Dad at the Chalkboard

My Review of Freshwaterboys by Adam Schuitema

2011-08-04T23:41:00.000-04:00

Well, Litstack went live on Monday and my first review went live today. You can find my review of Adam Schuitema's wonderful collection of short stories here.

Freshwaterboys is a fantastic read that I heartily recommend.

You can also find a short blurb about my favorite novel as a fourteen year old. You can find that here. My entry is number four.

GO check out LITSTACK. Not just my stuff, but all the content. I am very fortunate to ave been asked to fall in with some amazing writers. My time at LITSTACK will be time well spent. Same goes for you.

Stay thirsty, my friends...

LitStack - Coming August 1, 2011

2011-07-31T00:23:00.001-04:00

About a month and a half ago I was offered the chance to jump on staff with a new book review site that was in the works. I immediately said YES because, one, the women who are leading the project are super cool people and two, because I love the idea of the site and I am honored to have my name involved with its awesomeness.

LitStack launches on August 1, 2011, less than thirty-five hours from this very writing. I hope all of you that follow along here at The Chalkboard will check us out on that Monday. Any and all support you can throw us will be greatly appreciated.

So what EXACTLY will LitStack be? I am glad you asked...

LitStack is a new reviews site dedicated to readers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short stories, literary magazines, ebooks, manga and graphic novels. (We'll probably even be posting some spoken-word stuff for the super-artsy types.) The site also features indie bookstores and literary landmarks across the world (one city at a time), and cool bookish finds and news we run across online.

LitStack’s diverse staff comprises writers and reviewers with MFAs and various advanced degrees, writers published in countless literary journals, an Eisner Award nominee, and established authors with large, engaged platforms. But above all else, LitStackers are readers; the site’s aim is to promote the love of storytelling and language in its many and varied forms.

In addition to daily book reviews and regular spotlights on indie bookstores we love, LitStack also features regular segments to promote current titles and build appreciation for older works.

LitStack’s Featured Author- This month-long series of posts includes reviews of previous releases by our Featured Author, along with a current interview and review to coincide with the author’s upcoming release.

LitStaff Picks- Once a week, we feature a collection of books new and old--the favorites of our staff within a specific theme.

ShortStacks - Original short stories and essays by established authors.

Footnotes - Multiple weekly posts highlighting literary events in history, including the birthdays of famous authors, publication and award dates of classic titles, and memorial posts for beloved figures.

Author Interviews - Launch week will feature interviews with Adam Schuitema and Hannah Moskowitz. In the coming weeks, Locus winner Cherie Priest, NYT Bestseller Terry Brooks and Irish Book Awards winner Marian Keyes are scheduled to appear.

(I did the interview with Adam Schuitema...his collection of short stories, Freshwater Boys, is excellent. My review of it will run on LitStack on August fourth!)

The Book Club - Every month LitStack will have a couple of featured titles; a review, open-thread discussion and author Q&A (when available) will be posted for each book so you can read along and share your thoughts.

Sounds awesome doesn't it?

The site goes live on 8/1/11.

Don't forget...LITSTACK

I hope to see you there.

The Fresh Air Fund - Make a Child's Life Better

2011-07-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.

- William Shakespeare

I occasionally get email requests from folks wishing to advertise various products or services here at The Chalkboard. My standard answer is usually a polite "No thank you". I didn't start the blog to sell or promote businesses for money. I like to write and I like to support friends and causes I believe in. If you come here regularly, I hope you enjoy the content you find.

Recently I opened an email from the Fresh Air Fund asking if I would share their program with my readers (all 5 of you). I had never heard of them before so I checked it out. And I am so glad I did.

The Fresh Air Fund is a not-for-profit agency that has, since 1887, provided free summer experiences in the country to more than 1.7 MILLION New York City children from disadvantaged communities. Each year thousands of children visit volunteer host families in thirteen states and Canada through the Friendly Town Program or attend Fresh Air camps.

Two good friends on Facebook responded immediately when I shared the link to the Fresh Air site. They both shared how their families participated in the program each summer when they were young girls and had children come from the city to stay with them in their rural homes. Both remember the experience fondly, the faces of the children their families were able to reach out and help.

Take a moment and please consider supporting this incredibly worthwhile organization.

There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love.

- Mother Theresa

It's Nice to Have Talented Friends - Part Three

2011-07-08T15:37:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday!

I wanted to showcase two amazing women I know and the two amazing blogs they produce. I encourage you to take the time to check them both out. You will find much awesomeness contained therein!

One Times One Hundred

" In essence, I have a MAJOR goal to lose one hundred pounds. The idea of achieving this goal both scares and excites me! Instead of thinking that I have such a huge, impossible goal ahead of me, it's easier to lose just one pound. So I will just lose that one TEENY, WEENY pound. One hundred times!"

My friend Courtney began blogging about her pursuit of healthy weight loss in October of 2010. She set her goal at one hundred pounds of weight lost (hence the great blog name) and has been blogging about the journey. The blog is full of honest dialog about the dogged pursuit of a difficult goal. Like a casual conversation with an old friend, you can sense the ebb and flow of Courtney's emotions as she lets us in on how it feels to pursue not only a weight loss goal, but a life that is completely in balance, in all areas. Full of humor, determination, some BANGING recipes and a whole lotta inspiration, One Times One Hundred is not only worth your time, it may just change your life.

Kiss Gluten Goodbye (Happily!)

One Woman's Quest to Rid Her Family's Table of Gluten, One Recipe at a Time

"I don’t know about you, but when I found out I had a gluten intolerance in August of 2010 I went into shock. My mom describes the time after the diagnosis as a time of grieving. Apparently I would walk into the kitchen, open the cupboard doors, stare at the contents, quietly close the doors and walk away, usually shaking my head and letting out a little sigh."

When my friend Katie received the news from the doctor that she had developed a Gluten intolerance, it is safe to say that she was less than thrilled. One of the great things about people like Katie is that when life throws them a high inside fastball that knocks them to the ground they get right back up, not even taking the time to wipe the dust from their clothes, and get on with the at bat. On her blog Katie presents recipes free of Gluten for the entire Internet to enjoy. If a photo is worth a thousand words, the pictures of Katie's food creations put this blog post well over its character limits.

Go check out these great blogs. Perhaps you or someone you know can benefit on a personal level from the wisdom and skills of these two amazing women.

Drop me a comment, let me know what you think. And share, share, share!

A Life Ended Far Too Soon

2011-07-07T08:17:00.001-04:00

There is something morally repugnant about someone being "taken before their time" as the saying goes. Not that we can truly know when someone's "time" is "supposed" to be up, but we can nevertheless feel shock and anger at the height of the unfairness of a life lost at a young age, under circumstances that are anything but natural.

Early Saturday morning a good friend lost his brother in just such a manner. Chad Richard Litchford, a thirty-one year old father to be and a combat veteran of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was killed when his truck, which he had pulled over to the side of the road because it was having mechanical problems, was struck by a vehicle being driven by an allegedly drunk driver when it drifted over the white line and onto the shoulder. The truck slammed into Chad's truck and moments later his life was ended.

I was fortunate enough to have met Chad a few times. I recall speaking with him and listening in a kind of awe as he recounted to my stepfather and I some of his stories from his time in Iraq. He spoke of dangerous environments and daring actions with a casual air, as I would of a typical day in the classroom where the greatest danger I face is maybe having to take a late lunch. He didn't put on airs or puff out his chest. He was doing his duty. It was as simple as that.

The absurdness of what happened early Saturday morning on an anonymous stretch of Texas roadway cries out for understanding, for some sort of acceptable clarity. How can it be, we are left to wonder, that a man can spend years in some of the most dangerous and violent of places on the planet, where the very uniform he voluntarily donned each day made him a target of violence, that a man who was willing to lay down his life to protect the flag I salute each morning with my students, to protect the very freedoms scores of men and women who had gone before him had given their lives to enshrine and protect, did not face his final moments on a field of battle, but on a deserted Texas road.

Not at the hands of a confirmed enemy he had been trained to engage.

But at the hands of a citizen of the very country he fought to protect, whose mind and driving reflexes were most likely dulled by excessive amounts of alcohol and the lateness of the hour.

We cry out for understanding...but there is none to be had. Sometimes life simply defies any attempt at understanding.

So we remember. We remember the life of a man who served his country, willingly and repeatedly. We remember the life of a soldier, a brother, a father, a son. We remember the laughter, the fun times, a history shared and yes, even the tough times. We remember that we were privileged to have known this man. We wrap our arms around a family that is in pain, that struggles to deal with the hole that has been punched into the fabric of their reality. We remind them that they are surrounded by many who are ready at the drop of a hat to do whatever they need at this difficult time.

Though Chad's time on earth may have been short, the memories of his life will not be. The memories of those who we have lost stay with us. Though we age, they do not. The joy and the pain, the laughter and the tears, the good and the bad. Our memories become a part of our soul, stitched there to remain forever. And though life will continue to swirl about us, though events will still occur for which we have little or no understanding, the memories that become a part of us will never leave.

My thoughts and prayers are with the entire Litchford family.

Chad Richard Litchford 1980 - 2011

Joplin, Missouri and Will Norton Tribute by S2JVox

2011-07-06T16:35:00.001-04:00

Hey there folks. Been a busy time around here. I have some posts in the works plus some good writing news that is not quite ready to share...yet...but I wanted to drop this gem in your browser.

I have already told you about S2JVox. This past weekend they released a song and video in memory of Will Norton and all those whose lives were impacted by the devastating F5 tornado that ripped through Joplin Missouri on May 22 of this year. You don't need my words. Listen to theirs. Then, should you be so inspired (as I was) I have included links for relief efforts after the video.

JOPLIN DISASTER RESPONSE

HONOR WILL NORTON - DONATIONS

GREATER KANSAS CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

It's Nice to Have Talented Friends - Part Two

2011-06-29T16:13:00.000-04:00

Last week I posted about my friend Sean's group S2JVox. (Go check them out on ReverbNation...they are constantly updating their site)

It had never occurred to me to use this blog as a way to share the awesome talents of the people I have been fortunate enough to meet and call friend. The post about S2JVox got a LOT of hits and a good deal of positive feedback. I don't know why sharing my friend's talents did not occur to me before and I am grateful to Sean for giving me the opportunity to realize it.

So, with that knowledge in mind, it occurred to me not to stop there.

My friend PJ is an actor in New York and he is involved in what I think, and I am sure you will agree, is an amazing project.

It is called Orange Alert.

Orange Alert is a play in two acts on loss, construction and love that takes place in the present in the shadow of Ground Zero. I encourage you to check out the two videos below. Head over to the project page and read more about this worthwhile project.

What do you think?

It's Nice to Have Talented Friends - S2JVox

2011-06-25T00:30:00.001-04:00

I have many talented friends. Some I have known for years, some I have met only within the last year or two.

One of those i have met recently is an awesome guy named Sean. He is one of three of a talented group called S2JVox. They combine one female and two male voices to create beautiful music. They have a facebook page and a twitter page. Check out the videos below and give them a follow. You won't regret it.

They also have their own YouTube channel. Find it here.

Go check them out. Tell them the Chalkboard Dad sent ya!

Homecoming

2011-06-23T23:53:00.001-04:00

The following is my entry for the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog's second Flash Fiction challenge. I hope you enjoy it and as always, welcome any comments you might have.

The first thing I become aware of is the feel of the rocks. I look down at my feet and note with some alarm that they are shoeless. I flex my toes and feel the pressure of several small stones that I am standing on. My eyes rise slowly and follow the path of a dirt road, dotted with the same small stones and pebbles. From my vantage point the road seems to stretch on into forever in both directions, a landscape resigned to sameness.

I begin to walk.

Standing tall on either side, a wall of corn stalks moves with the road, a perfectly parted sea of green. A gentle breeze stirs the long leaves, the sound of rustled pages in an old library. I look up into a sky of clouds, an iron gray shield through which the sun is powerless to penetrate.

It suddenly dawns on me to wonder exactly where I am. I have no memory of where this road began or even how I came to be on it.

I continue to walk past the stalks of the whispering corn plants. There is no other sound. The clouds move slowly overhead. I walk for a time. It is impossible to know how long exactly without the benefit of the sun. The landscape around me remains unchanged, the corn my sole companion.

Still, I walk.

That’s when I spot a figure standing in the road up ahead. Too far away to make out a face or any other defining characteristics, the figure stands still in the middle of my road. Anxious to speak to another person, to find out where I am, I pick up the pace, my bare feet sending up small puffs of dust that the constant breeze tosses into the corn behind me.

As I get closer the figure’s face comes into focus.

What I see stops me dead. I stare, the only action I seem capable of.

The man in front of me, perhaps sensing the shutdown of my mental circuitry, closes the gap between us. Impossibly he stands before me.

“Josh?” I whisper, shock robbing my voice of any real strength.

My brother nods and smiles.

My mind screams that this cannot be. The last time I saw my brother’s face was when I said my goodbyes, when I laid that photograph of the two of us at the old lake house when we were kids beside his still body as it lay in its casket, clad in his finest military dress uniform.

“Josh…how…” I begin, trying to make sense out of what my eyes tell me I am seeing.

Suddenly the clues fall into place in my mind, like so many dominoes pushed by an invisible hand. Understanding floods my soul with a peace so complete no words ever uttered on this Earth would ever do it justice.

My long lost brother raises his arms, tears beginning to spill from the corners of his hazel eyes.

“Welcome home, brother.”

The Pottermore Reveal...

2011-06-23T08:04:00.002-04:00

...is not too much of a reveal. JUST enough to stir the interest even more. The site looks very intriguing. Looking forward to seeing more.

What writer has more popular sway and influence than Rowling? It will be very interesting to see where she goes with this. As a big fan myself (I remember reading book two when it came out...been hooked ever since) I definitely plan to get involved.

What do you think?

I am off to "follow the owl"...

Happy Father's Day (It's the DAD Life)

2011-06-19T22:50:00.002-04:00

As Father's Day 2011 comes to a close I leave you all with a great video.

Word.

The Twenty-Six Year Old Hug or Why One Should Never Laugh in a Deserted Funeral Home

2011-06-05T15:19:00.003-04:00

At around 4:30 AM on Monday, May 30, 2011 my grandmother died.

If it hadn't been for the keyboard, I would have missed what occurred at 9:45 AM on Friday, June 3, 2011.

That's when, five days after she died, my grandmother spoke to me for the last time.

On Thursday morning we were sitting in the auditorium at The Peanut's school, waiting for her kindergarten farewell concert to begin. My mother was going over the funeral plans with The Wife, my mother-in-law, and me. 'Nana', as we have always called her, is a deeply devoted Christian woman. She had been ill for a long time so death's approach was not exactly a surprise. When she discussed her impending funeral with my mother, she told her that she wanted several hymns sung at her service. The only problem with that turned out to be that there was no piano or organ available for Mom to play at the funeral home. My mother-in-law, who has been taking piano lessons for a year now, offered us the use of her electric keyboard so Mom didn't have to lead everyone in singing the songs A Capella.

Friday morning, the day of the funeral, I drove over to my in-law's house to pick up the keyboard and its three piece stand. I loaded it up in the back of my car and drove over to the funeral home. I pulled up the winding driveway and parked the car right at the front entrance. A kindly old lady in a day-glow yellow shirt and interestingly checkered pants met me at the door. She was expecting me and I was ushered into the viewing room.

I was surprised to see that Nana was already in the room. No flowers or anything yet, just her body, resting in a chestnut colored casket. I registered her presence then got to the task at hand. It took me about fifteen minutes to get all the pieces out of the car and assembled correctly at the front of the room, to the left of the casket. For the first ten minutes, the woman in the gods offending bright yellow shirt sat and watched me, as if afraid to leave me alone with the body, sure that should she turn her back or leave the room I would leap up from my spot on the floor, sharpie marker in hand, and draw an evil handlebar mustache and matching pointy beard on nana's restful face. She just sat there and watched me. No conversation, just the optical scream of her shirt and the regularity of her short, quick breaths.

I finished putting the stand together and just needed to attach and screw in the keyboard itself when the phone in the office next door began to ring.

"Will you be alright if I go answer that?" she asked me.

I assured her that I would. I even put the screwdriver down and made sure she saw my empty hands to put her at ease. She nodded and shuffled out to take the call. I had the keyboard attached and screwed safely in place three minutes later.

My task complete, I walked over to Nana's casket. She lay there peacefully, arms to her sides, dressed in a beautiful purple beaded dress that I recalled her wearing to my wedding. I stood in silence for a moment, just looking; the only sounds in the room the quiet hum of the air system and the faint murmuring of the telephone conversation in the other room. A lump began to form in my throat, a feeling of sorrow at her passing mixed with the relief that she was no longer in pain. Her face so calm and tranquil, she could have been in the middle of the world's most soothing dream.

As I turned to go I placed my hand on her arm. It happened the second I touched her cool skin.

I was suddenly and overwhelmingly flooded with memories. The onslaught was as sudden as the burst of water from the copper end of a kinked garden hose that has just been loosened. Childhood memories I had not thought of for years, decades even, came rushing back. I stood there with my hand resting on nana's arm, floating in a sea of forgotten memories. Then one specific memory dropped into place and I was taken back in time.

