My wife says I should hang out with man friends

So here's the deal: Terry feels it's very important that I should get some guy friends and go out occasionally with them to do...I don't know, guy stuff, I guess?

There are several problems with this suggestion.

One is that I have almost no time for something like that. I work, of course. And when I'm home, I'm almost always engaging with Terry or the kids, getting ready for the next work day, doing church stuff, or trying to squeeze in six hours of sleep.

Thus, I don't have a lot of free time. Or at least I'm pretty sure I don't.

Then there's this: I don't necessarily want to go out. This in no way reflects poorly on my lifelong male friends, some of whom live far away and others of whom are just as busy as I am. I just have no burning desire to hang out with people with whom I don't even necessarily share interests and common traits beyond mutual possession of testicles.

Plus, what am I going to do with these guy friends? It would have to be something sports-related. The vast majority of guys are either sports guys, car/tool guys, or outdoor/hunting guys. The only bucket into which I fit comfortably is sports guy.

And honestly? That's why I have my son, Jared. He's my sports guy friend. We go to games together. We talk about sports stuff. We fret over the fact that we've chosen to support perennially terrible Cleveland sports teams. This is what bonds us, and frankly, he fulfills all of my requirements for Sports Guy Time. I don't need anybody else.

Terry occasionally goes out with female friends, and that's great. Knock yourself out, hon. She has a wonderful time, and so I think she believes that I would have an equally wonderful time if I were to do the same kinds of things with my own gender.

But it's not the same. If I want to go out and have a beer, I'd most like to do it with her. If I want dinner and a movie, again, she's #1 on the list of potential partners. Or if not her, then one or more of my children.

The one thing working against my strategy here is the fact that a key to longevity, according to many of the interviews you read with people who live to the age of 100, is apparently social connectedness. You tend to be happier and healthier if you maintain an active social network. And presumably, since it would just be weird for me to have regular outings with women who aren't Terry, that social network of mine would have to be predominately male.

All of which means that I'm apparently going to die sometime in the next 15 years if I don't start actively recruiting for Y-chromosomed companionship. For the sake of my health, I'll allow a few male friends to come over occasionally. Just don't talk to me about cars. Or tools. Or hunting. In fact, just don't talk at all. You'll only be here so that I can live longer.

What a great friend I'll be!

Chloe graduates, life goes on

If everything went according to plan, my daughter Chloe graduated from high school last night.

I say "if everything went according to plan" because I'm writing this in mid-April and, you know, lots of things could happen between now and the time you're reading this that would prevent Chloe from receiving her diploma.

Murder, for instance. Chloe may commit murder in the next few weeks and be locked away for life well before commencement.

One time Chloe drew up a list (this is absolutely true) that she posted on our refrigerator headlined "People Who Won't Die When I Get a Sword." I was relieved that my name appeared on the list, but I genuinely felt for those who were excluded. They should watch their backs once Chloe gets her hands on a sword.

Because that's the thing with Chloe, you see. She's like Mike Tyson in that absolutely anything you hear about her, no matter how off the wall, could possibly be true.

She has always been a little bit crazy. And by "crazy," I simultaneously mean both "endearingly quirky" and "frighteningly unbalanced." It's one of the many things I love about her, and I believe it's a primary reason she has accomplished so much thus far in her young life.

Chloe is intensely self-motivated in the way only the most talented eccentrics can be. Whatever she sets her mind to, she does. And she does it well. Soccer, music, academics, lopping people's heads off. Whatever it is, Chloe is driven to be the best.

One result is that – again, if everything went according to plan and she avoided any sort of legal entanglement – Chloe had the honor of giving a speech at last night's graduation ceremony as the Salutatorian of her class. Her academic achievements earned her a complete scholarship to the University of Akron, where God willing she will study biomedical engineering beginning this fall.

I shouldn't call it a "complete" scholarship because I think we still have to pay for books. But saying that is really looking a gift horse in the mouth, since the scholarship covers four full years' worth of tuition and room and board. As a father of five children, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that particular blessing.

