"Oh, My (fore)Father"

There is a standing joke among some of my friends that I am a white Mexican. This is attributed to my Spanish and ethnicity. What they don't realize is how closely Mexico figures into my family. My great-grandfather emigrated there around the turn of the century to escape religious persecution. There he lived until the political turmoil caused by Pancho Villa caused him to return to the States. Shortly after returning, my grandfather was born. Had he waited a little longer my grandfather would have been Mexican by birth, and thus I would have been part Mexican.
While he lived in Mexico my great-grandfather accomplished many things. He studied law and became a somewhat successful lawyer. He raised his family. He practiced his religion. He loved his church and gave himself fully to its service. It seems almost a trait of generations long past to devote oneself so fully to a religion.
Part of living in Mexico and serving his church included translating hymns from English to Spanish. I remember as a child, living along the border we would often sing songs in church in both English and Spanish, looking through the hymnbook to find his name printed above the hymns he had translated. It gave me immense pride to think someone in my family had so meaningfully contributed to the church. Those hymnbooks have since been replaced by ones that give only credit to the author and songwriter.
Today, while at church, I saw one of the old school hymnbooks. It took me back to my childhood as I rifled through the pages. I asked for, and received, that book so I can keep it and show it to my children when they are older. I want them to appreciate their heritage and know of the devotion their forefathers had. I want it as a reminder to me to strive harder.
As I flipped the pages I came upon one song he translated. It happens to be my favorite hymn, although not because he translated it. I don't know why it is my favorite. I have always loved the music and words. So I was happy that it was he who translated it.
I hope great-grandpa's brand of old school dedication can be passed from me to my children.

Light It Up!

Have you ever stared into a fire, one made from real wood or charcoal and not natural gas, and been mesmerized by the dancing colors? I do it whenever I am around that kind of fire. It fascinates me to watch the embers change from bright yellow to varying shades of red to black or gray. And that all happens as you watch. The wind currents move and shift and cause the coloring to do likewise. I have often wondered what it would be like to be down at that level watching it all happen.
Yesterday I got that chance. I wasn't in an actual fire, but the countryside seemed like it on my drive to and from South Carolina yesterday. The trees are changing color from greens to yellows and oranges and reds. Some have already burned out and have no leaves left. But the wind was pretty strong yesterday and it seemed like the landscape was behaving like the fire previously mentioned. Each breeze caused the countryside to roll and ebb in color. The yellows seemed to give way to the reds and then back again. I can understand why people think of fall as their favorite time of year.

Please forgive the quality of the pictures. It was a little tough to drive and snap pictures at the same time with my cell phone.

Kicking and Screaming

How do you spell 'emasculate'? Seems like a funny question in a written article, but I pose it for a very good reason. I propose we change the spelling of that word...not the meaning, just the spelling. I propose we change the spelling to: M-I-N-I-V-A-N.

The reasons I have are few, but powerful. First, there is nothing about the adjective 'mini' that appeals to men. There is no real good reason why, we just don't like that word. There aren't a lot of men driving around a Mini Cooper, and that is as close to cool as the word gets. We also don't like maxi. That was ruined by women.

VAN - what is it with that word that made car manufacturers think it would appeal to a man. Nothing. I think it was targeted at women. Thus, another reason for changing the spelling of emasculate. Men like acronyms for their vehicles, like SUV. We will drive an SUV because it sounds cool, and has both sport and utility in the acronym. It says "I'm going to have some manly fun and at the same time be useful." That is what we are all about. SUV carries some amount of freedom in the name.

I think car makers originally thought of Family Utility Carrier, but shelved that one for obvious PR reasons.We recognize the utility of the minivan. Many of us come around to coping with a minivan. But we never get over having one. That is why we look at a Porsche with such affection. We wonder what it would be like to take a curve and not worry about how top heavy we are and will the juice in the back spill if we go too fast. There is no back. The Porsche is all about speed and quickness. Now you see me - *zoom*.

We love our families, we really do. We don't know what we would do without them. There is no sacrifice that is too great for our families, but something gets put on the alter to be sacrificed.

