Paradise in summer. 2018

OK, its been a while.  It is the middle of September. My last post was in April.  Every time I write a new post, I say to myself, I have so many ideas, I will write more and have more posts this year.  Don't know what happened when I thought that.  I guess the ideas escaped from my cranium or I just didn't get around to doing a new post and said "oh well".

I would like my posts to be a small history of me, a father, helping to bring up my girls, moreso than a story telling time of my life.  In other words, I should tell more simple banal everyday happenings of my "history" as a father who loves his children and takes the time with them.

I was going to write at the end of the school year and say that that time of the year is rather sad.  The ending of school depresses me.  That is true only for me as a father.  It was never true as a student.  BUT, I have found that all endings are sad.  And to further complicate the matter it seems that everything ends.  The universe will end some day.  But the end of summer is bad too.  Especially when this will be the last time that I have my happy summers with both my girls staying at my Mothers on the lake in the woods.  Sadly, my Mother had to sell the summer house and we can not go there anymore.  It will not be ours.  I have been going there since I was 0, so this is a deadly blow for me.

Also, it was a perfect summer place for my kids.  Studies find that a happy summer for kids makes them stronger people.  And a good summer entails being outside playing and having small adventures.  Its true.  The house was perfect.  A lake 50 feet away to go swimming every day.  I had helped make it into a friendly lake with a sandy sloping bottom which I worked on cleaning out for 45 years, making it sandy and not mucky.  A great place to swim.  Throw the girls off my shoulders from the water.  My younger girl learned how to swim under water this summer and after that happened she didn't want to do anything else.  "How long do I stay under water, Daddy?  Count the seconds."  "I can swim over to the post under water."  She was really into it.  And now she could look for her own small shells on the bottom in the sand.

Ernest Hemingway spent his kid summers in roughly the same area as where we live in the summer.

And it is in the woods with fresh air and nature.  The year round they live in a bowl which captures the dust and pollution.  Here in the summer we live fresh, besides for the gdmd motor boats slowly polluting up the lake, but the air is good, the woods are good, the atmosphere is good. It is paradise for me.

Any father who wants to be more of a dad to his kids at least during some part of the year, should take the advantage of summer vacation to be with his kids, preferably without mother. I worry about men who are impatient and have a short temper, but I think a summer vacation is easier and more relaxed and is thus a good time to bond with the kids.  Besides looking out on the lake from our patio in the woods with the ferns and green and trees with the sun shining off the blue lake, the nicest part was reading to them in the night time and holding their hands before they went to sleep.  No scratch that.  The best was swimming with them.  Or was it throwing the football with them on the dirt road?  Or....?  Just being with the kids with not many hang ups is the best. All the minutes of the day.

I have written about summer before notably here or this one not to mention others and usually it is the same message: 
1.  It is a great time for dads to be with their kids
2. It is usually banal and not very interesting probably for readers
3. It is paradise

Its the same message today.  Like it or leave it.

More pictures just to spruce things up.

Traverse City Film Fest 2018. A Good Summer Event for All

Summer has to be good for kids.  This is a very important time of year for them.  You would think that school is important, but think of it:  you don't want your kids just sitting inside all the time, the whole summer watching TV or watching their cell phone playing games on it, do you?  And you don't want them running with the bad boys getting into trouble.  And YOU the parent has to make it a good summer.  Even if you set them up with a good summer camp.  It is important.  Put some time into it. 

Summer activities and a good summer experience overall will give the kids strength and lasting fond memories.  

As I have posted several times I have a paradise of a summer with my kids in Michigan. We swim, bike, walk around the circle in the woods, go to the museum and even grocery shopping is fun and something nice to do.  

I had a long vacation with my kids so we weren't going places every day.  I tried to go some place "special" every third day.  But besides that it was great just to be swimming every day and being on the lake.  

But one very special event which I tried to incorporate this year with my kids was the Traverse City Film Fest (TCFF).  This was the 14th year.  It was co founded and still partially run by the documentary film maker Michael Moore, along with literally hundreds, if not a thousand volunteers.   

The TCFF is not some pie in the sky film fest like the Karlovy Vary or Cannes film fest.  Nor is it "unheard" of.  It is internationally recognized and gaining more and more in notoriety.  This year Jane Fonda was the guest of honor for instance.  Others of noted esteem have been there too. 

