Here's why the blog ends today...for good

I know I said this once before, but this time I mean it...

Today marks the last day of They Still Call Me Daddy as an active blog. I enjoy doing it, I really do. And I know I'm not obligated to justify this decision to anyone, but I figured I owed that much to those who take the time read it regularly.

The reason of course, is time. It always comes back to time, doesn't it? Time and how we manage it. It's a precious resource, and one of which I have relatively little.

I only post three days a week, but even the time it takes to compose one of these little essays is time away from the kids. And I got five of 'em, folks. Five who get a chunk of my day now, but who deserve more.

Plus, almost five months into my role as Director of Communications at Vitamix, I've come to discover that I truly have a Big Boy Job now. It's hugely rewarding and enjoyable, but it's undeniably a position that requires lots and lots of hours. It ain't 9 to 5, for sure. The more appropriate numbers to describe it are "24" and "7."

Then there's this: I may want to go after my MBA. It's a personal and professional goal with an immense amount of payoff, most of it intangible. And for a number of reasons, the time for me to do it may be now.

Even at 1-2 classes at a time, an MBA would be hugely time-consuming for me. There's no way around that. And it's going to take me years to finish it, with no guarantee I ever will. But I'm considering giving it a shot.

Then there are the ever-present priorities of my wonderful wife, my spiritual life, and taking care of myself physically.

God + Family + Career + Personal Care & Development = Barely Enough Time to Sleep, Let Alone Do Anything Else.

I truly appreciate everyone who read the 230-plus posts I've written since starting this thing back in December 2011 (with a eight-month or so hiatus thrown into the middle). Your comments and encouragement were always greatly appreciated.

Before I go, though, I'm not sure I ever told you about the time I was on two game shows...

10 things about me I can't believe my wife puts up with

1. I get cranky when I get stressed
I like to think I can handle a lot, but when I feel like my cup runneth over, I get irritable. She generally lets it slide, God bless her.

2. I can't fix anything
I know we've been over this before, but really, how much easier would her life be if her husband knew how to repair stuff? As it is, she either has to learn how to fix things herself, farm the job out to her dad, or simply go out and a buy new version of whatever has broken. Sorry, hon.

3. I am inordinately interested in grown men playing games
My sports fandom is something I keep relatively in control, but every once in awhile I think it must bother her. Like when I stay up late to watch the end of a game and cheer just loud enough to wake her up.

4. I am an all-or-nothing person
I'll go to Terry and say, "Geez, I'm having a hard time keeping up with my running schedule." And she, very sensibly, will ask something like, "Why don't you cut back to running only a few days a week?" And I, very insensibly, will reply (in caps), "NO! I MUST EITHER RUN 75,000 MILES EVERY WEEK OR I WON'T RUN AT ALL! THERE WILL BE NO IN-BETWEEN!"

5. I hate losing to her in anything
Especially Putt Putt. She's a very good miniature golfer, I am not. But I will try my darndest to beat her because I must not lose to a girl. Trust me, I annoy even myself with this one.

6. I insist on cleaning the kitchen before we go to bed
I'll come home and the kitchen will be a mess, and Terry will tell me not to worry because she'll clean it in the morning. And I know she will. But the thought of dirty dishes sitting in the sink overnight bothers me to no end. I don't know why, it just does. So almost inevitably, I will clean the kitchen myself (and come to think of it, I have to believe she knows this and uses it to her own advantage. She's sneaky.)

7. I work my game show experience into far too many conversations
Did I ever tell you that I was on two game shows? Not one, TWO. See, it all started when...

8. I refuse to believe I am any good at anything
"Self-deprecating" is one thing. That's kind of admirable. But "constantly believing you're the worst person in the world and saying so" has to grate on your significant other after awhile. Or at least I imagine it is.

9. I can be obsessive
This is closely related to #4, I suppose. Like the Weight Watchers thing. I lost a good deal of weight and continue to track my food every day using the Weight Watchers PointsPlus system. And if given the chance, I will talk to you about it. Forever. I track everything that goes into my mouth, and I don't eat nearly the quantity of desserts I used to. I'm a weight loss evangelist. And like anyone who has discovered a new way of life and wants to tell you about it, I am annoying.

10. I write about our personal lives in a public blog
Seriously, who does that?

In every parent is a bit of the harbor master

"August Winds"
Lyrics by Sting

When August winds are turning,
The fishing boats set out upon the sea,
I watch 'til they sail out of sight,
The winter follows soon,
I watch them drawn into the night,
Beneath the August moon.

My children, my little "fishing boats," are at various stages of life.

On one end is Elissa, our 19-year-old. She is a college sophomore, only a few years away from sailing out of the harbor of family and home that has protected her since birth.

On the other end is Jack, our 7-year-old second-grader. He's so smart and so engaging and he makes me happy every day.

Eventually, all of the little fishing boats in our house will sail away. I know it must be this way, and I understand.

I figure Terry and I are about in the "August" of our parenthood. A lot of years are behind us, but there are still quite a few ahead. We'll always be Mom and Dad, but the actual process of raising young children is about 2/3rds finished.

No one knows I come here,

Some things I don't share.

I can't explain the reasons why,

It moves me close to tears,

Or something in the season's change,

Will find me wandering here.

So here's what happens: Sometimes I'll be running and listening to my iPod, and a sentimental song will come up that reminds me of when the kids were little or when we took a family vacation or something, and I'll suddenly find myself right on the verge of tears.

Really, that happens quite a bit. And they're not sad tears in any way, nor are they tears of joy. I think it's what the word "melancholy" was coined to described. It's a "happy sadness." Do you know what I mean?

I don't talk about it much, but it happens. With one in college and two in high school, you start to wonder how good a job you've done as a parent. Some things you figure you did well, others not so much. As hard as the job is, you never really want it to end.

And in my public moments,

I hear things I say, but they're not me.

Perhaps I'll know before I die,

Admit that there's a reason why

I count the boats returning to the sea.

I count the boats returning to the sea.

Every day, at least once, I run through a mental list of my children to note where they are, what they're doing, and whether I need to do anything to make sure they're OK. I do this every day, without fail, as do most parents.

I have to do this, of course, because the little fishing boats are constantly gone on short excursions...work, school, hanging out with friends, whatever. These trips are all practice for the day they sail away for good, and it's part of my job to make sure they know the way.

And to make sure that one day I'll be OK when they don't need me anymore.

And in my private moments,

I drop the mask that I've been forced to wear.

But no one knows this secret me,

Where albeit unconsciously,

I count the boats returning from the sea.

I count the boats returning from the sea.

One of my favorite times of the day is right before we go to bed and I go about my nightly routine of closing and locking doors, shutting windows, turning off lights, etc.

Part of that routine is one final, almost subconscious run through the roster. "Elissa? At college. Chloe? Upstairs reading. Jared? In his room checking the Indians score online. Melanie? In the shower. Jack? In bed. All present and accounted for."

And then, with a small sigh of relief, I head off for the bedroom and slide under the covers next to the woman who has shared this job of parenting with me for nearly 20 years. We'll do it again tomorrow, but for now, the boats have all returned from the sea.

And I am happy.

There was a time...

There was a time when Saturday mornings meant Barbies and board games. I miss it.

There was a time when it wasn't at all uncommon for me to be awake at 3 in the morning changing a diaper. I don't miss it.

There was a time when every trip out of the house meant baby bags, car seats and snacks for little ones.

There was a time when everyone in the family believed fervently in Santa Claus. Including me, I think.

There was a time when helping someone with their homework didn't involve advanced math or Ph.D.-level linguistics.

There was a time - several, in fact - when I wondered how we would ever make ends meet (yet somehow we always did).

There was a time when the kids' high school graduation years seemed laughably far off.

There was a time when Raffi was the soundtrack of our long car trips.

There was a time when everyone was in bed by 9 p.m. and it was quiet. I really miss that.

There was a time when I could walk around the house without finding a single bra or feminine hygiene product on the floor. I think I really, really miss that.

There was a time when tee ball and pee wee soccer were the extent of our family's sporting endeavors. Now, thousands of dollars of athletic fees later, it's a bit more complicated.

There was a time when I was a 24-year-old father who had no idea what he was doing. Now I'm a 43-year-old father who has no idea what he's doing.

There was a time when I didn't have to worry about the top of my head getting sunburned because there was hair to protect it.

There was a time when I didn't know and honestly didn't care what my cholesterol, BMI and blood pressure were.

There was a time when someone dying at the age of 60 didn't seem to be that much of a tragedy to me.

There was a time when eating 4,000 calories a day meant I would probably lose weight.

