Songs that make you think of your kids

Parents, do you have songs that automatically put you in mind of your kids, for whatever reason?

You probably do, and I'd be interested in knowing them. Feel free to post your kid-associated tunes in the comments below (those who got here via Facebook can also post there).

Here, for what it's worth, are the songs I connect with my children:

ELISSA (Age 19) - Billy Joel's "Goodnight, My Angel"
When Elissa was a baby, I would take care of her all day from the time she got up around 8:30 or 9 a.m. until the time I left for work around 5:30 p.m. This was one of the greatest times of my life, and it gave me the chance to put her down for naps every day. Sometimes when she was almost asleep but not quite, I would sing this song to her and she would close her eyes. Probably to avoid my singing, but I like to think it's because it comforted her. One of Billy Joel's best songs, for my money.

CHLOE (Age 16) - Sting's "All Four Seasons" and Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl
You really wouldn't know it by the young woman she is today, but Chloe could be a tad, um, volatile when she was little. To the point that my family was genuinely frightened of her. The year she was born, Sting came out with "All Four Seasons," a song he wrote about the fact that his little daughter's emotions could (and would) turn on a dime. Perfect timing, perfect association. And "Brown-Eyed Girl" was one Chloe and I would sing together in the car years ago, so I'll always connect it with her.

JARED (Age 14) - Stompin' Tom Connors' "The Hockey Song"
Bonding with your dad over sports is a cliche of the American male, but it's still a genuine thing for millions of fathers and sons. Jared and I share a lot, but I think my memories of young Jared will always be the time we spend at hockey games. If you to Lake Erie Monsters' games early enough, you can always hear this classic by Canada's own Stompin' Tom Connors, who passed away just a few months ago. Hockey, for the record, really is "the best game you can name."

MELANIE (Age 12) - Elizabeth Mitchell's "You Are My Sunshine"
There are, by my count, 4 kajillion versions of this song floating around. But none are better than Elizabeth Mitchell's, and it always makes me think of little Mel. Melanie will be a teenager soon, but she will forever and always be "little Mel" to me. She was the baby of the family for a long time before Jack came along. I remember singing this song to Infant Mel when she refused to fall asleep at night. It rarely worked, but it gave me a chance to hear it, which was a decent trade-off for the sleep deprivation that resulted.

JACK (Age 7) - Colin Hay's "Looking for Jack"
Jackie has always loved to come across his own name in books and music. This was one of my favorite tunes of all time even before he was born, but you can bet it shot up my personal list once we decided to give the name Jack to our second son. Colin Hay, by the way, tells a good story about this tune's origins involving Jack Nicholson and a Simple Minds concert.

So let's hear it: What songs make you think of your kids?

Teaching your kid to ride a bike

As many of my Facebook friends know (since I posted a picture of it), I'm currently teaching my son, Jack, how to ride a bike.

This is a time-honored dad tradition. There are many kid-related activities that can be handled by either parent. Then there are others that fall almost exclusively to one or the other. Bike training, while certainly often done very successfully by moms everywhere, is generally a dad thing.

I don't know why this is. Maybe it's because it can get exhausting running next to the bike while the little guy or girl is learning how to balance, and moms are too smart to subject themselves to that. They're sneaky that way, moms are.

Anyway, Jack is long overdue to learn how to ride a bike (he's 7), and this is entirely my fault. I dropped the ball last year when I should have taught him, and I promised him we would have him riding like a champ by the middle of this summer.

Actually, I think he'll get the hang of it long before then because he's relatively old to be learning this skill. His body is more than ready for it.

I was 5 when I mastered the art of two-wheeling, but it wasn't my dad who taught me. While he gave me my early lessons, it was my friend Billy Wuicik who really got me going.

Billy was (and I guess still is) two years older and obviously far wiser in these sorts of things. He was very mechanically inclined and was performing intricate bike repairs at the age of 6.

I think he saw me clumsily trying and failing to ride my bike without training wheels, and he just decided he was going to take matters into his own hands.

So Billy walked over to my house, picked up my bike, looked at me and said, "Get on." So I did. (I did a lot of things Billy told me to do back then.)

Then he started pushing me down the street, telling me to pedal. Then he let go. And rather than crashing as I had done the previous 147 times I had attempted this, I stayed upright and kept going.

And that was that. From then on, I had no trouble riding a bike. Billy's teaching technique, similar to throwing a kid into a pool and telling him to sink or swim, worked on me.

I'm not going to try that approach with Jack, however. Well, eventually I guess I'll have to. At some point you just have to let them go and hope they've picked up everything you've tried to teach them (including how to fall).

It's a pretty good metaphor for parenting in general, really.

The difference, of course, is that you don't want them to fall off the bike. But in parenting, and in life, you actually do want them to fall off a few times. You want them to learn what that feels like, and to figure out how to bounce back from it.

It hurts, of course. If we parents had our way, our children would live lives of perfect happiness and never experience anything approaching sadness or frustration.

But that's not how the world works, and we're certainly doing them a disservice if we try to shape their lives that way.

So I figure a couple of more lessons and Jack will be riding on his own, which will mark the last time I have to go through this little ritual, at least for my own kids.

If he falls a few times, I'll be standing by with Band-Aids and hugs, as is my job. But I'll be interested to see if the kid gets up, dusts himself off, and gets back on the bike.