I grew up in Marcus Hook, a small borough in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania, about twenty minutes drive south from Philadelphia. About five blocks from my house stood one of the last remaining vestiges of a staple in the lives of children in twentieth century America. A penny candy store. Our penny candy store was called Bonsal's. The dim, one roomed shop, its interior lit by a single, sickly light bulb hanging from the ceiling was my childhood Mecca. It was presided over by the indomitable Mrs. Margaret. Every child who grew up in Marcus Hook from the 1950s to the 1980s knew Mrs. Margaret. The 1980s was the decade when I was an active patron at Bonsal's, near the end of the run for both the candy store and for Mrs. Margaret herself. She looked to be in her late seventies. Frizzy white hair sprung out on all sides, surrounding her aged face. Eyebrows, freshly applied every day in two stark, black lines above her watery blue eyes. Her lipstick, a deep red, almost a blood red in my memory's eye, often staining her teeth. Every day but Sunday, there she stood behind the massive glass counter, dressed in her trademark white blouse and plaid skirt awaiting the orders of scores of children, their faces pressed against the glass, eyes drinking in the sight of a smorgasbord of sugary confection. Ordering etiquette, much like in the shop of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, was to be closely followed, lest one be fixed with an icy, irritated stare. Her nicotine laden voice would call you to attention and you would place your money on the glass counter top, then step back and call out your order, pointing out your choices with tiny, dirt stained fingers. Mrs. Margaret would slide the wooden panels at the back of the case back and forth as she filled your order, placing your carefully considered choices into a tiny, brown paper sack.

One day in the summer of 1985, two friends and I were desperate for a trip to Bonsal's. There was only one problem. Our pockets were as void of cash as space is void of oxygen. I ran across the street to see if I could bum any money off of Nana, who was always very reliable when it came to the giving of small amounts of cash. I walked into the house, enjoying the comfortably familiar squeal of the floorboards as I entered. I went to her room to find her sound asleep. I began to turn away in disappointment when I noticed her purse on the floor next to the bed. Open. A veritable open invitation to my sugar starved, preadolescent brain. Desperately trying to channel the feather soft steps of a ninja I walked across the small room and knelt before her purse. Sitting right on top was her wallet, a lime green pouch with tarnished clasps, a time traveler from the 1960s. At this point we no longer had simply an open invitation. I was now facing an outright demand that I just help myself. I opened it as quietly as I could and pulled the two sides of the wallet apart. Lying at the bottom, resting atop a few pennies and a pack of gum, Andrew Jackson stared up at me with a noble expression, his wavy hair arranged magnificently atop his green head. The firm hand of conscience held me back for all of a second or two before I snatched the twenty dollar bill up, closed the wallet, and made my way back outside to my friends, a conquering Hannibal, moving money instead of elephants. In our joy no one bothered to wonder aloud if twenty dollars might have been a sum TOO rich to take. All we saw was mountains of candy, a summer's supply, all in one fell swoop and within our grasp.

Our euphoria carried us over to Bonsall's in no time at all, the fifteen minute walk seeming almost instantaneous. I pushed the aging green door open, the tiny bell at the top announcing our arrival. Mrs. Margaret was sitting behind the candy case on her stool, leafing through the pages of a magazine. I do not recall any surprise on her face when I placed the twenty dollar bill confidently on the glass top, no inkling of the plan which I am sure began to form in her mind as soon as I laid such an exorbitant sum of money before her. For twenty minutes she filled our order, my two friends and I discussing what we wanted and what quantity we wanted it in with the intense care and concentration of battle field generals preparing a daring assault. When we finished ordering we walked out of the candy shop, eight brown bags bursting to the brim with a king's ransom in candy. We were the lords of all creation.

For a time.

We went to an abandoned lot close to home, which we called The Process for reasons I never knew, and sat under a tree and tore into our haul. We did not linger. We all wanted to get home before our parents so we could hide the evidence. No realistic explanation for possessing such a large amount of candy could be figured out so we decided as a group to go with deception. We split the candy three ways. Naturally since it was "MY" money that we used, I was entitled to a slightly bigger share. I walked home on top of the world, a smooth operator with days of sugar laced goodness before him. I walked right past my driveway. It never even occurred to me that it would have been a good idea to look to see if my mother's muted red Pinto was there or not. She was supposed to be at work and I had no reason to believe otherwise so I didn't even bother trying to hide the bulging paper sacks I was carrying. I opened the silver painted gate to my front yard, raced up the walk and onto the front porch. I opened the front door and my idyll was smashed to pieces before me.

My mother was sitting at the bottom of the steps, still wearing her brown Wawa uniform. I froze in place, exhibits A, B, and C of my crime clutched in hands that were suddenly drenched in sweat. I was caught. Mom didn't even ask where I had gotten so much candy. Apparently, as soon as we left her shop, Mrs. Margaret called Nana and asked her if she knew where I would have gotten twenty dollars to spend on candy. Nana had no idea but one quick search of her wallet, still coated with my invisible fingerprints, revealed the answer. She then got on the phone to my mother who left work to lie in wait for me, a lioness anticipating the arrival of the weakest and the slow. She made me arrange the candy in a huge mountain of guilt on our dining room table, then she sent me up to my bedroom at the back of the house to await my father's arrival from work.

I lay in bed, tears leaking from my eyes, stomach tying itself into knots, waiting for my father to come home, when I knew the bill for my stupidity would come due. And come due it did. He made me throw every last piece of candy away. He didn't let me just dump the bags in the garbage. He made me select each piece and throw it away individually. It took quite a bit of time. I spent the next week confined under house arrest, waking each morning to a day of house chores and a bed time strictly enforced as soon as the sun began its decline into the west. I also had to personally apologize, torture for an eleven year old boy, to both Nana and Mrs. Margaret. For the rest of that summer Bonsal's Candy lost its allure for me. Swedish fish, candy buttons, and bubble gum cigarettes had become the taste of guilt in my mouth, one I avoided at all costs.

As I stood at Nana's casket this memory played out in my mind's eye. If you had asked me to recount it for you a week ago, I would not have been able to. Sure, I would have remembered getting in trouble for stealing some money. But the clarity of the memory I have just shared with you simply was not there, not until I stood with Nana in that nearly deserted funeral home. And then, one final detail clicked into place, as if it was being whispered in my ear by the woman on whose arm my hand still rested.

About a week after I got off my punishment I was with Nana in her room. We were watching some cartoon on the TV and she asked me to turn it off for a second. Nana was an epileptic and she was often not feeling well so I assumed she was going to ask me to head out so she could get some sleep. But she didn't. After I turned the knob on the TV to off she called me over. She put her arms around me and looked right into my eyes. "Brian, sweety," she said. "I am sorry I got you in so much trouble with your dad. If you wanted twenty dollars to buy candy for you and your friends, all you had to do was ask me. I would have given it to you. I want you to know that I forgive you for stealing money out of my wallet." Then she hugged me tight and I hugged her back, tears of shame and gratitude mixing on my cheeks.

I looked at Nana's peaceful face, life's pain and hardship vanished from it forever. I looked at the woman who twenty-six years earlier had forgiven me for stealing from her and assured me all I had to do was ask and she would do what she could to make me happy.

'That was Nana,' I thought to myself. 'Caring more for my happiness then the obvious health issues raised by an eleven year boy eating twenty dollars worth of penny candy.'

That was when I laughed. The laugh was as unexpected as the flood of memory had been. I looked up. The old woman behind the desk still had the phone attached to her ear but she was halfway out of her seat, a wary look on her lined face. I figured it was time to go.

I leaned over quickly and planted a kiss on Nana's cheek.

"Thank you for forgiving me," I whispered through my tears. "And thank you for reminding me about it today."

I gave her arm a final squeeze then walked out into the bright June sunshine, the memory of a twenty-six year old hug filling my heart.

The Magic of Books or What I Have in Common With Bastian Bux

2011-05-30T14:06:00.003-04:00

I'm sure you've seen the movie. A mouse of a boy runs down an indifferent city street, three larger boys in pursuit. They had recently tossed him into a dumpster because he had no lunch money to give them and after he climbed out covered in garbage, they are trying to catch him to toss him back in. To escape his tormentors he ducks into a dusty old book store, great ratty-edged tomes scattered around, the shop owner sitting in a tall backed leather chair with a large book in his hands. The boy, an avid reader, asks the shopkeeper what book he is reading. The old man does not answer, instead he cryptically warns the young boy to stay away from the book as it is not "safe" as the other books he has read are.

When his phone rings the old man gets up to answer, setting the book down. The young boy, Bastian, sneaks a peek at the "unsafe" book. He sees a plain brown cover with only two distinguishing features. One is a medallion of sorts, two intertwined snakes, and the name of the book stamped in gold lettering at the bottom. The Neverending Story. Bastian cannot resist the temptation. He grabs the book, leaving the shopkeeper a note promising to return it, and takes off. The old man smiles knowingly when the shop door slams and he sees that his book has been borrowed.

Bastian makes it to school to find out that he is very late and that the day has already begun. Instead of entering the classroom and taking a late slip, he runs up into the attic of the old school, a forest of cobweb covered bric-a-brac, most of which looks like it would be more at home in the attic of a haunted Victorian mansion than the attic of a public school. Bastian settles in and begins to read this "unsafe" book and soon finds out why the old man gave it such a descriptor. He finds himself becoming a part of the story. Not in a metaphorical way. In a very real way it falls to Bastian to save not only the characters living their lives between the pages of The Neverending Story, but he discovers that he himself is a part of the tale, the only one with the power to save story itself from the destructive forces of The Nothing, the emptiness that is consuming fantasy because mankind has been losing their hopes and dreams.

The Neverending Story made a huge impression on me when I first saw it and not just because I was about Bastian's age when the movie was released. In a lot of ways I was Bastian. I recall days when I faked an illness so I could stay home and finish a book. When I was in seventh grade, instead of walking to my bus stop as usually required to do, I walked right past it and up to the Thriftway right near my house (where I would later work for one torturous summer) and found shelter in a copse of trees behind the store. I spent two days there, engrossed in Robert R. McCammon's Swan Song, sitting in the crook of a tree, lost in the story. I returned home each day at my normal time, complete with faked homework assignments and fictionalized accounts of a successful day at school. To my knowledge that literary tryst has remained secret from my parents until this moment. Sorry mom and dad (but not really as that is an excellent book). I was never chased by bullies demanding my lunch money and exchanging it for shame and ridicule, but a part of me did, in fact still does, relate very strongly to Bastian.

I have always loved to engage in story. The vehicle I take to get there does not matter. Be it reading or be it writing, it is not the destination as the old cliche goes, it is very much the journey. When I saw the picture posted above over at The Lit Express I just had to steal, I mean borrow, it. It put me in mind of The Neverending Story almost immediately. The boy, standing on the stack of books, the books giving him the physical lift he needs, looking over a drab wall full of graffiti at a world full of wonder. This is what fiction is for me. Not simply an escape form the real world, but a step up to live, for however short a time, in a world where the only limit to what can occur is the author's own imagination.

There will always be a part of me that will yearn for the special magic of books and story to not only lift me up above the wall of reality to view those amazing fictional worlds, but to slingshot me clear over, to land me right into the heart of a world my feet have never touched and my hands have never explored.. But until the day when I happen into an old used book store (hopefully not gasping for breath after a footrace from bullies) and find my own wizened shopkeeper with an "unsafe" book in his hands, I will continue to find my way there in my mind. I will let the author's words be that special magic and my own imagination the vehicle.

I have to go. I just heard a thunderous crash from behind that wall. Time to pick up my book, take a climb up on the stack, and see what it was.

Should this be the time I do not return, keep reading.

And keep dreaming.

Towel Day 2011 or Dude, What's With the Towel?

2011-05-24T23:01:00.004-04:00

I was a gangly sixth grader when my dad took me to Captain Blue Hen Comics and introduced me to the prodigious talent that is Douglas Adams. I'd told him earlier in the day that I wanted to read a new author and he knew right away what the correct choice would be. We piled into his dark green Ford pickup and made the ten minute drive, the death rattles of the ancient muffler sending vibrations through the floorboards and into my sneakers as we drove.

We walked into the store, passing wall upon wall of comic books, and made our way to the back where they kept the books. My dad walked straight to the 'A' section and after a moment, plunked a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into my eager hands. I looked uncertainly at the cover. A man's hand, thumb extended in the classic "Hitcher's Pose", a green orb with arms sticking its tongue out at me.

I arched my eyebrow, adopting that look of supernatural disbelief that only insurance attorneys and adolescents can pull off.

"Trust me," he said. "And don't panic."

I took his advice and bought the book. I carried it with me everywhere. I devoured it in two sittings. Then I proceeded to read it again. A "concerned teacher" (who was clearly living in his own Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul) at the private school I attended forbade me from bringing the book into his class and encouraged me to throw it away with great haste as it was written by an atheist, the word atheist uttered in the same sort of voice one might expect to hear the neighbor next door use to describe the time when Ted Bundy, the Unabomber, and Boy George crashed their twelve year old nephew's birthday party.

I didn't listen.

Twenty-five years after my first reading, Hitchhiker's still makes me laugh. Over the years Douglas Adams, very much true to form, gave us a great trilogy...in five books no less. Each one a continuation of a most intelligent, bizarre, hysterical story.

Adams died on May 11, 2001 of a heart attack. He was forty-nine years old. Two weeks later a group of his fans declared that May twenty-fifth was to be called Towel Day. Fans of Adams were to bring their favorite towel with them wherever they went. They were to bring it and keep it close, to work or to leisure activities, for the duration of the entire day. They have repeated this practice every May twenty-fifth since that day, and in ever increasing numbers. If you are sitting there wondering 'Why towels?' it is clear you have not read any of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's books. At this point I suggest you get yourself out of your chair, throw on some shoes, run a comb through your hair, grab your car keys (pay no attention to that big yellow bulldozer in your front yard), and procure the books for yourself immediately.

I will be displaying my towel proudly today. I hope that you will be as well. And should you find yourself suddenly confronted by an infinite number of monkeys who want to talk to you about this script for Hamlet they've worked out...well then just keep in mind the two magical words fixed on the cover of the most wholly remarkable book in all the known universe...

For those of you still wondering. "Yeah, but...why TOWELS?" I leave you with the words of the man himself, from chapter three of the first in the "trilogy of five", The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble‐sanded beaches of Santraginus Ⅴ, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand‐to‐hand‐combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Stay hoopy, my friends.

Quick Review - Short Story Month 2011

2011-05-24T09:25:00.000-04:00

I have a quick review up over at The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog in celebration of national short story month. Go check it out.

SSM 2011: STORIES - All New Tales

Have a favorite short story collection, or just a single favorite short story? Let's talk about it in the comments section!

My Wife, A Mother Without Peer

2011-05-08T00:42:00.002-04:00

Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

- William Makepeace Thackeray

Six years ago I witnessed you perform the most amazing feat I have ever beheld another human being accomplish. After nine months of lost sleep, heartburn, tired feet, exhaustion, an aching back and a body that changed on a daily basis, you brought into this world a remarkably beautiful baby girl. You performed this momentous accomplishment with no desire for recognition, no want of any accolades. I remember like it was yesterday. As you lay on that hospital bed, tears mingling with the sweat on your face, holding our newborn miracle, I asked you how in the world you had managed to pull it all off. You looked into my eyes and with a gentle shrug and a soft smile you murmured, "I am a mother. It's what I was meant to do."

Since that chilly November day, when I didn't think I could ever possibly be more in awe of you, you have consistently shown me that what I had observed was simply the beginning of an amazing journey.

You have taken the idea of motherhood and transformed it into a beautiful symphony before my very eyes. You have nurtured, guided, inspired, healed, taught, comforted, coached, counseled, lead. You have done these things and more, all without missing a beat.

Our daughter has a bright future ahead of her, restrained only by the limits of her very dreams. This is thanks in large part to the image of the strong yet humble woman of faith and devotion that she sees you live out day after day.

As I sit here, I can close my eyes and see into that future. Our daughter, fully grown and in full possession of her mother's beauty, stands before a sea of people who are listening intently as she makes a speech at her college graduation. Her hazel eyes settle on yours as her lightly freckled cheeks break into a warm smile. She thanks you publicly for your example, for your indomitable devotion to the responsibilities of motherhood. A tear falls to her cheek as she acknowledges that she would not be where she is without you and the incredible example you have always modeled for her. As I sit here...I can see this moment. Lord willing, I know it will come.

There is a short story called The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. It is about an extremely poor young couple struggling to find ways to give each other the best, most amazing gift they can for Christmas. The wife takes her incredibly beautiful hair, which she adores, and sells it to obtain a platinum watch chain for her husband's pocket watch. The husband takes his most prized possession, a golden pocket watch, which had once belonged to his father and to his grandfather before him, and sells it to obtain money to purchase a set of tortoise shell combs she had been wanting for a long time.

The moral of course is that material gifts pale in comparison to the things we do for each other that are born out of love. I love our daughter more than I ever thought it possible for one human being to love another. Were I granted by God the opportunity to grant her one gift, one chance to give her anything in this immense world of ours that I wished, I would fall on my knees and wish for nothing more than the gift that God has already bestowed upon her, the one he gave to her six years ago.

The gift of you, a mother without peer.

Happy Mother's Day, my love.

Harry the K - Has it Really Been Two Years?

2011-04-13T19:57:00.002-04:00

Unbelievable. I can still hear the voice, as clear today in my mind's ear as it was pouring out of the radio in the humid summers of my youth. I wrote the following piece the day we lost him. Phillies fans have missed Harry every game since that dark day in DC when The Voice was silenced forever.

Godspeed, Harry the K

It is cliche at times like this to say that life is uncertain and that it turns on a dime, but many cliches become so designated because they are true.

I, like many of the Phillies Phaithful, watched Matt Stairs crush that pitch last night into the visiting team's bullpen to give the Phills a two run lead. I whooped and hollered as the voice of springs and summers without number serenaded the ball with the immortal call as it soared over that Colorado fence. Had I know it would be the last time I would hear that call live, the rich bass elevated to a higher level in direct proportion to the flight of the ball, I would have paused.

No motion, no movement.

Just that wonderful voice in my ears, lifting my spirits as high as the baseball that soared gracefully out of the field of play and into the pen.

But I was not to know. None of us were to know.

This morning life went on as usual. Eagerly looking forward to an early game at three I began to work on a list of things I wanted to get done before the first pitch. Then, some time after one in the afternoon, life did its dime trick.

Over the Twitter wire...