I have to say this year it was much more to my tastes as it had a lot of interesting documentaries that I would have really liked to have seen.  I was a little hard pressed to find a movie (I know hard core movie goers will see three movies a day, but I thought with kids, one a day is enough, and even that was not necessary) that we could all like.  

great name 

I settled with a documentary which sort of covered a musical genre which the kids could like and a comedy too.  Bathtubs over Broadway was a documentary "starring" Steve Young, former staff writer for the David Letterman show. He digs into the unknown genre of industrial Broadways made for the company staff and pretty much only seen by these staff, of big or even small corporations.  It is an amazing documentary of a genre which is totally heretofore under the radar of everything from American history, to Broadway`s and company history.  

Well, at the time it wasn't the greatest pick for my kids.  They didn't quite understand the humor or history.  HOWEVER, I think in retrospect and over their next years growing up, they will remember it fondly and as an oddity of their childhood that their father brought them to.  And they will be glad about that.  

It was funny that a couple days after we saw the film we were walking down the street still

Steve Young

during the festival and my kids saw the "star", Mr. Steve Young.  I didn't.  After they passed, they exclaimed and danced around, "it was him, it was the star of the movie.  He just passed us!"  As if it had been Jane Fonda or Madonna herself.  I thought that was a good sign.  I wish I had see Mr. Young, I would have thanked him for his fine performance and what he did, finding all this musical history.  

Besides that we saw a Saturday morning matinee  (It could have been at 10am instead of 9am though) of short films having to do with kids as the stars.  Some were mini documentaries, others were short films.  This was a great collection I have to say.  There was a kids short series three days.  Wish we could have seen more.  

That same Saturday they had a kids arts and crafts type little fair in a park on the bay.  I am not sure of any other film fest having that kind of set up during a film fest, but maybe I am wrong.  Not to mention the dusk family film shown outside on the beach park also.  

The point being that the TCFF is a good combination of small town homey festival, like the local asparagus, rhubarb, beaver or in the case of Traverse City, cherry festival, that happens in every town across the US in the summer combined with big tix serious films on the same level as the Venice or Toronto film fest.  My only gripe is they could do a bit more for kids on the film level and in an interesting way.  Not just the mainstream stuff that kids might like, but really interesting films for kids which might not be making it into the mainstream (is there such a thing?)  Or more aspects on making the films themselves at a kids level which could get kids interested in films behind the scenes more than just at a You Tube level.  

Clinch Park on the Bay

Downtown Traverse City, Michigan

Besides that, the TCFF has the beautiful location of picturesque Traverse City on the bay. It has the celebrity status along with a good enough kids section which makes this whole film festival a wonderful adventure any family would do well to go visit in the middle of summer. I think years later my kids will remember this particular event I took them too. I will. I hope we can make it there in future years.  

Michael Moore and Jane Fonda 2018

My interests dont (always) interest my kids. Duh.

What is still hard to understand even after 10 years of being a father, is that the things that are important for kids are different than those for grown ups.

Uh,.... duhhhhh.

I know you said that.  You are saying, "this guy is not smart at all.  And he is a father? Oh man."
Yes, I know its an obvious idea.  But still as a father you say to the kids, "wow, wouldn't it be great if we did this?"  And they are kind of like, "No, not really.  Maybe".  And I m not talking teen agers.  Just kids.

I had some profound thoughts when I was thinking about this post.  One thing: that small kids, and elderly people sometimes have something in common.  They like small things.  Details.  Don't rush. Look at this bug said the kid to his Dad.  Look at the sunset said the 80 year grandma to her 50 year old son.  I think when we are kids and elderly we take it easy.  Somehow when you become a teenager, you start wanting more and more.  More excitement, bigger and bigger adventures.  Been there, done that, give me something more.  And it stays like that throughout adulthood, at least for many people.  Ernest Hemingway type adventures.  In fact Ernest Hemingway was the same way.  When he was an adult, he went lion hunting and volunteered in the war.  When he was a retired man, he went fishing.  When he was a kid, he went camping in Northern Michigan. See the differences and similarities between different ages?

I could go on and on about this comparison, and maybe sometime I will expand on it, but let me get to the story.