There was a time when I was a newly married, 22-year-old recent college graduate with a beautiful bride. Now I'm someone who has been married for nearly half his life and is thinking about returning for a graduate degree who has a beautiful bride.

There was a time. It was a long while ago, but there was a time...

What would you do if you were suddenly rich?

I will never be one of those people who win a $200 million lottery jackpot and become fabulously wealthy thanks to a $5 investment they made at a gas station.

I know this for the simple reason that I never play the lottery.

It's not that I'm philosophically or even morally opposed to lotteries. It's that it never actually occurs to me to buy a PowerBall or Mega Millions ticket.

Seriously, I've bought maybe three of those types of lottery tickets in my entire life. And, as you might surmise, all three have been losers.

The only lottery tickets I buy are those $2 scratch-offs. The vast majority of those are losers, too, or at least the ones I end up with are.

But every once in awhile I come up a big winner, and I treat these moments as if I've just been awarded a Nobel Prize.

For one thing, I tell everyone in the immediate area, even if I don't know them. It's important to me that the old man in the grocery store who smells like moldy bread knows that I'm a winner. Do you hear me, sir? I won! I WON! I paid $2 for this lottery ticket, and now I'm going to turn it in at the customer service desk for $5. Five dollars! That's a 150% return! I think. I'm not too good with math...

Trust me, when you walk around all the time as easily impressed as me, life is an endless series of celebrations and ecstatic moments. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, that's the extent of my lottery endeavors. I just never think to actually buy one of the big-money tickets.

One reason is that I don't know how to do it. I've bought them before, but I can never remember what I said to the clerk or how you're supposed to ask for them, and I don't want to embarrass myself. I think my brain just intentionally forgets so that I don't put myself through that.

Plus, I'm a pretty single-minded guy in any shopping environment. Most of the time I don't buy anything beyond what I actually go to the store to get. I'm focused on getting through my list and getting out, and extraneous items like PowerBall tickets tend not to enter into the equation.

When you read the names of those people who win the big jackpots, you can be sure I won't be among them.

But if I DID manage to win the big prize, well...I think all of us at one point or another have thought about that. What would you do? Would you quit your job? Would you buy a new house? How many new cars?

I know one thing I would do. Well, I would do it after I gave a bunch of winnings to church and to charities that are important to me. That would come first because, you know, you really do need to pay back the universe when blessed with a stroke of good fortune of that magnitude.

The next thing I would do is call the Wickliffe City Schools and offer to pay for an entirely renovated football field with artificial turf, up-to-date stands and facilities, etc. The works. And the only stipulation I would put on this gift would be that the stadium must be named after my father. Robert L. Tennant Memorial Field is what I've always envisioned. I think he would have liked that.

Beyond that, I almost don't care. Probably a trip or two. Or three. Or four. And maybe a new car (or six). And definitely a nice new running watch with GPS technology and all of that.

And also subscriptions to 47 different magazines. I like magazine subscriptions, and I would most certainly stop working so that I had time to read them.

Then from there it would be giving monetary gifts to my family and friends. That would be the funnest part, I would think.

And I would buy myself an apple orchard so that I would never run out of apples, which as I've mentioned before are very important to me.

Then? Well...other than paying for the kids' college educations, I think the rest goes into the bank. I'm telling you, I'm a simple and relatively boring guy.

A guy who will never be rich because his brain can't multitask well enough to pick up some milk, bread and a lottery ticket. It's sad, really.

Four TV debates that need to be resolved right here and now

Dick York or Dick Sargent?

York

Sargent

These, of course, are the two men who played Darrin Stephens on the classic 60s sitcom "Bewitched." I used to watch "Bewitched" when I came home for lunch during school. Great show. And Elizabeth Montgomery was pretty.

York was the original Darrin from the show's inception in 1964 until his health forced him to leave in 1969. Sargent took over the role and held it until the series ended in 1972.

There's no debate here. Dick York is THE Darrin. And not just because he was the original. His face was goofy, and he was capable of a whole range of expressions that perfectly conveyed the frustrations of living with his witch wife Samantha and her mother Endora.

There will be no argument over this one.

VERDICT: Dick York

Wilma or Betty?

First off, let it be known that I don't mean this in a perverted way. These are cartoons, for crying out loud. I'm talking about which one was the more appealing wife/mother/character.

(For the record, though, since she looks somewhat like my wife, I would definitely go with Betty if this really were that kind of debate.)

Wilma's character on "The Flintstones" was much more fleshed out than Betty's, largely because she was married to the show's main character. She was smart, devoted, a bit sassy, and she rocked a mean set of pearls every day. Or at least I assume those were pearls around her neck. Maybe they were rocks.

As for Betty, well, she was married to lovable-yet-boneheaded Barney, so clearly she lacked good judgment. Not that Fred was a real prize or anything, but at least at one point in his life Fred was a football star. He had dreams and aspirations. Barney, on the other hand, was just...Barney. As Gertrude Stein once said about the city of Oakland, "There's no there there."

Plus Wilma had flaming red hair, and there's something to be said for that.

VERDICT: Wilma

Trapper or B.J.?

Trapper

B.J. Hunnicutt

OK, this one's a little trickier. "M*A*S*H" underwent a series of character changes during its 11-year run, including the transition in the commanding officer from Henry Blake to Sherman Potter, and the shift in not-so-lovable tentmate from Frank Burns to Charles Emerson Winchester III.

But I was always intrigued by the switch in roommates/drinking buddies for Hawkeye from Trapper John to B.J. This shift, by the way, happened because Wayne Rogers, the guy who played Trapper, abruptly left the show after three seasons since he wasn't happy about playing a supporting role. So the producers hastily recruited Mike Farrell to join the cast as B.J.

B.J. was earnest and dependable. In other words, boring. Yes, yes, I know, there were more dramatic possibilities having a married surgeon in the unit who constantly missed his wife (the wonderful Peg). But he just wasn't as funny. Farrell was pretty clearly fine playing the straight man to Alda's zany guy.

Plus, the Trapper character lived on in the early and mid-80s with the spinoff show "Trapper John, M.D.," which I liked. So clearly...

Verdict: Trapper

Arnold or Al?

Arnold (but not really...see below)

Al

"Happy Days" was a defining cultural force of my childhood. For one thing it gave us the Fonz and Richie Cunningham, both of whom were awesome. It also gave us Ralph Malph and Potsie Weber, neither of whom were awesome. So, you know, there was some good and some bad.

One of the more confusing things on the show was who owned "Arnold's Diner" and when. As near as I can tell, it went something like this:

• The Japanese guy (Pat Morita, who would of course go on to play Mr. Miyagi in the "Karate Kid" movies) was the original "Arnold." Only his name on the show wasn't Arnold. It was Matsuo Takahashi (really). The joke was that when he bought Arnold's Diner, he couldn't afford to buy more letters for the sign to make it "Takahashi's." So he just kept it as "Arnold's," and people on the show called him Arnold...even though it was acknowledged that wasn't his name. Weird, I know.
• Morita made spotty appearances in the first couple of seasons of "Happy Days." Or maybe he didn't appear until Season 3. I can't get an official ruling on this.
• In any case, Al Delvecchio joined the show in the fourth season and stayed through Season 10. The explanation was that Arnold went off to get married.
• Al Molinaro, the guy who played Al Delvecchio, took his character to the "Joanie Loves Chachi" spinoff in 1982, at which point Asian Arnold returned and became a regular character until "Happy Days" ended in 1984.

At least I think that's how it went. The point is, there were two Arnolds. And neither of them was named Arnold.

I almost don't want to have to choose between them, because they were both good. I liked when Al would shake his head and just say "yep yep yep yep yep." And I liked when Morita played up Arnold's comically heavy Japanese accent to the point that even World War II vets who fought in the Pacific were saying, "Hey, hey, pull it back there, Tojo."

Maybe more on the strength of his later work in the "Karate Kid" oeuvre, then, I'm going with Morita. But only by a whisker.

VERDICT: Asian Arnold

At what point are you no longer the parent of a "little kid?"

Recently it was announced that the Voyager 1 space probe had become the first man-made object ever to leave the solar system.

Or maybe not.

Apparently it's complicated, and scientists have been arguing (as scientists will do) about exactly what Voyager 1 has accomplished. There's some dispute, I guess, over where the solar system actually ends.

I would argue that all of us who are parents have been or will be in a similar state of uncertainty.

At what point can you say that you no longer are the parent of a little kid? When they hit a certain age? And if so, what is that age? 7? 8? 9? Younger? Older?

Or is it when they reach a certain level of independence and maturity? If so, how do you measure that? Is it more feeling than knowing?