'Harry Hospitalized [Updated]: Via John Finger's Twitter feed, Harry Kalas was just rushed to George Washington H.. http://bit.ly/11TqDC'

I dropped my partially eaten sandwich back onto its plate and started jumping from site to site, offering up fervent prayers for Harry and his family. All sites reporting collapse, rush to hospital, prognosis...not good.

About twenty minutes later the Twitter wire beeped again...

'RT @tzolecki: Tragic news. Harry Kalas has died.'

And just like that my life as a fan of the Phiadelphia Phillies was forever changed.

Life...turning on a dime.

I was shocked at the depth of sadness I felt for a man I had never met. I sat in front of my laptop, my to do list sitting forgotten on the floor where it had fallen and watched as first Twitter, then Facebook, then sites all over the Internet began to fill with that peculiar mix of anguish and fond memory that can only come with the passing of one that is held so dear. Local television stations reported the tragic news as it broke. Thousands of people, sharing my reaction, sharing our collective loss and remembering the life of a true legend.

Harry Kalas WAS the Phillies. Someone on one of the local news broadcasts said that players come on go...but Harry Kalas was a constant, a perennial fan favorite. Harry was always there for us.

When the team was doing well his enthusiasm was contagious. I think we all have our favorite Harry calls when his voice, the joy of victory personified, transported us right into the heart of the game. Every momentous Phillies moment I can remember was always elevated to a higher level when it was called by Harry the K.

When the Phills weren't doing so well Harry was never one to sugar coat it. When a Phillies fielder would make a perplexing decision or a Phillies pitcher would offer up a pitch to a batter that everyone in the civilized world knew was going to result in a massive home run, Harry let us know...but he did it with class. He did it with the hope that tomorrow, things would turn around. Harry helped me stay with the team in their truly atrocious years simply for that reason. No matter how bad it got, Harry always left me feeling like TOMORROW was the day. The guys would turn it around tomorrow.

Harry taught me to have 'high hopes'.

Thank you Harry.

Thank you for your love of baseball and for sharing it with us so well.

Thank you for 'Michael Jack' and 'That ball is OUTTA HERE!"

Thank you for showing us that celebrity and humility CAN go well together.

Thank you for being the soundtrack of my childhood summers.

We will never forget you.

Daylight Saving Time Once Again - With Bibles!

2011-03-13T18:47:00.000-04:00

As today is the time of year to set the clocks ahead one hour in honor of Daylight Saving Time (Thanks Ben Franklin, for more summer time to be outside) I thought I would pull out a post on the topic written two years ago. Would love to have you opine in the comments. This post was originally written on March 9, 2009.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME...WITH BIBLES!

As we cruised up the highway on the 40 minute commute this morning, the wife and I were having a discussion concerning daylight saving time. It went something like this...

Wife: (yawn) I am really super tired this morning.

Me: Hrmm. (While driving and reading a Tweet on the phone at the same time...an activity I don't recommend)

Wife: I said, I am really super tired this morning.

Me: (Putting the phone down and concentrating on the road before I plunge the three of us into a fiery death) Why is that?

Wife: Well the clock on the dash says that it is 7:00, but the internal clock in my body is telling me it is really 6:00 so I am pretty tired.

Me: (Pausing to digest the comment) What? That's crazy.

Wife: No, its not actually. It takes the body several days to adjust to the change of time when daylight savings time occurs. I saw it on Oprah once.

The phone beeps. I pick it up, new Tweets and an email coming in. Swerve to miss the car in front of me that was driving too slow. Heart rate increases. Put the phone back down, resolving not to pick it up again while behind the wheel.

Me: (slightly out of breath from my racing heart) That's silly. The clock said 10:00 when you fell asleep (You read correctly...10:00...PM...I know, right?) and 5:30 when you woke up...same as it always does.

Wife: Yeah but that was really going to sleep at 9:00 and getting up at 4:30, not 10:00 and 5:30.

Me: (Pausing once again while I try to get my head around this thought) But...it's still the exact same amount of time.

Wife: No, its not...it's an hour earlier.

Me: But...its still the EXACT same amount of time.

At this point The Peanut, sitting in the booster seat in the back, breaks out in a rousing chorus of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. I am not sure if her knowledge and enjoyment of such a song borders on wisely broadening my daughter's horizons or just bad parenting...but it is the truth.

Me: Sweety, please sing a song that is not about mind altering drugs...we will be at preschool soon. (REALLY don't want that call)

The Peanut ignores me and continues her Beatles tribute. I guess there could be worse things.

Wife: It is not the same because my body...Peanut sweety, it's diamonds, not bibles...because my body is used to the time the way it was, not the way it now is.

Me: (Head reeling at this point) WHAT? Whatever time the clock tells you, that is what time it IS. I went to sleep at 12:18...got up at 6:05...that six hours felt like the six hours all the weeks before it. I don't understand this metaphysical trickery you are talking about. Six hours is six hours!

Peanut: Mommy, why does Lucy like diamonds? Are they like the diamonds you have on your ring?

Wife: Yes, sweety. Lucy just likes expensive jewlery. Brian, I really think more people would agree with me on this than they would with you.

Me: No way. Maybe it is a male/female thing. Most guys I know don't walk around whining about their "internal clocks" being messed up because of daylight savings time.

Wife: That's because most men aren't smart enough to know how to READ their internal clocks. Trust me. All normal people struggle with this when the time changes.

Peanut: Lucy in the sky with bibles...Lucy in the sky with bibles...

As you can see, our morning commutes are quite...interesting.

I would like to pose our morning's debate question to my readers out there. Which side of the fence do you live on?

Are you in my camp where the clock says what it says and you don't need to rely on tricky, mind/time bending excuses for why your body feels off?

Or are you in my wife's camp where your "internal clock" takes days or weeks to reset because it is now confused. (No wonder women can't program VCRs...kidding...mostly)

If you feel so inclined, drop me your opinion (along with any other comments or backyard BBQ recipes) in the comments section here.

Grooming Future Scribblers or Kids, Writing Doesn't HAVE to Suck!

2011-03-03T23:18:00.003-05:00

I have been a devoted fan of writing since my heady days in the third and fourth grades when a few friends and I took pencil to paper to create our own (illustrated!) series of Choose Your Own Adventure stories and Doctor Who fan fiction (chicks dug us...HARD). It is an activity I have continued to enjoy (and even make an infinitesimal amount of money at) ever since.

Because of this long lasting affection for the written word, I take particular joy in the teaching of writing to my class of fifth graders. They come to me in late August, almost always completely united in their collective hatred of the craft I myself enjoy so much. If given a choice between writing a page long story or having a few cavities filled, many of them would gladly pull up the dentist chair, attach the little blue drool-bib themselves, and open wide.

With the fervent desire of the rabidly fundamentalist, I see it as my duty to change as many of these minds as I can over the course of the school year. To get my students to see writing not as some brutal holdover from the medieval torture chamber days, but as a worthwhile, artistic (they don't call it language ARTS for no reason), and dare I even suggest it, FUN, way to express themselves.

While the task may sound Herculean, it is not always so. The biggest hurdle to overcome is front loading the basics of grammar, form, and structure for the students. I cover these, and constantly review them over the course of the year, but the main thing I try to impart to the kids is a love for the ART that is writing. We work a great deal on figurative language, of infusing life into dead sentences with shots of adjectives, vivid verbs and specific nouns. We practice using sensory imagery, analogies and hyperbole. We experiment with different forms of narrative and even poetry.

Some years there is large buy in from the class. Other years they fight it tooth and nail. A particular group of kids has its own personality, dynamic and interests. Classes from year to year are as diverse and unique as the prints on your fingertips.

This year's group has really taken off with their writing. Around October, when I read them the short story The Monkey's Paw and then had them craft their own suspense tales, they have really begun to flourish. Their most recent task was to write a fictional account of a colossally bad day. It had to cover an entire day, from waking to sleeping, and it had to be totally made up. I told them they could use real events if they wanted but I really wanted them to go for fiction. Check out some of the awesome sentences that have come to be in these pieces.

Remember...these are regular fifth grade writers. Any names you see have of course been changed.

"I dragged myself up the rough, cold, wooden steps, through the wide hallway and into my crammed room." (Everything I am looking for in this sentence.)

"When Sam tumbled out of bed on a cold, dreary Tuesday he slipped on his skateboard and fell on his head. It started to bruise right away and he just knew what kind of day it was going to turn out to be." (How great is this opening?)

"When I walked into the living room my dog looked very proud of himself. I noticed my math book and my coloring book on the ground, ripped into a million pieces." (This sentence gives me a GREAT mental image. Can't you just see the smug expression on the dog's face?)

"The Pitbull bit off his new shoes, ate and then spit them out like a furry paper shredder." ("Furry Paper Shredder. How awesome is that?)

"I flew to my room and screamed, "I WANNA GO TO AUSTRALIA!" so loud I think Pluto heard me and blew up because the next morning on the news it said that Pluto wasn't a planet anymore." (I love this...absolutely love it. The Pluto news is FIVE YEARS OLD! I have no idea where this come from but it is AWESOME!)

"While we were there, three humongous eighth graders stole our phones and our money and beat us up. After they left, we looked like broken toys." (Most of us have been there. Would that we could have channeled the fighting spirit of Ralphie Parker when faced with our own Scut Farkas.)

"I had a very horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day! It was the worst day of my life! It was so tragic that I would rather live in Afghanistan with a battle going on then go through it again." (wow...deep)

"Then I went back downstairs and my cousin was cackling like a donkey all morning because she saw me trip over my own feet." (I have never actually heard a donkey cackle, but I applaud the effort!)

"I tried to get to the bathroom to wash my eyes out but I tripped on my skateboard and landed in a puddle of dog vomit. It was still warm and had the chicken in it from last night." (Over the top gross...but descriptive, which WAS the goal)

"After Melvin released his foot from the puddle of duck poo, which felt a lot like warm pudding, he went to the bathroom to wash his feet." (Again...gross...but descriptive)

"The teacher walked up to me, giving me the stinkeye." (Any sentence that correctly uses stinkeye earns automatic kudos)

"She started to scream at me again. I wish all adults would talk they way they do in the Charlie Brown cartoons." (Waaa..Wuh Wuh Waaah...Waaaaaaah)

"One day Hans woke up in his bunk bed as usual. He was on the bottom bunk and his younger brother had taken the top. He woke up to something dripping on his face from the mattress above. It smelled like asparagus. It was YELLOW! IT WAS PEE!!!!!!!" (You have to love fifth grade boys. I preserved the original writing's caps and excessive use of exclamation points because they render the whole scene that much funnier to me. You can hear the narrator's voice rising as he realizes what is happening. Priceless.)

The last four examples are included not because they are exceptionally descriptive, but because they made me laugh out loud when I read them. The best part of teaching writing is reading gems like these...

"At the end of the school day I had loud, horrid, stinky gas. I DISGUSTED myself!" (If you are thinking a boy wrote that, you are incorrect)

"While I was tumbling down the stairs I noticed that my dog had bitten a hole in my shoe." (I love the visual this sentence gives me)

"I put my dollar in the snack machine but nothing came out so I shoved my hand into the machine. It got STUCK! Mr. H went and got all the other teachers to come laugh at me." (I love when I make cameos in student writing. And she knows this is EXACTLY something that I would do...)

"I put on some new clothes and went over to my friend Arthur's house. When I got there I knocked on the door and his dad let me in. There was McDonalds trash everywhere on the floor! That kid eats McDonalds every day because his dad is too lazy to cook!" (Really praying that this is a fictionalized detail)

I saved the best for last. These last two lines were the close of an excellently funny and descriptive piece. They are my favorite not just because they were a superb way to end the piece, but they show a clever sense of humor that far exceeds its ten years of experience on this earth.

"Two days later his father sued my parents for everything they have. And he WON! Me and my family lived on the cold street for two days until I wrote this brilliant story and became a millionaire! The end."

I hope you enjoyed reading these gems as much as I did. Drop me a comment, let me know what your favorite one is. Looking forward to seeing what you pick!

The Duck Defines Me - The Lie

2011-02-26T14:35:00.001-05:00

I don't know why I chose the occasion of my first Crusader Blogging Challenge to write a fictionalized account of myself waking up on a mysterious beach and hallucinating a conversation with a duck. It just happened.

I am sure that says something about me, but I am not sure what. If you have an opinion, comments are open.

I got a lot of positive comments about my strange entry. Thanks to those of you who read and commented. Comments are to bloggers what crushing unions is to Tea Party funded governors (What? Too soon??).

So what was the lie? While it is true that The Peanut had a rabbit, we did NOT name him Mr. Creosote because, well, that would be gross. If you are unsure who Mr. Creosote is, check out the YouTube video below. Before you do, a word of caution. It is very, very...unsettling. If a staggeringly fat man who vomits...a lot...disturbs you, perhaps you should pass on the video.

The Peanut actually decided to name the rabbit Herbert Neddinger.

And no...that is NOT a lie.

Crusade Challenge #1 - The Duck Defines Me

2011-02-21T13:30:00.003-05:00

My entry for the first crusader challenge over at Rach Writes is finished. I had to introduce myself in 300 words or less within the following parameters. I had to tell one secret, one lie, one personal quirk, one annoying habit, one of my best character traits, and one of my most favorite things in the whole world. I also had to work in the inclusion of four words; bloviate, fuliguline, rabbit, and blade. It was a lot of fun to write. If you can find the lie, drop it in the comments section.

The Duck Defines Me

The first thing I became aware of was the sound of the waves as they fell upon the shore. Then the smell of salt on the breeze. I lifted my head, cracking open one gummy lidded eye, and winced as a blade of bright sunshine shut it tight. I opened the other eye and sat up.

A duck sat at my feet, which were mysteriously bare.

“Rough night,” it said. Not a question, a statement.

I blinked. “I…I don’t remember.”

The duck ruffled its feathers as it hopped over my leg. “What’s your name?”

Again, I blinked.

“I don’t remember that either,” I replied.

The duck snorted. It adjusted its feathers again and fixed me with a disconcerting fuliguline stare.

“Don’t remember huh? Well, let me have a go. From that dog-eared Neil Gaiman paperback in your pocket, I can tell you are the kind of guy who always wears cargo shorts just so you can have a book with you at all times. You won’t watch the show GLEE because you are afraid that if you do…you might like it too much. Your tendency to engage in bloviation when discussing things you care about is an annoyance to some. You named your daughter’s fat pet rabbit Mr. Creosote as an homage to Monty Python. You seem to be a pretty even-tempered guy, who always tries to see both sides of an issue. The only thing you love more than ample time to read or write is having time to spend with your wife and daughter. I’d say that about does it.”

“But…how did I get here?” I asked.

The duck shrugged its wings and turned back to the ocean.

“Beats me. Ask the spotted hippopotamus behind you.”

One Family's Tragedy - A Plea For Help

2011-02-20T16:08:00.005-05:00

I have previously written on this blog about the cliche that declares life can turn on a dime. I think a lot of cliches catch on because at their center rests a seed of truth. This seed tends to be a truth that is fairly universal, thus leading to the birth of the accepted cliche.

On Christmas Eve 2010 here in Delaware, life once again performed its cruel dime trick. The Haxton family, Paul and Trina, along with their two daughters Lyndsey and Hayley, were traveling to see family for the holidays. Sadly, they never arrived at their destination. They were involved in a horrible accident en route to their family celebration. Both Paul and Trina were thrown from the vehicle. Paul Haxton lost his life. His wife Trina was flown to a trauma center in Baltimore, her condition desperately critical. The two girls, ages six and four, escaped the accident with minor injuries. Nearly two months after the accident Trina remains at a rehabilitation center in Maryland. Her recovery has been long and arduous, yet she has been making great progress.

We got to know Paul and Trina through our daughter. Lyndsey and The Peanut have played fall and spring soccer together for five seasons. In the fall of 2008 they played together on a team for the first time. Their soccer coach, Coach Ben, is a great guy and a fantastic soccer coach for the kids. We like Coach Ben (and more importantly The Peanut LOVES him) and we have stayed with him since that fall season. The Haxtons stayed with him as well and, as faithful soccer moms and dads, we are fortunate enough to have gotten to know them. One of the greatest things about Paul was how obvious it was just how crazy he was about his two little girls. He and I would help Coach Ben run practice and we even coached a game one week when Ben couldn't be there. He was a very patient and understanding man who clearly loved working not just with Lyndsey, but with all the kids. The spring season which will be starting up in a month or so will not be the same without him.

I am writing this post to ask my readers for help. Tonight we went to a benefit and silent auction at Club 3 in Wilmington. It was amazing and inspiring to see what a group of determined friends and family, with the support and tremendous generosity of local businesses and politicians (including Senator Tom Carper), can accomplish to help Trina and the girls. A trust has been set up for them. Proceeds from tonight's event will go straight to the girls. Trina's road to recovery will continue to be a long one and every dollar given will help.

As I sat watching well over a hundred people coming together, donating money for Trina and the girls, it hit me that there was something else I could do. And that's where you come in. I don't generally make requests like this through the blog, but this is an exceptional situation. I will post a mailing address at the bottom of this post. I would like to ask any and all of you who have the means to please consider making a donation to the trust set up for Trina and the girls. I know I have a lot of compassionate readers. ANY money we can raise will be appreciated.

Life can be cruel when it performs its dime trick. It is down right frightening how life can change so permanently in a fraction of a second. But we can do something to help make that heavy burden just a bit lighter. Donations can be mailed to the address below the short YouTube video. Thank you for your time and consideration of this most noble of causes.

DONATE VIA STANDARD MAIL:

THE HAXTON FAMILY FUNDRAISER
364 E. MAIN STREET
SUITE 406
MIDDLETOWN, DE 19709

**Please note that all checks or money orders need to be made payable to VERONICA ERNST, I.T.F. In the memo line of a check please write LYNDSEY AND HAYLEY TRUST FUND.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration.

Writing - It's a Love/Hate Thing.