I sure hope he does.

This is my hometown

As I type this, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Boulder, Colorado, with rain falling outside and thunder crashing off the mountains that wreath the city.

I'm here on a business trip, and I cannot deny the beauty and attraction of this wonderful place.

Boulder comes by its liberal-leaning, green-focused consciousness honestly, and whatever you think of their politics, you have to acknowledge the earnestness of the hippies who make the city what it is.

Tonight I walked back from dinner along pedestrian-friendly streets while sipping a Starbucks mocha frappuccino light. Well, actually, I didn't walk...I strolled. I never stroll. I walk purposefully almost everywhere I go.

But in Boulder, you stroll because you can't help it. There are invisible waves of laid-back energy flowing everywhere, and doing anything quickly or with a sense of urgency just seems so out of place.

I'll admit, I love it here.

I'll also admit that I would never live here in a million years.

Not that I can really find anything wrong with Boulder. It's just that I wouldn't want to live anywhere other than where I do now.

I would say the same thing about London, New York, Toronto, Paris and Beijing – all cities I've visited and enjoyed, but places that will never be more than temporary destinations for me.

I have lived my entire existence in Northeast Ohio. And specifically, in a little town called Wickliffe, about 15 miles east of Cleveland.

We get made fun of a lot by people around the country. People hear "Ohio" and think "hicks." And when you tell them you live within short driving distance of a major city, they realize you're talking about Cleveland and laugh.

It used to make me angry when people mocked Cleveland, a city I love. But now I realize they do it out of almost total ignorance. And I think to myself, "Good. That will keep it less crowded for those of us who already know how great it is."

I'll be the first to tell you the weather in my part of the world isn't always ideal. And we don't have the same cool vibe as Boulder. And our economy has been limping along for several years now.

But Northeast Ohio has beautiful changes of seasons. And largely unknown cultural and restaurant scenes. And it has salt-of-the-earth people who work hard, raise families and live their lives in a straightforward, genuine way. Seriously, it's like a Ford Truck commercial come to life.

It also has my family. And wherever they go is where I go. As long as it's not Siberia. Or Pittsburgh, which has the Steelers and therefore may as well be Siberia to me.

But really, even if I didn't like where I lived, I would stay in order to be close to my family. They're my tribe, you know? I could no sooner separate myself from them than I could separate myself from my right arm.

Nor could I separate myself from good old Wickliffe, which almost inexplicably has seven or eight nice parks  for fewer than 13,000 people living in four square miles. What's that all about? We don't have a real community rec center, but by gosh, we have more swings per capita than any town you care to brag about.

I often say that Wickliffe is like Mayberry without Otis the town drunk. Or Floyd the barber. But we did once have Chicken and French Fries Charlie.

Chicken and French Fries Charlie was an unshaven mess of a man who used to hang out at the snack bar of the now-defunct Zayre's discount store. He always seemed to be there when my friends and I walked in, and he always seemed to be eating (you guessed it) chicken and french fries.

This was back when discount stores all had snack bars, you understand.

I don't know what ever happened to Chicken and French Fries Charlie, to be honest. I'm not even sure he had a home to go to when Zayre's closed each night. But somehow he had enough money to buy those paper containers of chicken and french fries, so I guess he had a job.

The point is, Wickliffe has always been full of characters like Charlie, which is another reason I love it.

Many of the people my wife and I grew up with have left, but we choose to stay. And I wouldn't be surprised if we end up staying until the bitter end.

Or until the entire city becomes one gigantic park, I guess. Whichever comes first.

Five quintessentially 80s songs

Before we jump into yet another five-item list here on the ol' blog, let me point out something.

The title of this post is "Five quintessentially 80s songs." Not "THE five quintessentially 80s songs." Just five of them from what is presumably a much longer list.

So don't get your panties in a bunch complaining about my choices, which by the way are exquisite. If you have additions, please, add them in the comments.

I suppose I mean at least three things by the phrase "quintessentially 80s":

1. These are songs that define or really capture some part of the decade's vibe and feel.
2. They are songs that may still be listened to and enjoyed by many, but that I submit could only have been hits in the 80s.
3. And they're songs that I like. As I always say, I'm pushing the keys here, so I make the rules.

Anyway, in no particular order, here are five quintessentially 80s songs:

I Ran - Flock of Seagulls

I have this belief that no discussion of 80s music or culture is complete without at least a passing mention of Flock of Seagulls. They weren't especially huge, as New Wave bands go, but lead singer Mike Score's hair and their overall sound were very much representative of what was going on in one segment of pop music in, say, 1982 and '83.

My friend Mel was a huge Flock of Seagulls fan and had all of their music on cassette. This was before the CD era, of course, but long after vinyl had stopped being cool. Ironically, vinyl is ultra-hip and cool today, which just goes to prove what Mark Twain said about history not necessarily repeating itself, but it sure does rhyme a lot.

Down Under - Men at Work

There are probably few people in the U.S. (or even the world) who still listen to Men at Work as frequently and as enthusiastically as I do. Their sound is dated in many ways, but I guess that's why I like it. "Business As Usual," the album on which "Down Under" appeared, could only have clicked on a global scale as it did in the early 80s, largely as a reaction to much of the blandness that proceeded it on the pop charts in 1979 and '80.