I'm not exactly sure. I'm the father of five children, four of whom are most definitely out of Little Kid-dom at the ages of 19, 16, 15 and 13.

But then there's Jack, my seven-year-old second-grader.

I'm not sure whether to call him a "little kid" or not.

On one hand, he does a lot of things for himself that even a few years ago we had to do for him. Like pick out his own clothes, fix himself lunch, take a shower, etc.

On the other hand, he still does things that are decidedly little kid-like. He still wears Sponge Bob jammies, for instance, and plays with toys in his room.

So is he a big kid or a little kid? Or maybe an in-between kid?

I don't know. All I know is that every milestone he achieves is a "last" for Terry and me. The last kid we'll potty train. The last kid I'll teach to ride a bike. The last kid to start kindergarten. And so on.

Some of these accomplishments are a relief, the kind of thing you get through, take a deep, satisfied breath, and say to yourself, "Thank God I never have to do that again!"

Other are sad, when you look forlornly at your child and realize he's growing up far too fast and that you would give anything for one more <INSERT YOUR FAVORITE LITTLE KID ACTIVITY HERE.>

Like Voyager 1 out there at the edges of interstellar space, I feel like I'm caught in a strange dead zone. Too old, really, to be fathering babies anymore, but clearly too young to be a grandfather.

I have a daughter in college with whom I only have contact every few days, and whose only problems I'm generally called upon to help with are related to her car, her laptop, or her homework.

Then there are my high school and middle school kids, all of whom seem to be doing fairly well despite my influence. They still need me for a variety of things, but far less than they did in the days when they wore diapers.

And then there's Jack, my last connection to parenting a young child. I've been a dad since 1994, and only now am I feeling for the first time that the job is really transitioning into something new.

You never stop being Dad, of course, but your job description does change.

You become more consultant than hands-on technician. Which is the way it's supposed to be and is fine and all.

It's just that I've been in the trenches with the parenting thing for so long that I'm not quite sure how to be hands-off. Like when to insert myself into a situation and when to let the child screw up and learn (God willing) from their mistakes.

As with everything else involved with parenting, that's a skill. And it's a skill at which, I'm assuming, I'll get better in time.

Probably just in time to change the name of this blog to "They Still Call Me Grandpa."

So the girls and I are doing the Color Run thing this weekend...

Tomorrow morning I'm going to run 3.1 miles with my daughters, getting doused with colored powder every so often along the way to the point that, afterward, we'll all look like we were in a crayon factory explosion.

My life gets progressively weirder every day.

Everything above is true, by the way. If all goes well and the creek don't rise, I WILL be running 5K with Elissa, Chloe and Melanie. And we WILL get powder of various colors thrown at us while we're doing it.

And most of all, my life really IS stranger and stranger.

The girls and I are entered in The Color Run, which is a running "race" in the loosest sense of the word. People don't really go there to run so much as have a great time, dress up in goofy clothes, absorb the fun atmosphere, and yes, get themselves and their clothes (and skin) turned into a rainbow of colors.

Apparently this is how we'll look after the race...

For reasons that are perhaps beyond me because I'm a curmudgeon in training, the main attraction of the race is the color part. I guess they have volunteers or whomever stationed along the course whose job it is to throw the powder at you.

For best results, race organizers suggest that runners wear white (or mostly white) shirts. The powder comes off fairly easily, I'm told, but it's like a badge of honor to keep it on after the race.

They do Color Runs all over the country, and fortunately the Cleveland-area version is held very, very near to my home. So near, in fact, that we could almost walk to the starting line in Willoughby Hills.

At one point the race course comes within several hundred yards of our house. The temptation to just stop and walk home could be great, I imagine.

But chances are I'll be having too good a time to want to stop.

For one thing, this is an activity that includes just me and my daughters. No one else, just the four of us. I am, I think it's safe to say, extremely fond of my girls, all of whom I consider Daddy's girls whether they like it or not.

For another, there's running involved, and I love me some running. I run four days a week. I would do it more often, but those three rest days are designed mostly for extra sleep, and I don't think I'm giving them up any time soon.

And then there's the fact that this race is just plain fun, from what I hear. I'm sure we'll run some of it, we'll walk some of it, and I wouldn't be surprised if we crawl and/or do backflips through the rest.

I should also mention that I paid nearly $200 to enter the four of us. So yeah, believe me, we're all getting to the finish line one way or another...

There are times when I really wish I had the wisdom of Solomon

When you have multiple children, one of your chief roles as a parent is to serve as mediator for arguments, disputes and disagreements of all kinds.

Most of the time this is a fairly easy job. One child hits another? Punishment is duly meted out to the hitter. Two little ones want the same toy at the same time? You immediately devise a system of sharing while extolling the virtues of compromise. Someone uses someone else's hair straightener without asking? It only takes a few seconds to figure out who's in the wrong.

But then there are times when my children come to me with a problem I simply can't solve.

Case in point: Child A and Child B approach me to resolve the question of who should have control of the living room TV for the next two hours. Child A will argue that she wants to watch a movie and Child B has been playing Xbox on the TV for the past hour.

Which seems pretty clear-cut. You take the TV, Child A, because it's rightly your turn. Enjoy your movie.

But not so fast. Child B will counter that his sibling had the TV for two whole hours yesterday, so he still has at least one hour of television control coming to him. Which also seems fair.

And suddenly the jury is deadlocked. Both parties make convincing cases, and I have no idea how to rule here. It's at this point that I have three options:

(A) Make a judgment call and recognize that one child is going to feel slighted (and perhaps rightly so)

(B) Sit with the two combatants and negotiate a deal

(C) Slowly sneak away and hope that my wife will step in and solve this riddle

More often than not, I choose "C." Which I realize is unfair to my overtaxed wife, but "A" and "B" both involve a level of effort to which I'm not necessarily willing to commit.

I also enjoy it when one of the kids blatantly does something wrong to his/her sibling, then argues that the sibling did the exact same thing to them yesterday or last week or whenever.

While this may be true, I point out that just because he/she did it to you, it in no way allows you to do it back to them. This is not how our justice system works, yet this concept repeatedly baffles them. My children are the ultimate purveyors of "an eye for an eye."

Then there are the habitual offenders in our house. And here I'm thinking specifically of my 15-year-old son, Jared. He constantly teases and torments his little brother, Jack. I tell him not to do this, and he stops. But he does it again the next day. I smack him and/or administer some other form of discipline, so he stops. Then he does it again soon after.

This goes on and on. Whatever I do to him, whatever I take away from him, it seems to have no long-term effect. Jared is evil, and his evil nature forces its way to the surface whenever he's in the presence of his younger brother.

Which is a shame, really, because in those times when Jared gets along with Jack and does things with him, Jack loves it. Little boys desperately want and need the approval of their older brothers, and I see that in Jack, yet Jared continues his evil ways.

Short of having him thrown into prison - which I HAVE considered, it should be noted - I'm not sure how to get Jared to stop acting this way. I'm hoping he grows out of it soon. And by "soon" I mean "by the time he's 30." But I'm not holding my breath.

How St. Nick and his posse made me an irredeemable fibber

Last week I mentioned the fact that we need to deal with the whole Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy issue and the way in which it turns parents into rotten stinking liars.

Right? I mean, no matter whether you're someone who celebrates Christmas, Easter and edentulism, the fact is that if you encourage a belief in these beloved characters among your children, you're deceiving them.

And please understand, I don't see anything wrong with it. I've done it myself with my own kids. I grew up enjoying presents from Santa, candy from the Bunny, and cash dough from the Fairy.

It's just, you know, you tell your kids not to lie and then you...lie.

Well, you don't "lie" really, in the sense of a malicious attempt to distort the truth. But I don't think "deceive" is too strong a word to use here.

Though it still has a pretty negative connotation. Can we say you "deceive with positive intent?"

Sure. But you still deceive.

As much as I love Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, the only way they work is if you distract your child from what is a pretty obvious reality. For their own good, I agree, but there's still a little sleight of hand at work here.

In a nutshell, here are the main factors in deciding whether to do S.E.B.T.F. (Santa-Easter Bunny-Tooth Fairy) with your offspring:

PROS

• It's fun! I love the looks on the kids' faces when they come down on Christmas or Easter morning, or when they proudly show off the quarters the Tooth Fairy brought them (and their newly formed gap-tooth smile).
• You did it yourself when you were a kid, and you want your own children to have that same joy.
• All the other parents pretty much do it and, let's be honest here, who wants to be the freak who doesn't? (The answer, by the way, is "plenty of people." I know several of them.)