So,  the week before Easter we took a family holiday.  Skiing in the Austrian Alps.  I don't ski, I walk, or sled.  All the others ski.  The sledding lanes were closed.  72 ski courses and you would think they could try to keep ONE sled path open for the less ski abled.  But no.  And the walking paths were very lame too.  An afterthought.  Either on roads, or just less used ski paths.  I am going to write to the Salzburg department of tourism about this.  Not everyone is a skier.... but I digress.

By Friday my youngest daughter was kind of skied out.  That was understandable.  My wife learned how to ski from a military veteran and still thinks of skiing as kind of a discipline, hardcore military training.  Well, maybe not sooo hardcore, but my daughter is six.  4 hours a day skiing is a lot.

So it was decided that while my other daughter and wife would be skiing down one of the highest mountains in Salzburg, Austria, my younger daughter and I would take the cabin lift up to near the top of the mountain where they had a platform outside.  It is 3029 meters, nearly 10 000 feet up (Mount Everest is 33 000 feet high, but still 10 000 feet is much more than a hill in Florida or Ohio).

Get this, at the second platform, they said we had to wait as it was too dangerous for small kids to go to the highest platform at this time as a wind came up which was pretty dangerous.  A wind?  It wasn't wind, it was clouds.  The mountain is in the middle of the clouds and you know what its like when your plane goes through the clouds?  It rocks the plane.

you cant see that i am holding on for dear life

After half an hour we could go up, and I tell you,  I'm no high stakes adventurer, but for sure I felt just as much excitement boiling in my blood as Ernest Hemingway did hunting in Africa. And when we went outside on the platform, I was scared.  I mean, you see the tips of mountains all around you, and there is a wind blowing which you figure if it hit you in the right spot you would be carried to that mountain top over there.  And that mountain top was a hundred feet down and a hundred feet over yonder.

I slid slowly over to the sign which said how high we were and my daughter took a picture of me.  THAT was an adventure!  In the meantime they made an announcement that it was dangerous, especially for small children to be on the platform.  I loved being up there and the thrill of it was great, but I also like life and did not want to be blown over the edge to be impaled on a lower mountain spike top.

After that, this is the Kitzsteinhorn, for anyone who doesn't believe me or wants to check it out, we went through the tunnel THROUGH the mountain. I have to say, this was as exciting for me as going through the tunnel and coming up right behind Niagara Falls on the Canadian side which I also have done.  To be walking in a tunnel through the mountain, I cant explain it well enough, but it just gets the adrenaline going.  It is amazing.

There was a beautiful museum along the tunnel also with pictures and explanations of what can survive there at that height and discussions of the permafrost and climate change.  Very well done.  And again, to be inside the mountain!  Wow.

You cant see the wind in the picture

There was another platform outside at the end of the tunnel, but it was even windier now and the other mountain tops were closer by and instead of being impaled or dropping onto a mountain top you would just be splattered against a mountain wall if the wind picked you up.  You ever see a wind pick up a car driving over a bridge in winter? I have and I weigh less than a car.  So....
Needless to say, this was a pretty big tourist attraction for me.
My daughter... she didn't seem so thrilled with it.

OK granted, she was both scared and fearless going out on the platform to take my picture, and I took pictures of her.  But then she didn't want to stay out there.  She was more interested in turning the crank to make a little copper souvenir of our trip to the Gipfelstation.  She was turning the crank before I put money in and she would not leave till we had figured out how to get one of these souvenirs.  And we had to count quite precisely how many times we turned the crank to make the souvenir.  It told us to turn it ten times, so she counted the turns meticulously with care.

The tunnel museum was so so interesting for her.  I did have to read all the plaques and information blurbs for her, but of bigger interest was going to the restaurant after that and getting a hot cocoa.
 She was comparing this coco to other hot cocoas she recalled.  I couldn't listen to this hot topic, I was just looking out the window marveling at the snow and the wind and the mountains.  I don't think she looked out the window at all.

you cant see the 5 inch snowman.  Its there

What pleased her most was that it was getting late and we wouldn't have time to stay at the next level down again, we would have to go immediately to the next level cabin car going down right away as they would be closing pretty soon.  This was great news to her as she really couldn't wait to get back to our apartment and just be "home" there.  She did enjoy making a small snowman on a lay over at the next level down.  She demanded that I take several pictures of her with her snowman, which was about 5 inches tall.