And that is the position I find myself in today. We recognized a need for an emascualtion, I mean minivan. I have actually recognized it for quite some time now, I have just resisted, kicking and screaming. So today we divested ourselves of the SUV and bought a minivan. My feelings were succinctly encapsulated by my good friend when he said, "Welcome to that point that no man wants to gets to." (He has been to the same altar before me.) So here I am - minivanned.

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Through new eyes

I have taken a long break between posts, as my editor has reminded me numerous times. What can I say other than I lacked any kind of inspiration to write. Last week a muse inspired me to compose this one.

We went to the beach last week, my wife's family and us. It was the first time since Grace was born that we had been to the beach. We've taken other vacations with Grace, but the beach is one we had been a number of times before she was born. This time might have been the best so far!

The beach through the eyes of a toddler is a wonderful place. Grace had a look of amazement as the waves came in and washed around her feet. She couldn't get enough of the water. She loved running around and finding sea shells, looking at the birds fly through the air, sitting under an umbrella and watching her brother play in the waves. We took her to the pool and she loved jumping in.

We made a trip from Ocean Isle, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC. There my father-in-law and I took Grace to the aquarium. What an adventure. I wish I could paint a sufficient picture to capture the rapture that was in her eyes. Every tank held new and wonderous fishies. There were sharks that gracefully glided overhead so she could watch. There were saw fish that relished relaxing on the canopy of the tank we walked though. There were lots of pretty colors swimming silently, pausing for her to admire. She even got to "pet" a horseshoe crab and loved it. She ran from one tank to another. She dashed all over the pirate exhibit. When we were ready to walk out she walked through the gift shop with us, picking up each fish shaped toy before spotting another and moving to it. We announced we were leaving and she announced she was not yet ready. She made a valiant effort to spend more time there, but we prevailed.

At the end of it all we decided, my father-in-law and I, that if for no other reason this trip was worth the time and money just to watch her having a grand time with her new experiences. I hope that as we go about our daily activities, mundane though they may be, that we will stop from time to time and imagine the experiences as though it was our first, and most wonderful, time. That is what stopping to smell the roses means. So stop. Smell. Enjoy.

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Truth vs. Reality

I heard a great quote today. The great physicist Albert Einstein said "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." The mediocre engineer Aaron said "truth is truth, no matter when it was realized." So when is something a truth and when is it not? When is it a persistent illusion?

A truth is immutable. It never changes and can not be altered. Gravity attracts two masses. Death comes to all. Taxes come to some. Those that don't get taxed want to raise taxes on those that do.

Everything else is a persistent illusion. It is to this topic I wish to devote my meager intellectual juices. There are many people who have an agenda and wish to push their illusions off onto the rest of us. If they say it often enough, we should begin to believe them. They speak from a position of authority, or so they believe. Their authority comes not from their own merits or achievements, but from others who came before them. Others who worked hard to establish credibility and honesty. Most of the folks I am thinking of are reporters. They report the "news" on a daily basis. (By the way, news is something that is new. A new development. Anna Nicole Smith is dead, and has been for a while. Can we PLEASE not run any more stories about her, her children or her sordid life?!)

The news people from a few years ago strove to be fair and mostly honest. They saw themselves as the fourth estate; keeping a watchful eye on government so the rest of us could dedicate ourselves to worthy and noble pursuits. Somewhere along the way they realized their power and have nearly abandoned the fair and impartial mantra they used to have. Lately the news outlets have allowed themselves to become purveyors of propaganda. They mingle truth with the politics of man. Both sides are guilty of this. Even NPR (National Progressive Radio (yes, the P stands for public but who are they kidding?)) broadcasts with a slant on their news and stories.

The deterioration of trust and authority continues. Documentaries used to be something that reported a story, fairly and accurately, giving more attention than a news cast could do. I think of the documentary movies my Dad shared with me that showed how people, nice average people, could be turned into monsters. A study that showed that by having an authoritative figure take responsibility normal people could knowingly inflict intense pain and suffering on someone else. Or the study that was planned for a couple weeks and had to be stopped after 2-3 days because the students who participated altered so greatly. (That was a study where 1/2 the students were prisoners and 1/2 were guards. The guards became abusive while the prisoners began to withdraw within them selves.) Those were some great documentaries.