CONS

• Did we mention you're a rotten stinking liar?
• It's also expensive. Seriously, there's money to be shelled out in every instance.
• L-I-A-R!

I honestly can't say I'm in any way morally conflicted by this. I just think it's funny how we all collectively have decided that this particular lie is OK.

I always enjoy when the kids get older and you can see they just can't bring themselves to believe in S.E.B.T.F. anymore (and of course once you figure out that one is fake, the other two dominoes fall pretty quickly). In many cases, though, they don't tell you they've caught on because they're afraid the present/money train will pull away, never to be seen again.

Which is really only true of the Tooth Fairy, I guess. Once they know what's going on there, we stop giving our kids money for lost teeth. But even if you get past Santa and the Easter Bunny, you still get presents on Christmas and chocolate on Easter.

At least that's what I've always promised my kids I would do. I hope they still believe me after I've lied to them for so many years.

Do you get enough sleep? I don't think I do...

I love reading those magazine articles with headlines like, "The Five Things You Should Be Doing to Live a Healthy Lifestyle," or, "Are You Taking Care of Your Body? This Quiz Will Tell You!"

In most cases, these articles make me feel good because they almost universally advocate exactly what you would think they advocate: maintain a healthy weight, eat nutritious food, exercise, etc. And I do all of it.

All of it, that is, except the one thing that seems to be on every one of these lists: Get enough sleep.

I'm not alone in this, I know. Americans in general just don't sleep enough. We talk a lot about sleeping and how great it is. We just don't do enough of it.

In my case, it's a schedule thing. I have a lot to do, and admittedly a lot of it is stuff I choose to do. So I get up most days at 5 a.m.

If I'm going to get the recommended eight hours of sleep a night, that means I have to be in bed by 9 p.m. And that, I'm here to tell you, just ain't going to happen.

For one thing, I've been working a lot of long hours lately, and some nights I'm not home from work until 7:30 or 8 o'clock. By the time I eat dinner, spend some time with the kids, make my lunch for the next day, shower, etc., it's well past 9 p.m.

I'd say I average 6 to 6 1/2 hours most nights, and generally I feel pretty good. Tired in the afternoon sometimes, but generally fine.

They say people's sleep needs vary, and I can see that. Terry would never get by on 6 hours of sleep a night. She just wouldn't. That doesn't mean she isn't tough (she is). Her body just requires more sleep than mine does. It has always been this way.

I am almost invariably the first one up in our house in the morning. Seven-year-old Jack is often second. In this, I think, he takes after me.

When I was in elementary school, I needed hardly any sleep at all. I regularly woke up at 4:30 and spent the first couple of hours of every day in my room just passing the time reading and listening to the radio.

More than once, I called the overnight DJ on the old WWWE radio station in Cleveland to request a song because I was wide awake. One time she asked me my name and how old I was, and she laughed when I told her (I think I was 8 or 9 at the time).

She played our little conversation on the air and then dedicated a song me. I think it was the theme from "The Goodbye Girl," which I found strange. But hey, I was on the radio!

Even when I don't have to get up at any certain time in the morning, I rarely (rarely) can sleep a full 8 hours. At some point my body just says, "You know what? We're getting up. Let's do this." And so I get up and do this.

But what that kind of scheduling does for you in terms of productivity may be offset, I'm afraid, by an eventual deterioration in health. Like I said, I generally don't feel tired or run down, but when someone puts a numerical goal in front of me (like 8 hours of sleep) and I don't meet it, I feel like I must be failing somehow.

What's worse, they say you need less sleep as you age. By the time I'm 80, I'll be sleeping 2-3 hours a night, max. If you happen to be listening to the radio at 3 in the morning, I'll be the guy calling in to request a song...

Sometimes having a kid in college is like not having a kid at all

As you may know, my oldest daughter Elissa is a sophomore at Cleveland State University. Unlike most CSU students, however, Elissa lives on campus.

This concept is still foreign to me, more than a year into her tenure there. Cleveland State was always a commuter school when I was growing up, and it still largely is.

Elissa is a member of an elite group of 1,000 or so kids (out of a total student body of 17,000-plus) who live their lives mostly within the physical confines of the university. For the second year in a row, she calls the venerable Fenn Tower in Downtown Cleveland home.

Cleveland State is only 20-25 minutes from our house, and last year Elissa kept a car on campus. Which meant we saw her all the time. Which in turn meant it never felt like she was really living "away from home." We saw her so much that it was like she was just having a series of really fun, academically themed sleepovers at friends' houses.

But this year Elissa chose not to pay the $500 parking fee to keep a car at CSU, and she works right there on campus. So the only time we get to see her is when she bums a ride home or when we bring her here ourselves.

Now, for the first time, I'm experiencing what it's really like to have a child away at college. And I'm not sure I like it much.

For nearly two decades, Elissa has always been nearby. And while, geographically speaking, she's still nearby, she may as well be going to school in Shanghai, for as much as we see her.

She still has a bed here at the house, of course, though now she has to share a (large) room with Chloe. Over the Labor Day weekend, we moved Melanie out of Chloe's room and into The Room Formerly Known as Elissa's Room, a move with which Elissa wasn't especially happy.

But let's face it...we're not going to maintain an empty room for nine months of the year while Elissa is off doing whatever it is that college kids do (which I'm sure consists only of going to classes, doing homework, and watching reruns of "Little House on the Prairie"). For the relatively small portion of the year when she lives with us, Elissa can share a room with her sister.

I'm actually glad we did that, because the sight of that lonely, empty room really made me miss her. I know millions of parents have been through this before and everything turned out just fine, but that doesn't make it any easier.

For the first few years of Elissa's life, she spent most of her days with me. I worked nights while my wife worked days, so we never needed a day care provider. I would take care of Elissa from about 8  in the morning through 5:30 in the afternoon, at which point Terry would come home and take over childcare duties while I went off to work.

The result was that I became extremely close to my daughter, and knowing she was living just upstairs these last several years has been a comforting thought.

Now she's almost 20, and the paradigm from here on out will be NOT seeing her far more than actually seeing her. That's just the way it is when your kids become adults, and the logical half of my brain is perfectly fine with this arrangement.

But the other half, the half that's more "Daddy" than "Father," isn't quite ready to accept it. It chooses to ignore the fact that what Elissa needs at this point in her life is independence. She needs to stretch those proverbial wings, make her mistakes, and become the grown-up we want her to be.

I just wish there was a way she could do all of that here at home. She could even have her old room back. I just need to tell Melanie...

The Tooth Fairy must have won the lottery

According to a study that was (for reasons that elude me) conducted by the people at Visa, the Tooth Fairy is becoming increasingly generous.

Kids nowadays are apparently getting an average of $3.70 per tooth lost, the study says. And that's just the average. The suggestion is that some kids are getting way more than that, which is mind blowing to me.

My kids have always gotten a quarter per year of age. So if they lost a tooth at 5 years old, they would get five quarters, which for the math-impaired is $1.25.

In order for my children to reap even the average award in the Visa study, they would have to be losing teeth well into their teens. And, as my dad no doubt would have said, they actually may start losing those teeth as teenagers if they complain about the amount of cash they used to get from the Tooth Fairy and I have to smack them in the mouth.

Before we get into this issue of how much Ms. Fairy gives out, let's return briefly to the question of Visa conducting this study. Why do it exactly, unless it's just simply an interesting little bid for positive PR and press exposure? Is there anything in this for Visa? Are they envisioning a time when 6-year-olds have Tooth Fairy debit cards you can simply reload every time an incisor falls out?

(Actually, I sort of like the idea of little kids having one of those old-time credit card swiping machines under their pillows. A tooth falls out, you give 'em your Visa card, they write you out an invoice for 5 bucks and swipe it, and everyone's happy.)

Anyway, back to this business of giving out nearly 4 bucks a tooth. I can see this maybe for the first tooth they lose. That's kind of a momentous occasion and all, and it's a fun way to celebrate the milestone.

But after that, I'm sorry, the negotiated rate has to go down.

Plus, as I said, Terry and I like to do this in quarters. And the more quarters you're putting under their pillows when they're asleep, the harder it is to get in and out of their rooms quietly without waking the little cash hounds.

This has always been my job, by the way. For whatever reason, it usually falls to me to wait until after the kid is asleep to creep quietly up the stairs, open the door as silently as possible, tiptoe to the head of their bed, and try to slip the change under their pillow without the coins clinking together.

Through nearly two decades of parenthood and five kids, I've never had anyone wake up on me, but I've come close. Lots of near-misses.