2011-02-14T14:06:00.003-05:00

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible." - Vladimir Nabokov

"Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." - Gene Fowler

The act of writing is a strange beast. A creature to love and to loathe, quite often at the exact same time.

It can be an act whose very execution causes the soul to feel at one with the universe. The writer can almost feel the wind blowing full-on into the sails of the story, mother nature herself dotting the i's and crossing the t's. The act of writing becomes a journey to a mythical land, where mysteries abound and the unexpected can happen at any time. A tantalizing feeling of creative freedom unlike any other.

It can also be a real soul-sucking, spirit-crushing, pain in the ass.

Some days I sit before the keyboard and the words just spill out of me, a veritable Niagara Falls of ideas. Smoke rises from the keyboard as my fingers blaze over it, the soft tapping of the keys a symphony of creativity. The clock vanishes from my mind, the world around me falls away, a vague figure behind thick, opaque glass. I love these days when they occur. It would be more accurate (and, admittedly, a tad pretentious) to say I live for these days. To watch a world or an idea gloriously take shape with me as its architect.

Then there are the other days.

Days when my mind is full to bursting with the desire to write, fingers at the ready, the house set at quiet (mostly)...yet...nothing. The flow is blocked. I urge. I push. I strain. Still nothing. Not so much as a single, cohesive sentence that doesn't look like one of my fifth grade students wrote it. No, that's not fair. A sentence so malformed that even my fifth graders would sneer at its stylistic ineptitude. I try to eradicate the block. I take a walk. I listen to some music. I do some work around the house. I read. I lose my way in the quagmire known as Facebook or its thorny neighbor, Twitter. I sit and stare at the wall.

Sometimes I am successful and the stubborn block eases a bit, enabling me to get something that is readable down. But there are other days when, no matter how much I try to dislodge it, the block stays firmly cemented in place, smugly smirking at my efforts. On these days, when my frustration is at its highest, when I want to toss the laptop into the incinerator and reduce it to a tiny, smoking lump, I have started to do something new. I have started to write anyway. I grit my teeth and take a chainsaw to that block, writing as an act of sheer, determined, willpower. Mostly what comes out on these days is weak. But it is there. Granted, a good deal of it finds its way to the bottom of my digital recycle bin, but not all of it. The creative juices, as stunted as they were, flowed just a bit.

Through this bullheaded insistence to write, even when my own personal creativity department has headed off to Fiji for the day without me, I have discovered a strange phenomenon. The more I tackle these frustrating days head on, the frequency of their occurrence diminishes. They are hell to go through. But I come out on the other side better than when I went in, even if I end up deleting a good portion of what I wrote. "Builds character," as my dad always said when I was a kid. When those words came out of his mouth I knew that I was in for some back-breakingly difficult work, something I would not enjoy but that I would be able to learn from, whether I wanted to or not.

Turns out at age thirty-seven, it still means the same thing.

How about you? What do you do to unblock your writing when you want it to come, need it come, yet it stays stubbornly locked in your mind, refusing to come out until it is good and ready? How do you get the creative juices flowing when they are log-jammed? Share you thoughts in the comments below.

Reality is Broken - My Review

2011-02-09T15:20:00.002-05:00

My latest review is up on Book Dads.

In Reality is Broken, world-renowned game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal, PhD asks the question "What if we decided to use everything we know about game design to fix what’s wrong with reality? What if we started to live our real lives like gamers, lead our businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?"

It is a VERY interesting read. Check out my review here.

A Bitter Cup of Joe or Beware the Evils of Facebook!

2011-02-08T23:18:00.006-05:00

I woke up this morning at my usual ungodly hour to my daily helping of Morning Joe on the television. I keep it on most mornings as I prepare myself to face the day. As I wiped the sleep crud form my eyes and attempted to arrange my thoughts in some sort of cohesive order, Joe Scarborough was talking about an editorial he wrote about the dark, civilization crushing side of Facebook for Politico.

You can find the rant, I mean editorial, here.

The thread of contention that intertwines Mr. Scarborough's piece is that Facebook is "cynically feeding the narcissistic appetites of a self-consumed culture that is populated by teenage vulgarians, desperate housewives, and bored men."

Does he have a point? Maybe. Is it fantastically overstated? Definitely.

I have been a Facebook user for a few years now. There are many reasons I signed up and still maintain an active account, and none of them are mentioned in Mr. Scarborough's grumpy-old-mantastic rant.

I initially signed up because a friend of mine from a summer camp I worked at when I was in college sent me an email and told me people were jumping on Facebook to plan a reunion. So for the first time I logged in and signed up. It was good to be communicating with folks I had not seen in a few years, to see what they were up to and where they were hanging their hats now. Then I began to receive friend requests from old friends from high school whom I had not seen or talked to in almost ten years. I thought it was great. An easy way to get back and stay in touch with people I don't get the chance to see everyday.

On Facebook I sought out friends I have who live in New Zealand, Australia, China, Mexico, and Germany. It is awesome to have a free way to stay in touch with them, to see how their families are doing. We can reminisce about the old days or trade opinions about the issues of the day. We can share important news, celebrate accomplishments, commiserate in times of sorrow.

Politically speaking, I am a fairly moderate Independent. I have Facebook friends that are fiercely loyal Democrats and Facebook friends that are fiercely loyal Republicans. I even have several Libertarian friends thrown in the mix for good measure. I will from time to time post an article from a magazine or a blog, or post a politically motivated question or status update on my wall. My friends will often comment from their particular seat of opinion. A debate often emerges. I love that I have such a diversity of friendships on Facebook that enables me to learn so much about the key points on all sides of an issue. We have great conversations in the comment threads that develop, the number of comments for a few hot button type posts have reached well into the hundreds.

I use Facebook to learn, to laugh, to write, and to share. Share thoughts, share music, share videos, share needs, share victories, share defeats. Scarborough's assertion that people who spend time on Facebook are wasting their time would be insulting if it weren't so far off base as to be laughable.

I do not doubt that there are people out there who fit into his narrow minded view of what the average Facebook user is like. But that is hardly Facebook's fault. A guest on the show this morning likened Scarborough's rant to those parents and leaders who declared the death of morality and of modern society with the coming of Elvis or The Beatles. The rant reminded me of John Lithgow's character in Footloose. The stodgy stick in the mud clinging to an outdated or distorted view of the way things should be.

As a teacher and a parent I can appreciate Joe's concerns about the dangers of Facebook. But as long as parents educate themselves about Facebook and pass on what they learn to their children, as long as they stay active and involved with their children's interactions on Facebook, as long as they set clear expectations about their children's time on Facebook and back up those expectations with firm consequences if needed, then Joe's vision of the snarling beast that is Facebook, feasting on the innocence of our children, can be put down.

This is not some radical new shift in parenting that has to occur because Facebook is such a horrible atrocity. It is what good, effective parents have done and continue to do for their children in all areas of life.

I am quite interested to know what you think, fair reader. Feel free to comment. Let's strike up a conversation. Do you agree with Joe Scarborough that Facebook is a "ubiquitous social machine" that only teenage vulgarians, desperate housewives, or bored men flock to and waste their lives away on? Do you agree with me that Facebook is not the end of civilization as we know it, that it is in fact a tool that can make your social interactions richer, not more anemic? Or do you fall somewhere in between? Let's talk about it...

The Writers' Platform-Building Crusade or Should I Bring My Sword?

2011-02-07T23:38:00.003-05:00

Community. A word that in some circles gets more overworked than Lyndsey Lohan's legal defense team and in others gets twisted and warped to mean things it was never intended to. Crusade. A word in the exact same boat.

I first started writing this blog a few years back simply because I enjoy writing. Always have. I thought it would just be a place to record my thoughts, write a story or two...just be an outlet to scratch the writing itch. I didn't tell many people what I was doing. I was a bit embarrassed at my own perceived pretentiousness of it, wondering if the world would demand of me what in the hell I thought was so important to say that I had the temerity to put it out on the Internet. And that, aside from some throat clearing, a few ahems and an um or two, I would have no reply.

I let my wife read of course, and a few close friends and family.

Then something strange happened. They began to share my musings with others. People began to tell me when I ran into them in the mall, or out at dinner, or in the gym that they really liked my blog. Some told me I should just run right out and get published, like it was as simple as running down to the DMV to renew a driver's license (how nice would THAT be?).

I enjoyed the comments and felt compelled to write more. I began to push my blog out of the dry dock I had it locked up in, out into the dangerous waters of Das Internets. Through this exposure I got more followers. I got asked to write for other web sites. A thought began to glimmer into life in the far out lands of my mind.

I knew I enjoyed writing. Were the folks who urged me to pursue this doing more than simply being nice? So I began to write even more. I have even found the tenacity to submit a piece or two. Yet I know I still have a lot to learn.

Which brings me back to community and the purpose of this post. Through the wondrous invention known as Twitter I found my way to the blog of Rachael Harrie. She is hosting an excellent chance for anyone from newbie writers and bloggers to established writers and everyone in between to come together, in the spirit of community, to learn from and support each other. It is exactly the kind of event and opportunity I have been looking for.

You can read all about the Writers' Platform-Building Crusade here.

I am excited about the opportunity to meet, interact with, and learn from other bloggers and writers. If you are so inclined, please join me.

I never thought of myself as the crusading type...who knew?

The Daily - As If You Really Needed Another Reason To Buy an iPad.

2011-02-03T22:18:00.005-05:00

We picked up our first iPad a month ago and haven't been able to put it down since. Be it streaming Netflix, surfing the web, bombing annoyingly smug pigs into oblivion with several species of "Angry Birds", balancing the bank accounts, arranging laws of physics defying globules in "World of Goo" (and swearing profusely when our designs don't go as planned), selecting programming to record on our DVR, or any one of a hunderd other things, we have logged more hours on the iPad than on our Palm Pre Plus phones, and we have had those for almost two years. You do the math.

The iPad is one of those rare pieces of equipment that falls into the category of "as good as advertised"...and I believed that before they released The Daily app yesterday. Now, with the addition of The Daily, the iPad has passed from the hills of "as good as advertised" and into the mountains of "how will I ever live without one again?"

I downloaded the app yesterday and spent almost an hour scoping it out. Spent almost another hour pouring through today's issue. If it indeed turns out to be the "...model for how stories are told and consumed in this digital age" as Rupert Murdoch put it, it will not surprise me. The seamless blend of great writing, sharp photography, instantly accessible audio and video, real time news updates, and instant social media updates easily shareable on Twitter, Facebook, or via email, all at the swipe of your finger, puts you firmly in the driver's seat for a news and entertainment experience like no other.

And the best part?

The content is changed daily. (So it IS more then just a clever name)

If you are a happy iPad user I suggest you slide right over to the app catalog and download The Daily right now. The service is free for the first two weeks. After that time is up, users have two subscription options to choose from. They can enjoy The Daily's content for the low price of $0.99 cents a week, or they can take the better option and pay $39.99 a year. Just pick an option and the transaction takes place directly through iTunes. No 1-800 numbers, no entering of credit card numbers. Your previously set up iTunes account takes care of everything.

It has become almost cliche to christen the latest and greatest piece of technology as the glorious arrival of the future. I am not taking any real leap here to say that The Daily, available exclusively on the iPad, may be just that. The future of how we will purchase, consume, and interact with our news.

Go check out The Daily news release HERE.

If you are already a proud Daily subscriber like me, drop a missive in the comments, tell me what you think about it.

Against All Odds or My First Couples Only Skate

2011-02-01T18:52:00.003-05:00

A few days ago The Wife and I took The Peanut roller skating. It was the first time I had entered a roller skating rink in more than twenty years. Being on skates again (I didn't even hurt myself!) brought back a lot of fun memories. One of them grew into this piece...

Her hair was curly, shoulder length, so red it seemed to glow with its own inner flame. Her eyes were green, the rich color of the Irish hills. I had noticed her before as she skated past with her friends, her blue and white checkered dress ruffling as she passed. As a child of ten, my radar for noticing members of the opposite sex was still brand new, awkward, hard to understand. Most girls flitted by without even a second glance, the barest hint of any sort of consideration. But this girl was hard not to notice.

The DJ at Spinning Wheels, the premier roller skating destination of my childhood, had just issued the call for a couples only skate. This call usually signaled a retreat to the arcade games for my friends and I. We were all about skating as fast as the attendants would let us, not skating while holding hands with girls. For some reason on this particular day I left the skate floor as usual, but instead of following my friends to wait in line to play the new Spy Hunter game, I lingered, watching the older kids and a few pairs of adults link hands and begin to skate. The first few bars of Phil Collins' song Against All Odds began to pour forth from the speakers.

She skated up to me from behind. I didn't even know she was there until she tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and immediately found the simple task of drawing another breath to be a monumental chore. I was slightly taller than her, but no more than a few inches. I was locked into the depths of her green eyes, lost as surely as any mariner in a rolling sea without a compass. I don't know how long I stood there mouth agape, staring. What felt like ages was more likely just a matter of seconds.

Then she smiled.

That is the first time I recall becoming physically acquainted with the physics of the phrase "weak in the knees". Had I not already been leaning on a wall, my scrawny, lovestruck, ten-year-old ass would have been planted firmly on the carpeted floor, the wheels on my rented skates turning slowly.

"Hi," she said, her beautiful smile deepening.

I don't recall what I said in reply, probably something witty and suave like a deep gulp and a high pitched squeak. I knew on some level that I was supposed to reply. It just wasn't happening. I simply stood there...mesmerized.

"You wanna skate with me?" she asked, hands behind her back, face slightly upturned to mine.

My mouth, still refusing the frantic messages to respond being sent by my brain, remained shut. I stood there and at least managed to nod my head up and down, like a mindless bobblehead. She smiled again, took my hand, and led me out onto the wooden floor.

As we picked up a bit of momentum we both reflexively tightened our grip. Waves of heat seemed to roll over me from the contact point where her fair, freckled skin met my own. One thought (I'M SKATING COUPLES WITH A GIRL! I'M SKATING COUPLES WITH A GIRL! I'M SKATING COUPLES WITH A GIRL) took over my brain and ran on a constant loop for the duration of the entire skate.

We didn't talk, not that I would have been capable of any sort of intelligent conversation at that point. We just skated, hand in hand, making gentle revolutions around the rink as Against All Odds played on. I remember keeping my eyes furiously glued on my skates, praying fervently for my feet not to tangle, not wanting this beautiful girl to think she had picked a complete spaz to skate with. As much as I wanted to look at her face, hoping to see that amazing smile, I kept my eyes locked down.

Soon, much too soon, the final piano notes signaled the end of the song. We began to slow down and I found the courage to meet those heavenly green eyes with my own regular hazel variety. She gave my hand a squeeze before she let go.

"Thanks. That was fun." She waited for a reply, any reply. I don't know, maybe she just wondered if I even had a voice at all since the extent of my communication with her so far equated to a simpleton's head nod and a squeeze from an overly sweaty right hand. Somewhere deep in the control center of my brain someone finally managed to throw the switch. The gag was lifted and I felt my lips begin to move to utter what was sure to be just the right words to make this girl fall madly in love with me.

"You're...uh...y'welcome," I managed in little more than a whisper.

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, my nostrils filling with the scent of apples. Then, with a final smile, she skated off to join a group of girls in the cafe. I skated a few rounds by myself, oblivious to everything around me. I don't remember what song was playing, I don't remember if anyone skated up and attempted to talk to me. I was in a state of complete shock, my head deep in the proverbial clouds, my fingers constantly coming back to marvel at the spot on my cheek her lips had briefly touched.

Eventually I left the floor. I found my friends at the Spy Hunter, where I knew they would be, and I tried to get interested in the game. It didn't work. For the first time in my young life (and certainly not for the last) thoughts of a girl dominated everything else. Her eyes, her hair, her smile...her kiss. Nothing else I tried to filter through would compute, especially the strategy I needed to focus on to play a video arcade game.

After a while, the call for a couples only skate went out again. My ears perked up, my heart began to race. I had to go find...

I realized then that I didn't even know her name. I skated quickly through the building looking for her, ready to make my mouth work this time, ready to say all the right things.

But I couldn't find her. I checked everywhere while the couple's skate went on. I checked the cafe, scanned the skaters on the floor...looking for that luxurious red hair...not finding it. There was no sign of her or her group of friends. They must have left while I was at the stupid arcade game. I ordered some fries at the cafe counter and sat to eat them while the couples only skate wrapped up. Head bowed, thoughts racing. Soon it ended and, as is the way with ten-year-old boys, I moved quickly on to having fun skating with my buddies.

But I never forgot her, the unnamed girl who invited me to skate my first ever couple's only skate. Every time I catch Against All Odds on the radio it takes me back to that wooden floor, skating loops with the most beautiful girl in the building, feeling like the king of the world, a nervous, sweaty-palmed king afraid of blowing it, but a king nonetheless.

The Bond Between Father and Daughter or I Never Thought Phil Collins Would Make Me Cry

2011-01-19T22:07:00.001-05:00

Most nights, when the inevitable bedtime rolls around, I lay down with The Peanut for a few minutes. We talk, we giggle, we say prayers. Sometimes she will pepper me with questions about any one of a thousand random topics, sometimes she will debrief me on her day at school, who was a good listener and who was not, who had to sit in the "thinking chair" and the unfortunate choice that got them banished there, and sometimes we just lay there, enjoying a few quiet moments as our hearts beat close together. I do not exaggerate when I say that these few minutes are the highlight of my day. I treasure each one of them because I know that one day, all too soon, they will come to an end.

Last night, after all the night time routines had been completed (the running of the bath, the brushing of the teeth, the reading of a story, and the fetching of the glass of water) we went into her room. The Peanut hopped into bed, American Girl Doll and newest Build-A-Bear (we have so many of these bears I think our house could get federal funding as a preserve) in hand. I performed my duly appointed duties, turning off the overhead light, switching on the Nemo night light, and turning on the radio. Much like her father, The Peanut loves to drift off to sleep listening to music. My mother-in-law is a loyal listener of 99.5 WJBR and my daughter insists on being able to listen to "Grammy Music" at night.

