Rambling Josh

“They seemed like such a real person, so normal, and so down to earth.” Have you ever heard anyone proclaim something along those lines after meeting a person that has been granted some level of celebrity status by whoever it is that grants such a status? The word “celebrity” encompasses a pretty broad swath of people, which are known for a pretty broad swath of reasons. Some reasons more desirable than others.

Usually it’s the movie star variety of celebrity that has the fan sincerely fawning about the individual’s level of realness, normalness, and earthliness. I’m not sure why these qualities would be surprising attributes for someone who appears to be of the homo sapient lineage.

They are people, sort of, or at least they play real people in their movies occasionally. Other than that, most live pretty unreal existences. Personal assistants, private chefs, on-call astrologists and spiritual advisors. Things people need in the world of the unreal. Us common folk make due with toaster ovens and Miss Cleo (R.I.P.).

They say that imitation is greatest form of flattery, and movie stars play us, real people, so they’re the ones that should be fawning over our every move. Maybe if we real folks were allowed access to the inner circles of celebrity blah-blah fests we’d hear things like, “Did you see what Bill, the butcher at the Piggly Wiggly, did yesterday? He’s so real, he smiled at another human and said something nice, and I think he actually meant it!”

Why do we give such a big stage and amplified voice to these people that pretend to be other people, normal people like us (“normal” may be stretch), for a living? This has always been a source of confusion to me (not the only source…math…mimes…hot dog eating contests…etc.). They play us, they pretend to have heartache, to lose loved ones, to go to war, to fight fires, to teach, to love, to do all that real people do every minute of every day.

The most glaring difference between us real folk and those pretenders, other than their shiny white teeth and luxurious hair, is that we do it all in one take. There is no, “Cut! Okay Tom let’s try that again with a little more passion. That volleyball is your best friend, how would you react if your best friend were drifting out to sea in front of your very eyes and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to save them? Take 26, and, action.”

Real life is the real deal, no “cut”, no “that’s a wrap folks, come back tomorrow and we’ll hand you sacks full of money to pretend some more”. No nothing, but moving onto the next minute of each and every day, day in, and day out, until one day we don’t. One shot at so very many passing moments.

Of course, we can learn from one experience to prepare us better for the next, but sometimes there may not be a next, or sometimes we’re just really slow learners. Sometimes we only get one shot, and when we miss it, it’s gone, and regret most likely takes the place of applause from our adoring fans. Regret is quite the rascal. It can leave deep furrows when it hits and skids through our consciousness. So it goes.

There are a few movies I regret exchanging my time for, mainly because they were one-way exchanges. They took my time (and money) and didn’t reciprocate with anything of substance (other than gas pains from fists full of popcorn). Popcorn farts are transient, loss of time is permanent. I suppose whether or not a given exchange is deemed mutually beneficial, and possessing substance, is subjective to the viewer.

This viewer’s subjective definition of “time well spent” in front of a big flickering rectangle, surrounded by strangers that have whistling nostrils, and low-grade whooping cough, doesn’t include anything starring Hugh Grant (unless he’s playing a mime…a mime savagely beaten by rogue troop of Red Hatters). That’s a romantic comedy I would suffer transient gas and loss of time for.

Keep it real my friends, the unreal need us for inspiration.

We have two seniors. No this isn’t the beginning of a ransom note that arrived at the retirement home shortly after it was discovered by the staff that Merle and Edna had went to, but had not returned from, the monthly workshop at “Stitch n Suds” (the fabric store/brewery formerly known as “Serge n Soused”).

The owners, Phyllis and Sid, thought the new name would help attract a more civilized and refined class of clientele. The kind that sip a little and sew a lot. The opposite had become an issue, and the cause of few altercations (not alterations). This month’s workshop “Knotty Tree Skirts” was particularly popular and well attended.

Sierra, our daughter, and Jackson, our son, are both seniors this academic year. Sierra is wrapping up her bachelor’s degree in Film at Montana State University, and Jackson is making a run at graduating from Stevens High School. Good for them. Then what?

There’s always a “then what”, life is a perpetual series of beginnings and endings. Like Sisyphus, sentenced by Zeus to push a big heavy rock up a hill in perpetuity only to have it roll back down again. Then what? Push it up again…and again…and again. Why? Zeus is a grudge holding jerk. But on a positive note, it builds chiseled glutes that will be the envy of all on Mount Olympus.