Of course, we've also completely forgotten about it a couple of times. The kids loses the tooth at school, brings it home, we all look at it and admire the newly created gap is his/her mouth, and then we forget about it.

The last time this happened with Jack, Terry and I panicked when he came downstairs in the morning with a sad look on his face and informed us that the Tooth Fairy had apparently neglected him on her nightly rounds.

So I quickly rounded up the requisite number of quarters, told Jack that maybe he just didn't look hard enough, and went upstairs with him to check again.

I made a point of going first, hurrying into his room and shoving the change under his pillow before he could see me. By the time he got to his top bunk bed and lifted up the pillow, the quarters were there waiting. His face lit up. Crisis averted.

This is of course why, biologically speaking, God sets it up so that it's generally younger people who parent young kids. We middle-aged folks forget stuff like this and traumatize our children, so God makes them grow up before we get old and senile (most of the time).

At some point we here at Blog Central need to deal with this whole question of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc. and how we, willingly and collectively, lie to our children about a range of things in the name of holiday fun.

But for now I'm sticking to my guns...I'm not shelling out 5 bucks for a rotting old baby tooth.

Worrying about my health is making me unhealthy

Had he not passed away suddenly in the fall of 1999, my father would have turned 84 years old today.

I'm only being honest when I say I would have been shocked had my dad made it to 84.

For one thing, he smoked for decades. I hated that. I've always hated smoking. I think it's filthy, disgusting and stupid. It's one of the relatively few things that I'm unequivocally against.

Smoking and Cleveland-born Steelers fans. They both rank low on my list.

There were a few years in the early 80s when my dad smoked only pipes, and I could live with that. It wasn't really any healthier than cigarettes, but it definitely smelled better. I loved to open his tobacco pouch and take a whiff.

But he went back to cigarettes sometime later, and I'm sure the little cancer sticks were instrumental in the heart attack that eventually killed him.

He also had a good-sized belly. As far back as I can remember, my dad had that belly. Which isn't a surprise when you consider what he regularly ate (fried meats, straight buttermilk, etc.)

Simply put, he was the product of a time and place where people didn't pay much attention to the dangers of such things, either because they didn't know or they didn't care.

None of this paints a very pretty picture of my dad, but he really was a great guy. And an excellent father. I wouldn't trade the 30 years I had with him for anything.

But there's a part of that is determined not to follow in my father's footsteps.

As I've mentioned here before, I worry quite a bit about my lifestyle. Am I eating right? Am I exercising enough? Is my weight acceptable? How about my cholesterol?

Actually, the fact that I "worry" so much about those things is a bit of a problem. Increasingly, it seems, medical researchers are finding a direct link between the way we manage stress and the length and quality of our existence.

I have quite a bit of stress in my life. Or at least I see it as stress, which is essentially the same thing. I've gotten better in recent years at dealing with it, but I still have a long way to go.

More than once, I've considered taking a tai chi class at our local community center. I could attend eight two-hour classes for just $39, which seems like a good deal. I hear great things about tai chi in terms of its physical, mental, spiritual, and stress-relieving benefits.

But I've never taken the class. Every time a new session starts, I come up with some excuse not to give it a try. "I don't have time," I'll say, or, "The morning runs I do are enough to keep me healthy."

Still, something tells me I'll be needing some outside help in the stress management department. No amount of planning or to-do lists is going to teach me how better to deal with the curveballs that life inevitably throws at each of us.

The thing is, I don't often ask for help in anything. Not for the typical male reasons of pride or anything. It's usually just because asking for help takes time, and I have this illusion that I have no extra time whatsoever.

And it really is just that - an illusion. When people say they don't have time to exercise, you'll often hear personal trainers and doctors reply, "Well, do you have time for clogged arteries and chronic disease? Because that's where you're headed if you don't make time to take care of yourself."

The same holds true for stress. I'm afraid that if I don't make time to learn how to deal with it, it will very quickly catch up with me. And I don't want to think of what that's going to mean.

Of course, this all raises the question of just how long you want to live. Some people justify their unhealthy habits by saying they don't want to get to 95 years old anyway if it means life in a nursing home where you're unable to take care of yourself.

Others will tell you it doesn't need to be that way. That eating well and taking care of yourself will make even the last years of your life happy and relatively healthy.

Whatever the answer, I don't really have a "goal age" in mind. I just want to be around long enough to raise my children, be active with my grandchildren, and maybe see a Cleveland sports team finally win a championship.

I know, I know. I'm getting greedy with that last one.

My wife is pregnant

Just kidding! She's not. Just wanted to see if you'd click on the link.

Which I know is terrible. I'm truly sorry about that. And by "truly sorry" I of course mean "not sorry at all."

That's because I'm one of those people on the Internet who's trying to get your attention. There are millions of us out there, and we're all annoying in our own special way.

Many of us are bloggers. We jot down our thoughts a few times a week, build up a little following, and then hope you'll continue stopping by regularly to read our little missives. Whether or not you agree with what we have to say is almost irrelevant. All we want is for you to keep on coming.

Most bloggers won't admit it, but virtually all of us live and die by our page view and unique visitor counts. We measure ourselves by the size of our audience, and we're devastated when it shrinks for any reason.

Which is why I used that medically impossible headline today. I promote my three-times-a-week blogging habit through Facebook and Twitter links, and I notice that the readership on any given post is almost directly tied to the quality of the headline/title.

And that makes sense, of course. The only thing my readers and potential readers have to go on is the headline. I've set up short headlines and links to be automatically posted at 6 a.m. sharp every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

If the headline is compelling, you'll click on it. If it's not, you won't.

Now, what constitutes "compelling" is a bit more art than it is science. There are at least two types of headlines that tend to draw in readers:

(1) Ones that promise something that may be useful to you in your personal or professional life

(2) Ones that seem reasonably certain of making you laugh

If a blogger can combine the two, that's the holy grail right there, my friend. I've never quite achieved that ideal blend, but I continue trying.

I'm also an Internet consumer myself, of course, and I know what types of blog post headlines draw me in. Usually they have a number in the title that represents some sort of list. Like "5 Ways to Make Your Blog Bigger than Amazon" or "7 Things You're Not Doing to Advance Your Career Because You're a Lazy Slob."

Whatever the title, I'm likely to click on it if it seems like something that might benefit me without a great investment of my time.

Sometimes I look back at old posts from this particular blog and I wonder how/why it is that anybody at all read them. Like, for example, I had one called "The Never-Ending Horror of Laundry," or some such. That headline doesn't promise to make you any smarter, richer or happier. And I don't know that it was particularly funny. But more than 200 people read it.

Maybe they all came away from it disappointed. I don't know. But the fact is, they clicked on it. And any one of my posts that attracts 200 or more people is a success in my book.

Which, now that I think about it, indicates an acute, unhealthy need on my part for attention and validation, often from total strangers. That's kind of sad.

I think my next post will be headlined "17 Reasons Why My Self-Esteem Will Collapse If You Don't Read This."

September: The most deceiving month (along with March)

Happy Labor Day! It's one of those holidays where almost no one gives any real thought to the meaning of it. So get out there and, uh, celebrate.

The most significant thing about Labor Day is that it signifies the arrival of September. And I always start out loving September because there's a part of me that thinks fall is finally here.

Which is patently false, of course. Summer doesn't end until September is 2/3rds over, and around here in Northeast Ohio, summer does sometimes tend to hang on for dear life.

Which is kind of a ripoff, because I like the fall. A lot. I like the temperatures, I like the scenery, and I like the feel in the air.

But the first few weeks of September are almost always a lot like the last few weeks in August - summery. So I end up disappointed because, by this point, I'm kind of ready for summer to be over.

I actually spend a good chunk of the year in that state. When it's winter, I want it to be spring. When it's spring, I'm ready for the warmth of summer. And by the time summer is two months old, I'm ready for changing leaves, high school football games, and 50 degrees on the thermometer.

The only time I really don't look forward to the change of seasons is the fall-to-winter transition. That one can take its time, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I do actually like the snow, but I like it in small, controlled doses.

And there are quite often times in my neck of the woods when the snowfall is neither "small" nor "controlled."

People around here tend to hate March most of all, because March is the ultimate tease. Yes, spring starts in March, but much like September, it makes you wait those extra few weeks before making it official.

We've had some of our worst blizzards in March, and those are just demoralizing. After weeks and weeks of battling ice and shoveling snow, you're ready for something warmer than 35 degrees, and March only gives it to you in frustratingly tiny sneak peeks.

If it weren't for the fact that we have so many March birthdays in my family, I would be all for eliminating it from the calendar altogether.