I tucked her in and took my customary spot to her right. Things started off as they do on any other night. First she asked how my day was. I informed her that it was pretty good and she quickly filled me in on her day. Then she launched into a joke ("Daddy, what did the little shrimp say when his mom asked why he wouldn't share any of his toys?" "I don't know, what?" "Sorry, I'm a little shelfish!") and giggled, even though it was her one thousand fifty-sixth telling of that same joke. I chuckled and told her it was time for some new material.

At that point the opening notes of Phil Collins' song You'll Be In My Heart from the Disney version of Tarzan started to play. As the first verse began I started to sing softly along with Phil. The Peanut immediately stopped giggling and began to listen. When I got to the chorus she placed her small hand on my arm, her fingers moving slowly back and forth. She just laid there and looked into my eyes as I sang to her. Toward the end of the song tears began to form at the corners of her eyes, but her warm smile never faltered. It was the sweetest, most adult, yet wholly childlike expression I have ever seen her make.

When the song ended she threw her arms around me and her shoulders shook as she began to cry. I was totally unprepared for this reaction. Perplexed, I let her cry for a bit then I asked her what was wrong, why she was so sad.

I will carry her reply in my heart until my dying day...and most likely beyond.

"These aren't sad tears...they're happy tears. You sing so beautiful and when you sing to me, it makes me feel all your love. I love you daddy!"

This from the mouth of a six year old.

As I held my little girl and her tears soaked into the fabric of my shirt and my own began to fall freely to join them, I realized how much power I have as her father to either make her feel genuinely loved...or to completely tear her down. I think that is something a lot of fathers of young daughters never fully realize or appreciate. With the simplest of words or actions I can make her feel like the queen of the universe...or its lowest speck of dirt. I think I always knew this...but I never really appreciated the raw power of it. A few lines of a mostly decent song, sung by me to her and her alone, communicated my love to her far greater than any verbal assurances I could make.

I walked out of the room slightly weak in the knees. I felt like we had shared one of those seminal moments as father and daughter that we will still talk about thirty years from now, Lord willing. If something as simple as singing a song can communicate my love so strongly to my little girl, just think how strongly my words and actions can do the same as she grows into a young woman.

I will be forever grateful for that experience last night. I hope and pray that all fathers get the chance to experience the same. And I pray that when they do, that they seize the moment and build their daughters up as only they, as father, can do.

The Barnes and Noble Peeper or I Am One Nosy S.O.B.

2011-01-16T22:04:00.005-05:00

If you have been to a Borders or a Barnes and Noble lately, you've seen them. They stand in line like regular people. They linger at the shelves, seemingly engrossed in their perusal of the titles. They pace past the couches and amble slowly through the cafe. If you haven't seen them, then surely you have felt them. Their beady little eyes always roving, sliding over your personal topography where they don't belong, leaving a slug's trail of violation in their wake. You can almost feel it when their gaze falls upon you and you can almost see the gears in their slimy minds begin to turn, smell the noxious fumes of their thoughts. You've seen them, haven't you?

The Barnes and Noble Peepers. That despicable class of individuals who wander the carpeted aisles of the book store, spending an unhealthy amount of time checking out what other people are buying. With no regard for personal privacy they shove their metaphorical noses into the heart of your impending purchases. With a raised eyebrow, a knowing smile, or a disgusted smirk they pass judgement on your personality and the fortitude of your character based solely on your choice of reading material. They are the scum of the literary world and...I have a confession to make...a realization I just came to today while standing in line to purchase a book.

I'm one of them.

As I stood, eighth back in the slowly moving line, my eyes began to wander. The woman in front of me was turned to the side, engaged in a conversation with her husband. In her hand, I spied a paperback Dan Brown. I can only hope she didn't see the smirk on my face as I instantly dismissed her in my mind as being an easily lead reader of poor fiction, a literary sheep. My eyes slid over to the novel in her husband's hand. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. I don't think I snorted out loud at the thought of a Dan Brown fan and a John Steinbeck fan living in the same house, inhabiting the same space...but I might have. Imagining these two books sitting side by side on the same coffee table would be like seeing the Mona Lisa hanging next to a Velvet Elvis in the Louvre. That was my thought as I stood there, unabashedly forming opinions of people I had never met.

And that is when the realization hit me.

Not only am I a literary peeping tom (I am sure I am not the only one who checks out the reading material of others when I am a guest in their house...or am I?) but I am also a book snob. I don't mean to be. It makes me feel guilty, like someone who roots through a host's medicine cabinet to see what interesting infections they are living with. I realize that my reading selections in comparison with another's in no way sets me up on any higher moral ground (except POSSIBLY in the case of the Dan Brown novels) over that individual. It doesn't prove me smarter, deeper, better looking, or profound to a greater degree than them. It is, simply stated, damn nosy and vomitously elitist.

But I can't help it.

I stood there in line, ogling other customers reading selections with all the fervor of a fifteen year old boy hanging from a tree limb trying to see into his sister's best friend's bedroom window, passing judgement on their choices. And the worst part is, when I became aware of what I was doing...I didn't stop. I knew it was wrong, that I was being a horrible person, fully undeserving of my daughter's love with my literary voyeurism and pseudo intellectual snobbishness.

But I didn't stop.

Does anyone else have this problem or should I just ship myself off to Siberia where my sickness will not bother another soul and impede only the ice and snow?

Kids As Goal Posts or Please God, Don't Ever Let Me Be This Dad!

2011-01-06T23:41:00.000-05:00

Though I have yet to perform such a singularly moronic paternal act, I am sure my time is coming. Think I will just laugh at this guy in the meantime.

Taking My Students Back in Time or Why I Love Being a History Teacher

2011-01-04T22:15:00.031-05:00

As a teacher of United States civics and history to fifth graders, I have one of the most uniquely joyful, interesting, and awe inspiring jobs in the world. To be able to expose fresh and (no matter what popular perception may have to say otherwise) eager to learn minds to the men and women who have had a hand in bringing us to where we are today as a nation, in the case of most of them for the very first time in their young lives, is not only an honor and a privilege, it is also a real blast!

Take today for instance.

In class this afternoon we got into a fifteen minute long debate about who was responsible for the firing of the first shot of the civil war, North or South. The most conventional answer tends to say South. After all it was a South Carolina man (in defense of a state that had, four months earlier, dissolved her bonds of union and seceded from the United States of America), Edmund Ruffin (possibly, but not definitively) who fired that first shell at the men huddled in the cold darkness of Fort Sumter in 1861. But, when one considers the fact that Lincoln notified the South Carolina legislature that he was sending a ship laden with fresh supplies for the men who were running out of food, water, and even fuel for their lamps, that he notified them openly, knowing full well how they would receive the news, perhaps the answer is not so conventional...or obvious.

So the debate rang out on the floor of my classroom, with the majority of the class fingering Ruffin and the South Carolinians for firing the first shot and a small yet vocal number fingering Lincoln for intentionally committing an act he knew would touch off the war (yes I know...these are supposedly "only" fifth graders...but they are sharp as the proverbial tack). One student, speaking to an experience the rest of the class could relate to, actually made the comparison to a playground fight. He said that if he instigated a fight when one could be avoided, if he goaded a kid to hit him by making fun of him and doing things to hurt him, he would still get in just as much trouble as the kid who swung first. Stop and consider that logic for a second... it's pretty sound. The debate was awesome to behold, and I was loathe to cut it short, but with only so much time being given a day to the actual teaching of history (no big cry for history standards in the news so it gets pretty neglected...race to the top indeed...), I have to keep my eye on the clock.

Tomorrow things are going to get even better. I will be introducing them to a letter written by a man named Sullivan Ballou to his wife Sarah. Ballou was thirty-two years old when he lost his life at the Battle of First Bull Run on July 21, 1861. In his collected personal effects was found a letter he had penned to his twenty-four year old wife a week before the battle. Though the letter was never sent, it was hand delivered to her at a later date. It is one of the most touching and moving letters you will ever read. I use it to show the kids that the people we are studying in class are not simply cold, two dimensional, grainy photographs. They are real people who lived through a very trying time in our nation's history. They were fallible and imperfect, filled with the prejudices of their times, but they were people none the less. They had their own hopes, dreams, and loves. This letter serves as a fitting tribute to that idea. I hope you enjoy and learn form it as much as they will tomorrow. As always, comments are welcome!

July 14, 1861

Camp Clark, Washington

My very dear Sarah:

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more . . .

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness . . .

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow up as I have grown and never know a father's love and care, little Willie is too young to remember me long and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood.

Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them.

O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

Sullivan

Sullivan Ballou

Tangled or Why My Daughter Wants a Horse and a Chameleon.

2011-01-03T00:05:00.004-05:00

Today was the last day of my glorious eleven day winter break. To finish with a bang The Wife suggested we grab The Peanut, throw her in the car, drive down to our local multiplex and pay a small fortune to take in a matinée. I thought the idea sounded just spiffy and I told her so (yes, I used the word spiffy and yes, I did get smacked for it).

The Peanut got a digital camera from Jolly Old Saint Nick last week and ever since has slowly been gathering a photographic record of every corner of our house from every conceivable angle. 'Studies in Dust Bunnies' I call it. When I tracked her down she had her new LaLa Loopsie doll suspended in midair over the open toilet bowl, attempting to snap a shot without getting her fingers in the frame. It would have made, I am sure, quite a surreal photograph, the interpretation of which would have been up for some serious debate. As much as I hated to interrupt my own little Andy Warhol, I called her out of the bathroom and asked her what movie she wanted to go see. The answer was as loud as it was immediate.

"TANGLED!"

This was not at all unexpected. We are big fans of Disney here, especially anytime John Lasseter is connected, and I had been wanting to see it as well. So after getting cleaned up, fed, and watered, we set out for the theater.

And forty dollars later there we sat, soft drinks and buttered popcorn in hand, to watch the film.

I was very pleased with the film. The animation was superb. Animated to appear as if a painted canvas had sprung into vivid, colorful three dimensions it was a feast for the eyes. The story was great, the voice acting spot on. The songs were catchy, typical Alan Menken. My daughter lacks the capacity to sit still when listening to music and she was be-bopping her way through them all. She had received the soundtrack several weeks ago and she was excited to be able to hum along as she watched.

The movie was stolen by two characters with absolutely no spoken lines whatsoever. The chameleon Pascal and the horse Maximus. When animated characters can pull me along in a story without even speaking a word, the animators have captured me (Yes, you, Wall-E!). The two animals comprise a lot of the comic relief in the film and they are rendered perfectly. As good as their human counterparts are, the animated animals make the movie for me. The Peanut felt the same way, although she did wander around the house the rest of the day practicing "The Smolder", the intense, pouty look the handsome lead character flashes in his attempt to woo Rapunzel into letting him go.

Tangled is a film I happily recommend to anyone looking for a fun and entertaining family trip to the movies. But be prepared for an instant request to run to the pet store after. My daughter already has plans (that will remain safely unfulfilled) to install a chameleon habitat above her bed. I can't wait to hear where she wants to keep the horse.

So I ask you...which is the better smolder?

The New Years Resolution or Why I Happily Lie to Myself.

2011-01-01T18:50:00.003-05:00

"To lose those ten pounds...or fifteen...or twenty...or fifty."

"To read more than just the spare magazines in my doctor's office."

"To be a better person by spending time with my annoying ____________ (fill in family members name)."

"To give more to charity and less to the guys at Saturday night poker."

"To stop stalking housewives shopping at the local mall in their pajama jeans."

"To learn a foreign language so I can understand the Independent Film Channel."

"To finally get that weird boil that keeps changing colors on my ass looked at."

"To read my Bible, Koran, Talmud, Satanic Scriptures, copy of The Wiccan Rede, Book of Mormon, or Whatever Athiests Choose to Read, from cover to cover (whichever applies)."

"To turn my back on the cult of Ronald the McDonald and Burger the King and eat healthy...and whole wheat Pringles COUNT as healthy!"

Ah yes. The New Years Resolution. The yearly promise one makes with...one's self. Some folks make lists the size of a Stephen King novella while others scoff and turn their nose up at the practice. Speaking for meself, I have always tried to jot down a few. Even managed to actually accomplish the occasional resolution, although this occurrence is about as rare as a Christine O'Donnell senate win.

My primary resolution for 2011 is to write...and write often. The fall is always so hard for me to find time to write. When a new school year begins and I have to take on an entirely new group of fifth graders my free time fades significantly. I hate it and I try to combat it but it is, as they say, what it is.

But writing is important to me. It is an enjoyable, stress relieving activity that, dammit, I just need to make more time for. So write I will...and write often I will (sorry to sound so Yoda like). I have some other ideas for the blog that are still fermenting. Whether they develop into a fine wine or an acidic mess will remain to be seen.

I would like to wish all who read this (all five of you) the happiest of New Years. May all your resolutions come true and your 2011 be epic.

Now, where did I put that YMCA application...

The Hyperborean Geocacher

2010-10-11T15:17:00.002-04:00

I have written about geocaching on this blog before.

It is an excellent (and inexpensive) way to get outside and exercise alone or with the family. A global game, you can find active geocaches almost anywhere you travel (yes, even Antarctica AND the International Space Station). I have been actively caching since early spring and it is a great way to spend spare time or family time.

I find myself wanting to write about geocaching more and more yet this blog doesn't really seem the place to do so. So I created a new blog, The Hyperborean Geocacher. It will be my place to write about all things Geocache. It will also be a place to pursue another one of my hobbies, photography. I always have my camera with me when Geocaching and always have time to grab shots like this one...

Come on over and visit. You may walk away with a new hobby...

Fifth Grader One, High Schoolers ZERO.

2010-10-08T22:16:00.002-04:00

I had one of those "so proud of my student" moments that teachers live for.

We took a trip today. Climbed aboard the shuddering yellow school buses and took the thirty minute drive up I-95 to tour the Constitution Center and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was a cloudless, seventy degree journey back in time to the founding of our nation.

One of the highlights of our annual trip is the twenty minute tour of the room where both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were drafted and signed. There is something profoundly moving about standing in the same room as the men who took a stand against King George and then created a framework of government (it was their second try, but hey, who's counting?) that we still use today, 223 years later.

As we listened to the park ranger talk about the origins of our constitution he asked the crowd, composed mostly of a high school group from Virginia and three small groups of my fifth graders, if anyone knew that our current constitution was our nation's SECOND try. Several of my students nodded their heads along with most of the high schoolers, bobble heads sprung into motion from sheer group reaction.

The ranger put his hands on his rather large hips and asked us if we knew what our nation's first attempt at a workable system of government was called.

The high schoolers looked at each other with expressions blanker than Sarah Palin's at a national vocabulary bee. The ranger paused for a few seconds, trying to give their adolescent brains a chance to retrieve the answer from their hormone soaked memory banks.

He inhaled, about to give the answer when the voice of a young boy beat him to it.

"They were called the Articles of Confederation," he said quietly but clearly, sharing what we had been learning about earlier in the week.

The ranger's head swung around to my guy standing at the rail. The high schoolers behind us muttered to themselves. I am pretty sure I heard one of them exclaim "Holy shit!". The ranger smiled at my student.
"You sir, are one hundred percent correct! You could teach these older kids a thing or two."

More mumbling, the likes of which I shall not repeat here.

I made eye contact with my guy and winked. He smiled and gave me the thumbs up, beaming with a self-confidence so strong I wish I could bottle it and give it to every student.

These are the moments I live for and cling to when the media, idiot politicians, or half-witted "documentary" film makers (Waiting for Profiteers?!?) criticize my profession and my colleagues.

The Chalkboard Dad is the Mentally Sexiest Dad in America!

2010-10-08T13:02:00.000-04:00

Awoke this morning to an email from the one and only Joe Schatz from Dad-Blogs.

Dad-Blogs has been running a great contest called The Mentally Sexiest Dad Competition. I loved the idea and thought 'what the hell?' and I decided to enter.

I wrote my entry, enlisted the help of the cutest little girl on the planet for the photo, and submitted.

Many other creative and worthy dads also entered. Their posts were thoughtful, creative, and dare I say it, mentally sexy. I am shocked that mine was selected winner, shocked but grateful. Any chance I have to help shatter the popular image of dads being nothing more than cigar smoking, beer swilling, poker playing buffoons whose only real talents in life are watching sports, ogling women, cracking jokes, and being totally incapable of caring for their wives or their children on their own without tons of help, who only lift an incapable finger to help around the house when they have "done something wrong", is a chance I will gladly take.

We laugh at the Peter Griffins, the Homer Simpsons, and the Al Bundys of the world because, and let's be honest here, they ARE funny. Their antics and one liners are well written. And in the context of a television show, produced solely for entertainment's sake, I laugh along with everyone else. But when these caricatures of horrible husbands and fathers find their way to my TV as commercials and in horrible CNN "news" pieces, aimed at me as a husband and father, it ceases to be funny.

The qualifications for being mentally sexy, in my mind, really boil down to simply being a good husband and father. To putting my wife's needs and my child's needs ahead of my own. Not because I HAVE to. Because I want to. I have the utmost respect for all the dads who entered. And there are many more great examples out there of true husbands and excellent fathers that I have been privileged to meet through the wonder of social media via this blog, Facebook and Twitter.

So thanks to Joe and Dad-Blogs for choosing me. As I understand it, the contest will now enter the global arena and I will go up against other guys from other countries for the title of World's Mentally Sexiest Dad. I look forward not only to the challenge, but for the opportunity to meet, connect, and network with other shining examples of what a husband and father can be when we stop listening to the media's image of us and start listening to our hearts.

One Hundred Word Challenge - Ditch

2010-10-03T23:16:00.002-04:00

The prompt for this week's flash fiction over at Velvet Verbosity is ditch. The task was to write one hundred words inspired by that word. Here's my go...