And when we were in the mountain gondola going down, what was interesting for her was not looking out the window at the amazing heights and scenery, but stabbing at the snow on the floor on the parket which was sort of like a welcome mat with patterns with holes between them.

This is why I mention again that I have to remember that what is important or interesting for an adult is quite different from what is interesting to a kid.  Please excuse my own stupidity, but sometimes it just hits you like new and you have to grasp this concept again.  "No, this is interesting for me, but not for my kid, and whether it should be interesting for her is not for me to say."

Still, please excuse again my complaining, but when you get down from this height of pure adventure, pure "wowness" and your kid says, "I liked skiing with my class more," and proceeds to start her tenth fight that day with her sister, it just makes me scratch my head.  But who is being misguided here?  Is it me who needs the big lion taming mountain top adventure who is silly? Or my daughter who finds more fun and interest in climbing a snowbank and making a five inch snowman?  The little things in life are just as interesting as the tall mountains?

Sigh.  Give me a minute still to grasp this idea, because it is eluding me.  I have to repeat it again, lets see, yes: kids interests are just not the same all the time as adults.  Neither is wrong?  Right?


There are hundreds of pictures of the Kitzsteinhorn mountain, but I am putting up a couple of my own here.  But go to any Kitzsteinhorn www site to see some amazing pictures.   But those are just pictures.  Being there is something else.

          Thanks for reading.

Skiing, or not, as the case may be.

Could have learned how to ski here

If I had known when I was five years old that I was going to have daughters who could ski so well, I would have right away at that time asked my parents to get me some skis and a teacher and get me learning how to downhill ski if they could have afforded it. 

Well, sadly I did not, and sadly I can not ski downhill.  

I don't know why I didn't learn.  One of my older sisters learned and she had great times going on ski weekends with her friends. She loved it. I don't think she does it now though, but probably because she lives in an area of a state which doesn't have much downhill, maybe cross country. I don't think her son learned how to ski.  So maybe it wouldn't have helped to have learned how to ski when I was five.  Maybe not.

Five? Yes five.  If there are three things you should get your kids to do as soon as possible in life it is in this order:  start learning a second language,  eat and like fruits and vegetables, and if you live in a state which gets winter or you are near mountains, teach them to ski and ice skate.  (Fourth would be to get them to learn to play a musical instrument or sing).  

Swimming is a close second, but if there is one thing which is great to do with the family as a family outing in winter it is skiing or ice skating.  Ice skating is probably better, because you can hold hands and skate together or play chase or mess around on the ice.  But it is only an hour or so outing.  

Skiing is an all day family event, if not a full weekend or EVEN a full on winter week holiday.

I think I have mentioned it before, but my one daughter started skiing when she was three.  The other started when she was four.  This is about the right time to get them going.  We tried to get the second daughter started at two years old but it was a bit premature.

 She just stood there crying on her skis and wanted her mother to help her and help her take the skis off. I think she went up the pulley a hundred yards once or twice.  Anyway, she was ready at four.  Now she is six, just two years later and she is going down pretty big hills by herself and not falling. She is skiing well. The older one is not Ester Ledecka ... yet,  but is a little ski devil who doesn't need any help.  Now they are skiing down hills like these pictured.  

It is really a great shared family activity.  Its not that you allgo down together and hold hands, but skiing downhill just pumps up your adrenaline a lot.  It is a natural high, and you know that everyone feels the same so that when you get to the bottom of the hill you are all smiling and you know why. You all are sharing in the excitement, even though it is not a team sport. At the end of the day, probably for the rest of your life, you can talk about "going down that one time" or "that one hill" or that one time it was icy, or...  all the shared downhill skiing experiences in your memory, memories, collectively.   Its a great bond for the entire family.  

Except for those who don't know how to ski.  

I know what you are saying.  You are saying, "well remedy the situation and learn how to ski.  Its never too late."   Well, no its never too late for some people and for some things, but believe you me, it would be easier to get skis on a horse and teach IT how to downhill ski than me.  Really. 

