My wife is an amazing photographer. I have never been much of a picture-taker, and often would rather not stop the moment to capture it in some artificial way. But, Melanie taught me something different. You think you will remember, but you don’t. And I remember this each time I see an image from the […]
In this post, we take a look at the dark side of power through the lens of art and cinema. Power is a part of relationships that all fathers must genuinely reflect upon. For often kids get lost in the cultural current of “that’s the way we do it here…” In a time when art […]
For years I have struggled with the effects of injuries sustained in competitive sports. Regardless, being active and engaging in the physicality of fatherhood was always a priority. Touch is love, and the nonverbal life of running, chasing, playing catch, and roughhousing was as important as any words shared with my sons. When the boys […]
To: Tom Dundon, new owner of the Carolina Hurricanes It’s been nearly a year and a half since I posted “The Hat” on Facebook. Since that time, not much has changed. We remain wondering when… We are a patient lot, and the Hat represents both hope and the wear and tear of wondering when. At […]
So they tell to lie on your side and you come face to face with a bare wall. Fitting as you are bare in every manner… and you know. You’ve known for a while. As the sanitizing paper crinkles with each twitch, each thought, the wall becomes a blank slate, a screen for a life’s […]
Each generation, if they are so blessed to live a long and full life, gets to witness the bookends of change. It may have seemed simpler long ago, or maybe not. When I recall my grandmother, a child of the Great Depression, a proud woman who literally broke her back for menial pay, was old […]
On a cold winter evening nearly three decades ago, I proposed to my wife, Melanie. It was December 21st, the night of winter solstice, and I thought the idea of natural rhythms and things you could count on provided a good embrace. I pulled over in front of a small, old church in the […]
Some of our funniest memories of when the boys were very young happened at the Golden Corral. We would alternate between the two all-you-can-eat-buffets in town, thinking they might forget us… Well, they are both closed now. It’s hard to believe this is a 13-year-old memory, for it seems like yesterday–or “yesternight” as both boys […]
One of those events in which many worlds collide occurred this summer in an unexpected space. Ideas and ideals, young and old, political correctness, and company policies converged in a typically innocuous venue while we were at the beach for our annual family ritual. Till that point I would not have had great difficulty making […]
If you look straight ahead you notice the lines in a different way. You are a passenger and your youngest son is the driver, his hands and forearms give away that he is not a child anymore. If you allow yourself a glimpse out of the corner of your eye, you can see the child […]
