cooper, be on guard for, well, just be on guard.  Skyler, you run out and create a di-ber-geon.”

Other than the slight difference in the pitches of these voices I could barely tell if I was listening to the voices of little boys or little girls.  The names certainly didn’t help.

I cautioned my own kids: “Listen, kids, I don’t know what’s going on up there; but go and play and try to stay out of their way.  Got it?”

They nodded at me and happily ran up the first set of padded steps.  Funny, I thought , playgrounds today are so “safe” with all their foam coverings and plastic and generally boring designs so as to keep any child from ever experiencing a whiff of the pains of life and yet the SWAT teams above me seem to have found a way around that.  All the while I could hear poor Timmy whimpering.  Couldn’t tell if he was injured or trying for that “di-ber-geon” spoken of by Tyler or Taylor.  Screaming erupted briefly.  I think Landon figured out that Timmy was faking his injuries.  “Shut your mouth, Timmy, or I’ll shut it for you!”  Holy God we praise thy name…  Was I still in Texas or had I migrated to Juarez?

Somewhere up here, Timmy awaits his liberators…

At one point a summit appeared to be taking place.  Through the rope nets I could see what looked like three boys and three girls sitting around in a circle, gesticulating wildly.  “You want what?!  Do I look like I was born yesterday?” bellowed one of the girl figures.  I could take this farce no longer.  With a slight bit of fear in my heart and an equal part of amused bewilderment not uncommon to me considering how often I find myself in these bizarre situations, I looked up.

“Skyler?  Landon?  Shaniqua?  Hate to be the one to break it to you but you kind of were born yesterday in the grand scheme of things.  Timmy?  Timmy?  You OK up there, buddy?”

Silence.

I don’t remember what their words were that finally broke the stillness but I think they were something like “Kill the tall one!”  It would appear I had unified the opposing forces and freed Timmy at the same time.  See, and you didn’t know I was a peacemaker.

“Quickly kids, let’s go!” I yelled at my own two kids and their cousin Campbell as we bolted for safety.  With one over my shoulder and the other clinging to my leg I took giant strides toward the parking lot and back to the law and order for which the great state of Texas is known.  Clearly, the Tubes were some kind of extraterritorial property of the Soviet Gulag.

Here’s hoping Timmy doesn’t get recaptured… or they just might take him down.

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Of Flight Delays and Gin and Canadian Politics

Posted on October 3, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here I am again.

By here I mean a terminal at DFW Airport.

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.

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New Beginnings and a Sacred Trust

Posted on August 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

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.

I think this is going to go quite well.

Pray for all of us.

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Trying to Be JUST Like Her Old Man

Posted on August 20, 2019 | 1 comment

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.

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A Father and Son Find Something on YouTube… That They Both Like!

Posted on August 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

A few months ago I stumbled across a video on YouTube. I believe it was suggested by their heinous algorithm that seems to know me better than I know myself.

Why yes, YouTube algorithm, I would love to watch several hours of conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, clips comparing the 747 and A380, weird weather disasters, and anything to do with logistics!

That’s when I came across the video in question. It was a 15 minute clip on how overnight shipping works. And it was… amazing. After typing that line I realize that probably only a man would get my enthusiasm. Because all grown men are really just little boys at heart and we still get excited at a fire truck racing by. Overnight shipping, it turns out, truly is amazing. FedEx, for instance, routes just about every package through Memphis between midnight and 2 AM in order to get it to you the next day. Don’t ask why this is interesting. Just accept it and move on.

Repping our favorite YouTuber

The YouTuber who made the video is even more amazing than the content. He’s a 20-something from the States who now lives in Scotland. His name is Sam Denby and his channel, for some reason, is called Wendover Productions. I showed one to my son and he also was hooked. He’s 11.

Not long after that I noticed that young Mr. Denby has a secondary channel Calle Half As Interesting. In these videos – which are only about five minutes long – he gives a very humorous take on topics he deemed not watch-worthy at anything but approximately five minutes. Currently there are 101 such HAI vids and the boy and I have watched every single one. We eagerly await Thursday afternoons when the new HAI’s drop.

For his birthday (a few months ago) I told him I’d order him an HAI shirt. I finally got around to doing that last week. Got myself a Wendover shirt as well. They came today. And like two excited and excitable young boys (only one of us is supposedly a grown man) we immediately put them on, sporting them around town on our errands.

I hope Sam Denby reads this because I want him to know how thankful this 41 year-old dad of the greatest son in the world is that the videos he produces have given us one more thing over which to bond. Also, if you haven’t seen any yet, please check out the channels.

Wendover

Half As Interesting

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