So where was Daddy today when Mom and the two girls were bonding skiing downhill?  I went off on a hike up the hill on the green line. I did around 10 kilometers in three hours up the mountain and back down.  I didn't bond with anyone, not even Mother Nature.  I was alone with my thoughts walking through the snow.  I was composing and going over a book I am writing which takes place a lot in the winter.  And I was thinking about this post on bonding doing downhill skiing and me not bonding walking through the woods.  By myself.  

Dads, if you can not go back in time and learn how to ski when you were five years old, I strongly recommend you try to learn now and take the whole family skiing.  Either that or go sledding all together.  That is pretty good too.   We will do that some weekend and then I wont be able to compose any post when I am doing that because the adrenaline will be soaring.  

 C`mon, the NFL season is done, get off your tushes and get outside with the whole family.  

Discipline for Parents. How to be a Better Child.

Please note, by far I do not support any form of violence or abuse of kids.  Please do not get the impression by reading this that I do, or that I regularly yell at my kids.  There is joke and  hyperbolic content in my words, tongue in cheek.  Thank you. 

Just going to tell you that lately I have been reading a lot of parenting blogs.  How to be a fine parent.  How to be a better Dad.  I have a favorite link on the side of all my posts for instance, this blog: MichaelByronSmith: Helping Fathers to be Dads  I have much respect for the advice and support and help, don't get me wrong, all of them in fact, I wouldn't have a link for a blog if I didn't like it.  Being a good parent is a learned job, it doesn't come by heredity or automatically.  No it doesn`t. 

But... 

One of these girls should be writing blogs
Not sunning themselves in the English rain

I think something is missing.  Or there is an opportunity for a new niche of blogs.  

Let me explain.  

In many of these blogs they teach you, or write about staying calm and getting away from stress parenting and most of all yelling at our kids.  

I agree with that.  

To think of how it used to be, and worse, for centuries and centuries, it can make me cry.  I mean, even just one generation ago it was quite normal for kids to be hit or even whipped.  That probably didn't even go out till I was a kid, and it may have been around just ten or twenty years earlier in the 1950s.  I can fathom that even now a lot of kids are getting whipped in places in the world.  That, I must say, is very very sad for me.  It shouldn't be like that.  

In the US, they seem to be moving even further and trying to move parents away from yelling at their kids.  I can agree with this too.  Yelling at your kids only teaches them that yelling is OK and they will mimic your actions and may start yelling at their friends, or whomever.  Worse yet, they may grow up to yell at their kids.  A cycle of wrong parenting continued.  I am against the yelling, even though, it may be very hard to change, admittedly.  

Fathers in particular will find this new rule especially difficult to unwind and reject.  Naturally yelling may still be one of fathers methods of discipline, though we have evolved to not include hitting anymore..... hopefully.  

So I was reading a blog about a positive method of discipline, not punishment, not yelling, but teaching and education (I didn't need to say both those words, they are pretty much synonyms).  In fact the word discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina, which means educate and of course a disciple is a learner of a teacher.  Discipline is not punishment, there should be no yelling.  

I was thinking about this a lot, but all that popped into my head while reading is all the yelling that goes on in our household.  I was asking myself, how can this change?  How can we teach our six year old to stop yelling at her parents constantly.   

Hmmm.  

I thought about how I could turn around the lesson of the blog and give that information to my six year old.  Here is the blog and here is how I might change it on a couple of the points. 

1. The core of positive discipline: There are no bad kids, just bad behavior.  Changes to, There are no bad parents just bad behavior.  

"Look my daughter you have to realize that when there is a bag of chocolates sitting out over night, your father, a confirmed chocoholic belonging to chocoholics anonymous, is going to nab one chocolate when he is up late at night and the chocolate is calling him.  Though in earlier days or years, the whole bag would be gone.  And please don't yell at me for sitting on your bed, I really just wanted to kiss you good night and it is hard to do so without putting some part of my body on your just made bed. Yes, I realize you like it tucked in and straightened, but that is no reason to give daddy a yelling.  It was just bad behavior on my part in wanting to kiss you good night.  Wont happen again.  And I am truly sorry for throwing away that little tiny crumpled up piece of paper which was sitting on the floor in the hallway, I had no idea it was part of your scrap paper collection.  I thought it was a discarded piece of cardboard box from the chocolate box which should be thrown out.  I know I know, bad behavior on my part.  But please stop yelling at me at the top of your lungs about it."  