What else do we have to do with our time? Begin this…end that…and repeat. Repeat until those chiseled glutes sag and the rock rolls over you on its way back down. Then what? Then I guess it’s someone else’s turn to pick up where you left off. I’m sure they’ll be thankful for the path you’ve worn into the hillside, the bit of rock you’ve worn away. Thankful, but not completely beholden, the rocks still heavy, the hills still steep.

It always sounds a bit pompous to start a sentence with “as (insert historically significant person here) once said…”, but as Henry David Thoreau once said, “Enter into the great experiment of life and strive to be a humane being living a whole human life.” That seems to be a fair response to the question of “Then what”.

If you continually “strive to be a humane being living a whole human life” all should be well and good…no matter the mass of the boulder or the pitch of the hill. Sierra and Jackson, listen to Henry…or not…you’re adults now, and every adult needs something to regret.

So, as Sierra and Jackson kick-off their senior years, I wish them the best in this beginning of an ending. Then what? Push that rock with a smile, it’s your rock, the hills always been there, and most likely always will be, but the rock is yours.

Push it fast, push it slow, pause when you’re tired, and when you get to the top, and it starts to roll back down again, take that time to relax and reflect upon the journey a bit before heading down to fetch it for another round.

I’m always here to help if need be. I’ve got time. The odd, but kindly, old guy across the street is trying to firm up to wear his disco pants to a class reunion, and agreed to push my rock for a bit.

Happy academic year to all you back to school folks.

It is said that we stand upon a narrow precipice between the vast abys of past and future, between all that has been and all that is yet to be. A small sliver in the vastness of time is all that we are granted. What we do with that small sliver of time, our life, is sort of up to us, sort of up to chance.

My Grandma Rose’s sliver of time recently passed, released from bodily constraints and turned over wholly to memory on August 2nd, 2017. Her physical existence here in this time, this place, this life, may be no more, but it is far from gone, for it lives on amongst us. It lives on amongst those that she so unselfishly shared her time with. Those that were fortunate enough to share in her life go on, and will go on, and on, for many generations to come. For the love that that one beautiful woman encompassed can’t be contained in one lifetime. One lifetime is not enough for all that she was.

Who was she? She was a grandma, she was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend…many things to many people. Many things done well, many things done better than seems possible. Done with the utmost of grace, done with a quiet peaceful strength that seems beyond the capabilities of a single being.

Grace, defined as “simple elegance or refined movement”, that was my Grandma Rose. Never hurried, never needy, but always needed, and always there when needed. Needed for her quiet strength, her peace, her love. I have cried many times since she passed, many times for many reasons, but mostly for learning how much she meant to so many. I’ve cried because she is gone, but more so for the manner in which she touched so many lives. Those tears are of course of sadness, but are also of overwhelming pride and happiness for the life that she lived, the life she gave to each of us, a life well lived.

Her life was a life of service, a life of giving…always giving…never asking for anything for herself. “What do you wish for” is what she would always ask when you were in need, and whatever it was you wished for she would provide without question. She provided nourishment with her perfectly prepared meals, she provided love, support, and encouragement through listening with a wide open heart, and a kind gentle smile that always made you feel as though everything was going to be alright.

I guess “selfless” is the word, if a simple word would do, but a simple word can’t encompass all that Grandma Rose was. I have written of her many times, simply because she touched my life in so many ways. Touched…and touched…and touched with the quiet serenity of someone that isn’t trying to try, but merely is able to do because of who they truly are.

Who she was is beautiful. Beautiful, pure, authentic, unflinching love. A love that never questioned, never judged, just loved, just listened, just smiled, just made each and every one of us feel as though we were the center of her life. Always in the moment, always present, seemingly never wanting anything to be other than it was at that very time and place. The Latin phrase for such a way of moving through life is, “amor fati” or “love of fate”. She seemed to take great delight in her fate.

There is so much to say of this wonderful woman that managed to say so much with so few words? What would you tell her if given a second more of her time? For she would give it to you without question. I would simply say, “I love you Grandma…we’ll take it from here…we’re going to be alright…we’ll be careful…we’ll try to be nice…we’ll carry you in our hearts forever more.”

Thank you Grandma Rose…thank you. I promise to pay it forward, I promise to strive to be a bit more like you. Like you…not you, for the Rose you were was a very rare bloom, but we can try, and simply by trying we can make the world a bit more worthy of a person like you.

Grandma Rose…a life well lived.