She was also named the Most Valuable Player on her high school soccer team last fall based almost solely on a strong left foot and the ability to run seemingly forever and ever. She was never the fastest or most athletic person on that team, but she excelled through sheer force of will.

Which is how I expect she'll also succeed in life. When Chloe wants something, she's not to be denied, regardless of what natural tools or gifts she may or may not have. She wants it, she'll have it, she gets it. Maybe not every time, but close to it.

But you know what? While that's all well and good, and it largely describes who Chloe is, it neglects the fact that she also has an immense capacity to love. Her heart is bigger than even the Grinch's was when it grew three sizes in one day. She is passionate and she is loyal, and those are qualities I will always admire in her.

So working under the assumption that Wickliffe High School did indeed last night confer upon Chloe a piece of paper making her an official high school graduate, we hit another milestone in our family. We're not the first, and we won't be the last, but it does mean that we've gotten 40% of our children through the Wickliffe school system. Two down, three to go.

Congratulations, Chloe. You deserve all of the wonderful things people have said about you over the past few weeks, and I know you'll earn many more compliments along the way. I hope you know how much I love you, not only because I'm your father, but also because I want to stay on that list of people who are safe from your sword...

One soldier's life, long forgotten

(NOTE: The following post originally ran on May 28, 2012, and I bring it back three years later as my little nod to Memorial Day, one of the lower profile if more profound American holidays. Enjoy your day.)

Every Memorial Day, I think of Merwin Brewer.

There probably aren't many people who think of Merwin Brewer on Memorial Day anymore, or on any other day, for that matter. He has been dead for nearly a century.

Merwin Brewer was an American soldier who died on the Western Front at the tail end of World War I. His official address was listed as Cleveland, Ohio, but he was born in my hometown of Wickliffe, Ohio. Our local American Legion post is partially named after him (Brewer-Tarasco).

The annual Memorial Day parade is a big deal here in Wickliffe. It's one of the better parades around, with two marching bands, lots of candy, and 45 minutes or so of entertainment for anyone willing to stand and watch the whole thing.

Every year, the American Legion used to have a group of local kids walk in the parade carrying signs with the names of Wickliffe natives who died in war. And every year at the front of this group was a young person holding a sign emblazoned with Merwin Brewer's name.

The 30 seconds or so it takes for that sign to pass by us is the only time the Memorial Day parade turns truly somber for me. This is partly because, as I've mentioned before, I have a morbid fascination with the First World War and the way millions of young men were killed during it. No war is good, but this one was particularly tragic.

According to this web page, Merwin Brewer died on November 13, 1918, from earlier wounds sustained in combat. That was two days after the war in Europe had ended. No one wants to be the last man killed in a war that’s already over, but Merwin was one of those who fell just short of making it through alive.

Merwin served in the Argonne and in Flanders, both the scenes of brutal, bloody fighting. I often wonder exactly how he died. Probably from a shrapnel wound. Artillery was the #1 killer in the war, and countless soldiers succumbed to infections and internal injuries suffered when they were hit by flying hunks of metal from exploding artillery shells.

His story doesn't sound particularly distinctive. His life ended the same way millions of others ended, probably in some military hospital. But Merwin Brewer is as real to me as any one of my family and friends, because he was born in the same place I was born. He was a real person whose death, now long forgotten, probably brought unimaginable grief and sorrow to his family back in Ohio.

He was only 23 years old. Just a baby. "Virgins with rifles," that's what Sting called the soldiers of the First World War.

I'm as guilty as anyone of treating Memorial Day as a festive day off from work instead of a time for reflection. But while I'm eating my grilled hamburger later today or lounging outside with my family, I promise I'll spend at least another couple of minutes thinking about Merwin Brewer.

It seems like the least I can do.

Guys, here are three reasons you should just listen to what your wife says

I've been married for nearly 23 years. Not as long as many people I know, but longer than some. I'm occasionally asked how Terry and I make it work, and when it's a guy/husband doing the asking, I always tell him one thing:

It's largely because I just do what Terry tells me to do.