This particular tune resonated with millions partly because it helped bring about a massive wave of interest in Australia, a continent we had all sort of collectively forgotten about for several decades prior. Suddenly it was like, "Hey, remember Australia? They're all so cool down there! And how about that Crocodile Dundee?"

Greg Ham's flute riff defines this song for many, but it doesn't work without Colin Hay's voice and phrasing. The original version of this song, as Colin likes to point out, was much darker than the pop version that swept the world. But no one was really interested in dark and dreary at that point in history, so the cheery remix prevailed.

Come On, Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners

If someone brings up the topic of 80s one-hit wonders, this is your go-to band. I never quite got the whole overalls-and-bandanna ragamuffin look they were going for, but that's OK because this tune is one I can listen to again and again.

By the way, lots of misheard lyrics in this song, including the very garbled first stanza. For the record, it goes like this:

Poor old Johnnie Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
Moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried, sang along
Who would blame them?

Not Shakespeare, I guess, but better than, say, Vanilla Ice.

99 Luftballoons - Nena

We're talking about the German version here, not that weak English-translated "99 Red Balloons." Nena is Nena only when she's speaking der Deutsch and showing off her hairy armpits. (And for what it's worth, the English translation wasn't a direct translation, so it's not even the same song, really.)

I guess this was designed to be an anti-war song of sorts, which would make sense from a German band working in the early 80s. They lived in a place where the Cold War was being waged on a daily basis.

But what everyone really liked was the beat of the song, and specifically the synthesized bass line. The song could have been about floor wax for all it mattered, and none of us knew what Nena's German lyrics meant anyway. A worthy addition to any list of great 80s songs.

Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles

Nowadays, this songs only gets mentioned as the answer to a trivia question: namely, what video was the first one ever played on MTV?

But it's a good tune in its own right and it gets heavy rotation on my iPod (to which you're probably responding, "Of COURSE it does.")

Technically, "Video Killed the Radio Star" doesn't even belong on this list because it was officially released in 1979. But because of the MTV connection, and because of what it represented, it deserves a place here. It tells the story of the passing of one era and the dawn of another, which reminds me that there really was a kind of collective anticipation as the 70s were ending and the 80s began.

Of course, by the time the 90s rolled around, all we had to show for the decade were crates of unsold parachute pants and a hole in the ozone layer caused by the use of millions of metric tons of Aquanet hairspray, so I'm not exactly sure what everyone was so jazzed about.

The glory and comfort of the king-sized bed

When we moved into our house 10 years ago, my wife and I bought a king-sized bed.

Along with our gigantic sectional couch, our Keurig coffee maker, and our flat-screen TV, this was easily among our top purchases of all time.

If you own a king-sized bed, or even if you've simply slept in one before, you know what I'm talking about here.

When we were first married, Terry and I slept in a queen bed. And it seemed to be just fine for our needs.

But then you try a king-size and your total personal sleeping acreage rises dramatically and exponentially, and that's it, man. You simply cannot go back.

Even a decade into owning this behemoth, I sometimes crawl into bed at night and marvel at how much space I have. Terry has her side and I have mine, and we're both 100% fine with this set-up.

At any given time of the night, unless one of us has rolled toward the middle of the bed in our sleep, there are 2 to 3 solid feet of empty, stretched-out comfort between us.

Nowadays when we travel somewhere and are forced back into a queen, it's like sleeping in a matchbox.

NOTE TO THOSE WHO DID NOT GROW UP AT A TIME WHEN 145% OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION SMOKED AND THEREFORE MATCHES WERE EVERYWHERE: A matchbox is a small container in which matches are kept. The only thing you need to understand here is that a matchbox is, generally speaking, a tiny space.

But really, having to revert to a queen is torture for us.

It's not that we dislike being near each other or anything. It's just that we're eminently spoiled by our big boy bed, and anything else seems cramped and uncomfortable.

Plus, we have four cats in our house. On any given night, two or three or them will climb up into bed with us. This isn't so bad in January when the extra heat is welcomed. But in July, for example, you would rather not have their fuzzy, furnace-like bodies snuggled right up against you. The king bed gives them room to stake out their own few square feet of space.

If there's a downside to the king, it's when Terry washes the sheets and the whole thing has to be made again from scratch.

King-sized sheets are huge and unwieldy. They're tough to position and tuck in so that everything is just right.

Or at least they are for me. Terry prefers it when I help her make the bed, but she can get along just fine without me.

I, on the other hand, never know exactly which way the sheets should be positioned. Does the tag go down at the bottom? And if so, on which side? I can never figure it out.

If it were left to me, I would just throw a comforter onto the bare mattress and sleep on top of that.

Fortunately, Terry has enough brain power to figure it all out for me. Must be all of that uber-comfortable sleep she gets every night.

The Lazy Stereotypist's Guide to the Generations

I am, apparently, a member of what they call "Generation X." We are loosely defined as those born between the years 1965 and 1979.

And I guess that sounds about right. I was born in the early part of that range (1969), but I identify fairly closely with that whole spectrum of people, who right now are anywhere from 33 to 48 years old.

Still, these generational designations are, almost by definition, somewhat arbitrary and the stuff from which lazy newspaper feature stories are made. Let's just put everyone into a box by birth year and then generalize everything we can about them.

