OK, Dad, now I see what you meant

I moved away from home in March 1992 at the age of 22. Terry and I had just bought our first house, and I went off to live in it by myself for three months before we got married (the full extent of my bachelorhood, I guess).

Sometime later that year, after I had been gone for several months, I was at my parents' house when my dad said something I thought was a little sad at the time, but that I never fully understood until recently.

He and I were talking about something or other to do with Cleveland sports. We did that all the time. He was giving one of his long and convoluted opinions on why this coach wasn't the right fit for the team or what that franchise had to do to stop losing so much. I don't even remember specifically what he was talking about.

But I do remember what he said when he finished. He said, "At least that's what I think. I don't have anyone to talk about sports with anymore."

He said it with a little smile on his face, but it was the very definition of a sad smile. And I remember feeling a little pang of guilt in the pit of my stomach at his words.

Which, by the way, wasn't at all his intention, I'm sure. He missed having me around the house, and I think it was just his way of letting me know that.

Now fast forward about 25 years.

My son Jared is a freshman in college. He takes a full slate of classes and works a lot of hours at Dick's Sporting Goods. In between, he tries to find time to spend with his girlfriend, Lyndsey, who for the record is pretty awesome and definitely someone worth spending time with.

Jared is my sports kid. From a very young age, he and I have connected over sports. It's my fault he's an ardent Cleveland sports fan. I raised him to live and die with the Browns, Indians and Cavs, and those teams are often our main topics of conversation.

I also raised him to be a diehard hockey fan. He played the sport a little bit, and he knew more about it by the time he was 10 years old than most adults. So we talk hockey, too.

Except we don't talk about hockey or anything else as much as we used to. There just isn't time anymore. He comes home from school or work at 10 in the evening, just as I'm getting ready to go to bed. And I'm out the door the next morning long before he wakes up.

When we do have a few minutes to talk about our favorite subject, we both talk fast, as if we have to cram in everything we've been thinking before it slips our minds. They're fun conversations, punctuated with sarcasm over Cleveland teams' perennial (mis)fortunes and hope that the Cavs' 2016 NBA title won't be the sole championship for us to celebrate in our lifetimes.

Only recently did I gain a full appreciation for what my dad meant when he said he missed having his sports talk buddy around. Jared is my sports talk buddy. I have another son, Jack, but he's not so much of a sports guy, which is fine. He and I connect over other things, and we talk just as much.

It's just that the thing that bonds Jared and me is the same thing that bonded my dad and me. And there's a certain sentimentality and profound sense of legacy in that.

So I get sadder than I probably should be when Jared and I go a few days without talking Browns, Indians, Cavs, Monsters, NHL hockey or whatever. It's no one's fault that it happens, it's just the way it goes when you have a busy college kid and a busy middle-aged dad running in separate directions.

The obvious moral of the story is to take every opportunity to talk with your kids or your parents about whatever it is you have in common, whatever it is you celebrate and fret over together. That could be sports, or it could be a million other things.

What's important is that you never take it for granted.

My dad has been gone for more than 17 years now. In retrospect, I should have stopped over there more often or just called him every once in a while to talk sports. We still had our conversations after I was married, but they weren't as frequent as I would have liked. Certainly not as frequent as they had been when I lived at home.

I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen with me and Jared, especially while he and I still technically live under the same roof.

We'll see how it goes.

Go Tribe. Go Browns. Go Cavs. And go Monsters. My dad would have agreed wholeheartedly.

I'm trying to decide whether Terry and I should move after the kids all leave the nest

It is only in the last five years or so that my wife and I have even mentioned the possibility of eventually living someplace that is not Wickliffe, Ohio.

Neither of us has ever had a mailing address that didn't end with 44092, the zip code for my hometown and the only place I've called home for 48+ years. Born and bred, and well on our way to being lifers.

Except...maybe not.

We've tossed around the idea of living somewhere in the Carolinas, most likely North Carolina. Seems like a nice place.

We've talked about a far less radical move to Willoughby Hills, which is the next town over and a place that bills itself as being "where the city meets the country."

And just recently, Terry wondered whether we should move to one of the Olmsteds (Olmsted Falls, Olmsted Township or North Olmsted), which would cut my 45-minute daily commute by 75+%. An appealing thought, that.

None of this would likely happen until Jack, our youngest, at least graduates high school, and probably not until he graduates college. The boy just turned 12, so we have some time to think about it.

Moving south would mean not having to face the ordeal that is winter in Northeast Ohio. And it's not just the occasional snow shoveling and slippery roads I mind. It's the seemingly endless, depressing, gray slog that gets you (in painfully slow fashion) from November to March.

I know people say they like to watch the seasons change, but if we could arrange it so that it goes from summer to fall and immediately to spring, I think I would be fine with that.

Even a move to the southwest side of Cleveland – which is where the Olmsteds are located – would have its challenges.

You spend your whole life going to the same stores, seeing the same people at the same events, knowing instinctively where everything is. And suddenly, that all changes. You have to reorient yourself to a new existence, even though you're only 35 miles away from the place you grew up.

Most people our age have already had to do this in their lives, and they've done it without a problem. I just wonder how we would react.

Here's the thing: I would not consider it a disaster if in my obituary I'm described as "a lifelong resident of Wickliffe." I like this place. I really do. And I always will. But as time goes by, and as the place we grew up undergoes its own sort of changes, we start to wonder whether it's time to do something most of our friends did decades ago and fly the coop.

Jack is in seventh grade. In five years, he'll be off to college. He's the kind of kid who would likely adapt well if we moved tomorrow and he suddenly found himself a student in the excellent Olmsted Falls school district.

Him I don't worry about. But us? Change definitely gets a lot more difficult the older you get.

We'll see.