Seriously. 98% of the time, if she says something, I pretty much follow her lead. And it works.

Here's why:

(1) She's smart: I'm not saying your wife is necessarily smarter than you, though my experience suggests she probably is. Regardless, if your wife is like mine, she's pretty sharp and will very rarely steer you wrong.

(2) She has thought this through: Chances are, whatever big decision you're considering or whatever task you're facing, your wife has given this far more thought than you have. This isn't universal, of course, and many guys I know are very thoughtful in their decision-making. But by and large, my wife spends more time thinking about important issues than I do, from how we raise our children to whether or not we should move to Florida. So in most cases, her argument is more well-reasoned then mine, seeing as how I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about hockey and apples. In cases where hockey and/or apples are important elements of the issue at hand, she allows me to make the final call. In all other instances, I defer to her.

(3) There's less effort involved on your part: Maybe this just applies to me, but I'm generally looking for the path of least resistance. And given items #1 and #2 above, I think you'll agree that your wife's judgment is likely to be sound. Therefore, you don't need to go down the path upon which she has already trodden. Go along with whatever she says and you have that much more time and energy to dwell upon your own personal version of hockey and apples, whatever it might be.

Stupid boy stuff my friends and I used to do when we were much younger

I'm not saying girls don't do anything of this, but I am saying that most of the girls I knew when I was, say, 12 years old were far too smart to spend their time engaged in the types of idiotic activities that occupied the boys with whom I hung out. To wit:

Play inside empty train cabooses
It's not like this was really dangerous or anything, but it most definitely was illegal. And somehow we never got caught/arrested. The train crews always seemed to leave the cabooses unlocked, so we would go in there and just hang out. And we also stole some flares, which itself I guess was also illegal. This is not something I have to worry about my own sons doing because trains don't even have cabooses anymore.

Throw firecrackers into dry leaves
Actually, I'm the only one in my circle of friends I ever remember doing this. I was playing with a pack of Jumping Jacks I'd, um, borrowed from my dad. I was with my nephew Mark, who had to have been only 6 or 7 years old at the time. We were by the old Mapledale Elementary School, and ringing the building was a two-foot-high pile of dry leaves. My genius idea was to light a Jumping Jack and throw it into these leaves, so that's what I did. The leaves, of course, immediately caught fire, and the flames started spreading rapidly around the perimeter of the building. Mark and I of course ran away as fast as we could. Someone who was there told the cops I had done it, and by the time I got home, there was a Wickliffe police cruiser waiting in the driveway for me. My mother was, to put it mildly, not happy.

Take small rafts out onto Lake Erie
Geez, seriously, I'm not even sure what we were thinking here. We had this little one-man (actually, it was more like a half-man) raft that we used to paddle out several hundred yards into Lake Erie. That's Lake Erie, a shallow Great Lake with a reputation for nasty undercurrents. And I was never a very good swimmer. I should have died at least a half-dozen times doing this. Don't try telling me there's no God.

Ding-Dong Ditch
This is an activity with which you're probably familiar. You knock on a door or ring a doorbell and run away before the occupant of the house can come to the door. And...that's pretty much it. Except we didn't call it Ding-Dong Ditch, as it's known in some parts of the country. We called it something extremely racially offensive that I won't even type here. The point is, we did this and it was stupid. And looking back, I want to smack my younger self for it.

Riding our bikes over homemade ramps
A lot of guys did this and most turned out just fine. I tried it once. Only once. Because when I did it, I took the ramp at full speed and was launched over the handlebars of my bike, landing hard on the concrete sidewalk and knocking the wind out of myself for the first and only time in my life. Couldn't breathe for a solid 10-15 seconds. It was scary. I left my bike there and staggered across the street to my house, where I collapsed onto the living room couch and proceeded to bleed profusely for the next half hour while my mom bandaged me up.

