I like a campfire for its technological simplicity. Pile up some sticks. Crumple up some newspaper. Light it. Stand back. Watch it smolder out. Curse and repeat until you have a roaring fire, or you burn down the forest after resorting to gasoline. Simple. Technology-free. Back to basics. Analog in a digital world. So different from everything else in our lives. Our technology-saturated and digitally-dependent lives. No app on my iPhone will start that fire. My family and I spent a week in a cabin in Blowing Rock, N.C. It was a re-charging, liberating, technology-freeing experience. A gurgling little stream rolled through the property. Cell phones barely worked there. It was back to basics time. Well, certain basics. We didn’t have to shoot a moose for dinner or forage for pine nuts. But most of my modern-day cares melted away. For once, technology wasn’t omnipresent. That wasn’t the case on the way in. On the road, all I thought about was how much technology had changed the monotonous haul for the better. How road trips had been vastly improved by devices and satellites and anything with “Mac” stamped on it. Like satellite radio. Who needs terrestrial radio when you can get music from the stars! Anything you want. Anywhere you want. The radio on long trips used to be the pits. My memories of childhood rides to the Rockies or the Sierras in California were of my finger glued to the radio scan button in a desperate dash through endless […]
Ten things I’ve realized since the end of the World Cup
After a month of games — countless, wonderful, inspiring, addictive, all-consuming soccer games — the World Cup has come to an end. I must have watched the bulk of all but maybe a couple. And I’ve learned a few things along the way: • Excessive World Cup viewing can cause saddle sores. This is a little known fact, and not something that has been talked about in the media. But if you sat and watched as many games as I did, you are in a world of misery right now. • I have a daughter. Thanks to too much soccer watching, I completely forgot this. Well, until I was served with papers for gross neglect and becoming (as she called it in her affidavit) an “undeniably boring soccer boob!” • You can’t explain soccer to people who don’t understand it. The passion. The intensity. The funky rules. When someone says, “Dude I just don’t get what the big deal is,” simply reply, “That’s OK. It’s for higher mammals.” • Tour de France is little consolation when you’re craving major sporting events. I mean, they just ride bikes! • Don’t try to relive your high school soccer glory days. I realized this at a World Cup warm-up game for Team USA in Jacksonville. Two buddies (and their beers) tried to execute tricky soccer moves and nearly executed themselves. Both have required tailbone replacement surgery. Leave it to the professionals … and the sober. • If an important work meeting is scheduled […]
Call of the wild children
I knew what I was in for when I played the voicemail message and heard what sounded like a train wreck being swallowed by a tornado to the tune of whirling banshees. Children. Three of them. All staying at my house. One of them mine. Two from out of town. They had decided to leave me a message: “BONGO JIMMY,” they screamed. A phrase I made up. Played back to me it sounded like an ice pick to the ear drums. I considered phoning a travel agent and booking a trip somewhere quiet and peaceful and heavy on the Mai Tais. I’m not used to “children.” I’m used to a “child.” One child. An ONLY-child. Three kids in a house? I once flew onto a Navy aircraft carrier in the middle of war games. That was like a high school study hall compared to this. Three kids — two 8-year-olds and a 5-year-old. No volume control. They scream everything. As if they’re on a construction site shouting over heavy equipment. Or a sinking ship trying to rise above the crashing waves and churning engines. Such urgency. Such bellowing. So many profound statements that the world — the ENTIRE world! — must here like: “CAN I HAVE SOME MORE ORANGE JUICE?” or “HOW COME YOUR TOILET WATER SWIRLS TO THE LEFT?” I DON’T KNOW! HOW COME WE’RE 5 INCHES APART AND SHOUTING? Kids don’t understand sarcasm, do they? They answer back, “I DON’T GET IT. DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOUT […]
The old house summer projects