These vagabond shoes just returned from a few days of baseball, sightseeing, and several miles of walkabouts in New York City. I’ve been to NYC before, and it continues to hold the spot at the very top of my “Favorite Big City in the US of A” list.

I’m sure that stamp of approval puts the 8.5 million citizens of NYC at ease, although I get the feeling that the citizens of NYC could care less what anyone thinks, says, or feels. Please read the following in your best NYC accent…“We’re here…you wanna come here, fine…you don’t, fine…Now shut up and eat your cannoli, I got things to do.”

NYC is like a brutally honest best friend, “those shoes make your fingers look fat, and your hair looks like half a raccoon…the not so good half”. Also best read in your best NYC accent. Brutally honest, but kind and hospitable when kindness and hospitality is deserved.

I’m of the opinion that a big city is best explored on foot. Being on the hoof allows one customized contemplation of all that is offering itself up for processing. You can stop or slow if the mood (or a gelato stand) strikes, or you can double time it so a honking cab doesn’t strike.

One place that was on my list of stops for this foray to the Big Apple was the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. The rest of the gang humored me on this excursion, and after a 5 mile forced march they were more than happy to settle their dogs on the wood floor of a tavern that has provided such a respite for the weary (and thirsty) since 1880.

The White Horse was where the Clancy Brothers

Well “The Boy” turned 18 this Sunday, and I, the number doesn’t matter much anymore, but I managed to make 45 on Monday. Five more years and I will accept being referred to as “middle aged”. We got to spend Jackson’s day together on the ball field, toiling through a double-header on a hot afternoon.

Jackson had a great day, hit the ball well, did a nice job in the field…enjoyed watching him having fun and playing some good ball. As for myself…I’m 45 now, and I played at an age appropriate level. For those of you scoring at home, I did not hit well, I managed to track a few fly balls down in the outfield, and struggled through four innings pitching. It is time to hand the ball over to “The Boy” for good. Besides, sweat logged Depends make it hard to beat out an infield single.

I told Jackson at the beginning of the season that if I started to embarrass myself out there to let me know. Jackson asked, “How will I know if you are embarrassing yourself?” I replied, “You will know, because I will be embarrassing you too.” I have no intentions of being some old fart novelty that shuffles around the dugout just to hear those ball players in their prime say, “he’s pretty good for his age”.

I don’t want or need to be “pretty good for my age”, my ego doesn’t need a condescending pat on the butt from some kid that will be able to get out of bed the morning after a game without a hitch in his giddy up. I had my time as a ballplayer, I enjoyed that time, but it has past, and I am fine with that. I am fine with that, because it is passing on to the young man that made me love the game again. The young man that let me be a kid again.

My mom told me that when you become a parent you get to see the world through a child’s eye’s again. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that view, and feel as though I’ve wrung all I can out of it. Both the kids are officially adults now, so I suppose it’s time for me to grow up a bit as well…just a bit.

I realize that baseball is just a game, but it has been a game that has served as a commonality between myself and Jackson from the beginning. As his father, his coach, and now for a brief moment, his teammate, I have enjoyed oh so many days of playing catch, of throwing him batting practice, of just passing the time together.

This passing of time together became more enjoyable when I stopped trying to make him a major leaguer, and just decided to play with him for the sake of playing. There is a very, very small percentage of ballplayers that make it to the major leagues, and there is a very, very small percentage of time before your little boy becomes a man. I chose to bank on the second percentage, the sure bet, and it has paid out handsomely.

Happy Birthday Jackson, you’re a good man.

It’s been a hot few weeks here of late, as is generally expected in the summer I suppose. Expected, but seemingly always surprising. We slowly shake our heads and exclaim in a hushed breathless tone, “man it’s hot”. As if we’re trying not to let the heat hear us for fear that it will kick it up another tick or two just to spite our whining.

Those of you that have little choice but to spend your working day under the angry relentless glare of that fireball, I commend you. Your whining (if you so choose) is completely justified, for anyone else, it is not. Not justified, but highly likely, as the weather is what a good amount of idle chit-chat turns to when nothing else seems to make itself available for discussion.

I’m not very good at extended bouts of idle chit-chat or small talk. I need a good wingman or wingwoman when venturing into those types of social situations. I can hold my own for the first three minutes or so, but then it’s time to withdraw and let the wingperson swoop in so I can commence to smile and nod for the remainder of the interaction. I can smile and nod with the best of them.