Pursuit

He sprinted down the crowded city street. Someone had talked. And now they were after him.

He dove sharply left, into a narrow alley. Dropped to one knee at its opening.

Less than a minute passed before a dark figure raced by the alley, immediately followed by a second.

As he looked a heavy hand dropped with the terrible weight of all the world upon his thin shoulder. A winded voice exhaled one chilling word.

"Gotcha."

The boy looked up into the red face of the truancy officer.

Ditching school was not the adventure he had hoped it to be.

Is Back to School Night Important?

2010-09-29T12:00:00.001-04:00

Back to School

The parents walk into their child's kindergarten classroom on "Back to School" night, flush with enthusiasm to learn about the exciting experiences their daughter has been having so far in class and the journeys she will be embarking upon the rest of the year. They are eager to learn how the classroom is run, what curriculum the teacher will be using, and any way they can help as they collaborate with the teacher throughout the year.

Husband and wife gladly jot their names on the sign in roster, grabbing the small packet the teacher has thoughtfully prepared beforehand. They navigate their way around small tables, full to bursting with anticipation to see the "ME" book their daughter diligently prepared for them in class and judiciously briefed them on before they departed for the school.

The mother spots it first and points. The father looks and smiles. The glossy photo of his beloved daughter adorns the red construction paper cover, bright crayon spelling out her name across the front in her slightly crooked but ever improving child's penmanship. The parents go over and have a seat in chairs five times too small for their adult backsides. They flip through the pages, marveling at the work their once tiny baby, now a sophisticated kindergartener, has produced just for them to enjoy this night.

The teacher makes her way to the front, greeting parents as she goes. The parents listen in rapt silence as she runs them through a typical day for their daughter, using a power point presentation replete with adorable snapshots of the students engaged in their daily activities. The schedule, the specials, the learning centers, the classroom expectations...all of it important information for the parents to be aware of as they search for ways to maximize their daughter's learning potential. It is a wonderful, informative night.

When the evening comes to a close the parents thank the teacher, shaking her hand and voicing how happy they are with the presentation and how glad they are that their daughter has such an amazing teacher. The teacher smiles, accepting the compliment with great humility and encourages the parents to leave a note for their daughter in her mailbox to read in the morning.

They do so and as the father turns to leave, his eyes sweep the classroom one more time. On the tables he notices well over a dozen "ME" books created by his daughter's classmates. They lay there, untouched, unopened, because the parents of those children did not make it out for the evening. The dad pauses, wondering where these parents are. Work? Unable to find child care? Just plain uninterested?

He knows it is not really any of his business but he feels sorry for these other kids just the same. When half the class comes in tomorrow they will come in to see their hard work already collected and taken home. They will come in to loving and encouraging notes. The ones whose parents did not make it will come in to their "ME" books left behind like unwanted party guests, mailboxes as devoid of loving notes as a desert is devoid of trees.

He wonders where these parents are...and the message their absence is sending to their children...he wonders...

My Piece Wins an Award!

2010-09-28T15:57:00.001-04:00

My writing piece that is, not my handgun.

And not my...well...anyway...moving on...

The "inventor of Geeky-Sexy" over at Velvet Verbosity runs a weekly contest where eager wordsmiths write a flash piece of a hundred words inspired by a one word prompt that she supplies.

(If you are thinking to yourself 'Gee, that sounds familiar' then yes, this is where I got the idea to start the Father 100. No it's NOT stealing. We prefer the term "creative borrowing".)

She ~~took temporary leave of her senses~~ kindly singled out my entry entitled A Choice to be the winning selection for the week. I am very grateful and appreciative for the nod. I love to write and it always makes me feel all gummy bears and lollipops inside (ok...that sounded a lot less gay in my head) when people get enjoyment from my scribblings.

So thank you Ms. Velvet Verbosity!

I encourage you, unfailing reader, to go check out the other entries. If you have a blog...join in!

A Choice

He stands at the edge of the cliff, the exposed toes of his bare feet hinging out over the edge.

He visualizes the jump, feels the rush of the wind, hears its roar as he gives himself fully to the thrill of gravity’s pull, to the embrace of the jagged rocks below.

He sees the darkness.

Eternal peace.

Complete silence.

Oblivion’s beautiful nothingness.

He starts to lean forward, to set the end in motion.

He sees her face, a mask of sorrow, a single tear, and he draws back.

Turns away.

Love’s pull is greater, it seems, than despair’s fire.

One Hundred Word Challenge - Greater

2010-09-24T14:52:00.003-04:00

The prompt for this week's flash fiction over at Velvet Verbosity is greater. The task was to write one hundred words inspired by that word. Here's my go...

A Choice

He stands at the edge of the cliff, the exposed toes of his bare feet hanging out over the edge.

He visualizes the jump, feels the rush of the wind, hears its roar as he gives himself fully to the thrill of gravity’s pull, to the embrace of the jagged rocks below.

He sees the darkness.

Eternal peace.

Complete silence.

Oblivion’s beautiful nothingness.

He starts to lean forward, to set the end in motion.

He sees her face, a mask of sorrow, a single tear, and he draws back.

Turns away.

Love's pull is greater, it seems, than despair’s fire.

Father Friday 7 - Best of the Week from Blogging Parents

2010-09-24T10:13:00.011-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

September.

Derived from the Latin septum, meaning seven. So named for the seventh month in the Roman calendar, set into place around the time Julius Caesar ruled the Roman Empire long before that "unfortunate" team meeting on the Ides of March.

I love the month...and I hate the month.

September is great because it means the start of a new school year. A new set of students, a new bundle of adventures on the pedagogical roller coaster we call fifth grade. It is an exciting time.

September is tiring because it means the start of a new school year. A new set of assessments to give, levels to check, a new bundle of individual personality quirks to learn on the emotional roller coaster we call fifth grade. It is an exhausting time.

September is usually the month where my blog gets more neglected than Lindsay Lohan's parole provisions. Then September rolls into October, which then rolls into November, and so on and so forth. Suddenly, one sunny morning in May, I brush the cobwebs from my laptop and remember that I have a blog I love to write for.

A side benefit for me personally in starting both The Father 100 and Father Fridays is that they will hopefully be the burr under my saddle to remember to stick with it throughout the school year. They are also great because they afford me a weekly chance to read some great writing by moms and dads from across the continent and across the ocean.

So...enough whining...onto the links!

The guidelines...

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad. (Or a really awesome mom that meets the same criteria!)

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back. (This part is optional, but oh so appreciated!)

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise. (You know...like Twitter!)

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad. COMMENT, COMMENT, COMMENT!

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

Don't forget to share the link to this post via Twitter, Email, IM, carrier pigeon, or artistic highway rest stop bathroom graffiti. The more moms and dads we can get to link up, the more we can influence our corner of the web with good, positive, humorous parenting.

And What Happens Then - Chapter Eight, Also By Me.

2010-09-21T15:53:00.001-04:00

Last week over at And What Happens Then I left Lillian in a limo kneeling in a pool of her lover's blood (yeah...sorry if you are reading this while eating or something) neck deep in a "pickle" as my great grandmother used to put it.
(Not that my great grandmother ever used the word "pickle" to describe having a younger sister kidnapped and held by nefarious men, being forced to deliver an unknown package for an unknown purpose, and witnessing the assassination of her lover in a limousine on a Washington DC street...at least I don't THINK she did...do we really ever know the people we think we know?)

Since I put Lillian in the middle of such a "pickle" I was given the opportunity to write the next chapter to get her out of it. And the good news is that she has found a way out of it. Yes. She has. What she had to do to find her way out of it...well...I think it best you go see for yourself if you are so inclined.

Be warned...Lillian has to get a bit medieval. A profanity or two does fly so if that offends, I apologize...sometimes intense situations call for intense speech.

Darn it all.

To heck.

So go give it a read. Comments, as always, are appreciated (and sickeningly longed for).

Father Friday 6 - Best of the Week From Blogging Parents

2010-09-17T23:03:00.001-04:00

Happy Friday!

What a week!

With the new school year in full force the hare of time has passed the tortoise that is me. When we get to the end of September things tend to settle down. Until then...the rules...

The rules...

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad. (Or a really awesome mom that meets the same criteria!)

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back. (This part is optional, but oh so appreciated!)

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise. (You know...like Twitter!)

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad. COMMENT, COMMENT, COMMENT!

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

Don't forget to share the link to this post. Via Twitter, Email, IM, or carrier pigeon. The more moms and dads we can get to link up, the more we can influence our corner of the web with good, positive, humorous parenting.

The Father 100 - Episode 4

2010-09-14T23:23:00.003-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Happy one month birthday, Father 100!

Since starting this project a month ago, I am already impressed with the great writing we have been able to gather together from many awesome blogging moms and dads, husbands and wives, dudes and dudettes.

We have seen a great diversity from the posts created from our first three word prompts, LOVE, FORGIVENESS, and LAUGHTER. I look forward to reading them every week. Your support and sharing of this project continues to make it grow.

Let's keep the momentum rolling.

This weeks word came at the suggestion of one of my favorite dad blogging friends, @PapaRocks6. He dropped a direct message the other day with this word and I told him it was an excellent suggestions, much better than the word @TheDaddyYoDude and I came up with, turd.

So without further delay here are the rules and PapaRocks6's excellent prompt.

The rules are simple. I will give you a word. Yes, that's right a word. As in one. Single. The cheese stands alone...you get the point.

You will have between now and midnight (EST) on Saturday to write a one hundred word post inspired by that word. Entries can be less than one hundred words, but they cannot be more. Posts must focus on some aspect of marriage or parenting. Even though I call this the Father 100, moms are encouraged to join us!

Ninety words? Cool.

Ninety-eight? Awesome.

One hundred two? Sorry chief.

One hundred words (or less).

Write your post on your blog and then add your link to the linky tools below, just like for Father Friday.

Sometime over the course of the weekend I will read all the entries. Then I will pick the entry that I feel best does justice to the spirit of the given word. Some weeks I will have a guest do the judging so I can play as well.

This exercise is strictly for fun and also for good writing practice. As of this time no prizes will be offered. Should I win the lottery or score a successful reality series (Real Dads of Delaware...can you see it?) that may change, but for now the chosen author will have to content himself or herself with the prideful swell of a job well done.

I think this can be a lot of fun. Who is in?

This week's word is...

Community

Happy writing!!!

And What Happens Then - My Chapter

2010-09-14T12:25:00.001-04:00

And What Happens Then is a collaborative blog project I am fortunate enough to be a part of. Started by the prodigious Tara from If Mom Says OK, it is an experiment in collaborative writing with some extremely funky cool blogging peeps.

My contribution, chapter seven, went live today. Go check it out. I do not know what it says about me that my chapter is by far the most violent. While you are there, catch up on the rest of the story. I am also putting the finishing touches on chapter eight which will go live next week.

I hope you enjoy!

The Courier - Chapter Seven

The Father 100 - Episode 3 Winner - Exhausdad!

2010-09-12T21:35:00.002-04:00

Lot of fun posts this week. Lots of dads who clearly love to laugh, with their children and with their spouses.

I am going with the exhausted dad over at exhausdad.com. I like his piece because this game he describes is a popular one between The Peanut and I.

I USUALLY win...

Routine Laughter by @exhausdad

Punch out for the day. Walk to the parking lot where my wife and baby are waiting patiently. Open the back door of the car and peek in across the back seat. Little bright blue eyes glance over sideways from her car seat. Head remains still. Eyebrows raise a massive smile on my face. Baby’s lips tighten. She tries so hard not to smile. Her eyes retreat forward. Pretends I’m not there. My impossibly big smile gets bigger. Losing the battle, a slight smirk forces it’s way onto her face. Another glance over at my eyes and it erupts. Laughter.

Make sure you check all the other entries and be sure to join us again Tuesday night. At the suggestion of an awesome dad, we have a great word for our next episode.

Have a great week everybody!

Father Friday 5 - Best of the Week From Blogging Parents

2010-09-10T08:34:00.002-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Good day...and welcome to episode 5 of Father Friday!

With last week being a major holiday weekend, I was of the opinion that we would only get a handful of posts but we got seventeen which for Labor Day Weekend is, I think, pretty great!

I hope you look forward to Father Friday as much as I do. There are so many parents doing great things on the Internet and it is awesome to see them gathered together in one place. Continue to spread the word, let's get as many posts this week as we can!

Now, for the rules...(which are more like guidelines)...

The rules...

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad. (Or a really awesome mom that meets the same criteria!)

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back. (This part is optional, but oh so appreciated!)

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise. (You know...like Twitter!)

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad. COMMENT, COMMENT, COMMENT!

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

Don't forget to share the link to this post. Via Twitter, Email, IM, or carrier pigeon. The more moms and dads we can get to link up, the more we can influence our corner of the web with good, positive, humorous parenting.

The Peanut Takes on the Lord of the Rings

2010-09-09T21:16:00.002-04:00

This past weekend The Peanut, who is almost six, decided she wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings. I have a Gollum cut out in my classroom who warns my students to always write their homework down, lest they be transformed into Gollum and share his fate. She has always liked it and Friday night asked if she could watch the movies.

I hesitated for a second.

If you have seen them you know that Peter Jackson did not tell the story with kid gloves. The baddies are scary and there are sword fights a plenty. There are even a few decapitations and one finger removed by biting. But I only hesitated for a second. The movies are full of excellent lessons and I know that The Peanut has a very mature grasp of what is real and what is make believe. This may be because we have read to her since the day we brought her home (actually we read to her in the womb, but who knows how far that went) and we have read to her from a variety of genres.

So on Friday night we got comfy on the couch and put in The Fellowship of the Ring. I don't own the standard movie. I have the director's cut of each, extending the length well over the three hour mark for each film. I will admit I had my doubts. Not about whether or not she could handle the content, but about whether or not she could handle the length of time needed to watch each movie.

We watched the first half of Fellowship until it was time for bed. She was riveted. Absolutely engaged. Her eyes rarely left the screen. My daughter tends to talk to the screen when she is watching something she is really enjoying. I wish I had a recording of her commentary. At one point toward the middle of the movie the character Aragorn is about to leave on a dangerous quest to escort the One Ring to the only place it can be destroyed, a quest that promises to be fraught with danger, violence, lots of running, and bleeding creatures galore. As he is leaving he catches the piercing gaze of his love, the elf Arwen (who The Peanut wants to be for Halloween by the way). He halts his horse and shares a lingering, doe-eyed, longing glance that lasts for several seconds. Getting tired of it, The Peanut yells at the TV, "Come on! Be a man and GET GOING!"

She went to bed begrudgingly and was up at 6:30 Saturday morning ready to continue watching. I made her wait for a bit so I could sleep but by 8:00 her repeated head peeks into my bedroom got me up. I swear to you she is not even that excited on Christmas morning. She could not wait to "continue the adventure" as she put it.

We went downstairs and finished Fellowship. Then she wanted to keep going and we rolled right into the Two Towers. When it concluded I asked her if she wanted to take a break and she said no. So we rolled right into Return of the King, the longest of the three films. She was totally engaged in the story. When she was confused she asked a question but that did not happen often. She felt bad for Smeagol (Gollum). She, like many girls, is in love with Orlando Bloom's Legolas ("Daddy, can I marry an elf like him when I grow up?") and she is very jealous of the fact that Hobbits don't have to wear shoes.

But the part that amazed me most occurred after the credits for Return had rolled. Whenever she watches a movie we talk about it. We discuss the characters, the story, cause and effect, favorite parts, and any questions she might have. We do this to give her a solid base for literary comprehension when she starts to read (which is already well on its way).

We discussed these things for several minutes then I asked her who she thought the real hero of the story was. I thought she would say Frodo, or Gandalf, or even her new boyfriend Legolas. She floored me with her answer.

She thought it over for a few seconds then responded.

"Samwise! He was the real hero."

After I picked my chin up off the floor I asked her why.

"Frodo needed Sam. If there was no Sam, Frodo never would have brought the ring to the big volcano."

She is, of course, right. She totally got the movies. To hear her confirm my own opinion, albeit simply but correctly, made me so very proud.

"So," I said. "What is a big lesson we could learn from the way Sam helped Frodo? About his friendship?"

She thought again.

"Being a good friend is very important. It saves the world."

At that moment, wherever he may be, I like to think JRR Tolkien smiled.

The Father 100 - Episode 3

2010-09-07T22:14:00.001-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Good evenin out there all you unbelievably amazing writers who also happen to be moms and dads. Worked off your labor day hangovers yet?

Well I have and I am ready for another round of posts of blogging awesomeness that we have come to know as The Father 100.

Last weeks word, forgiveness, got me many @mentions and direct messages inquiring about my sanity for choosing such a heavy and emotionally charged prompt. It was a tough one alright. I struggled for days with my own piece but I am glad we did it. If you haven't read the entries for forgiveness go here and read them now, powerful and well written stuff resides therein.

In the spirit of fairness, I offer up a much lighter, less gut wrenching prompt for this week. For the benefit of @TheDaddyYoDude I ALMOST went with the word turd...but I chickened out. So, without any further delay, I offer this week's Father 100 prompt and the rules.

The rules are simple. I will give you a word. Yes, that's right a word. As in one. Single. The cheese stands alone...you get the point.

You will have between now and midnight (EST) on Saturday to write a one hundred word post inspired by that word. Entries can be less than one hundred words, but they cannot be more. Posts must focus on some aspect of marriage or parenting. Even though I call this the Father 100, moms are encouraged to join us!

Ninety words? Cool.

Ninety-eight? Awesome.

One hundred two? Sorry chief.

One hundred words (or less).

Write your post on your blog and then add your link to the linky tools below, just like for Father Friday.

Sometime over the course of the weekend I will read all the entries. Then I will pick the entry that I feel best does justice to the spirit of the given word. Some weeks I will have a guest do the judging so I can play as well.