I'm writing this post a good two weeks in advance, so I have no idea what the weather will be like when you're reading this. But if it's sunny and 85 degrees, you can bet I'll be spending the day indoors with the air conditioning cranked up and wearing a sweater, pretending it's late October. I can dream.

Oh, pay day, how I love you so

I just found an online calculator that, when you input your annual income, can tell you where you rank globally in terms of wealth.

If you've ever wanted to feel really, really rich, you should try this calculator (GlobalRichList.com).

Actually, tools like that are mixed blessings. Sure, they make you feel like Bill Gates (which most of us are, compared with a stunning proportion of the rest of the world's population). But they also make you feel a bit guilty. Or at least that's what they do to me.

Being born in the United States means there's an excellent chance you rank among the richest 1% of people in the world (I'm thinking they include children in their formula, but still...) And I don't doubt you've worked very hard to get there.

But Americans strutting around because they're among the richest people in the world is a lot like the guy who claims to have hit a home run after he was born on third base.

Now I'm not trying to start class warfare here. Nor am I a bleeding heart liberal who thinks all wealth is bad. I'm just stating the undeniable fact that, no matter what problems you may have, you're still a lot better off than most people on the planet, and it's largely because of the circumstances into which you were born.

Nothing wrong with that. It just is.

Anyway, I bring this up because today is pay day at my place of employment. We get paid every two weeks, which is a schedule I like.

So does my wife. Getting paid every other Friday means that, two or three times a year, there will be a month in which I get an extra check. And she uses those extra checks to get ahead on bills, pay for emergency repairs, buy me Gala apples, etc.

When I worked at the Cleveland Clinic, we used to get paid once a month...on the 15th, if I remember correctly. Talk about having to manage your money.

On one hand, sure, it's nice to get a huge lump of cash deposited into your checking account all at once. But by the time you got to, say, the 7th or 8th of the following month, unless you were really disciplined, you were running a little short of funds.

But it's not the money I love so much on pay days as what the money buys. Specifically, pay day often means it's Terry Goes Grocery Shopping Day in our house. And that woman can shop. Well.

By the time I come home from work on pay day, she has usually returned from an epic shopping trip that has taken her to three or four different stores, where she has purchased all of the food, toiletries and other staples needed to support a family of seven.

She goes to three or four different stores because she has a system down, you see. She knows where to find the best prices and the best products. She knows how to use coupons to maximum effect. And she knows how to stretch that food budget of ours to its outer limits.

Anyway, by the time I walk in the door every other Friday, the kitchen is filled to overflowing with fruits, vegetables, meats, snacks, and new Keurig coffee cups. I love the fruit, as I've mentioned, but those Keurig coffee cups make me tingly.

I get so excited to see all the newly purchased food that I don't mind the fact that three-quarters of it will be gone by the end of the weekend, thanks largely to the voracious appetite of my 15-year-old son, Jared.

Jared regularly consumes seven meals in a day. I'm not kidding. It's sometimes even more. And he's as thin as a pencil.

I resent him for this, but it never lasts long. I get so distracted by the new crop of juicy apples and the K-Cups that there's no room in my brain for resentment.

Yes, pay day, I love you. You make everything OK.

Four teenagers in the family? Yes, sir, may I have another?

In a few weeks, my daughter Melanie will turn 13. When that happens, we will enter a six-month period in which we have four teenagers in our family at one time.

Specifically, our oldest four will be 19, 16, 15 and 13. I will freely accept offers of prayers, happy thoughts, and Prozac.

(SIDE NOTE: "Prayers, Happy Thoughts and Prozac" could be a good name for a band. Or at least the name of an album. I'm going to form a band not so much to make music, but just so we can use that name.)

This stretch of parenting four teens will end fairly quickly because my oldest, Elissa, will turn 20 in March. Twenty is a weird age. It's only a milestone birthday in that you leave one decade of life and enter another, but it doesn't get you anything in the way that ages 18 and 21 bring new freedoms and legal privileges.

I remember being 20. It was a long time ago, like centuries ago, but I remember it. I remember having more hair (and none of it being gray). I remember being able to go directly from a dead sleep into a fast morning run with no need to "warm up." I remember going to college every day and then working 6-8 hours at night and thinking nothing of it.

I also remember regularly making foolish decisions, so I guess you take the good with the bad.

Anyway, on the surface, having four teenagers in the family at the same time would appear to be a nightmare. And it certainly does have its challenges, from the mood swings to the school drama to the brain damage.

Yes, brain damage. Anyone who has parented a teenager, or even dealt with one, will tell you the only way to explain their behavior sometimes is that they must have suffered some sort of cerebral injury.

And indeed, the teen brain really is still under construction, busily forming the connections and functions that serve a person well later in life.

During those years when the contents of a teenager's skull are being built up, they do things that are puzzling to a rational (and even a not-so-rational) adult. You have to roll with this. Guide them, correct them, help them, sure. But in the end, acceptance is a lot easier.

Still, looking at the big picture, it really is a fun adventure when you have teens in the house. Their friends come over a lot, they keep you busy, and they tend to be noisy, irreverent, and altogether a good time.

Which is what I try to remind myself whenever they frustrate me, since it's guaranteed that I will miss the chaos of these years when it's all over.

I'm interested to see how it will play out when little Jack, our youngest at age 7, is a teen. By then, Elissa and Chloe and possibly Jared will presumably be out of the house, and Melanie will be knee-deep in college, leaving Jack to navigate those years with just his parents and a bunch of pets left behind by his siblings.

Being so much younger than the others, his experience of teenager-dom will be a little different than theirs. It will, in fact, be much like mine. My elder three siblings were 16, 14 and 12 when I was born. Which meant that by the time I started school, they were all either out the door or well on their way.

So when I was a teenager, it was just me, mom and dad living together. It couldn't have been nearly as loud and raucous in their house then as it is in mine now.

But I was definitely just as brain damaged, maybe more so, than my own offspring. Some things, it seems, never change.

There's something to be said for living on a street with a great name

I'll be the first to admit that I have street name envy.

I grew up on Harding Drive, presumably named after the 29th and potentially most boring U.S. president, Warren G. Harding.

Actually, I've come to find out in recent years that President Harding wasn't all that boring. He was quite the ladies man, as evidenced by the four (and possibly more) extramarital affairs he carried on. And as a young guy, he was reported to be strikingly handsome.

But still, he was Warren G. Harding. And that's an awful lot to overcome.

Anyway, I lived on Harding Drive for the first 22 years of my life. Then Terry and I got married and bought our first house, which was on East 300th Street. A numbered street name. That's not even boring, it's something less than boring. East 300th Street aspires to "boring."

We lived there for 11 years. Then we moved to our current residence, which is on Miller Avenue. The only streets more white bread than "Miller Avenue" are the ones with tree names like Oak, Elm and Maple. And even then, Miller Avenue certainly gives them a run for their money.

One reason I've always wanted to be rich is because rich people seem to live on streets with incredibly cool names. Names that evoke English mansions and cool pastoral life. Names like "Fox Hunt Glen Cove Lane," "Crimson Dale Estates" and "Snobby Caucasian Equestrian Bluffs."

These are street names that say something about you. They say, "I make a lot of money and can afford to live in an area populated solely by people who look and sound like me. I own three large SUVs and hire various hard-working minorities to tend to my lawn and flower beds."

I've always wanted to live on one of those streets, but I'm starting to think it's never going to happen.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Dave and Cathleen, have a cool street name: Locust Grove Drive. I like that one. I mean, if you ignore the tendency of locusts to devour everything in their path and destroy vast swathes of farmland, it's actually quite a nice name.

And by the way, who makes the determination whether a given thoroughfare is a "Street," a "Boulevard," a "Lane" or whatever? The developer/builder? The city? A contest winner?

As you'll notice if you bothered to keep track of the details above, I've lived on a "Drive," a "Street" and an "Avenue" thus far in my life. Someday I'm hoping for a "Path," a "Vista", or a "Terrace." I might die from happiness if I ever manage to buy a house on a "Knoll," a "Canyon" or (the best one yet) a "Promenade."

By the way, I cannot recommend the "Street Name Generator" highly enough. Just visit that page, pick a random word from each of the three columns, and in just a few seconds you'll have your own ritzy-sounding address!

One possible outcome from the Street Name Generator? "Umber Snake Swale." If you don't think that's 10 different kinds of awesome, then I'm not sure you and I could ever be friends.

A day at the beach is no day at the beach

I'm sitting at the computer in a wet bathing suit as I type this, having just returned from a couple of hours at the beach with my family.

This is a relatively rare occurrence for us, you understand, or at least it is for me. I go to the beach approximately once a year. I swim in a pool maybe once or twice in that same year.