If your wingperson is particular adept at carrying a conversational load you can even slip away and stare quietly at the potted plant in the corner or act like you’re intently reading something (anything…VCR instruction manual, recipe cards, mattress tags, etc.). I have two such wingpeople in my life, who I am quite thankful for, my wife and my good friend Paul. Both world class chit-chatathoners, whom I have stood by and cheered on for years. Or at least smiled and nodded once the plant got uncomfortable with the incessant staring.

The heat at least puts a bit of a damper on people’s willingness to stand on the hot asphalt in the middle of the grocery store parking lot and carry on about whatever their chosen carry on topic may be. The heat also seems to put a damper on some of the vacation bound motorhomes ability to carry on down the highway.

There was a particularly vintage looking motorhome fueling up next to us in Broadus Montana a few weeks back on a particularly hot day. In this case “distressed vintage” would probably be a more accurate description. It looked to have been a top-of-the-line RV at one point and time, a point and time, much like the paint, that had long faded. So it goes.

They rolled out about 15 minutes before us, as we had to let the dog sniff around a bit, and I had to make short order of a gas station Sundae Cone. Gas station Sundae Cones are always a gamble. Sometimes the cone is like chewing on a soggy Pringles can (don’t ask), but this one was crisp, crunchy, and cold…delightful.

“Delightful” would not be the word that probably best described the mood of the owners of the before mentioned vintage RV. When we went past them about 5 miles removed from Sundae Cone’s and Broadus, all involved looked a little overheated. Somebody had stopped to help them, somebody that could probably do more than stare at the motor like it’s a potted plant, so we continued on our way.

We moved on, but my thoughts stayed with them for quite some time. Times like that I wish I had the financial means to airlift in a new RV for those folks. Folks that obviously were just trying to get a little further down the road. Towards something…away from something…most likely both. Maybe they had all they needed. I’d have liked to have been able to give them a little more, but then who am I to decide what someone else needs.

Maybe a kindly rancher took them in, the RV people’s son fell madly in love with the ranchers daughter, they got married, and all lived happily ever after. Now the old RV sits in a tree grove out by the pasture, finally at rest, a pleasant reminder of the circumstances that brought two families together. Such a lovely story.

Sundae Cone brain freeze induced hallucination? It’s all part of the experience. Stay cool my friends.

Happy Father’s Day to all you fine folks that answer to the call of “Dad” or whatever brand of call your children have settled on. I spent the first part of my father’s day watching my son play in a tennis tournament in Mitchell, South Dakota. Then around high noon we loaded on the bus and headed back to Rapid City to cover the 275 miles in time to make our 5 o’clock double-header baseball game.

It seemed like a good idea to take up the tennis coach’s offer of riding with him and the team to the tournament on the bus. I thought since I wouldn’t have to drive I’d have some time to nap and read a bit while enjoying a leisurely ride to Mitchell. It has been a few years since I’ve ridden on a school bus, there is nothing leisurely about lumbering down the highway in those grain bins on wheels.

I thought longingly of the comfort of my car as I sat bolt upright, continuously shifting about trying to find comfort, but having to settle on varying levels of discomfort while simmering in a small vat of my own sweat. Thankfully it was loud enough in that rattle trap that I couldn’t hear myself complain. The kids all seemed to find some variation of body positioning that allowed them undisturbed sleep. Apparently, teenage bodies have a wider variety of comfort settings than this later model.

We made it back to Rapid City in time to get our uniforms on and head for the ballpark. My son, Jackson, and I are teammates on the Drillers, an amateur baseball team in the Black Hills Amateur Baseball League. We didn’t have a team last year, and I thought my baseball career had finally come to a close, but here we are…back on the field. The things we do for our kids.

I play right field and Jackson plays second base. Right field is about as far away from the action as I can get without sitting in the stands, which is my plan for next summer.

I’m sure I’ve shared this story with you before, but when I was about 12 I went with my dad to one of his softball games in Columbus. Columbus’s field had those old wooden grandstands, pert near a major league ballpark to me. I always liked going with to dad’s games to chase foul balls, play a little catch, and of course watch my dad play ball. Dad played left field, and he dove for a ball down the left field foul line, and was a bit slow getting up.

He walked back to his position, and as he stood there I remember thinking, “I don’t think his left shoulder normally hangs that much lower than the right.” He waited for Martin Halverson (the barber) to throw a few more pitches, and then called time and slowly came off the field. It ended up being a grade-three shoulder separation, and put him in a brace for the remainder of the summer.

