He sat down in his favorite chair, the one with the tall back and the arm rests. He picked up the latest Larry McMurtry book off the side table, pulled out his glasses from his shirt pocket and started to read. He could read through anything: wars, famine or feasts.
Star Wars: The Next Generation
No, that isn’t a typo. I’m aware of all the hype flying around about that other vintage sci fi series and its hot-shot new movie, but right now I couldn’t care less. Why? Because I just enjoyed one of the wonderful little moments that we fathers born in the early seventies can cherish: I just sat down and watched the original Star Wars (Episode IV) with my young son for the first time.
Santa Fe Dreams
The E Train went by underground, shaking the floor, the glasses on the bar. The kid standing next to me looked startled. “When I was a kid the Santa Fe freights used to wake me up,” the kid said. He seemed lost and kind of lowdown when he said it. We were strangers, standing at […]
Ode to My Husband on Father’s Day
My husband is a good man. He has good values, a kind heart and he is very hard working. He is an exceptionally good father. From the moment he held our children — and even before that — I knew they would always be safe with him.
The Unforgettable Parenting Lessons of Atticus Finch
As luck would have it, the 50th year anniversary of Harper Lee’s sole, yet widely read, novel To Kill A Mockingbird dovetailed nicely with Father’s Day this year. I say luckily because even when I first read this book as a 16 year old, I knew that in reading about one of the central characters, a taciturn and principled Southern lawyer who takes an impossible, unwinnable case — was more than just a character. Atticus Finch was a colossus, with a humility that belies his true strength. And most importantly, he was a dedicated father.
Stirring Up The Dust — A Memoir for Father’s Day
While cleaning out his garage a son finds his father’s obituary, which takes him back to the tragic circumstances of his dad’s death and stirs up the past.
Raising Respectful Sons: A Father’s Reaction to the “Slampigs” Scandal
Mike Sakasegawa comments on the recent scandal at the Landon School — where a group of freshman boys drafted unsuspecting girls into participating into a sex for points contest — and ponders the question of how to raise our sons right.
Men Leave: Father’s Day Without a Father
On Father’s Day, a woman contemplates the fathers she has known and never known, and how she came to the conclusion that men leave.
Putting Death and Life in Perspective
“Any man’s death diminishes me,” he once intoned, quoting Donne, “because I am involved in mankind.” It made me sad enough to cry, but I didn’t. Instead, I considered how the recent death of a friend had wounded me like a splinter, one that I could not remove. The more I fussed to pull at it, the deeper it settled in my skin and the more irritated the flesh around it grew.
My Father’s Day Gift
I’ve never disliked Irishmen. In fact, being a born Newfoundlander, the lilting accent and ruddy-faced smiles of Dublin make me feel more at home than I usually do on the North American mainland. There is one Irishman, however, towards whom I’ve recently developed a decided antipathy. His name is Murphy. You know, the one whose […]