And that's about it for me, as far as water recreation goes.

It's not that I don't like the water, it's just...well, yes, actually it is that I don't like the water. And I know when it all started for me.

Like suburban moms everywhere back in the 70s, my mom made me take swimming lessons at the local pool one summer. It was good for me, and better yet, I think it may have been free. Or at least it was very, very low cost. So hey, why not?

Swimming lessons were given in "phases" back then. Phase I encompassed the basics, like opening your eyes underwater and reciting water safety rules or something. I cruised through that. And Phase II wasn't much tougher, though I'm not sure how I passed because I'm pretty sure it required you to float on your back, and to this day I cannot float on my back.

I'm one of the few people I know of whom this is true, by the way. Most folks just instinctively know how to float on their backs. But I sink like a rock. My wife is mystified by this, as well she should be. I defy all commonly accepted laws of physics.

Regardless, they passed me through both Phase II and Phase III in fairly short order, though I can't remember what you had to do to get through Phase III.

The trouble came with Phase IV, which was when they taught you to do the American crawl (also known as the "front crawl," or "just plain old swimming.") This is a skill I could not master. It is a skill I still haven't mastered some three decades later.

I don't know why, but there was something about the simultaneous need to kick, stroke and turn your head in rhythm in order to breathe that just stopped me cold. Couldn't do it then, can't do it now. I tried. Oh yes, I tried. But they wouldn't pass me beyond Phase IV because I simply couldn't learn the skill, no matter how hard they tried to teach me.

You have to understand, I was not especially well equipped at that point in my life to deal with failure. Not getting something right on the first try was foreign to me.

So when I repeatedly failed to pass the test to get out of Phase IV, I began to hate swimming lessons. And in turn, I began to hate the water.

The result is that I still don't like spending more than 10 consecutive minutes in any body of water, be it a kiddie pool or a major ocean.

Which isn't a good thing when you live in Ohio, where we have real "summer" for only about 2 1/2 months out of every year. When it's warm enough to swim, people here really, really get into swimming. And if you don't match their enthusiasm for it, they do little to hide their contempt for you.

The stereotypical Ohio vacation is to travel to a body of water and spend a week there doing whatever it is that normal, water-loving people do. My family doesn't take those kinds of vacations, and it's mostly because of me.

In addition to my low-level swimming skills, I should also mention that water always makes me cold. Always. I don't care if it's 95 degrees outside and the water is at bath temperature, I will still be cold.

Having lost a decent amount of weight in the past year doesn't help in this department. Previously, I at least had some insulation that kept my body temperature from falling into the hypothermic range. Now I just look at the water and my temp falls several degrees south of 98.6.

There's also the little matter of not really liking to have my shirt off in public, which I've mentioned before.

The only really enjoyable part of a trip to the beach for me is playing football catch with my son Jared. This is actually fun, or at least it's fun for 10 minutes until my 43-year-old rotator cuff catches my attention and asks, "Um, what exactly do you think you're doing?" And then I have to stop.

Other than that, though, a trip to the beach means, for me, being cold and making concerted efforts not to drown. This is not, by any stretch, a "relaxing" activity.

Which is why I should be living in Kansas or some other severely landlocked state, just so I wouldn't feel so pressured every summer to swim and fake enthusiasm for all things aquatic. As far as I'm concerned, summer can't end fast enough.

Memories of the greatest job in the world (for an 18-year-old)

There are jobs in this world the existence of which most of us are utterly unaware.

I used to hold just such a job.

Twenty-five years ago tomorrow, I reported for my first day of work as a part-time sports agate clerk at The News-Herald, the newspaper that would, a few years later, become my full-time employer.

These clerks, which I believe the paper still employs, do the grunt work that sells papers.

In my case, that meant taking dozens of calls every night from statisticians and coaches reporting the results of their recreational, high school and occasionally college athletic events.

More important than the final scores was the opportunity these callers had to give the names of up to three players on each team who did something noteworthy.

In the case of a little league baseball game, that may have been the kid who hit two home runs. For a basketball game, it was usually the guys/girls who scored the most points.

Whatever the reason for giving these amateur athletes their 15 minutes of fame in small agate type (thus the job title), having their names collected in print every day under the Community Scoreboard was a major reason why The News-Herald was one of the largest suburban daily newspapers in Ohio.

Which you can understand. If Little Johnny got his name in the paper, you can be sure Mom and Dad would rush out and buy 5-10 copies as keepsakes. So would Grandma. And the next-door neighbor.

So the work we agate clerks did had some importance from a sales and financial point of view.

Not that I cared much about that. What my 18-year-old self cared about when he walked into that newsroom for the first time on August 22, 1988, was that he was going to get to work at a newspaper. They could have had me sweeping the floors for all it mattered.

I caught the journalism bug early in life. I read The News-Herald front to back almost every day from the age of 14. Then I joined my high school newspaper and absolutely loved it. I could picture myself making a career out of journalism. And if it could be sports journalism, all the better.

Which is why I jumped at the chance when, one afternoon during the sweltering summer of '88, I came across a blurb in the "Area Sports in Brief" section saying that The News-Herald was looking to hire two sports agate clerks.

I needed a job at the time. I was a few weeks away from starting my four-year undergraduate career at John Carroll, and if nothing else I knew the cost of gas from driving to school every day (I was a commuter student) was going to be brutal.

So I applied and, thanks largely to the fact that News-Herald prep sports writer Joe Magill had been one of my high school track coaches and was therefore a nice inside reference, got the job.

I cannot tell you the thrill of typing or writing something, and then turning around 12 hours later and seeing it in print. Even if my name wasn't attached to it. I could point to it and say, "I did that," knowing that nearly 50,000 copies of my work were floating around Northeast Ohio that day.

A few months after starting at The N-H, I was given the chance to cover high school events with a byline, which was a dream come true. Eventually, at the veteran age of 20, a column mug with my photo began running alongside some of my stuff. This was, as far as I was concerned, the pinnacle.

Later, after I graduated from Carroll, the paper offered me a full-time job as a sports writer, which I gratefully accepted. I stayed there for five wonderful years, leaving only because of the demands of my growing young family.

But the experience I picked up at the paper absolutely shaped my future career in marketing and public relations. Taking those little league and high school scores over the phone for hours on end, night after night, was a great resume-builder, believe it or not.

Nowadays I think the clerks at the paper have most of the scores emailed to them, though I can't be sure of that. I choose to believe it's true, though, because otherwise I wouldn't have the credibility to say, "BACK IN MY DAY, WE USED TO TAKE 1,000 SCORES A NIGHT OVER THE PHONE. AND WE TYPED UNTIL OUR FINGERS BLED. AND WE LOVED IT!"

And honestly, we DID love it. God bless the agate clerks of the world.

Why, on the whole, being a pirate is a pretty sweet gig

The downside of being a pirate

• The hours. It seems like sailing the seven seas is a hard job and requires a lot of long hours. Not a problem if you really love the work, but still...
• Inordinate risk of on-the-job injury or death. There are a million ways to get hurt or get dead when you're a pirate. Like, for instance, when you try to take over another ship, you could get a sword through the gut. Or the captain could make you walk the plank. And then there's the apparently ever-present risk of scurvy. I'm in public relations, and I've never known a PR professional to die of scurvy. So score one for my side.
• Surly co-workers. If the movies and television are any indication, pirates as a group aren't the friendliest lot. The experts will tell you that workplace relationships are important, but I just don't see Black Bart standing around the water cooler talking about last night's ball game.
• High chance of alcohol poisoning. If you're not on duty on a pirate ship, then you're drinking. And usually you're drinking rum. I had a bad experience with rum more than 20 years ago and have tried to avoid it ever since. No way I make it even a week on a pirate ship if I'm forced to drink rum.
• Little chance for advancement. I'm not sure how the org chart looks on a typical pirate ship, but it seems to me that unless you're the captain or at least the first mate, the other positions within the organization are all less than desirable. There's just no potential for promotion for most of the crew.