During our game on Father’s Day, I dove for a ball in right field, and when I not so gently descended to the ground, I felt and heard quite a racket from various parts of my body that were voicing their objection to such foolery. As I stood up the vision of my Dad standing in the outfield in Columbus rushed into my mind. Jackson yelled out to me, “Are you all right?” I wanted to shake my head up and down, but left and right seemed much closer to reality.

“Reality”. In reality I am going to be 45 next month. In reality I have no business trying to make a diving catch. In reality I stood alone in right field afraid to take stock of the end results of my stupidity. Thankfully the cosmos decided to just deal me a bit of a warning shot, perhaps a Father’s Day gift. In the end I fared better than my dad, probably a bit less than a grade-one shoulder sprain, nothing a little time won’t heal. Nothing a little acting my age won’t prevent from occurring again.

It’s hard to act your age on a baseball field. Maybe it’s time?

A happy June to you and yours. I was fortunate enough to ring in the month with four days of general puttering about and farting around at our cabin. If puttering about and farting around were Olympic events, the cabin would be a world class training center for all those that have made it their life’s ambition to be atop the puttering about and farting around podium.

Generally, a requirement of a world class training center is that it have world class coaches. People that have made it their life’s ambition to stomp around scowling in a polyester track suit and an ill-fitting polo while attempting to hammer and meld the best of the best into something better than the best.

These people aren’t invited to the puttering about and farting around training center. Polyester track suits are a liability around a campfire, and all that stomping, scowling, hammering, and melding would frighten my dog. Labs are sensitive.

Would I be their coach? I’ll mix their drinks and make sure they get an appropriate ration of bacon each day, but the puttering about and farting around is on them. They must arrive at their own particular style and technique, develop their signature moves, the moves (or lack of) that will define the very essence of their being.

When you’re at the cabin (no electricity, no phone service, no nothing…but everything) you find those moves, or perhaps they find you. It’s hard to tell. The days take on a rhythm, a rhythm that stretches in all directions, unhindered, but rather enhanced, by the tree’s and hills that stand sentinel, protecting you from interruptions attempting to ride the waves from the cell tower.

Puttering about and farting around is simply moving to that rhythm, which, at times, may bare a suspicious resemblance to not moving. One can move without the outward appearance of movement, and will possibly cover more ground doing so.

Speaking of “moving”, north of Billings there was a prairie dog trying to hitch a ride. He was standing on the shoulder of the road, little thumb up towards the traffic, and a more obnoxious finger pointed towards the residents of the prairie dog town he was trying to distance himself from. I stopped to inquire as to where he was headed, and was told that he was working his way west, he’d had enough of the prairie, always wanted to see the ocean.

I was heading east, back to South Dakota, but offered him a ride my way if he was so moved. He declined. Something about a jilted lover in Wind Cave National Park that, rumor has it, had hired a couple coyotes to rough him up if he dare burrow in those parts again. I didn’t prod him for any details, prairie dog business is best left to prairie dogs. We chatted a bit, the air-conditioned cab of the pick-up was a welcomed reprieve from the asphalt and hot sun I suppose.

I wished him luck, gave him the number of friend of mine that lives in Oregon that would put him up for a few nights if need be, and we parted ways.

Get a move on.

It seems as though the professed imminent demise of anything and everything that is real is demonstrating to be greatly exaggerated. By “real” I mean things you can hold, things you can put on a shelf, things that your grandchildren might find in a box that will prompt a conversation about a time before their time. By “things” I mean books, record albums, photographs…real things that aren’t stored in a “cloud” or any number of electronic storage locations.

Storage locations that we can conveniently access from anywhere, anytime, unless we can’t. There are a couple of certainties in life, an electronic device will experience a terminal error and cease to be viable, and we will eventually do the same. Of course those that prefer to frolic in the technological landscape will argue that this is precisely why back-up is necessary, and possibly back-up to the back-up.

We humans in the worldly landscape don’t have the luxury of a back-up when we experience a terminal error. When that occurs, chances are that the electronic devices and access to the back-up, to the back-up, to the back-up won’t be accessible to anyone but your recently non-backed-up expired self. No “things” for anyone to have and to hold in remembrance of your time here. Maybe that’s okay with you, maybe you don’t want to leave “things” in your wake after your wake, but I think most of us would like to be remembered occasionally…maybe even fondly.