This exercise is strictly for fun and also for good writing practice. As of this time no prizes will be offered. Should I win the lottery or score a successful reality series (Real Dads of Delaware...can you see it?) that may change, but for now the chosen author will have to content himself with the prideful swell of a job well done.

I think this can be a lot of fun. Who is in?

This week's word is...

LAUGHTER

(Am I FORGIVEN now??)

100 Words on Forgiveness

2010-09-05T00:16:00.005-04:00

Image borrowed from voiceofvision.blogspot.com

They are easily three of the most amazing words to hear and, simultaneously, three of the most difficult words to utter.

I forgive you.

To hear them said to you is the damp cloth brought to the cracked lips of a man lost for days in the desert.

To say them to another is almost god-like in its power to restore to life a relationship that was dead or dying.

And yet, knowing this to be true, why do I often times find them so difficult to utter?

Why do I withhold?

To my shame, I know not...

This is my entry for The Father 100 from the prompt word forgiveness.

The Father 100 - Episode 2 Winner

2010-09-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

When I posted this weeks prompt, forgiveness, on Twitter on Tuesday night I got several messages sent my way almost immediately about the difficulty of the chosen word.

Make no mistake about it, I think the act of forgiveness is one of the most human, and one of the most difficult, acts that one human being can extend to another (or to himself for that matter). In my own experience, as well as the collective experience of our eight contributors this week, forgiveness is not easy and it is an act of sheer will.

Thank you to all who took this difficult bull by the horns. All the entries are excellent. Choosing one is no easier this week then it was last week.

Here is the excellent entry by @DadStreet from his blog of the same name.

You engage.
They connect.
You expose yourself.
They rip out your insides.
Pain. Fear. Anger. Sorrow.
Heavy.
You carry the baggage of resentment.
You’ve become a slave. A slave to your own emotions.
Freedom. Freedom is lost.
But freedom is also . . . attainable.
Attainable through a gift.
A gift you give yourself.
Give yourself the gift. The gift of forgiveness.
Make sure your children know freedom.
Make sure they know forgiveness.

The image of being a slave to my own emotions and of forgiveness being the hammer that breaks those chains truly resonates with me. Well done Dad Street! Thank you for sharing your talents with us.

Go check out his fantastic blog Dad Street. It is well worth the time and the read, as are the blogs of our seven other contributors.

Thanks for turning in to this week's edition of The Father 100. Please join us next Wednesday when we do it all over again with a new word.

And I promise not to make it as challenging or intimidating as forgiveness!

(Can you forgive me?!?)

Feed Your Inner Grammar Nerd - The Apostrophe Song!

2010-09-04T11:18:00.001-04:00

Found this fantastic song over at one of my favorite writing themes sites, Inkygirl.com.

Enjoy!

Father Friday 4 - Best of the Week from Blogger Parents

2010-09-03T10:26:00.001-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Father Friday is a month old. Big thanks to all the awesome writers who have turned this into more than I had hoped for at its creation.

Last week we had 26 participants, 26 awesome posts.

Let's see if we can beat thirty this week. Show us your best, blogging moms and dads!

The rules...

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad. (Or a really awesome mom!)

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back. (This part is optional, but oh so appreciated!)

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise. (You know...like twitter!)

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad.

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

Don't forget to share the link to this post. Via Twitter, Email, IM, or carrier pigeon. The more moms and dad we can get to link up, the more we can influence our corner of the web with good, positive, humorous parenting.

Student Quote of the Day - Don't Ask Silly Questions

2010-09-01T17:50:00.000-04:00

There are many things I love about being a teacher. In the interest of full disclosure, there are also some things about being a teacher that make me want to take up drinking as a full time hobby, but the good things FAR outweigh the bad.

One of the things I enjoy the most about my chosen profession is that I am surrounded by children. We all know, as Bill Cosby says, that kids say the darndest things. I have access to a daily comedy show all around me and I feel guilty, being the only one who gets to enjoy it. So I have decided to bring it to the Chalkboard.

No names of course, just the quotes, the nuggets of comedy that my kids toss out all the time, sometimes on purpose, like here, and other times completely unaware of how funny they are. Like today's quote.

The kids were working on a project today where they create an acrostic using the letters in their first name. One of my students needed a marker so he asked his neighbor.

His neighbor complied and tossed him a double sided Sharpie, with a wide tip at one end and a fine tip at the other. My student regarded the pen with a quizzical look, uncapping both sides of the pen. He looked up.

"Hey," he said, tapping his classmate with one of the caps, "why does this pen have two sides?"

His classmate gave him the kind of look reserved for the terminally confused.

I love the reply...

"Because...it's awesome!"

The Father 100 - Episode 2

2010-08-31T22:56:00.001-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Last week we began a new feature here at The Chalkboard, The Father 100. The idea was to have dads and moms who own a blog write a one hundred word piece on a given word.

I was psyched to have seventeen awesome dads and one awesome mom step up to the plate and show their writing chops off for the world to see. The posts on the word love were touching, funny, heartfelt, and best of all, well written.

I hope everyone who jumped in last week jumps in again and that we get more moms and dads to join us.

Wanna join us? Here's how...

The rules are simple. I will give you a word. Yes, that's right a word. As in one. Single. The cheese stands alone...you get the point.

You will have between now and midnight on Friday to write a one hundred word post inspired by that word. Entries can be less than one hundred words, but they cannot be more. Posts must focus on some aspect of marriage or parenting. Even though I call this the Father 100, moms are encouraged to join us!

Ninety words? Cool.

Ninety-eight? Awesome.

One hundred two? Sorry chief.

One hundred words (or less).

Write your post on your blog and then add your link to the linky tools below, just like for Father Friday.

Sometime over the course of the weekend I will read all the entries. Then I will pick the entry that I feel best does justice to the spirit of the given word. Some weeks I will have a guest do the judging so I can play as well.

This exercise is strictly for fun and also for good writing practice. As of this time no prizes will be offered. Should I win the lottery or score a successful reality series (Real Dads of Delaware...can you see it?) that may change, but for now the chosen author will have to content himself with the prideful swell of a job well done.

I think this can be a lot of fun. Who is in?

This week's word is...

FORGIVENESS

OK writers...write...

Prayer of a Teacher - 2010 Redux

2010-08-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

Well, summer 2010 has come to a close. A new batch of students will be coming to my room tomorrow. I was going to write a post about what I am thinking and feeling today but then I read back through the post I wrote last year at this time. It basically said everything I am feeling so I am just going to reprint it here, with a few changes.

When I read through it I realized I owe the entire eastern seaboard an apology. When I mentioned the hope for a "few days of heavy snow sprinkled in just for fun" I did not realize I was opening the floodgates on feet and feet of heavy snow, the likes of which we had never before seen (my back is STILL sore from all the shoveling). So...sorry everyone...my bad.

For your consideration...

Prayer of a Teacher - 2010 Redux.

Today is an anxious day in the life of a teacher.

The room is set up, copies are made, planning has been done.

Tomorrow is zero hour.

Tomorrow, the kids come.

Many teachers I know spend this day wandering around in a kind of trance, hoping the year they are about to embark on is a good one. Good students who come to class bright eyed, bushy tailed, and eager to learn. Excellent parents who share your educational philosophy to the letter, who show up, ON TIME, to every conference and dance through the halls, singing your praises so loud the principal cannot help but join in the joyous refrain. Test scores so high Oprah herself will take notice and have you as a guest on her show to share your wisdom with the masses. And who wouldn't want a few days worth of heavy snow sprinkled in just for fun (but NO BLIZZARDS!).

These lofty aspirations aside, we all hope for a good, positive year.

In fact teachers so fervently hope for a successful year that they engage in many activities the day before the year begins to give themselves a leg up, an edge to push them past everyone else.

These have been theorized by some, guessed at by others, and were even predicted by the great prophet Nostradamus.

They have never been revealed outside of the hallowed halls of academia.

Until now.

So...what can you as a teacher do the night before school starts to ensure a smooth, successful year?

- Make sure your years supply of Prozac is filled.

- Spend the day watching Freedom Writers, Mr. Holland's Opus, Dangerous Minds, Akelah and the Bee, Lean on Me, Dead Poets Society, or any othercompletely true to life Hollywood film made about teachers that will make you feel that your year will turn out EXACTLY like them. After you have had a good laugh at this suggestion, move on.

- Obsessively plan out your entire year. Then plan a back up year. Then plan a back up for your back up. Ensure that all back up plans are completely structurally supported by the state standards. Email copies to your principal, the PTA president, and the Head of the Board.

- Sacrifice 50 spotless bulls and 20 virgins to the god Odin that he may bless your endeavors with strength and victory. (This one is very difficult to pull off due to the fact that it is easier to find 50 bulls than it is to find 20 virgins these days. I blame Baywatch.)

- Consume as much alcohol as is humanly possible so that, no matter how devastatingly hung over you are for the start of school in the morning, the year can only get better.

- Spend the entire day at the pool or beach in complete and total denial that summer is over. When a friend makes a joke that you have to go back to real work in the morning, pants them and shove them in the water.

- Lay on your living room floor, tucked into a protective, fetal ball, drooling and mumbling until your spouse kicks you and sends you up to bed.

As you can see, there are many things a teacher can do to ensure a smooth and productive year.

I am, of course, kidding (except for the comment about how much easier it is to find bulls instead of virgins). It is true however that the night before a new school year begins is one filled with nervous anticipation and, hopefully, excitement.

I have a simple routine I follow, and after many years in education, it seems to work pretty well.

After spending a fun day with my family (The Wife is a teacher as well...The Peanut wants to be a teacher some day, as well as a presidential, soccer playing, policewoman firefighting violinist) I will read for a bit and then turn off the lights. Before I glide into the deep waters of sleep, I pray.

I pray for patience. I need to remember that each student is a unique individual. Like fingerprints, no two students are exactly alike. Each comes to me at a different stage of development, academically and socially. It is unreasonable to want them all to be at the same level just because it would make my life easier. I need to do the best I can for each student where they are.

I pray for energy. I know that I am the single most important influence in my classroom when it comes to setting the mood. If I am happy, upbeat, and enthusiastic I increase the odds for that energy to permeate into my students. Likewise, if I am negative, sour, or tired the same will occur. Like a hot air balloonist, I have much control over how inflated or deflated we all are.

I pray for sensitivity. Twenty-five human lives from twenty-five different backgrounds, religions, and home situations will come to me. They will look to me to understand them, to give them acceptance, validation, and support. I need to remember that just because someone did not grow up with what I had or was not raised the way I was, that does not make me superior to them. I need to accept and care for my students where they are when they come to me. I also need to be open to the things I can learn from my students on a daily basis.

I pray for compassion. Some of my families are single parent. Some of my students are being raised by their grandparents. Some are the oldest and the responsibility for raising their younger siblings falls to them because mom or dad work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Some are going through active divorce proceedings. Some are coping with difficult custody arrangements from past divorce proceedings. Some are coping with life situations that are so terrible and confusing that I as a thirty-five year old adult would struggle to comprehend them. These children come to my door each day and are expected to learn. I must remember that some days this will be easier for them than others.

I pray for wisdom. I know I will make mistakes. It is an inevitable by-product of the human condition. I pray for the wisdom to minimize my mistakes. I also pray for the wisdom to learn from the ones I will make.

I pray for endurance. A school year is a marathon, one run no matter what the conditions are like. I need to be mindful that I must remain as strong on the last day of school as I plan to be on the first. There are parts of the year that pass with the ease of a down hill race. I pray that I do not get complacent at those times. But there are also times of a school year that pass with the gut wrenching agony of an uphill race. I pray that my energy will not fail me when I need it most.

I pray for my colleagues. Though a school may be comprised of a multitude of individual classrooms, it is a community. I need to remember that the other adults in my building will be just as nervous, just as excited, just as fallible as I will be. I pray that I can be an asset and encouragement to my fellow teachers, that I will reach out to them when they are in need. I also pray that I in turn will reach out to them when I find myself in need of assistance.

Lastly, I pray that when my students leave my room that I will have made as much of an impact on their lives as I know they will make on my own. There has not been a year that has passed by where a class has not taught me a multitude of things about myself and the way I view the world, for good or for ill. I will always be indebted to my students and their families for the things they have taught me.

These things I will pray. Then, I will sleep.

At some point in the night my clinically insane beagle will shove her cold, wet nose into the small of my back. And some time after that, as the sun begins to rise, The Peanut will pad not-so-softly into our room and hop into bed with us, snuggling in between us. I will lay there for a bit, savoring the preview of heaven that comes from having my dearest ones so close.

Then my feet will hit the floor...and another school year will begin.

The First Father 100 Winner

2010-08-29T00:13:00.002-04:00

Holy advanced calculus Batman!

This was wayyyyyyyy harder than I thought it was going to be. Seventeen awesome blogging dads and one awesome blogging mom took up the challenge to write a one hundred word or less piece of flash NON-fiction inspired by the word LOVE.

Let me tell ya...these dudes and dudette are awesome! I have sat here this evening, for over an hour, reading and re-reading the wisdom, compassion, and excellence that have poured forth from the pens of these eighteen writers. If you haven't read them all go do it. You will thank me for pointing you to them.

I did say I would single out the post that most spoke to me each week. And while they ALL did on one level or another, the effort turned in by Dr. Shawn over at These Are My Footprints In The Sand spoke to me the most.

Enjoy his piece, then go visit his blog for more of the same. Then go visit the blogs of the other seventeen participants. What I had hoped would happen has begun to happen. We are showing the world that these dads and mom can write with skill and precision. Enjoy Dr. Shawn's piece and please join us Wednesday for another round of The Father 100!

I do.

I will.

I promise to.

God gives it.

We all deserve it.

Our children show it.

Our children require it.

It must be unconditional.

Grace can be found there.

Mercy is given birth by it.

Endless nights of teething, worry, teenage years.

Puff, Smurfs, Barney, Blue, Hannah Montana, Bieber Fever OY!

Crawl, waddle, step, crash, tantrum, crash, step, crash, TANTRUM!!

Birth

Cry

Sleeping entire night

Teething

Babble, walk, talk

Preschool

Cheer

Homerun

First Kiss

Drive

Date

Graduation

College

Marriage

Then it’s goodbye as they begin their own.

Fast, flash

Daddy…

LOVE…them as if there is no tomorrow.

Thank you to all who participated! I hope to see you back on Wednesday for the new word!

-Brian

(Chalkboard Dad)

Guys, Are We Brave Enough to be Real Husbands?

2010-08-28T01:19:00.003-04:00

The Internet is an amazing thing. Scary, dangerous, and a time suck of epic proportions (thanks for nothing Al Gore), but for the most part it is the best thing since sliced bread. Back in June I picked my old blog up off the floor where it had sat, abandoned, for almost a year. I dusted her off, pulling off two old gummy bears and some stringy spider webs and began to once again spend my evenings listening to the voices in my head and writing down what they tell me.

Through the site Dad-Blogs and later the hashtag #DadsTalking on Twitter I have met some really outstanding dads. Men who write amazing things about the awesome privilege we have been given that we should be called dad. Many of these fine, upstanding gentleman are listed in my blog roll under the Awesome Parent Blogs section and I am adding more daily. When you are finished here, jump over there and check some of these guys out. You will not consider your time wasted.

Today on Twitter @TedRubin linked to a post from early July by one of those dad bloggers, @DadStreet. It was a great post about how a guy's priorities shift when he becomes a father from "Am I a MANLY MAN?" to "Am I a GOOD DAD?". It is an awesome post that you can find by clicking here. Go ahead and read it. No, really...I'll wait here for you. I have a good book to read and a nice glass of Sebeka to drink...I will be here when you finish.

Welcome back. See, I told you it was a good post. I read it earlier today and it got me thinking about the importance of our role on Earth as fathers. I could only think of one other role that I think is just as important and that is our role as husbands (for those to whom that classification applies). So, in the spirit of Dad Street, I decided to make my own list.

A list about what it means to be a "Real Husband". Here goes...

- After your wife has had a rough day, taking her shoes off and rubbing her feet, WITHOUT having to be asked to do so.

- Being a considerate person and doing the little things, like leaving the toilet seat down. It seems like such a small thing to us guys but if you do it on a consistent basis it shows how considerate you are. Let's face it. What guy really cares if the seat is up OR down?

- Actually picking up a pen or pencil and writing notes to your wife, they way you did in the beginning. It doesn't even have to be anything elaborate or verbose. Simple declarations of your love will work just fine, a reminder about how amazing she is as a mother. A Post It note left on the bathroom mirror, a note slipped into her lunch, a mailed letter, from you. All expressions that show you care enough to invest time in letting your wife know how crazy you are about her.

- Buying your wife some flowers or something nice, not because you screwed up, but because you want her to know how thankful you are that she settled for a shlub like you and that you still see everyday how incredible she is.

- Opening the car door for her. I know it's not 1950, but if you did it when you were dating or trying to impress, then you damn well should still do it now.

- Watching something on TV she asks you to watch, even if it seems to you like you would rather see the TV exploded at the bottom of a quarry in flames rather than sit and watch it. You don't have to tell your buddies that you watched the Beverly Hills 90210 Reunion Special last night. Don't ask, don't tell applies here. (The one exception to this rule is reality television. Shows like Jersey Shore or Real Housewives should not be watched under any circumstance)

- Helping with your share of the household chores. Laundry, vacuuming, cooking. You live there...pull your weight.

- Telling her you love her before she reminds you to say it by telling you.

- Encouraging her to go out with her girlfriends for some girl time more than once a year. Come on dad, you can take care of the kids without the house blowing up. Don't buy the crap the media sells you about fathers being simple minded buffoons who can't do something as simple as watch over their own offspring. Hollywood thinks it's funny. I don't.

- Being there and wanting to be there. There's nothing wrong with going out with your buddies from time to time, but if you are out every weekend, or several nights a week and you leave her home with the kids, what kind of message are you sending about your priorities? Both to her AND to your children...