They're also the stuff from which lazy blog posts are made, so if you would be so kind, I'll take several hundred words to try and separate fact from fiction when it comes to the generations:

The G.I. Generation (1900-24)

What everything thinks: They've been called the Greatest Generation because they fought a horrendous world war and (mostly) lived to tell about it. They've also been called old and cranky,  but then again, every generation gets called old and cranky at some point.

The reality: These are, by my estimation, good people. At least the ones who are still around. The oldest of them have passed on and the others likely aren't that far behind, sad to say. They look at the world around them now and shake their heads with simultaneous wonderment and, I would guess, a tinge of sadness. They deserve anything except me making fun of them, so let's move on...

The Silent Generation (1925-45)

What everyone thinks: Somewhere in here is a joke around the idea of these people being called the Silent Generation because more and more of them are, in fact, dead. But I'm better than that, so I won't go there. The term "Silent Generation" was actually coined in the early 50s, and one author referred to this group as "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent." Yikes. Stereotype much?

The reality: I like this generation. A lot. They don't get the press the Baby Boomers or the G.I. Generation get, but by and large they've done OK for themselves. They're a lot better planners and savers than my generation, and they managed to navigate through some pretty turbulent times in history. Some also argue they broke the social contract and didn't leave things better than the way they found them, but that's probably just a lot of whining on the part of my fellow 40-somethings.

The Baby Boomers (1946-64)

What everyone thinks: The popular notion is that Baby Boomers are spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed hippies who took advantage of post-war prosperity to live a relatively pampered and unimaginative existence.

The reality: The popular notion is pretty much spot on.

OK, the real reality: Just kidding. All three of my siblings fall into this generation, which admittedly is really into talking about itself ad nauseum. As if they were the first people ever to graduate college, get married, have kids, grow old, etc.

That last point is key, by the way. Reporters like to point out when the oldest among this generation reach important life milestones. In just a few years, for example, the top-range Baby Boomers will turn 70.

But I generally cut the Boomers a lot of slack. Had I been born, say, 20 years earlier, I'm not sure how I would have reacted to American life. They were raised by a generation that fought a war and endured a lot, which led many of them to criticize their Boomer kids' seeming lack of initiative and appreciation for life.

But when you grow up during a time of postwar prosperity, how exactly are you supposed to act? What are you supposed to say or do? Do you need to be constantly grateful and deferential to those who put you into your privileged position? That would drive me crazy. So as far as I'm concerned, drone on, Boomers. You've earned it.

Generation X (1965-79)

What everyone thinks: At one point I think they called us "slackers." Or was that the generation after us? I can't keep track of it. But I do know we've been criticized as being kind of dull and unmotivated. We're all either well into our 40s or fast approaching them, so I think we're just as self-absorbed as the Baby Boomers thinking about that. Our hair is falling out and our eyesight is starting to go. We can't be wasting precious time fixing the budget deficit or addressing the national health care crisis when we have stuff like that going on!

The reality: My neighbor Tim posted a link on Facebook to an article about the fact that Generation Xers have done a poor job of planning and saving for retirement. We have massive amounts of debt. We're not especially well positioned for the second halves of our lives.

But I will say this: We've also largely powered the technological revolution, and many of us are are leading the charge to bring much-needed attention to the root causes of the world's most pressing problems, which is more than you can say for many of the people who came before us. We may die poor and unhealthy, but darn it, we'll feel good about ourselves!

The Millennials (aka Generation Y) (1980-2000)

What everyone thinks: These young'uns started out with the name "Generation Y," but that was painfully derivative, so they came up with the term I like better: "Millenials." The idea being that they were kids when we entered this new millennium, and their outlook on life was shaped by Y2K, 9/11 and such.

Anyway, to get an idea of what we oldsters generally think about the Millenials, allow me to quote two paragraphs from an article I found on WetFeet.com:

Maybe you already know all the Generation Y stereotypes. In case you don’t, let us clue you in on what people are saying about you: You’re entitled. You’re narcissistic. You have a tendency to job hop. You have no work ethic. You need constant affirmations of your overinflated self-esteem. And you’re afraid to abandon the sanctuary provided by your helicopter parents.
Or consider how the media has proclaimed your supposed inadequacies in headlines like “Generation Y Bother” and “Millennials: The New Office Moron,” or books such as Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.

Here's what I guess I'll say about that, being the parent of four Millenials myself (my youngest, Jack, was born in 2006 and therefore falls into what is tentatively being called "Generation Z" or even "The New Silent Generation," which I think is funny when you consider that the oldest of this generation is still in middle school. It may be a tad early to start generalizing about them.)

Anyway, here's what I'll say about the Millenials: Yeah, the whole helicopter parenting thing definitely had its negative consequences. And many of them do appear to be majoring in Slacker Studies.

But I love the way this young generation thinks. I love the way that, as a group, they're willing to step away from business as usual and reexamine the reasons and the ways business is conducted. They question everything, which is good, because a lot of us who are older simply don't think to do that (many do, of course....I'm just engaging in some huge generalization here).

I don't love some of the things they embrace, but that's OK because that's my job as a dad. I'm required by law to see something in society I don't like and harp on it forever.