Oh no. It’s July 6. Deep into summer. Cresting the hill. No, heading downhill. Picking up speed. And with so much left to do. Daggone summer house projects! I live in an old house. A really old house. One that needs what all old houses need: Money. Attention. Brain cells. (And I long ago filed for bankruptcy on that last one.) Old houses will consume you. They will turn your summer into one long, unending project. That is, unless you procrastinate long enough and never begin any projects. Then your house will literally fall down and consume you. Oh no. It’s July 6 … The list always grows longer in an old house. Never shorter. I have one of many tacked to a cork board above my desk. There were two items crossed off, and three more added. (The three additions were to re-do my earlier work, plus repair the damage from a hammer I threw out of frustration.) If we ever named my house it would be “Futility.” Or something I can’t print here. People always love old houses. These are smart people who don’t live in them. They live in civilized dwellings with level floors, insulation, windows that work and roofs. They walk into old houses and say genuine things like, “Oh my gosh, I love this! It’s so rustic. And unique. And wonderful. Is that a live chicken on your mantle?” My wife is usually pretty sedate, but sometimes she goes off on people like this. “Are […]
The mad, mad scientist
“Dad!” pounced the kid as I walked in the door for lunch. “Ready to do some science experiments?” Ambushed is more like it. Was it even at the door? Maybe it was out by the front gate. She jumped me from the bushes like some kind of jungle cat. “Come on. Let’s get to work!” I didn’t even have time to put my keys down before I was dragged off. Pop was in town. That’s my dad. He went shopping. “I hope it’s OK,” he said. I came in to find a mad scientist’s den. That’s what the science kit was called. “Extreme Secret Experiments Inside!” the booklet said on the cover. There were little beakers and test tubes with colored liquid in them. White powder in packages. Eye droppers. Funnels. My daughter had a pair of goggles. There was a giant monster with a flat head hooked up to wires on a gurney. OK, maybe not that. My dad smiled. It was the kind of smile that said, “Sorry … but this is really funny as hell!” Funny for YOU! You get to leave. I get to clean the exploding volcano off the ceiling and figure out why the dog is coughing up blue bubbles. “Dad! Dad!” barked my daughter. She sounded like a seal. “Want to make slime? Glowing alien slime! oooOOOooohhh! What color slime do you want to make?” Here’s what lunch is to me: A chance to come home. Unwind. Read The Wall Street Journal. Learn […]
Welcome back, dreaded Florida heat
Ah, how I missed you, oppressive, swarming, relentless Florida heat. It seems you were on vacation this year. Took some time off. Came back late. But I realized last weekend you’re finally home. You’ve unpacked and you’re ready to torch. I was outside cutting down tree branches. It was Sunday morning. Father’s Day. There are few better ways to celebrate being a father than firing up a chain saw, gnawing through some wood and praying that the teetering branch the length of Texas doesn’t come down on you like a cartoon fly swatter. Why is it we think the laws of gravity don’t apply to giant tree branches? We’re standing below them. Where do we think they’ll go? “I don’t know, Doc. I just thought it would fall up … not on my head.” Anyhoo, I was out dodging the arboreal assault. I ran inside to proclaim that I was alive (save for the giant branch sticking out of my shoulder blade) and hug my daughter. She stopped me with a finger. “Um, no,” she said. “But I’m alive, sweet pea, and it’s Father’s Day!” “That’s great,” she replied. “But you look like you drowned.” I peered down at myself. The 60 percent of my body made up of water had leached onto my shirt. I could feel dehydrated blood cells coursing through my veins like sand. This explained the strange hallucinations. Darth Vader had been using his light saber to help cut up branches. “Oh, yeah,” I thought to […]
Summer envy
Dear Daughter, I’m not sure they’ve taught you this word yet, but I am envious of you. Do you know what that means? Have you learned it yet in school? It’s when you want what someone else has. When you have this resentful desire to possess it. “Resentful desire,” daughter. It’s jealousy, more or less. Your papa is brimming with it! I’m envious of you for one simple reason: Tomorrow I’ll go to work, but you? Well … SUMMER STARTS FOR YOU!!! No school. You’re done. You can wake up late. Stroll out to breakfast with a big, long, lazy yawn. Hair a mess. Pajamas still on. You don’t have to listen to anyone say, “Kid! … eat, eat, eat! You have 13 seconds to brush your teeth, get that knot the size of a hornet’s nest out of your hair and make it to school.” Your life is gravy now! GRAVY!!! You can play with your cereal until the O’s turn to mush. You can flop on the sofa and drown yourself in TV. You can go outside and wash the car for me. (Thought I would throw that in to see if you would fall for it.) Yet, through all of this — after the yawn, after you pull up to the breakfast table in pajamas, after the O’s turn to mush and you wash the car (still trying!) — do you know what the first words out of your mouth will be? I do — “I’m bored!” […]