Climb onto the roof of the school
This was mostly harmless, I suppose, if you ignore the risk of falling off and fracturing our skulls. But it also led to the other time the police showed up at my house. A friend and I were on top of Mapledale not really doing anything. Just, again, hanging out. But a group of girls saw us and told someone, and that someone felt the need to call the cops. And...well, once again, my mother took a dim view of the proceedings.

Throw rocks at each other
Again, why? We used to whip rocks at each other all the time. In any given summer day, you could expect to have at least 1-2 rocks thrown at your head. And that was considered normal. One time we were down at the same (private/no trespassing) beach from which we used to take those rafts out onto the lake and we were, of course, flinging rocks at each other. My friend Matt jumped into the air to avoid one of my volleys, and all that did was make it so the rock hit him in the shin instead of the stomach. It opened up a big cut. Matt bled everywhere. We took him to a nearby drug store and were given a few band-aids to cover up the wound. I think he ended up needing stitches. And I'm not lying when I say it was one of the proudest moments of my life. What a great throw that was.

Go into the woods and light fires and swing hatchets
Yeah, back to the fire again. We were little pyromaniacs. But when we went into Douglas Woods, a several-acre patch of trees and dirt trails near our houses, we also added sharp landscaping implements to the mix. Which we did occasionally throw at each other, but not nearly as often as the rocks. Seriously, they should have just euthanized the lot of us.

Play "Tetanus"
OK, last one. My friend Todd and I would play a game in his basement that we dubbed "Tetanus." He would throw darts at my feet and I would try to get out of the way of them. That was it. That was the whole game. And I escaped almost every time. A few darts hit me, but only one ever actually went through my sock and drew blood. And for the record, I never came down with tetanus. I win.

Running, walking, whatever...we all just need to move more

You know that whole thing about getting 10,000 steps a day and how important it is? Yeah, that's actually real.

Not the exact "10,000" number. That's kind of arbitrary.

It's the idea of moving a whole lot more than we Americans do now. We tend to be a very sedentary people. Not all of us, of course, but a whole lot of us.

I'll bet that most people overestimate the number of steps they get in a day unless they wear a pedometer and already know. Because if you're going to go for that 10,000 steps (which again is a good target if not a scientifically precise minimum), you'll find that it's actually quite a distance.

Stride lengths differ, but on average, 10,000 steps means five miles. Do you move five miles in a single day? I'm talking throughout the whole day, whether it's part of an intentional exercise session or not. You probably don't.

But you should.

Eat less, move more. If we did that, we would spend a LOT less on health care. And we would be happier. And fitter. And wouldn't have to shop in the "Husky" section for our clothes.

As it turns out, it doesn't matter much how you get those steps: Run, walk, whatever. Just go.

I happen to be both a walker and a runner these days, depending on my mood and how my muscles feel. Running is more efficient in terms of getting your requisite number of steps in a relatively short period of time. But the downside of running, of course, is that you have to be smart about it. Unless you're genetically programmed to withstand a good dose of daily stress to your joints and leg muscles, you need to take rest days, and you need to be strategic about the way you warm up and the pace at which you run.

Which is why so many people opt instead for walking. Even brisk walking isn't nearly as hard on your body as running is. It's just that it takes longer. You can get essentially the same benefits as you would on a run assuming you're willing and able to invest the time.

Honestly, I think your doctor will tell you it's not how you get your steps in every day, it's that you actually do it. Stay active. Schedule walking/running time, yes, but also include the little things in your day. Take the farthest parking spot that forces you to walk a little more. Climb stairs instead of taking an elevator. Occasionally walk what might otherwise be a short car trip for running errands. Stuff like that.

And do it every day. Every. Single. Day.

I don't like to be preachy about this stuff, but I'm going to do it anyway. I lost a father and a sister to heart disease, and while I realize we're all going to die in the end regardless, I would rather have you all around for as long as possible, if that's OK.

So get off your computer or your phone and go take a walk. Or a run. Whatever. Just move.

What I miss and what I don't miss about having babies in the house

WHAT I MISS: The free food and drink they stock in a refrigerator at the hospital especially for dads. That was awesome.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Gallons and gallons of breast milk (frozen and otherwise) in our own refrigerator at home.