I may be biased because I'm a parent of a small slice of the Milennial generation, but I think they offer up hope for the future. Assuming we can get them to look up from their iPods and tablet computers every once in awhile. Otherwise they're all going to wander out into traffic and get killed, and then we'll really be in trouble.

Golf + guyness does not equal me

There are at least two activities enjoyed by millions of people that don't appeal to me, but I really wish they did.

One is drinking wine. We covered that here. My philosophy on wine is that it all tastes like vinegar or feet, or a combination of both. I've tried almost every kind of wine imaginable, and I have yet to encounter one that was even remotely palatable to me, let alone enjoyable.

And as I've said on numerous occasions, this is a shame because I want to like wine. People who are into it are really into it, and it always looks to me like they're having fun drinking it. But I just can't do it. I can't drink any wine without retching.

The other activity enjoyed by many but not by me is playing golf.

I can tell you, almost to the day, the last time I played golf.

It was October 1993, and we had a church golf outing. A bunch of guys from the congregation got together to play at a course out in Middlefield, Ohio, called Grandview.

My golf experience to that point was spotty. I actually took a golf class in college and got an "A" in it, but that didn't mean I really knew how to play golf.

So as we approached the first tee, I told the guys in my group that I was a pretty terrible golfer and would probably slow them down.

I then proceeded to launch a beautiful tee shot that stopped within 10 feet of the hole.

Everyone figured I was just sandbagging it and would tear up the course.

And I did tear up the course, in the sense that I created a series of huge divots every time I attempted to strike the ball and missed.

Incidentally, it took me five putts to get that ball into the first hole. Yes, from less than 10 feet away, it took me five strokes to finally sink it. And my putting just got worse from there.

Thus, I have abstained from golfing for nearly two decades now, with no plans to set foot on a course again any time soon.

And much like wine drinking, I also see this as kind of a shame. Golfers are very passionate about their sport and always seem to be having such a good time.

But I'm miserable on a golf course, and it's not just because I'm so terrible at it. I think the game is just too slow and requires too much concentration for my liking.

Of course, the athletic endeavor in which I most often engage is distance running, which in my case is also pretty slow. But it doesn't require much concentration at all, so I prefer it to golf.

Actually, I prefer almost anything to golf.

The other day in my post about amusement parks, I suggested that I would rather stick a hot poker in my eye than go to Cedar Point. The hot poker line is one I more often use in relationship to golf than anything else.

If you give me a red-hot poker and a set of golf clubs and suggest that I have to put one or the other to use, I will immediately set to shoving that poker into my eye socket if it means I don't have to embarrass myself on a golf course.

Golf is just the latest in a series of man-oriented activities that don't appeal to me. As I've mentioned before, I don't do well in any measure of Real Guy-ness.

I don't like (nor am I any good at) using tools. I've never driven a motorcycle, and I don't really want to. I've never had any form of facial hair.

By almost all accounts, I fail my gender miserably.

I do, however, like sports. I'm an intense hockey, football, baseball and soccer fan. Ironically, I actually enjoy watching golf on TV sometimes if it's the last few holes of a big tournament and the competition is good.

But the one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that you won't find me back at Grandview any time soon with a golf club in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

You can bet on that.

Remember when kids used to have their summers free?

I will try my best not to turn this into a "hey, things were a lot better when I was younger" post. Because I'm not someone who generally thinks that way.

But I will say this about the experience of being a kid now vs. the days when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s:

Back when I was a lad, summer vacation meant...well, it meant "summer vacation." It meant you had half of June and all of July and August to yourself. To do with as you pleased.

Apart from family vacations and the occasional little league baseball game (which occurred, what, twice a week maybe?), you were on your own.

And it was glorious.

Of course, being a kid, you absolutely took for granted the whole concept of waking up on a warm summer morning and having nothing but a blank slate of a day ahead of you.

Only when the first day of school rolled around did you really appreciate what you had just lost.

And that first day of school, by the way, was always after Labor Day. Always. Now, I'm fairly certain my kids start a new school year about 20 minutes after the previous one ends.

Anyway, we had gigantic chunks of unstructured time in the summer months, and we used them to engage in what was, for me, a lot of fun stuff.

We played sports and games outside. We played our Atari 2600 systems inside.

We rode our bikes. We went to the city pool.

We set up failed lemonade stands. We set off firecrackers that one of us had somehow (illegally) gotten our hands on.

We watched TV. We played some more Atari.

You probably have a similar list from your own childhood.

The point is, we did a lot of things without interference from (or really the need for) adults. And both the kids and the grown-ups were just fine with this system.

Then two things happened that started the whole thing spinning out of control.

One was the specialization of sports. And by that I mean the drive to make kids better at their chosen sport through an influx of summer camps, clinics, practices, conditioning sessions, etc.

Doesn't matter what your sport is: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse. Whatever. If you're a kid and you play it, there are programs designed solely to expose you to that sport year-round.

With that also came the creeping influence of club sports, travel programs, Junior Olympic teams, and so forth. And those have become all-consuming for families across the nation.

Not that I think there's anything intrinsically wrong with these things, mind you. If you choose to participate in them, and if it makes your child happy, by all means, go for it.

