family tree

I think everyone is interested in where they came from, but I've been much more in the years since we had kids.  Through the diligent work of various family members in researching, and the efforts of my mom in putting that research together in one place, I've learned a lot about different branches of my family tree that I did not know before.

One branch that I knew very little about bothered me quite a bit because it is the branch that my surname comes from.  I have always known my paternal grandfather father's name, but didn't know anything about him.  Furthermore, my dad only had limited contact with that side of the family when he was a kid, and so it felt like the source of my name ended with that one individual that I knew nothing about.

It's amazing how learning one or two small details about a person can fill in a lot of facts that you don't already know.  I recently discovered further information about this great-grandfather that makes his life seem both tragic and fascinating, but the details are minimal.

First, I found out that my great-grandfather was his father's fifteenth child to his third wife.  Both of his parents died before he was a teenager, so he was raised by a sister.  His father had been a devout Quaker, but I don't know if the family's faith or just the era in which they lived more influenced why he kept remarrying after his wives died and having more kids.

My understanding is that my great-grandfather was irreligious for most or all of his life--a seeming oddity in southwestern Missouri in the early 1900s--and I wonder if he blamed his father's faith for being without parents at a reasonably early age.  While most kids were expected to take on adult responsibilities at an earlier age in those days, I have to wonder how that affected him.  He would have had to grow up fast.

Second, I found out that my great-grandmother (my paternal grandfather's mother) died eighteen years prior to my great-grandfather.  This calls to mind something that my mind does every time I'm at a cemetery.  I look at the gaps between when spouses died and I imagine what their lives were like when they were together, then what sort of life the surviving spouse had afterward.  I know it's morbid, but I can't not do it.

I asked my dad what he knew about his grandfather's life during those eighteen years, and he said he lived alone in a very small house near the Missouri/Oklahoma border with a dog.  I asked if he were a reader, and my dad didn't recall that he was.  What does a person do for eighteen years without someone else around?  Nowadays, I can imagine being able to get on by yourself with TV, the Internet, etc.  However, I cannot imagine a life of that sort of solitude and minimal outside stimuli.

So, with a few additional data points that I have learned in the last few months I have generated quite a vision of how one of my ancestors lived.  It's a sad vision, but it's far more significant than a name on a line in a tree.

fight

I've done a lot of posting about, "When I was a kid," in the past few months.  This is one more, but with the twist of it being about what I didn't do when I was a kid.

A few weeks ago I heard another man around my age who I generally like and respect make a blanket statement about guys from our generation that doesn't describe me, and I'm not sure if that's because he's the odd one or I am.  The comment was went something to the effect of, "When I was a kid I'd fight on the playground with another boy, and afterward we'd be great friends.  I got a lot of my best friends today that way."  He stated this like it was a universal male experience and went on to make the point that this is one way in which men and women are naturally different.

I wrestled with friends a lot, and I got into arguments with one of my friends on a regular basis, but I never got into a true physical fight with anyone in either childhood or adulthood.  I'm sure that some of that comes down to parenting, and some comes down to the fact that I had a smaller than average build through most of childhood, but I never thought of fighting being the norm for boys.  I recall seeing boys on rare occasions "fight," if you could call it that, but I recall seeing many more boys stay to the sidelines in those "fights."

I do recall seeing several TV shows try to teach the lesson of physically standing up to bullies, but that always struck me (pun intended) as bad advice for the following reasons.

1. It's naive to assume that bullies are cowards who will back down to a smaller kid standing up to them.  Even if they are cowards, they'll be incentivized to make an example of anyone who stands up to them.
2. It's naive to think that when adults actually show up to deal with the situation that they'll understand that you were simply, "defending yourself."
3. It's naive to think that getting into a real fight won't lead to serious injuries that will be painful and take a while to address.
4. It's naive to think that a weapon won't get used in a real fight.

The advice always struck me as a roundabout means of victim blaming.  It allows for people to complain about the way these situations are handled today, because back in my day we understood that it was the victim's responsibility to stand up for themselves.  Fortunately, I didn't really have a lot of situations where this was applicable, but I always intended to back down from any fight as long as the fight wasn't about protecting someone.

Before our kids went into elementary school I had very genuine fears of them having to deal with bullying, and especially of NJ being in situations where someone wants to fight with him.  That sort of situation didn't appear in elementary school that I am aware of, and now he is going to an online school so it isn't likely to appear in the future.  Some of that is situational, and some of that is because society has changed.  I'm actually very happy that the cultural mindset has shifted on this topic.  Unless it's an absolute necessity, fighting is stupid.

goodbye, grandma

My grandmother on my dad's side passed this past Friday.  She was my last living grandparent, and so this is a bit like the ending of a generation.  I don't know if my thoughts at the moment count as a eulogy, but they're what's on my mind.

When my dad was a teenager my grandparents were called to leave rural Missouri and minister in Arizona.  There's far more to the story than that for those who want to hear the story, but I'm not going to tell that here right now.  Suffice to say, her life was defined by being a farm girl up to a certain age, then working on the Navajo reservation above that age, until their time of ministry was complete.

My mom has always stated that the way my dad does things and the way he thinks and talks comes from his mom.  I didn't notice that growing up, but on the rare occasions when I have seen him with her siblings I had to agree.  However, my take is that he doesn't take after my grandma so much as the entire clan of my grandmother's family.

Since my grandparents lived in the era and locations where they did, one huge thing they did that I noticed that was different than what I was used to was visiting.  When I would be there they would get random friends or family as visitors with no warning who would just drop in and chat for an hour or two in the middle of the day (any day).  I suspect this tradition came from the fact that they didn't grow up with ready phone access, but I did not notice that as much with my other grandparents.  I am sure part of it was that my grandmother had mentioned family specifically that we would be around and would appreciate the visit ahead of time.