WHAT I MISS: Laying down with a baby fast asleep on my shoulder.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Laying down and wanting desperately to sleep with a baby on my shoulder that won't stop crying.


WHAT I MISS: Pooh Bear videos.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Barney videos. (And let me just say that I was never really anti-Barney. But a person can only take so much...)


WHAT I MISS: The Diaper Genie. What an ingenious invention.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: The Diaper Genie when it was full and needed emptying. The smell inside of that thing was...debilitating. I think that's the word for it. One whiff and you were unable to do much of anything (including maintaining consciousness) for five full minutes.


WHAT I MISS: Freshly bathed babies.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Actually bathing the babies.


WHAT I MISS: The excitement of pregnancy and the impending arrival of a new addition to the family, made even more exciting by the fact that I wasn't the one who had to carry the little demon around in my abdomen for 9+ months.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Actually getting home with the baby and remembering that newborns are an insane amount of work.


WHAT I MISS: Setting up the playpen, knowing it was going to give you some hands-free time.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Taking down the playpen, knowing that I would either have to lug it somewhere when we left the house or set it up again 15 minutes later because we were already tired of holding the baby again.


WHAT I MISS: First smiles, first laughs, first words, first steps.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: First projectile vomiting, first teething, first non-breast milk poo, first tantrum.


WHAT I MISS: Watching my wife turn into a superhero of organization and energy as she cared for first one, then two, then three, then four, then five kids while I went off to work every day and basically abandoned her.

WHAT I DON'T MISS: Watching my wife dissolve into a puddle of tears and exhaustion when she was pretty sure she couldn't do it anymore (NOTE: She always got through it anyway because, as mentioned above, she's a superhero.)

The preset radio stations in your car and what they say about you (probably not much)

Want to really get to know someone? The first thing you should do is watch how they treat servers in restaurants and cashiers in stores. That's going to tell you a lot.

The second thing to do is to sneak into their car (break in if you have to, this is important) and see what stations they have pre-programmed into their radio.

I suppose you could also see what CDs they have there, but for now stick with me on the radio thing.

Generally speaking, cars nowadays have far more radio presets than you or I need. My 2005 Honda Accord, for example, gives you the option of setting up to 12 FM stations and 6 AM stations. I need maybe half that, though I did populate them all because I felt like I had to.

But really, when I'm not listening to a book on CD, I only engage with five or so of my preset FM stations and two of the AM channels.

Still, even the ones I don't listen to often might tell you something about me, mainly that I have a short attention span and can't figure out what I want to hear.

Here are my radio presets in numerical/frequency order:


FM

• 90.3 WCPN ideastream: This is our local National Public Radio affiliate, which I really only listen to on Saturday mornings when they play "Whad'ya Know?" and reruns of "Car Talk." My conservative friends will tell me that listening to NPR poisons my mind.
• 92.3 The Fan: A sports talk station. Most of the guys on this station annoy me, yet I still listen. Am I that desperate? Apparently so.
• 95.5 The Fish and 103.3 Moody Radio: The two Christian-themed stations on my dial. I honestly don't spend a lot of time on either, but I at least consider it. That counts for something, right?
• 96.5 KISS FM: One of the stations I have here solely for the purpose of listening to when I have one of my kids in the car with me. I'm familiar with maybe 3% of the songs they play.
• 98.5 Classic Rock: "Classic Rock" used to mean the same five Rush songs played over and over. Now occasionally they throw in some early 80's Van Halen, which is nice.
• 100.7 WMMS: The Buzzard! This station has no identity now, as far as I can tell. You'll hear just about anything.
• 102.1 FM: This was "Adult Contemporary" when I was growing up, now it's at least a little more hip. It makes us 40-somethings feel better about ourselves for listening to it, I think.
• 104.1 FM: Very Top 40-ish. See entry above on 96.5 KISS FM.
• 104.9 FM WCLV - Classical: I'm really into classical music these days, so this is probably the station to which I listen the most. They're affiliated with our NPR station above, prompting me to throw some cash their way every month. I listen to "The First Program" every morning because the pieces are short and relaxing, and I listen to "Symphony at 7:00" whenever I have a long day at work and I'm still driving home at that time. Great stuff.
• 105.7 FM: "Oldies." And they're starting to play a lot of 80s music with which I grew up and which now qualifies as "old." Kill me now.
• 106.5 The Lake: Their motto? "We play anything." What their motto should be? "We play anything, as long as it's New Wave or Hair Metal released between 1981 and 1988."