The upside of being a pirate

• The travel. You get to see a lot of Caribbean islands if you're a pirate. And if you break the ship's rules, you'll get to know one particular island really well when they strand you there. But seriously, no endless days at a desk for you, me bucko!
• The potential payoff. If there's one thing pirates live for more than rum, it's gold. And they tend to find it at an uncanny rate. Assuming your captain is a fair man who evenly distributes the booty once it has been claimed, you're in for a handsome salary. Note, however, that income equity is not a notable feature of most pirate ships.
• The wenches. There are, of course, virtually no women on pirate ships. But when you hit one of those exotic ports of call to patronize a local watering hole, you will almost certainly be waited upon by a busty server in an off-the-shoulder white top. And after months at sea, this will not be an unwelcome sight.
• The status. Pirates are much cooler than, say, accountants. Or PR guys, for that matter. For all the risk of death and dismemberment, there is a certain cachet in being able to say offhandedly at a party, "Yeah, I'm a pirate." And you don't have to look like Johnny Depp to enjoy this little social perk.
• The movie rights. Speaking of Johnny Depp, being a pirate means there's an excellent chance some Hollywood producer is going to want to make a movie about you, or at least he'll want to cast you in a movie, which is just as good. Pirate movies never go out of style.

Conclusion

If you can stand the constant specter of death and the poor hygiene of your shipmates, then being a pirate is a solid and even admirable career choice. You'll need to make sure you have no moral qualms about killing innocent seaman on passing merchant vessels in order to steal their worldly possessions. But really, once you get past that, the rest is all gravy.

Four things I know I'm supposed to do but don't

Read the Classics

I have a degree in English and history from a well-regarded institution of higher learning (John Carroll University...go Blue Streaks!), yet I have never read The Scarlet Letter. Or Pride and Prejudice. Or Moby Dick. Or Don Quixote. How could this be?

(Actually, I know how it can be. Upper-level English courses get so specialized and esoteric that you end up reading the collected works of a 17th-century Finnish poet and have no time for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or War and Peace, also books I've never read.)

The point is, I should make time to atone for the glaring holes in my literary resume by actually reading these books. But I don't. Nor will I, at least not any time soon. It's easier to lament not having read them than it is to check them out of the library and crack open the front cover.

Lift Weights

I just mentioned this recently. I'm not a strength training guy. Never have been. I run. I run quite a bit. But I never touch the weights.

And it has always been like this. Even when I played football in high school, I was not a frequent visitor to the weight room. And by "not a frequent visitor," I mean I showed up there once a year to perform the mandatory weight-lifting tests set forth by my coaches. Then I wouldn't visit again until the following year.

I know I'm supposed to lift, but I can't stand it. Just like a lot of people know they're supposed to do cardiovascular exercise but can't stand running, cycling or climbing aboard the elliptical machine. To each his own, I suppose.

Take Care of My Fingernails

First off, I have abnormally small hands. And thus I have abnormally small fingernails. Making matters worse, I bite those fingernails. I bite 'em right down to the nub.

I admire people who take care of their nails, particularly guys. Society doesn't necessarily expect men to do much in the way of fingernail work, so I like the extra effort put in by guys with clean, nicely shaped nails.

My nails are ugly. At our wedding reception, the photographer took a picture of Terry's hand and my hand together as we showed off our new rings. Her nails are, as you would expect, beautifully manicured. Mine look like they belong to a 7-year-old. A hyperactive, nail-biting 7-year-old.

I'm embarrassed by it, but not so much that I'm motivated to do anything about it. My ugly nails will live on as long as I do.

Drive Under the Speed Limit

Depending on the mood I'm in, I'll drive anywhere from 5 to 15 mph over the speed limit. Not terribly bad, but still not legal, either.

The trouble is, I have kids. And I'm supposed to model proper driving procedures for those kids. Which is why I try to shield their eyes from the speedometer when I'm going 75 mph down a stretch of 60 mph freeway.

I should slow down, I know. And I don't. There are those who drive way faster than I do, but that's no excuse for breaking the rules. I will freely chalk this up to a classic case of hypocritical "do as I say, not as I do" when it comes to my children.

The top 5 fruits of all time

(NOTE: Of course this is about actual, edible fruit. What did you think I was talking about?)

I love fruit. I mean, seriously, I love fruit.

Fruit, it turns out, is relatively expensive. And we can't keep it in the house because I eat it all. Fast. Which means we spend a lot of money on fruit.

Since the beginning of last December, I've followed the Weight Watchers PointsPlus plan. The best thing about this plan, by far, is that fruit is free. Meaning that it does not count against your daily points allowance.

Within reason, you can eat all the fruit you want in a given day. And vegetables, too. But we need to focus on the real treat here, which is the fruit.

Also, it should be noted that "within reason" is a phrase subject to a wide range of interpretation. I choose to interpret it as, "Try to keep it under 17 apples in a 24-hour period."

I like all kinds of fruit, but here in reverse order are my top five. Maybe you agree. Maybe you don't. Doesn't matter. The important thing is, fruit is free (in the WeightWatchers sense, sadly not the financial sense).

5. Bananas

I'm a fan. Bananas go a little too quickly, though. It takes me about 25 seconds to eat one. I could slow down, I suppose, but I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much. Given the chance, I would eat an entire bunch of bananas in one sitting. I would get sick, but it would be worth it.

4. Nectarines

And I do specifically mean nectarines, not peaches. I like peaches, mind you, but they don't crack my top 5. The texture of nectarines (and the lack of prickly little hairs) gives them the nod over what I presume to be their biological cousins. Plus they're not quite as juicy as peaches, which I consider to be a good thing. I can eat them at my desk at work without making a mess. Go nectarines!

3. Pears

We're talking strictly Bartlett pears here, people. Not those D'Anjou knockoffs. Bartlett pears, just like mom used to make. Well, actually, just like mom used to serve out of a can at lunch. Bartlett pears are awesome. They're like the BMW of the pear family. That's a really lame analogy, I know, but I can't help it because I'm too busy thinking about Bartlett pears. Mmmmmmm, pears.

2. Grapes

Again, a distinction must be made here: Green grapes. I have nothing against purple/red grapes. It's just that green grapes are the, uh, Bartlett pears of the grape world. I will not argue this point. It just is, in the same way that the sun, moon and stars just are.

1. Apples

I don't discriminate against various apple types, but I will let it be known that Gala is my apple variety of choice. We would also have accepted Fuji, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith (if only because I like the fact that any food is called "Granny Smith"). I eat three apples a day on average, and that's only if I'm making a conscious effort to cut down on my apple consumption. It makes me sad that apples are often sold for $1.99 a pound, because Terry won't buy them at that price point. I love apples. I really, really love apples.

Things I miss and don't miss from growing up in the 70s and 80s

Things I Miss

Fantasy Island

There have been some good shows on TV in the past 30 years, but none have matched the awesomeness that was Fantasy Island. Saturday nights at 10, as I recall. ABC aired it right after The Love Boat, and I have to believe they dominated the ratings. Mr. Rourke ruled the island with an iron fist ("Smiles everyone, smiles...NOW."), but it was Tattoo who got the girls. Something about that Hispanic dwarf was apparently irresistible. 

The Sony Walkman

I could walk around and listen to music outside. OUTSIDE. Without carrying around a 14-pound boom box. I could go running and listen to music. Or cycling. Or whatever it was we did back then (I can't quite remember how we filled our days, to be honest.) Of course, the music was on cassette. And you had to fast-forward and rewind to get to different songs. And that fast-forwarding and rewinding drained the life from your double-A batteries. But it was revolutionary, darn it! Don't you understand?

This version of Michael Jackson

The one who was still African-American. And wore one glove. And could dance in a way no one had danced before. And, for that matter, was still alive. I miss that guy.

Things I Don't Miss

People smoking...everywhere

Good Lord, it was terrible. You kids have no idea how good you have it in this department. People just lit up all over the place...in their homes, in their cars, in their offices, in church, etc. OK, maybe not in church. As far as I know. I mean, I didn't go to church in the 70s. The point is, the world smelled like cigarettes. Which is to say the world was disgusting and it stank. The fact that there are still people who smoke amazes me. I just assumed we all collectively came to our senses round about 1997 and that everyone was going to quit. What did I miss?

Four channels of TV

After the iPod and the Keurig coffee maker, I say cable television is Western Civilization's greatest contribution to the universe over the past 40 years. When I was growing up in Cleveland, you had channels 3 (NBC), 5 (ABC), 8 (CBS), and 43 (independent). And at some point there was channel 61, too. And that was it. The reception was bad during storms AND YOU HAD TO GET UP TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Who does that? Not us now. Which is why we're all fat. But still...

Rubik's Cube

There wasn't anything intrinsically wrong with Rubik's Cubes, other than the fact that I could never solve one. Ever. Even bought a book explaining how to solve it and couldn't understand it. Yet there were people appearing on "That's Incredible" who, given a randomly configured Rubik's Cube, could solve the thing in, like, 12 seconds. Maybe less, I don't remember. All I know is that I was bitter about it then and I'm bitter about it now. DARN YOU AND YOUR DEMONIC INVENTION, ERNO RUBIK!