In the last few years the sales of e-readers, such as Kindle, have declined and the sales of actual printed paper books has increased. There has also been a resurgence of record album production and sales, and dark rooms are seeing the light again as film photography and Polaroid make a comeback. Why? Why would we want to dig through stacks of record albums and poke around boring old bookstores?

After all, the little google machine in our pocket can handle all these chores, freeing up ample time for us to attend to more pressing matters, such as backing-up our back-up. The other day I was trying to remember what the source of our anger and frustration was in our day-to-day lives prior to computers and the avalanche of other technological gizmos? A bookmark falling out?

I’m not anti-technology. It would be hard for me to procrastinate to the level that I do if I had to write this column by hand and then mail it in for publication. However, I don’t believe I’ve ever so much as raised my voice at my notebook and pen, but my computer has been at the receiving end of several death threats and embarrassing outbursts.

All of this came to mind the other day when I was listening to a few albums that I’ve acquired from various family members over the years. I know who most of them belonged to because someone took the time to write their name on them many years ago. Because of this I know that my Great Grandma Lizzy Gins enjoyed listening to Connie Francis long before she knew she was going to be my Great Grandma. I couldn’t access a “cloud” for that information.

Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, etc. It’s enjoyable to listen to these records and think about all those that held and read the album cover while the music played. Now, I can do the same. A google machine can’t do that.

Check another milestone off the old teenage “rite of passage” list for our son Jackson. “I don’t understand what the purpose of prom is” he stated a week or so prior to the arrival of the big day. That wasn’t the end of his misgivings with the affair, and as the weeks turned to days he went on to lodge such complaints as, “this is all a waste of time and money” and “I’ll never agree to this again” and a litany of other angstful teenage remarks which I’ve grown quite accustomed to ignoring.

The remarks, like his dirty socks, can be counted on to be strewn about, but I have the choice of when or if I want to pick them up. To paraphrase Victor Frankl, “Between stimulus (dirty socks, remarks, etc.) and response there is a space, and within that space we have the power to choose” and I choose to smile and nod like an oblivious idiot. Which I might very well be, but that is beside the point.

He agreed to put himself through this ordeal a few months ago. In teenage time “a few months” is a long stretch of eternity that, in their mind, has about as much probability of coming into fruition as going riverboat gambling or deep sea fishing with Barney the dinosaur. Something I would agree to if the fish we were seeking had an insatiable hankering for fuzzy purple bait.

I’m not much of a fisherman, but I have some repressed Barney hostility that needs to be dealt with. I won’t bore you with anymore of the dark and twisted, but completely justified, desires of my Rainbow Randolph alter ego.

The standard attire society has deemed acceptable for young men to wear as they step onto this rung of fun to ascend a bit closer to the wobbly uncertain heights of adulthood is, of course, a tuxedo or a suit of some sort. We opted to buy him a suit rather than rent a tux, as the price isn’t much different, and I wanted him to have something nice to wear when he elopes with the elderly widow down the street.

To save him the anguish of limping around in shiny plastic ill-fitting rental shoes all night, I loaned him my wing-tips for half the cost. I threw in the necktie tying seminar for free.

The young women have much more latitude in regards to the plumage they wiggle into, the un-sensible shoes they totter about on, and the plethora of accessories, hair thingy’s, nails (fingers and toes), flowers (hair, wrist, bouquet, etc.), handbags, and several square feet of makeup they tirelessly adorn themselves with. So it goes.

Once I told the angstful one to get off of his computer (for the fourth time) and get dolled up, roughly three minutes passed, and he was standing in the kitchen fully dressed. Still lodging complaints, but fully dressed, hair done, and…well that’s about it for us men folk when it comes to getting gussied up. We’re just there to carry our date’s un-sensible shoes after they’ve walked in them for the first four steps of the evening.

In the midst of all the posing and picture taking I could see that our son was enjoying himself, and as a parent that’s pretty much what we hope to see. The morning after prom I asked him, “So, did you figure out what prom is for?” He said, “No. I had fun, but it still seems like a waste of money.” Whether he meant to or not, he omitted “time” in his post-prom reflection, and concluded it only to be a waste of money.

Money comes and goes many times over in life, but time, well time just goes (too quickly), so I’m glad he felt it was an enjoyable use of his time.

Watching him grow and navigate this world is an enjoyable use of my time…and money.