AM

• 850 ESPN Cleveland: More sports talk and the main radio home of my beloved Lake Erie Monsters hockey team. They have "Mike and Mike" in the mornings, which I like and like.
• 1100 WTAM: This is our local 50,000 watt behemoth news/talk/sports/traffic station. Every city has one, and you unavoidably end up on this station from time to time to check on a traffic back-up on your way to work or if you just want to listen to a baseball game for a few innings on a lazy Saturday afternoon in July.
• Four other AM stations that I can't even identify: Because they're all essentially the same. I have almost no use for them, but there's an OCD part of me that can't stand the thought of these preset slots being tuned to nothing but dead air. I'm like that.

If I never had to sleep, this is what I would do

The biggest problem in my life is that I have to carve out time to sleep.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sleeping. But honestly, sleep gets in the way of everything I want to do. I'm forever changing my exercise routine/life plan because I have limited time in the morning and therefore have to make compromises, and I can't decide sometimes which activities are worth keeping and which can be jettisoned.

But if you gave me a pill that made it so I didn't have to sleep, I'm pretty sure a typical night would go like this for me:

10:30 p.m. - Say good night to Terry because I won't give her any of my "No Sleep" pills, and therefore she has to go to bed. Besides, I think she likes sleeping too much to give it up.

10:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. - I would watch a new movie or TV program every night. There are thousands of movies and TV shows on which I would love to catch up. Some are old, some are new. I'm assuming here I would never exhaust the available supply of new entertainment and that I wouldn't get bored of it.

12:30 a.m.-1:30 a.m. - Read for an hour. Anything, really. Just read. I never get to read. I love to read. I've loved to read since I was four years old.

1:30 a.m.-2:00 a.m. - Since I'm already doing the reading thing, I would get my daily Bible reading in here. I've been trying to get through the Bible start to finish this year for the first time since 2000, so I would set aside these 30 minutes to get my Bible on.

2:00-3:30 a.m. - Run 10 miles. I would do this every night if I could. Of course I would have to build back up to this level of stamina, but I love running in the dark and in the quiet. Running 70 miles a week takes a toll on the joints, though, so I might turn this into a walk sometimes...

3:30 a.m.-4:00 a.m. - After my run I would meditate for a half hour. Or maybe do tai chi or something.

4:00 a.m.-4:30 a.m. - Shower and dress.

4:30 a.m.-5:30 a.m. - I would read the Cleveland Plain Dealer, New York Times and Wall Street Journal back to back to back. I so wish I had more time for something beyond a cursory reading of the paper every day.

5:30 a.m.-5:45 a.m. - Feed the cats and clean their litter boxes. This is a chore that never goes away.

5:45 a.m.-6:30 a.m. - Listen to music. It might be a symphony, some bebop jazz, a succession of 80s tunes, an entire album from a favorite artist, whatever. Just listen to music and absorb it. That would be fun.

6:30 a.m.-7:00 a.m. - Eat breakfast and greet my poor family, who by this point will have wasted the whole night sleeping.

7:00 a.m. - Leave for work.

I'm telling you, that would be a series of awesome nights...

The father's long journey (Blog Rerun)

(NOTE: Once a month or so, I like to resurrect a past blog post and run it, largely because it saves me from having to write a new one. This is one I'm bringing back because I just really like it, and because the feeling I describe is even more intense now than it was when this post first ran on April 18, 2012. I hope you enjoy it.)