2. Instead of pointing out what the child did wrong, show the child how to set things right.  Becomes, instead of yelling at daddy, tell him how he can set things right.  For example, you the parent could say “That was not a good choice, we don’t yell at daddy for everything. Do you want to say sorry and make daddy feel better?”  

3. Whenever possible, offer choices.  After offering empathy, you can take it to the next level by offering her some choices. Choices give your child a sense of control. Not only is she not “bad”, instead of being “punished” she is given control… Here are some of the choices you can give her, I suggest.  "Now honey, after you have decided that yelling at daddy is not the best answer, you can make it up by being extra nice.  For example, you can clean out the bathroom toilet which is my job, but it hasn't been done in two weeks.  Or you can go buy me a bag of potato chips or chocolates so I have my own dessert instead of taking yours.  Or you can just stop being a mean, nasty kid and stop yelling and being loud and apologize and stop your yelling because it s driving me crazy and sometime I m just going to Pow Alice, right in the kisser and.... 

whoa whoa whoa,  that isn't one of the options, that is a line from the TV show the Honeymooners.  I just need a time out or time in, whatever the case and relax now.  Breathe easily, count to ten, better make that one hundred.  Lets calm down everybody.  

I really learned a lot from that post on that blog site.  I must disclose I did plagiarize some of the text from that post to my post.  For the full text and educational experience, I give you the link once again here. And please use education and not punishment the next time you are disciplining.

But I have to add at the end, that I am scouring the web for some blog written by a three to six year old on better understanding toward their parents and using education with parents instead of yelling at them all the time. 

I still haven`t found what I`m looking for.  Maybe if we all look together.... we still won`t find it. Obviously an opportunity there for some aspiring three year old.

In the end, my six year old told me to go to the corner and sit on this chair as I had been a bad Daddy.

Between a Small Child and a Policeman`s Badge. A Hard Place and a Rock

This happened to me in December before Christmas 

For some reason my daughters really wanted their mother to walk them to school.  My older girl doesnt need a parent with her, but since the older and younger sister go to the same school at the same time, we all can leave and walk together.  

Now, I try to be accustomed to my younger daughter not wanting me to take care of her if Mom is around.  She has been this way since she was two.  If her Mother is there she wants Mommy to do whatever it is.  I get it.  I am starting to think that kids go between liking Mother and Father at different ages or they choose one over the other when they are toddlers.  They may choose the other parent later in life.  So,  I¨m cool with it.  

That¨s a lie of course.  It still hurts to be rejected even like this. 

Especially when I try to be an active Father taking care of the kids, well, at least 40 per cent during the week as the title of my blog implies.  Since the 1960s in the U.S. there has been an evolution of parenting with fathers wanting to do more and spending more time with their kids.  My Father was pretty good about this and did some housework too.  I think he was ahead of his time. But now I am the next generation and we have to move this farther, evolutionize the role of dad as caregiver even more.  

But my littlest daughter wont let me.  If Mommy is around, Mommy is the one. 

Anyway, back to the incident.  

It¨s just a couple blocks to school, takes about 10 minutes to get there.  Well, there were days in December in which my wife just couldn¨t take the kids to school.  But they pushed hard for her to take them.  

Finally a day came when Mommy just couldnt, had to go sooner or later to work, whatever.  Couldnt.  

My older girl got all pouty and said, well she didnt have to go with a parent and she wasnt going to go with me.  She used to like walking to school with me.  I wrote a post about it HERE, now several years back.  But that is OK too, as kids want to be able to do stuff by themselves especially as they get older and older. That is a frequent cause of friction between kids and parents, BUT there is much scientific material which says that kids who act by themselves grow up more secure and independent.  

Fine,  you can go your own way, my daughter.  

But I still legally had to accompany my younger daughter.  She didnt like that at all.  She ran ahead of me.  But even though my legs are getting older, I have longer legs and could keep up with her. She didnt like this and yelled at me, but waited for me at the street corner before crossing.  She was very frustrated that I was staying up with her and walking with her to school.  

