I looked up from my phone to look out the car window. Nothing. I went back to scrolling through social media and chatting absentmindedly with my wife about her day. We sat in the dark in our car waiting for our son to finish up from his school’s marching band practice. A few minutes later, …
Category: family
Snoopy and Teddy: The best of friends
In a long running gag from the comic strip Peanuts, Lucy tells Charlie Brown that she’ll hold a football for him to kick. Charlie Brown refuses to kick it at first, not trusting Lucy, not wanting to get burned again. The two go back and forth until she convinces him to trust her. Charlie Brown …
In this house
My wife has a sign in our living room that lays out our house rules. I'm not sure where she got the sign, a home furnishing store, an art store, who knows? The sign is simple enough. It's not that large, maybe 10 by 17 inches long, nothing too big. The sign's message has just …
Small progress
I’m starting to worry about my memory. I see something in the news that I think is funny in an off-hand way and I save the story to my favorites to tell my oldest son and then I remember that he’s not here. I see a funny clip from The Late, Late Show with James …
Calling home
My youngest son stretched-out on the couch. He was dressed and ready for school, but his eyes were closed. He was trying to get every little bit of sleep he could, before he had to head out the door. I looked down at him with a smile. I could relate. I was tired too, but …
A doggie homecoming
When I come home from work, our dog, a lhasa apso – bichon frise mix, greets me at our front door. She’ll prance and jump in front of me and try everything in her power to get my attention. Her attention is focused squarely on me. My arms are full and I usually have a …
Memories that stick
One moment lasted a little more than an hour, the next, maybe ten minutes max, but once they were gone, they were gone. I’m talking of course about two moments that my wife and I experienced at the beach a few weeks ago: one was a beautiful sunrise and our walk on the beach and …
“Cranking it out”
I warned my son. I gave him reminders. I warned him that the start of the school year was coming fast. I even offered a few harsh stories from my own past – stories of me procrastinating and paying a hefty price. Of course, my son didn’t listen. 'Just get it done' He’s taking an …
All that glitters is not gold
I met the two guys in a dorm icebreaker the previous week. The RA (resident assistant) had pulled all the guys living on the floor together and asked us to tell an embarrassing thing about ourselves. Of course, everyone hemmed and hawed. No one admitted to anything all that embarrassing, but later my two new …
Picturing what’s important
I was having a tough day. I had gotten only a few hours of sleep, I had received some feedback that I didn’t agree with, my hands were shaking for some strange reason, and I had forgotten my phone in my car. To top it all off, my day was starting to spiral out of …