On Tuesdays, Terry babysits a 2-year-old girl named Ava. Ava gets dropped off around 7 in the morning and doesn't leave until 5 or 5:30 in the afternoon, so we see a lot of her when she's here.

Like many 2-year-olds, Ava takes afternoon naps. I am insanely jealous of Ava for this. I would give almost anything (and I'm not kidding) for the privilege of taking afternoon naps. Or morning naps. Or just about any kind of nap to supplement the sleep I get at night.

Anyway, Ava takes naps. She does this in a playpen Terry keeps in our walk-in closet. She puts Ava down in there, turns on a fan for white noise, and usually has a few hours to herself after that. Ava is an expert sleeper, at least when she really wants to be.

A lot of times after Ava leaves, I'll come home from work and the playpen will still be set up in the closet. Often I'll just grumble about it and walk around the playpen as I take off my work clothes and put on whatever clothes are needed for that evening's activities.

But other times I'll stow the playpen away myself, thus taking at least one small thing off of Terry's seemingly endless to-do list. It's one of those Pack and Play models that folds up into a relatively compact 3-foot rectangle. We've had it since 1994, the year my oldest daughter was born. I have put up and taken down that playpen so many times in the ensuing 18 years, I'm pretty sure I could do it in my sleep (and I probably have done just that at some point when one of our kids or another was keeping us up nights).

I generally don't think anything of it, because this is a chore that literally takes all of 60 seconds to complete. But the other day I was taking down the playpen and it felt strange to me. Really strange. Like it belonged to someone else.

Never mind that this playpen is ours and always has been ours. Never mind that Terry is probably the only person who has lugged it around more than I have, or that all five of my kids have slept and/or played in it at some point in their lives. It just didn't feel like it had anything to do with me.

Nowadays, almost nothing related to my kids' babyhood feels connected to me. I come across an old baby toy and it seems like it's from someone else's life altogether. I feel so far removed from baby toys and bottles and playpens and strollers and pacifiers and diapers and the whole thing that it's hard to believe I helped raise five kids. You could almost convince me we didn't have any of them when they were babies, and that instead someone dropped each of them off at our house when they turned 6 years old.

I know that's not true, of course. There is photographic evidence that I have been, in fact, a father of newborns. And infants and toddlers, too. There are all sorts of pictures of me holding babies, burping babies, feeding babies, sleeping with babies on my chest, etc. And I remember it all. But still, there's this strange feeling that it happened to someone else years and years and years ago. I'm only 42. Why do I feel like this?

I guess it's because I'm inundated with Older Kid Experiences now: middle school, high school, driving lessons, college tours, etc. We still have little Jack tying us back to pre-adolescence, but as far as I can tell, it has been 100 years since he was born. It's all just so distant.

Since I've become aware of this strange feeling, I've been hoping my brain could make some sense of it. After all, I've been a father for less than 20 years. That's really not all that long, when you think about it. It's not like I'm an 80-year-old grandpa whose parenting years are far, far behind him. I'm still in the middle of this great test, and I'll continue being in the middle of it for many more years.

But still, I feel...finished with part of it, I guess. Maybe this is God's way of telling me, "Good job, young man. (NOTE: To God, we're all young.) You got through this much of it just fine, like I said you would. Remember all those times you doubted whether you could take one more night of walking the floor with a crying baby? Those days at work when you wondered whether you would make ends meet? Those times when you questioned whether you were any good at being a dad? I know you still ask those questions. But I want you to realize how far you've come, and I want you to realize that you'll make it to the end.

"And most of all, I want you to continue relying on Me. I know sometimes you forget I'm there, and that's OK. For a little while, at least. I'll always be there to nudge you and remind you where your strength comes from. So just keep on going. You'll always be a parent, just like I will always be Your Father, and you still have a long way to go. But having come this far should tell you that you're in good hands."

Yeah, that's probably it.