It was another day later in the week, maybe even Friday and I had to walk her to school again. She was angry.  Why couldnt Mommy go with her?


This time she got to take the scooter (at the time, we only had one scooter and the girls  would switch off taking it).  So we went out and crossed the first street and she was off.  I ran, but I couldnt keep up with her when she was on the scooter.  Luckily she waited at the next crossing.  But after we crossed she was off.  Faster.  I ran a block then walked.  

It was about two minutes later that I reached her.  She was standing at the corner waiting to cross it looked like.  But there was a big man next to her.  I came up to her and noticed it was a policeman.  

"Is this your daughter sir?", he asked.  

"Well yes, she is.  She got ahead of me on her scooter and I couldnt keep up with her."  

"Didnt look like you were so interested in catching up to her. You were just walking."

"This block, but I had been running before. I have a bad leg, it cramps up easily."

"That may be, but you cant let her get so far ahead of you. She is still, she told me she is 6, she still needs a parent or guardian to be with her outside."  

"Well yes. Not to sound disrespectful, but that is why I am walking here on the street.  Though, as I said, she got way ahead of me on her scooter."

"Yeah, she got too far ahead of you Sir.  You better either get yourself a scooter to stay up with her, or not let her ride the scooter and get so far ahead of you.  I wont write a citation now, but this is my regular walk beat in the morning, if I see her again and you arent in sight... it could be bad for you sir.  Just to warn you.  It could be bad for you as a parent.  You are her parent or guardian?  Do you have an ID, does she?  Can I compare the names?"

Lucklly she had her picture ID in her bag and I always go with my ID in my back pocket.  But I wasnt too pleased with this incident. IF I had been a kid, I would have gone into a tantrum, yelling, "it¨s not fair, I was trying to stay up with her, she was the one who didnt want to walk with me. It¨s not fair."  But, I kept it inside and bit my lip. 

We walked together down the last block to school.

It`s still the first month of the new year and I have taken them at least ten times to school.  There havent been any complaints and I run alongside my younger daughter as she rides her scooter.  They both have scooters now.  I make sure to keep up with her, but she is a bit slower in winter and walks it up the hill to school.

Its a tough call.  Who do you choose when you are between a young headstrong little girl... and a policeman with a badge and the full weight of the law behind him?  


I have been listening to the newest Four Tet album "New Energy".  Its his best album in several albums.  I sell both the double vinyl and CD in my music store Maximum Underground.  Come and visit and perhaps buy if you are in the neighborhood.  



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWInZ4N6C2g

Christmas: Joy or Problematic?

Whew,  glad that that is over.  

I guess I can`t speak for any man but myself, but I have a feeling that I am not the only man around here, in the world, that has problems with Christmas.  

You know, in the true tradition of denying the problem myself and pinning it on someone else, I don't think it is entirely my fault.  It is the fault of my Father. For one reason, I contain his DNA, (I hope), and for the second I watched his reactions all the time I was growing up. I seem to be pretty much in line with how he reacted.  

My Father, not big on emotions, didn't show much of them even during Christmas.  I ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was a reserved man, quiet, stoic, thinking about things all the time because he was always writing books, and therefore, his reactions and emotions were low key.  So, not his fault either.  But certainly not mine.

But I didn't want to talk about my Father.  

Aghhhhhhh

Christmas problems start back in September when you think, this year I am going to get gifts early.  Well, December tenth rolls around and you say you still have time to get gifts.  Well, the kids have written their wishes and it is December 20th and you still can make it.  Of course you know what is happening on December 23rd, while you are working and don't have time to do anything.  

Buying the gifts is the first problem.  Do other men have problem with this too?  

I did get some pretty good gifts this year.  Some.  In fact I am proud of the game set I got which is in high demand these days with my kids and we are playing a lot of checkers, and other board games I got.  But usually I have trouble picking out gifts.  That is the second problem.  My wife is easy, she tells me what to get.  But I was also told what to get the kids... and I still messed it up.  

There was a crisis Christmas morning when one child opened up her gift and found Ninja Lego's instead of Lego friends.  My wife took me aside later in the day and seriously if she had had a sharp kitchen knife, I don't think I would be here writing this today.