But the unintended side effect of these leagues and programs is that kids who just play sports for fun, who will never receive college athletic scholarships, suddenly find themselves pressured to join. You either participate in the travel program in the summer or else you don't play when the actual sports season rolls around in fall or spring.

Well, that's OK, you might say. Kids like that can just join a no-pressure rec league.

Which would be fine, except cities and leagues everywhere have taken their limited resources and directed them toward the travel and premier-level programs, leaving rec programs to rot on the vine with inferior equipment and few trained coaches.

That is, if the rec-level sport still exists at all. Many have just disappeared altogether.

The result is an all-or-nothing, travel-league-or-bust approach that alienates the average kid. So, rather than be left out, youngsters will often submit to the pressure of travel sports, and suddenly their calendars (summer and otherwise) fill up with practices, games and skill sessions that leave little time for any real relaxation.

The other thing that precipitated this trend is that overworked parents have started implementing structure in the lives of kids who didn't necessary need more of it.

Parents have always felt some degree of guilt over the amount of time they spend (or don't spend) with their children. But nowadays, with magazine articles, TV psychiatrists and authors constantly reminding them just how slack they are in the parenting department, moms and dads try to compensate by exposing Junior to a wealth of new experiences through lessons, classes, and seminars of every kind.

Every. Kind.

Many kids today need an admin assistant just to keep track of their schedules. I had two things on my summer schedule when I was growing up:

8 a.m. - Get out of bed. Go find friends and commence day's activities.

9 p.m. - Come in when I was called and go to bed. Repeat cycle the next day.

And I guess I turned out OK. For what that's worth.

You don't hear many kids complaining about this turn of events, and I'm guessing that's because they don't know any different. They've never had unstructured summers, so they don't know what they're missing.

I'll tell you what they're missing.

A lot.

But maybe that's just the product of the undisciplined mind of a guy who spent his childhood summers playing in his friend's backyards. What do I know?

Business travel: Fun until you actually have to do it

If all goes well, I'll be jetting off to Boston later today for a three-day business trip.

Nice town, Boston. One of my favorites.

Not that it matters much, though, because I'll spend virtually my entire time there at a conference, gathering intelligence and forming key relationships on behalf of my employer.

Which of course is the snag in business travel, isn't it? The concept sounds nice, but it's not like you're going on vacation or anything.

The only business trip I ever took on which I had some true "tourist time" was when I went to China in 2005. That trip was 15 days, but I probably could have accomplished everything I set out to do in 8 to 10.

The extra time was for sightseeing and I took advantage of it. The Great Wall was a highlight, as were the outdoor markets of Shanghai.

But almost every other work-related trip I've ever taken has been business first and...well, business second, too.

Depending on the industry in which you work, a typical business trip looks something like this:

• 6 a.m. - Drive to airport
• 6:30 a.m. - Fail to find a parking spot
• 6:40 a.m. - Continue failing to find a parking spot
• 6:45 a.m. - Create an illegal parking spot and hope no one notices for the next several days while you're gone.
• 6:50 a.m. - Lug carry-on baggage into terminal and proceed to security checkpoint.
• 6:55 a.m. - Begin waiting in line for security check.
• 7:55 a.m. - Near end of security checkpoint wait time.
• 8:55 a.m. - Finish waiting in line for security checkpoint and begin dealing with crack TSA agents manning their posts.
• 9:00 a.m. - Receive dangerous dose of radiation from full-body scanner. Make mental note to find an oncologist.
• 9:05 a.m. - Clear security checkpoint and proceed to gate.
• 9:15 a.m. - Arrive at gate, sit down, begin reading book or newspaper while waiting to be called to board.
• Three days later - Board aircraft after minor mechanical delays and some kind of weather system in a completely different part of the country result in repeated cancellations of your flight.
• Many, many hours later - Arrive at your destination.
• Take cab to hotel. Note interesting sights along the way, because it's the last time you'll be outside for the duration of your stay in this particular city.
• Arrive at hotel, check in, go up to room, unpack.
• Order overpriced room service and hope company accountants don't mind that you just paid $37 for a hamburger.
• Go to sleep.
• Wake up (preferably the next day). If appropriately motivated, proceed to hotel fitness center and run a half hour on a treadmill while watching the Home Shopping Network because the remote is broken and you can't change the channel on the 15-inch TV mounted on the far wall.
• Return to room, shower, dress, and go to hotel restaurant for a plate of $23 scrambled eggs.
• Take cab to place of business, whether it's a convention center, office, or abandoned warehouse (again, depending on your line of work).
• Return to hotel 14 hours later. Repeat last several steps until your airline ticket says it's time to return home.
• Return home.
• Pay airport police to retrieve your car from the impound lot after it was towed for being parked illegally.
• Drive to your house.
• Vow to spouse that you're finished with business travel and refuse to take another trip.
• Go to the office the next day and find out you need to be in Spokane next Thursday.

With a few minor variations (for example, your actual scrambled eggs may be $24), this is a pretty universal rundown of the average business trip. If you see anything glamorous in there, please let me know.

Why I don't like going to amusement parks these days

I guess I'm getting old, because I have no desire to visit amusement parks anymore.

The one closest to us is Cedar Point, which as amusement parks go definitely ranks right up there. Cedar Point has something like 8,000 roller coasters, all of which are designed to scare you.