- Making time to go out on dates, just the two of you. I know the phrase "date night" has become a bit of a cliche, but the idea behind it is still important. And don't leave all the arrangements to her. You are an intelligent guy. You can arrange the babysitting and make the reservations. In the meat grinder that is life, it is important to make the time to be alone.

- Realizing that there is more to foreplay than asking "Hey, you ready yet?" Just saying...

- Not going to bed angry or with unresolved issues between each other. The Bible says it nicely when it advises "not to let the sun go down on your anger." Really...life is too short and too unpredictable to have unresolved issues between yourselves.

- Listening to her, instead of trying to solve all of her concerns with a snap of your magic man fingers so you can go back to what's on the television. Sometimes, all she wants is someone to listen.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. And by no means am I trying to imply by publishing it that I am the Mount Everest of husbands because I do all these things on a regular basis. I do not, just ask The Wife and, after she stops laughing, she will fill you in.

But it is a list I want to strive to adhere to, much as @DadStreet's list is one I strive to adhere to.

Any dads reading this, please add any points you feel I left out (there are hundreds) in the comment section below. I would be interested to see what kind of list we could all collaborate and produce.

Men, the two greatest treasures we are given in this life are our spouse and our children. We should be willing to fight our way through hell and back to ensure that they know just how precious they really are to us.

One Hundred Word Challenge - Corridor

2010-08-27T13:53:00.002-04:00

The prompt for this week's flash fiction over at Velvet Verbosity is corridor. The task was to write one hundred words inspired by that word. Here's my go...

The Walk

The condemned shuffles down the corridor, head bowed, thoughts on what awaits him at its end. Bright fluorescents overhead throw their harsh light down as he walks and considers the sequence of events that brought him to this place.

He shakes his head, wishing with all his being that he could take it back. Anger got the best of him and when the red mist filled his vision, he knows that he lost control.

He comes to the end. Looks up.

'This is it,' he thinks. 'My life is over.'

He opens the door marked Principal's Office and trudges inside.

Father Friday3 - Best of the Week from Blogger Dads.

2010-08-27T00:04:00.000-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Week three. Almost a month.

We increased our numbers last week which is good. Would like to see the numbers climb higher and higher.

This has been a busy week for me, getting the classroom all ready to receive eager new minds on Monday. Found time to write a bit, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. I am also depressed because, once more this year, my Phillies have suddenly forgot simple fundamentals like hitting and base running.

So I am counting on you dad and mom bloggers out there to give us your best from this week so I can cheer up in this, my last weekend before another school year starts. At least for a little while before we play San Diego this week.

So...the rules...

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad. (Or a really awesome mom!)

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back. (This part is optional, but oh so appreciated!)

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise. (You know...like twitter!)

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad.

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

Don't forget to share the link to this post. Via Twitter, Email, IM, or carrier pigeon. The more moms and dad we can get to link up, the more we can influence our corner of the web for good, positive, humorous parenting.

My Father 100 Post - LOVE

2010-08-26T00:28:00.000-04:00

Well I can't enter the contest because I am judging and impartiality has always been kinda hard for me, but I still wanted to write.

So I offer this purely for enjoyment's sake...

My Daughter

Your smile, rays of sunshine given flesh.

Your laugh, a sound of joy so pure, nothing on this earth can darken it.

Your hugs, the very embrace of the divine.

Your sense of humor, quirky and incredibly original.

Your respect, a treasure I desire never to lose or tarnish.

Your eyes, luminous windows to your soul.

Your unconditional love, a rock upon which I can set my back to fight any battle that comes our way.

Your compassion, as selfless as it is unending.

These my daughter are but a handful of the multitude of things I love about you.

When a Nobody Tries to be a Somebody (Scott Barry)

2010-08-25T09:31:00.012-04:00

SOURCE: The Fightins.com

This is what happens when a tiny man gets a chip on his sloped shoulders and thinks he is more important than the game. It's bad enough that Greg Gibson blew Monday night's call. It is clearly obvious that Barry was still harboring quite a bit of kindergarten resentment against Ryan Howard. His body posture and the "intimidating glare" of his piggish little eyes at the first strike call spoke volumes to that.

But when he was asked to make the second call, and he hesitated just long enough to make eye contact with Howard before throwing his fist in the air, almost exulting in the call, you knew this hack was not even composed enough to call games at the high school level. Remember, this is the same genius who ejected RYAN ZIMMERMAN a few days before, a guy who had never once been ejected in his entire major league career. Perhaps Barry was bullied by a guy named Ryan in elementary school, who knows?

Something needs to be done in major league baseball about this ump specifically and MLB umpires in general. They are the most pompous, out of control, sycophantic group of officials in any major sport (with the possible exception of the World Cup refs), but that's another rant.

Scott "I really am a tough guy" Barry should get down on his knees and thank god that Polanco was able to stop Ryan Howard, normally the most laid back guy on the baseball diamond, next to Chase Utley that is. If Howard had not been restrained I think young Mr. Barry would still be picking turf out of his face.

Have a listen to the call by Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson, which I borrowed from one of my favorite Phillies blogs The Fightins.

Scott Barry is slated to be the second base ump for tonight's game. Should be interesting...

Larry Andersen hates Scott Barry by Mike Meech

Click HERE to see video of the whole mess on MLB.com.

And by the way...am I the only Phillies fan who wonders on a daily basis why Franzke and Anderson are not in the TV booth in stead of TMac and Wheels?? I now do with Phillies games what I always do with Eagle games. I mute the TV guys (Yes you, Joe Buck) so I can hear the radio guys.

The Father 100

2010-08-24T21:29:00.001-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

OK dads (and interested moms). Time for another feature here at the chalkboard.

I am a big fan of flash fiction, love to read it and love to write it. It is fun to write and is excellent practice for making your writing more concise. So I got to thinking...I do flash fiction. Could there be such a thing as flash NON-fiction? 'Why not,' I said to myself. 'I think there could be and I think it could be a lot of fun. I also think I should stop talking to myself now.'

The result of this inner dialog?

THE FATHER 100!

The rules are simple. I will give you a word. Yes, that's right A word. As in one. Single. The cheese stands alone...you get the point.

You will have between now and midnight on Friday to write a one hundred word post inspired by that word. Entries can be less than one hundred words, but they cannot be more. Posts must focus on some aspect of parenting. Even though I call this the Father 100, moms are encouraged to join us!

Ninety words? Cool.

Ninety-eight? Awesome.

One hundred two? Sorry chief.

One hundred words (or less).

Write your post on your blog and then add your link to the linky tools below, just like for Father Friday.

Sometime over the course of the weekend I will read all the entries. Then I will pick the entry that I feel best does justice to the spirit of the given word. Some weeks I will have a guest do the judging so I can play as well.

This exercise is strictly for fun and also for good writing practice. As of this time no prizes will be offered. Should I win the lottery or score a successful reality series (Real Dads of Delaware...can you see it?) that may change, but for now the chosen author will have to content himself with the prideful swell of a job well done.

I think this can be a lot of fun. Who is in?

I will start off with an easy word in our inaugural Father 100. The first word is...

LOVE

Come on parents! Let's show the world how well we can write!

A Teacher's Wish List...

2010-08-22T19:15:00.001-04:00

In about fifteen hours I will lace up my boots, secure my ropes, make sure I have my snake bite kit, and begin the ascent up the mountain that is my thirteenth year teaching fifth graders. The children themselves do not arrive until August thirtieth. This coming week will be full of getting my room together, planning out the first month or so, copying papers, getting to know names, and of course, hours of meetings (and there was much rejoicing).

As I sit here on my comfortable couch, knowing that my hours of enjoying its summer comfort have now dwindled down to single digits, my thoughts turn to my wish list for the upcoming year. So, I wish...

I wish for a classroom full of motivated kids. As a teacher I am more concerned about day in, day out effort than I am about each child's ability level. I would rather have a roomful of academically weak kids who WANT to learn and work hard to achieve as much as they can than a roomful of academically strong kids who are apathetic. There is no moment more amazing in teaching then when a motivated child surprises herself with what can be accomplished when good, old fashioned effort is a part of the equation.

I wish for a group of parents that embrace a collaborative spirit. The education of their child does not take place only in the classroom between the hours of 8:30 to 3:30. I wish for parents that see education as a three part team sport, with equal parts of responsibility between student, teacher, and parents. The better team effort we have, with excellent communication between all parties, the better chance the student will have to make the needed progress.

I wish for opportunities to grow, both professionally and personally.

I wish for patience, more so with my own short comings than my students.

I wish for the humility to reach out to colleagues if I need advice or help with a problem and for the quick response to anything asked of me.

I wish for time. For enough time to meet the needs of each of my students. Children are like fingerprints, like snowflakes. No two are exactly the same. When they walk into my room next week I will have twenty-four or twenty-five amazingly unique individuals. Each one will arrive with their own individual cocktail of strengths and weaknesses, not just academically, but also socially, economically, and emotionally. Time is the most valuable commodity in a school day. I wish to have enough for each need to be fully met.

I wish for success for each child and for the ability to shut out all the voices clamoring about standardized test scores and adequate yearly progress. My main focus must be on the success of each student and remembering that success is not always measured exactly the same for every child. If I can help a student's individual skills and ability to grow, to prepare him to handle the rigors of middle school, pacing guides and national averages be damned, then I have done my job.

I wish to remember that there is more to teaching than worrying about state assessments, to remember to teach my students to think critically and logically when they are faced with a problem. To always see my learners as people, not dots or lines on a graph.

I wish to remember to always choose my words carefully when I talk to my students. I am the single greatest influence on the environment in my classroom. My words need to be positive, empowering, and compassionate. Months of trust between student and teacher can be blown to pieces with a careless or angry word.

I wish for a successful and empowering year for my colleagues; in my building, my state, my country, and the world, be they public school teachers like myself, private school teachers, or home schoolers. We are truly blessed to have the daily opportunity to touch the future, from the nervous first year kindergarten teacher to the seasoned thirty year high school veteran.

Lastly, I wish for good health and safety for all as we begin this climb together. Before we know it...it will be June.

Father Friday 2 - Best of the Week From Blogger Dads

2010-08-19T22:52:00.004-04:00

Graphic by Chris @ Daddy Doctrines

Writing a lot about fatherhood on this blog has enabled me to reach out and meet a lot of very cool (and a few slightly unstable) dads who are writing blogs, twittering content, and making huge contributions to the body of work on excellent fathering that can be found on das internets.

Last week I started my first feature here at The Chalkboard. I was as nervous as a thirteen year old girl throwing her first party, anxious and scared that no one would come. Fortunately sixteen dads joined in, linking what they felt was their best post from the past week. And let me tell ya, there is some GOOD STUFF there. It became what I had hoped it would, a sort of "best of" album of funny and insightful dad written blog posts.

So here we are at week two. If you are a dad, join in! If you are a mom, and you feel you have written an absolutely awesome post this week, we don't practice discrimination here at The Chalkboard. Even though it says Father Friday, please jump in with us. The goal as always is to run a list of the best dads (and moms) have had to offer on their blogs this week.

Now, the guidelines...

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad. (Or a really awesome mom!)

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back. (This part is optional, but oh so appreciated!)

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise. (You know...like twitter!)

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad.

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

Pass the link around to your other blogger friends, RT on Twitter. Let's break the sixteen participants we made in our first week of operation. Special thanks to Chris over at The Daddy Doctrines for designing the amazingly groovy Father Friday badge! Feel free to grab it for your post.

Have a great weekend and remember, it takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

- Brian

Branson, MO - An East Coast Perspective

2010-08-18T23:53:00.003-04:00

The wise sage and American philosopher Homer Simpson once declared that Branson, Missouri is what Las Vegas would be like if it was run by Ned Flanders. The truth of that statement cannot be understated.

I had been to Branson before and as this was my third trip out, I knew that this time I was prepared…or so I thought. It seems, however, that an east coast boy such as myself can never be fully prepared for Branson. It is now apparent that I will always find things that surprise, and quite frankly scare, me.

An example, perhaps?

Box cutters Optional…

On Saturday we braved the one hundred plus degree Missouri heat and went with The Wife’s family to an amusement park called Silver Dollar City. I grew up on the east coast going to amusement parks like Hershey Park, Six Flags, Dorney Park, and King’s Dominion. Silver Dollar City is quite similar to these parks…if they were suddenly taken over and run one day by the cast of the Beverley Hillbillies. Banjo music and steel guitars blare out of the fake rocks that are actually speakers placed strategically around the grounds. Character actors amble about the park dressed in nineteenth century gold digger garb. Succotash is cooked in fifty foot wide frying pans and sold alongside common amusement park fair such as hamburgers and hot dogs.

In spite of the banjos (and the Succotash), Silver Dollar City is a great place to take the family. The park workers are a thousand times nicer then amusement park workers on the east coast, most of whom glare at you as you walk around the park, as if they resent the fact that you are breathing and, on top of that, have the gall to take your family out for a day of fun in their park and force them to deal with you. The rides are decent and the food is pretty good. The thing that surprised me most about Silver Dollar City is that we were not searched upon entering. People carrying large bags, large enough to carry caches of automatic weapons and improvised explosives, were pushed right through the gates. No bag searches, no pat downs.

As The Wife, The Peanut, my mother-in-law, and I were standing in a fairly long and sweaty line to ride the water flume, I saw something I had never seen before in an amusement park.

There was a family of four in front of us, mom, dad, sister, brother. They were all wearing the same color shirts bearing the logo of their family reunion. The father, a large beefy guy with hairy arms and thick side burns that stopped just short of his long goatee, was complaining to his wife about the fact that his t-shirt wasn’t sleeveless and it was “bothering the bejesus” out of him. She reached into the large pocket of his massive cargo shorts and pulled out a gleaming silver object. With a Wolverine like snikt she thumbed open a five inch box cutter and began performing sleeve removal surgery right there in the line. Out in the open, making no attempt at stealth, she wielded an instrument that would have gotten her detained at some amusement parks I have been to and flat out arrested in others. She sliced off the left sleeve, revealing a hairy shoulder, then switched and quickly dispatched the right. When she was finished she picked up the amputated sleeves, sheathed the blade on the box cutter, and returned them to her husband’s shorts. As she was turning around after stowing her husband’s sharp edged weapon she caught my eye. She must have read the confused look in my eye (which, given the agape nature of my lower jaw, was not too difficult to ascertain).

“Well,” she said with a grin, “ya never know, do ya?”

“Yes’um,” I returned with a tip of my cap, not wanting to antagonize her or her husband, whose cold steel eyes took me in from underneath the frayed brim of his camouflaged baseball hat.

And the banjos played on...

When we go back to Branson in two years I have to take a video camera. People here on the east coast just don't believe me.

One Hundred Word Challenge - Failed

2010-08-17T00:40:00.003-04:00

The Collector

Solid footfalls stopping outside the hotel room door. A shadow blocking the light from the weak hallway bulb. My whiskey soaked breath making me sick. ESPN on the cheap TV, replaying the final highlights of the game again and again.

Showing the buzzer beater. The impossible shot. The one chance in a million.

The money.

Gone.

A single knock at the door. No need to ask who it is. No strength in my legs to open it.

No matter.

A rustle of clothing. A soft click as the safety is switched from on to off.

It will all be over soon.

The challenge? Take a single word each week, handed out by Velvet Verbosity, and create a 100 word piece of flash fiction. It is a lot of fun. Join in if you are up for it (it's not as easy as it sounds!)

Father Friday - Best of the Week from Blogger Dads

2010-08-13T01:40:00.002-04:00

I was hanging out at the new, best hashtag on Twitter (#dadstalking) today.

Yeah, I know, at first glance it looks like Dad Stalking (which, let's be honest, is pretty creepy) and not what it should be pronounced as, Dads Talking. But don't let that get in the way. It is an awesome place where dads can talk, tell stories, commiserate, share a beer, and much more. Its like a huge virtual bar, without the smoke, the bad lighting, or the horrible cover bands.

I was only able to spend about an hour there today, but what an hour. As I interacted with dads from around the country (and the globe) I began looking at their blogs and realized that sadly, I did not have time to read all the great dad writing going on out there in Blogtopia. There are some truly awesome guys who are using their considerable writing skills to describe the ins and outs of this joyous responsibility called fatherhood. For every post I read, I know I am missing dozens of equally awesome ones.

That's when it occurred to me that if there was some way to read what each dad thought was his best, funniest, most helpful, most touching blog post from the past week, then I wouldn't be missing any of it. I would have a sort of "greatest hits" album each week of the best the small army of Dad Bloggers out there have to offer.

And just like that, with a puff of smoke and the draining of a Summer Lager, Father Friday - Best of the Week, was born. The rules for participation are quite simple.

1. You need to be a father. New father, old father, soon to be father, want some day to be a father, father...doesn't matter. You just need to be a dad.

2. You must own and maintain your own blog.

3. If you meet the requirements for rules one and two, look back over your posts from the past week, from Friday to Friday. Re-read them all.

4. Choose the post you feel was your particular BEST for the week. It can be funny, helpful, sad, dramatic, deep, light...whatever. Pick the post that most reflects you and what your awesome blog has to offer.

5. Follow the host. That's me. It's quick and painless and I always follow back.

6. Put your blog address and a short description of the post in the Linky link located below. Be short but concise.

7. After you are on the list, surf the posts of the other dads and follow as many as you can. Read and above all else COMMENT! We all know that comments are to bloggers what a keg of Dear Park water is to a desert nomad.

8. Grab the code below, create a new post on your blog, and enter it so you can share the growing list with all your followers. Then just sit back and let it grow!

That is it in a nutshell. Since this idea was literally just hatched a few hours ago, I have not yet had the chance to create a button to display on your site, should you so choose, but I will. It is my hope that this will take off and that each week we can have dozens, if not hundreds, of links leading the weary web traveler to the best of what dads have to offer from their blogs for the past week.

Happy linking and be sure to TELL YOUR FRIENDS!