I hope many of you can relate to this and that I'm not alone. Scenario - you have to be somewhere in 30 minutes and you are at least 25 minutes away (that NEVER happens in suburbia, right?). As you hear the clock ticking in your head you notice your son is still playing in …
Hostage Negotiation
For those who don't know me, I'm an experienced hostage negotiator. This is a very high stress role where even the slightest mistake can be costly. You can train all you like, build up the rapport with your team, and run through scenarios until you are blue in the face, and none of that guarantees …
Childhood Imagination
Things my kids imagine...
Childhood Justice
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Martin Luther King, Jr. The childhood sense of fairness is unparalleled in its ability to create conflict and strife. The height of the Cold War pales in comparison to the scorn felt by a child who has perceived wrong. And the offense doesn't need to be as …
Why Do Spiders Need to Die?
The Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the water spout;Down came the rain and washed the spider out;Out came the sun and dried up all the rain;And the Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the spout again;-The Itsy Bitsy Spider A year ago, a spider would have sent my kids running, despite my professions that they are …
The Smell of Grass
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. Walt Whitman Nothing is more suburban than mowing the grass on a Saturday morning. The whir of other lawn mowers fills the air, water flows …
The Joneses
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Preamble to the …
Suburban Fatherhood 