"I told you exactly what to get.  You wrote it down.  How could you still get it wrong?"
"Our daughter said "ninja" and it stuck in my head and I thought it was Ninja I was supposed to get. I don't know.  I messed it up.  I know.  But it all worked out.  She likes the Ninja Lego's". 

My wife wasn't  convinced, at least that is what the daggers in her eyes said.  Oh boy.  Luckily my daughter was a very good sport and got interested in it anyway and put it together happily. 

Two or three years ago I got a 1000 piece Micky Mouse puzzle for my youngest daughter.  That was a big hit. I have pictures of it here from an old post.  That was a success.  So problem number two, I usually get half or most of the gifts wrong, with one or two good ones that I luck out on.  

Problem number three.  I never feel good about giving the gifts anyway.  Gift giving should be from the heart and joyful.  But when my kids open my gifts I always feel like they weren't good enough.  I feel like saying, "sorry, I didn't get you ten gifts of the same nature."  Or, "I'm sorry I didn't get you a bicycle this year, I really was going to get you a gold plated ten speed BMX mountain bike, but.....I didn't.  Jeez, I know all the gifts I gave you suck."   Is it just me, some weird DNA, that I don't feel good about giving gifts, or is this a standard "man thing"?  

To my credit, I have evolved.  My Father didn't even get gifts to the best of my knowledge.  My Mother always wrote "from Mom and Dad", but besides his money, I am not sure how much of his time he spent looking for gifts or how much of his spirit he spent looking for gifts.  And my older sister the University professor doesn't give gifts and doesn't give a rats a.. that she doesn't.  So,  maybe it is not just me.  

But still this year, my wife told me that our oldest daughter said to her, "most of these gifts are from you not daddy right?"  It is the first year she doesn't believe Santa brought them.  Our youngest daughter still believes and I want to keep it that way until she is 20. Then I can always blame Santa.  But sadly..... 

To be fair again, I did get a number of the gifts for Christmas day.  See, we celebrate both Jesus bringing gifts the evening before, on the 24th, European style, and Santa bringing gifts the next morning on 25th, American style.  I did get most of the gifts for the Santa gift giving.  I did.  But that doesn't help.  

Then the last problem is the joy of the yuletide time of year.  It brings out the happiness in all of us.  Well, at some point it usually brings out the wrath of Satan in one of my relations, which brings out Conan the Barbarian in me.  Usually Satan rears his head at my Mother in laws after Mom in law has offered the relative one more drink of champagne or wine.  This is the cue for Satan to come up from Hell and enter the person and stay there until he is exorcised by the Priest knowledgeable in these matters.  Until that occurs it is pretty much exactly like the movie (uncut directors version) the Exorcist on the way home from Moms  and for the next couple days or weeks whenever we meet. They live nearby.  

I tried to put a stop to Satan occupying a body during Christmas 2016 and said to the relative, "you are drinking ANOTHER beer?".  That worked about as well as extinguishing the fires of hell with a spoon of water.  It backfired.  Well, not the choicest words, or best strategy to put a stop to it, yes yes I know. It seemed reasonable at the time. 

And so friends, lovers and enemies,  I adore summertime.  Summertime is joyous for me.  All of it.  But Christmas is just hideous in many parts.  I know it is wonderful for all businesses and a time of merriment for many, but, no no, I wont give up.  You can`t cancel Christmas just because some men (maybe some women too?), have problems with it.  And another point, I don't want to ignore other religions, maybe you have just as many problems with Hanukkah, the Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox Christmas, not to mention Ramadan or Tet Nguyen Dan?  But we can`t cancel the holidays.  I will make a concerted effort to do better next year.  By gum I will.  I will take back Christmas so it is once again a happy, joyous occasion and a celebration.  Remind me about it in September. 

In finishing, I am just wondering... you know that song by the rock band the Police?  Message in a bottle?  Where he sings the last stanza about finding 100 billion bottles  (Man, talk about pollution in our oceans) washed up on the shore, each with an SOS about being alone.  "It seems I m not alone in feeling alone,"  Sting sings.  I wonder if I put the question to all 28 of my readers whether they enjoyed Christmas, if the unifying, resounding answer would be,

NO.

Thanks for reading. 
Happy January 
War is over
Christmas is over

the police message in a bottle lyrics