At least that's what they do to me. I'll go on any ride in existence, mind you. I'm not so scared that I chicken out completely. But the fact remains, "terror" is a key emotion whenever I ride one of those Class A man-sized coasters.

There's also the cost. When I was young, my parents paid my admission fees, so I never really had any idea how much it cost to get into a park. Nor did I care, really.

But now, I realize I paid less for my first car than it sets me back for my family of seven to get into Cedar Point.

(For the record, without coupons or any of the other highly prevalent discounts the park offers, the total cost for my brood to go to Cedar Point with tickets purchased online is $314.93.)

Then there's the whole waiting-in-line thing. I talk to people all the time who say things like, "We waited two hours to ride Millennium Force. It was great!"

They don't mean the two-hour wait was great, but they also act like two hours out of their lives waiting in line to ride a four-minute roller coaster is OK.

Is it OK? I don't think it is. I think it's ridiculous. But then, I'm not Cedar Point's target demographic, either.

They're looking for parents like me, of course, but parents who are willing to pay for their kids to come, buy tickets, and spend even more money on food, cheap midway prizes, and the occasional box of saltwater taffy.

Actually, I'm good with the taffy. It's probably my favorite part of the Cedar Point experience. But to get to the taffy, which we purchase on our way out of the park to go home, you have to endure everything else that's thrown at you.

Like, for instance, the other people. If I could hijack Cedar Point and have it to myself for a day like Clark Griswold at Wally World, I'd be fine with it. But you actually have to share the park with others, many of whom smell.

I don't want to be too indelicate here, but visiting Cedar Point on a 90-degree day is like spending time in an Egyptian prison. You're going to walk away having inhaled the bodily fumes of people of all shapes and sizes, along with the bonus parting gift of several million newly acquired germs from touching handrails, bathroom doors, the occasional dead animal, etc.

Then there's the spinny rides.

"Spinny," meaning those rides that go around and around and around. I don't do "around and around and around" nearly as well as I used to.

I don't do it well at all.

I can get through a turn on, say, the Witch's Wheel. But afterward, the rest of my day is ruined. I walk around for hours feeling dizzy and nauseous. I can't keep down the comically unhealthy Cedar Point food. I can't even see straight when my son asks me to win him a stuffed penguin by shooting a water gun into a clown's mouth (a game that, by the way, costs $5 per turn to play).

And I pay $44.99 just for the privilege of experiencing all of this!

I'll tell you what: The next time you want me to come with you to Cedar Point or Six Flags or any other of these money pits, I'll just give you my $44.99 and spend all day at home repeatedly jabbing myself in the eye with a hot poker. That way, you'll be 45 bucks richer and I'll be a lot happier than I would be at an amusement park.

Everybody wins.

Five movies your kids should absolutely watch

One of the greatest responsibilities we have as parents is exposing our children to the right forms of entertainment.

And by "right" I mean, "the stuff you yourself like and therefore they should like."

Because we all want that, don't we? We have this inner desire for our kids to like the same music, TV shows and movies we do.

The same holds true for sports teams, by the way, which is actually a little unfortunate. My son Jared is, at age 14, not only a devoted fan of Cleveland sports, but already a jaded one, as well. He expects our teams to lose.

So do I, of course, but it took me years and years to get to this point of pessimism. He was there by the time he turned 10. I'm so sorry for pulling you into the horror that is pro sports in this town, Jared.

Anyway, your kids are going to develop their own tastes in entertainment because that's the way it's supposed to be. Nowadays we often think of The Beatles as old-fashioned and quaint, but in the early 60s, there were parents who hated them and thought they were the embodiment of all that was wrong with the world.

But you can still share some of the classics with your offspring. In fact, you must do this. It's one of the obligations of parenthood.

Feel free to add to this list, but here are five movies to which your kids should be exposed if you want to feel like you're raising them right:

(1) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

I'm guessing I've watched this movie start to finish maybe 25 or 30 times. And every time I appreciate something new about it.

For one thing, it's delightfully weird. It was made in 1971, a few years after the whole hippie/psychedelic thing hit its peak, but it retains elements of that genre.

Like the boat ride scene? Used to scare the pants off me. But the movie wouldn't be complete without it. Here it is, in case you've not seen it in years (or, God forbid, have never seen it):

And Wonka himself, as played by Gene Wilder, is a trip. He makes the movie. Your kids need to watch it.

(2) The Wizard of Oz

There's actually quite a bit to be afraid of in this movie, too. Like the flying monkeys. Or the way Margaret Hamilton plays the Wicked Witch of the West. Terrifying stuff.

I should note here that I'm not trying to scare your kids. But these are "frightening in a good way" stories. "The Wizard of Oz" may seem syrupy on the outside, but it's dramatic and real at its core, which is why we still watch it 70-plus years after it was released.

By the way, the musical "Wicked," which obviously takes its characters directly from the Oz book/movie, does a great job of fleshing out the human realities of the plotline. One does not end up as the Wicked Witch of the West (or as Glinda, for that matter) without a juicy backstory, and "Wicked" provides it in spades.

Anyway, if your kids haven't seen this movie yet, proceed directly to Netflix and have them watch it. Do not pass "Go," do not collect $200. They need to watch this flick, and they need to watch it now.