10 things I always meant to learn how to do but haven't gotten around to yet

1. Be a good bowler

2. Fly a plane

3. Speak Latin (I tried a few years ago)

4. Rewire something...anything

5. Write legibly

6. Dive headfirst into water (or swim, for that matter)

7. Put up a tent

8. Ice skate backwards

9. Drive a stick shift

10. Play bridge

I take a lot of showers, and they're all the same

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I take more than 700 showers every year. If you were to videotape a random sampling of, say, 20 of these showers, you would be amazed by one thing.

(NOTE: OK, stop right there. At this point I could be going in a number of directions with this, most of them not very nice. Rest assured, though, that that lead paragraph was written with the best of intentions. Read on...)

What you would find is that all of my showers are identical. And when I say "identical," I mean it. Every time I step into the shower, I do the same things in the same order. Every. Time. I'll bet my showers are essentially the same length, probably all within 15 seconds or so of each other.

I don't do this intentionally, mind you. It's just that after thousands and thousands of showers over the years, I've developed a system that works for me: Wash my hair, rinse, grab the soap and work from top to bottom starting at the neck, rinse, wash my face using whatever face wash stuff I happen to have, rinse yet again. Turn off water. Grab towel, dry off. Move on from there.

I do not deviate from this pattern. Is that weird? I'm guessing it's actually pretty common. I'll bet most of us have a bathing routine that rarely changes, whether we realize it or not.

I also put on my clothes in the same order every day, but again, I would venture that you do, too.

Or am I just trying to make myself feel better about being an obsessive-compulsive freak?

Talk to your parents (and grandparents) about their history

Today is May Day. It's a "holiday" that means almost nothing to me, except it makes me think of my dad.

My father served for several years in the U.S. Army, including in the occupation army of Japan. He enlisted as a 17-year-old and was immediately sent overseas, as I understand it.

Most of his Japan stories had to do with drinking buddies and surly MPs. He entered the military in 1946, which technically was a year after the Japanese surrender that ended World War II, so he never saw combat.

But over time, it became clear to me that he saw "combat-like" conditions a time or two, and he wasn't all that eager to talk about it.

The most detail I ever got out of him was around a May Day incident in Japan in which I'm fairly certain he saw Japanese civilians mowed down by machine gun fire. May Day is also International Workers Day, which for obvious reasons was an important holiday for the Communist Party.

Now remember, we're talking late 40s/early 50s here. The Cold War was heating up rapidly, and Americans' biggest fear was the Red Menace. Even in U.S.-occupied Japan there was a burgeoning Communist Party, and its members were apparently allowed to celebrate/demonstrate on May 1st.

To a point. As my dad told it, the pro-communist demonstrators on this particular May Day were told they could assemble, but that they were not to cross a certain line. My dad was for whatever reason part of the detail assigned to police them and keep them confined to their designated area.

When several crossed the line, the American soldiers did as instructed and opened fire. Many of the demonstrators were killed. It was probably the only time my father watched human beings get shot, given that he served in what was primarily a peace-time capacity.

I didn't push for too many details, but I remember asking him a few questions about the incident when he first told it to me. I was probably a teenager at the time, and I was stunned that I had never heard this story.

He provided a few short answers and then changed the subject. I never brought it up again after that and he never volunteered any other details.

While I certainly wouldn't have wanted him to relive something he would rather not have relived, from a selfish perspective I've always been glad he told me that story because it revealed to me a side of my dad that I didn't often see. We talked a lot, but it was always about sports or, frankly, about me. It took me years to piece together his personal story because he simply didn't talk about it a lot.

My point, I guess, is that that's not how it should be. Painful stories aside, all of our parents and grandparents have histories that are worth telling, and most of the time they're eager to tell them. But you and I are too busy going about our daily routines sometimes to stop and ask them about it.

Don't let that happen. Ask. Take time to listen. You'll be surprised not only by what you learn about them, but also about yourself and what makes you the person you are.

Looking at old pictures and hearing old stories is one of the greatest ways you can bond with a parent or grandparent. So go do it. Right now, if you can.

Trust me, those errands can wait.