What do we have today? We have "An Inconvenient Truth." Why is it a truth? Because someone said so. Who? Well, the guy that invented the internet! Certainly we should believe him when it comes to climate. We have "Farenheit 9/11." And now, from the same person that brought you "Farenheit 9/11" we are about to be treated to "Sicko." The person who made this documentary took ten ill rescue workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort over to Cuba for treatment. (It is illegal for an American to travel to Cuba and do business, unless one is a journalist. To call Michael Moore a journalist is a stretch that even Detective Gadget couldn't pull off. By taking the workers over to Cuba, he not only broke several laws himself, he caused ten other sick people to break laws too. For money.) So he could make a movie and make some money. A movie that passes an illusion off as a truth.

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Oh Perfectness!

That title is in honor of my sister. She commented the other day that my wife's and my blog entries about our kids seem too sweet, too perfect. I know my kids aren't the only sweet ones out there. We have some friends with two boys who are just as cute as can be. It's always fun to hear about what Nate and Grant have been up to.

My kids can be a handful sometimes, but there are times they are the sweetest things ever. I was reminded of that earlier tonight. Grace went to bed before she could kiss me goodnight. She was awake in her room, talking to herself and occasionally making some kind of sound that resembled a brief cry. I went up to check on her and she was wide awake. I turned on some music and we danced for a bit, we rocked in the chair a bit and then she and her teddy-bear went to bed. She smiled at me as I walked out and, judging from the baby monitor, went to sleep about 10 minutes later. (My sister is probably looking for an insulin shot after that story.)

I'm sure I'll have some difficulties in the future. Grace is already letting the neighbor kid hug and kiss on her. I'm obviously going to have to keep an eye on her. But I'm going to ride this train as long as I can. A friend of mine back in Raleigh told me one time he had an understanding with his wife. He was going to spoil his daughter while she was young, because when she became a teenager he knew she was going to hate him. I'm not going to spoil Grace too much now and I'm not conceding the hatred just yet. But I want to enjoy the good times while they last.



This was Grace in an Easter outfit.


Noah sleeping, I wish I could figure out his patterns already.

Greetings from Sherwood Forest

I was making my annual pilgrimage through Sherwood Forest recently. Everyone does it around this time of year. And until this year I thought everyone also got stopped by a band of merry men. Apparently the band has changed a little bit. First off, not every traveler was getting stopped and shaken down. I then contemplated that and figured probably 10% wouldn't get shaken down because Robin Hood would be looking out for the bottom earning 10.

I counted. It wasn't 10%, it was 40%. Robin Hood was letting 40% of the people get through scot(sp?) free! On the bell curve that seems a little lopsided. As I stood in line waiting my turn to get shaken down I found out from those emerging that another 20% hardly lost a thing. So we are at 60%, right? It turns out Robin Hood targets 40% to pay everything he wants.

Now here is where my blood starts to boil. Robin Hood is supposed to redistribute the ill gotten gains from the rich to the poor. My gains weren't ill gotten. My wife and I worked our tails off for what we got. We don't mind paying a tribute to Mr. Hood to help out the less privileged, but he seems to be mighty generous with our money. In fact, there was a pamphlet in the Sherwood Forest visitors center that, in extremely fine print, said he, Mr. Hood and his jolly band of junket traveling fat cats, plans to increase their shake down in 2010.

I know there are some reading this that find themselves in the aforementioned 60% to whom the band, and may I say that Little John looks a lot like Nancy Pelosi, don't harass. Count yourselves lucky! But recall the question from yore; "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." Today you may not be paying, but you will soon, whether it is in tribute to Hood or by losing a job because the economy simply can't sustain itself on such a wildly unbalanced distribution.

I also want to send a note of caution to those who don't pay tribute to Mr. Hood. Don't complain when others don't pay tribute either. If someone makes it into the Forest, documented or not, and doesn't pay, that doesn't increase what you ain't payin. So unless you payin, you ain't complainin.

So I'm traveling lighter now. We're bloodied and missing a suitcase or two. We're headed back home to work and try to survive this year before Little John screws things up too bad. (sHe was just saying how misunderstood the French are and how nice they are. We should just try to understand them and surely they won't want to cross the channel and conquer us, rape the women and pillage the country. Lord, how naive do they get? She even donned a headscarf like the French wear and called it Macaroni.)

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