(3) Any of the "Toy Story" movies

I just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out exactly what it is that makes these movies brilliant, and I can't boil it down to a single thing.

Is it the performance of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen? Both are excellent as the voiceovers for Woody and Buzz Lightyear, respectively. The inflection, the interplay of the dialogue, the jokes that only the parents in the audience get. They're all good.

Is it the animation, which was pretty far ahead of its time when Pixar released the first movie in 1995? I'm no visual artist, but even I can appreciate the fluid movement of the characters, the shadows and shading, the distinct "look" of every toy.

Or is it the plots, all three of which are extremely well written and engaging?

I'm going to cop out here and say "all of the above." If you have the time to do a family triple feature and watch all three "Toy Story" movies in order, do it. You'll be glad you did.

(4) Mary Poppins

The irony here is that I have never watched this whole movie in sequence. I've seen the whole thing (several times over, probably), but only in bits and pieces, fits and starts.

That hasn't been intentional, but that's what happens when you have cable TV and not a lot of time to use it. You come across "Mary Poppins" somewhere right in the middle and you can't help but stop and watch. Maybe it's only for 15 minutes, but you watch.

Dick Van Dyke's horrible Cockney accent aside, this movie is awesome. The music alone is worth the time, but I also love the jokes and the way the characters come to life.

Everyone knows the songs: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidcious," "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Chim Chim Cher-ee," "Step in Time," etc. But my favorite is "A British Bank," and it's probably because of the way David Tomlinson as George Banks sings it:

(5) Any given Harry Potter film

As with any wildly successful movie franchise, the Potter series has its virulent detractors. They're certainly entitled to their opinions, just as they're certainly entitled to be wrong.

Are the movies as good as the books? No, of course not. Can you name more than a handful of series in which the movies supersede the books? Probably not.

But the movies are still extremely well done and great entertainment. Whatever happens to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, they will forever and always be remembered as Harry, Ron and Hermione, and the world is better for having watched them grow up on screen in those roles.

A few years ago in advance of the release of the last Potter film, my family (all seven of us) spent the better part of a day and a half in our living room watching all of the Potter movies back to back to back to back to back to back to back. It was great fun.

It also gave me an appreciation for how the Potter directors so skillfully adapted J.K. Rowling's books to film. If you think that's easy, try writing a screenplay. Then try writing one based on the best-selling children's book series of all time. Go ahead, I'll wait (NOTE: Keep in mind you will unavoidably fail.)

My favorite character? The very underrated Argus Filch. For some reason I can't embed this video, but I'll give you a link and encourage you to watch some of Filch's best moments. To get to his best two lines of the series (both from the first movie), fast forward to the 1:30 and 2:10 marks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_B5gwAfds.

White guys, dark tans

For years, I have had a love-hate relationship with the sun.

My friend Kenny Beavers, who is of African descent, used to say, "White people can at least tan in the sun. Black people just get blacker."

And he was right, of course, as Kenny often was during our high school years.

But there are at least two complicating factors here:

• Tanning requires one to remove one's shirt. And I hate to take off my shirt in public. Never have been a fan of it.
• Because I'm in an office all day, my exposure to the sun is limited. And when I am outside, I'm usually wearing a shirt (see previous bullet point). Which means I develop the time-honored farmer's tan.

So I would just as soon live in Seattle or someplace where the sun doesn't come out a lot and persons of Caucasian ancestry like me aren't expected to have deep-brown tans in the summer.

The only time in my adult life I've had a really nice tan was in 2008, and that was only because it was artificial. I bought my skin coloring that year in the form of several 15-minute sessions in a tanning booth.

We know now, of course, that tanning is stupid. You may as well take pills designed to give you skin cancer.

We also knew that fact in 2008, but I chose to ignore it because I had just lost a bunch of weight and figured I might actually be willing to walk around shirtless that summer. And the last thing I wanted was to assault other people's visual senses with the sight of my pasty white body.

You could easily tell when I had visited the tanning salon because I smelled like coconuts, a product of the tanning accelerator lotion I would slather all over myself before each session.

Now, understand that if I feel self-conscious when I take off my shirt, I felt really self-conscious whenever I walked into that tanning place. The whole thing (giving the proprietors money so they would allow me to engage in a patently unhealthy activity) just felt stupid and vain.

Of course, after a couple of weeks of doing it almost every day, I looked pretty good, which made me forget  how stupid and vain it was.

This is an unfortunate tendency of the human race: If something makes us look or feel really good (or both), we'll willingly ignore the fact that it is also likely to hasten our deaths.

Because, if we're being honest with ourselves, we'll admit that we might actually agree to die at age 50 if we were guaranteed to have fabulous, sexy bodies our entire lives.

(Right now, some of you are weighing this proposition over in your minds. Hot and dead after five decades? Or ugly and unhappy at age 90?)

I haven't been tanning this year, but I'm a lot more likely to remove my shirt this summer now that I've dropped a few pounds. And when I do, my torso will almost inevitably be bright white and contrast sharply with my golden brown arms.

I think I've resigned myself to replacing the tanning accelerator with sunscreen and drawing comments from people at the city pool along the lines of, "Good Lord, that is the whitest man I've ever seen."

Maybe Kenny Beavers will be there, too, and we can console each other as I somehow get even whiter and he gets darker.