Top things to know about the World Cup
The World Cup is officially underway. Billions across the planet are tuned in, hanging on every pass. Hoping their team will pull off glory. And then there’s you! Wondering what it’s all about. Why it’s so special. Maybe trying to understand soccer so you can be part of this global madness in Brazil. To help, I’ve put together a list of top things you should know about the tournament: • Yes, it is OK if you find yourself staring at a picture of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo and saying, “Dang! That is one pretty dude!” Because while your mama said YOU are the most handsome boy on the planet, she lied. Cristiano Ronaldo is the most handsome boy on the planet. We just need to get over it and marvel at his rockin’ abs. • Brazil is not only the host country, but also the favorite to win it all. Brazil is futbol crazy. So if you find yourself in a bar with a bunch of Brazilians who are singing and samba-ing and playing drums, here are some things to say, and not to say. Appropriate: “Dude, Neymar is so awesome and I think he’s going to win it all.” Inappropriate: “Brazil’s all hype! They’re too inexperienced.” A good way to die: “Pelé was a FRAUD!!! My 6-year-old nephew Norman played better.” • Let your crazy out. Soccer has a way of doing that. For instance, I was at the recent American national team game against Nigeria in Jacksonville. I saw a guy […]
A Tough Mudder, or how to release your inner stupid
Sometimes you have to let your inner stupid out. Other times you need a good smack to the forehead, lodging him deep, deep inside. That’s what I’m wrestling with as the little voice in my head keeps imploring me to let my inner stupid free. Do I listen? Do I? Ahhh! It’s all thanks to a colleague. He approached me at a work picnic and asked if I wanted to partake in something life changing. Something liberating. Something I would never forget. I thought he was referring to the hand-made potato chips on the buffet line, but apparently I don’t think “big” enough. “A Tough Mudder!” he said. I gasped. And recoiled. “Keep your voice down!” I snapped at him. “My wife might be around. She hears us talking like this and WE’RE mud.” But the inner stupid in me whispered: “Now … keep talking.” A Tough Mudder. Ever heard of it? It’s an endurance race with military-style obstacles. They’ve become popular in recent years because the average IQ is dropping precipitously. I blame reality TV. The organization that puts these events on around the world bills them like this: a “hardcore 10-12 mile obstacle race — mud run events designed by British Special Forces to challenge the toughest of the tough.” Requirements? Inner stupid. I was intrigued. No idea why. Because I’m not tough, and I don’t like mud. Frankly, it sounds like a horrible idea. It has obstacles called “Fire in the Hole” — where you slide through […]
Stepping up to the youth helmet
Youth. That’s the size of the red bike helmet with pink tiger stripes. It arrived in the mail for my daughter. (Not for me! I would have picked butterflies.) The size? I’ll say it again: Youth! With an exclamation point. As in, “daggone” or “are you kidding me?!?” Because that’s the way it made me feel when I read it. More like: Youch! The old bike helmet had started fitting her like a Yamaka. Like one of those silly, undersized hats that monkeys sometimes wear. I had tried to loosen up the plastic strapping and press it down hard on her head. “Suck in your breath!” I told her. “I think we can squeeze it on if I get the rubber mallet.” But the “child” size helmet, which had long ago replaced the “toddler” size helmet, was done. We stared at each other in disbelief. What did this mean? Certainly not that my darling baby girl had become a “youth.” Could a bike helmet really be the arbiter of that? We both cried. I cursed the world. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition of youth: “The time of life when someone is young.” Here’s another definition — the one that will make a parent like me wet his pants: “The period between childhood and maturity.” Gulp! “Between childhood …” — as in no longer there? “… and maturity” — where she’s heading like a wild cheetah? Way to lay it on heavy, Merriam-Webster. Have you no decency? No respect for a poor parent coming to […]