If I have a regret it is that I haven't really learned how to connect to family on my dad's side.  Several of us are a bit awkward at managing those communications and connections, and so they get more ignored than they should be.  That's something to learn to be aware of when our kids have families of their own, I suppose.

While we don't ever know who we'll see when we make it to the other side, I really have no doubt that all of my grandparents will be waiting for me when I reach heaven.

careful what you wish for

I know this sounds weird to hear, but I remember when Tiffany Trump was born.  Clearly I wasn't there, but I remember it announced on the news.  It had minor significance to me at the time that I thought would be passing, but reflecting on that memory today has put in perspective for me how much viewpoints can change in one's life.

Ms. Trump was born at a time when my dad was moving between jobs, and so our family was living with my grandparents in a reasonably lengthy interim.  There wasn't a lot of money available in our family at the time, and while I did not grow up rich by any stretch, we were especially poor at that time.  The adults in the picture at the time (my parents, grandparents, and great aunt) all tried to make the best of it, and I was given more or less full reign in my grandparents' basement as my room, which was nice.  So, we weren't destitute on the street, but a big part of my personal identity at the time was feeling broke and trying very hard not to look poor.

At the time all I knew about Mr. Trump was that he lived in New York and was wealthy due to some businesses in the city.  I knew nothing of his personality, the nature of his businesses, who was in his family, or anything.  In a passing statement in the evening news the anchor mentioned that Mr. Trump and Marla Maples had a new daughter that they were naming "Tiffany" after the jewelry store.  The anchor implied that he owned the store, but my understanding now is that he just had business dealings with them.  I remember that all I could think in that moment was that this was a kid who was going to have a much easier time in life than I was having as I experienced a moment of envy.

Fast forward to my current adult life, and I understand today that the source of my envy could not be further from the truth.  I don't know anything about Tiffany Trump, but I do know that I would have hated my life being in now-President Trump's spotlight with all of the associated scandals.  I don't know her relationship with her father, but I do know that it's a running gag among comedians that her relationship isn't as good as with the president's other children.  That alone would be painful.  I don't know a ton about how Mr. Trump parented his kids, but the sources I have heard have indicated that he left a lot of that to the children's mothers.  From money or not, I can't imagine a more isolating situation to live in.

She clearly doesn't crave the limelight, because she'd be in it if she did, but her name is one that almost everyone in the country knows.  It would be hard to establish deep friendships because people already have an opinion of her before meeting her, and who's to say they aren't trying to use her to get to her dad.  How would you even do something as simple as go on a date?  It would be like getting all of the drawbacks of being a celebrity with the only positive being a bit of extra wealth.

I've heard warnings all of my life about being careful for what you wish for.  It's a very common trope in entertainment.  Still, you don't really appreciate the advice as much until you see it play itself out in action.  I really would not ever want to trade my life with that of anyone in the Trump family, and that's something my fourteen-year-old self would have been surprised to hear.

doesn't age well

One of the things that most strongly shaped my childhood was that my parents were far more cautious than most other parents about the media that I consumed.  There's good and bad to that, and I'm finding that I'm a relatively strict parent in that regard as well, but it has given me a different perspective on some of the modern reflections on former media coming out of the #MeToo movement.

Today, watching TV and movies that came out during my childhood in the eighties or nineties is a non-stop experience in thinking, "They wouldn't get away with that today." What has become weird to me is that some of the very issues that would have violated my conservative parents' rules as a kid have become unacceptable in today's society.

One example is The Breakfast Club. I didn't watch it when it came out in the 80s. I was only five-and-a-half in February 1985, after all. I did watch it for the first time almost exactly twelve years ago, though, and remember feeling it was a bit off even then. I remember thinking that I didn't like any of the three male character's arcs because the jock and the troubled teen didn't really learn that they needed to change anything about themselves, and the nerd simply got a justification for doing everyone else's project. Based on the content in the movie, I would never have been permitted to have watched it in my parents' home. Apparently, Molly Ringwald rewatched the movie recently with her daughter and had a similar experience, though more for #MeToo reasons.

In one odd one I remember that Friends was off-limits because of sexual themes.  In more recent years I've seen analysis complaining about the jokes made at the expense of trans people.  So, the complaints about that show have come from both sides.

It's also very likely that jokes I've made or things I've done in years past haven't aged well either.  If so, it probably exposes wrongheadedness on my part more than anything else. So, if you've ever been offended by something I've said here because I've pushed that line, consider this my apology.  It was done in ignorance, but that doesn't excuse it.

More than ever, the times they are a changing. Rightheadedness or wrongheadedness stays the same, though.

provide a boy

Golden and I both always wanted a boy and a girl because that is what we both grew up with.  We didn't, and I still don't, think of either as being easier or harder to raise, or more or less fun to have around.  Golden had another pressure that I never understood, though.  She felt that she needed to provide me a boy.

I wish she never saw this as a burden, because I always considered the idea silly. Since I never got the impression that it was a big deal to my dad, and it isn't a big deal to me, I always assumed the idea of having someone carry on your name was a dying artifact of a bygone era that modern people didn't care about.  While we did have a boy--and a wonderful one at that--I wouldn't have cared if we only had girls, other than that I would have felt bad for Golden for the burden.

In the past few years I have actually heard a few men make comments about this that have shocked me.  They implied that having a boy was much better than having a girl.  There are actually men who care about this!?  And not only that, I've heard this from some who consider themselves "progressive"! Unless I felt pressure from my parents on this I cannot fathom it being a huge deal what gender my kids were.

We're happy with our boy and our girl.  I can honestly say I would be just as happy if we had two boys or two girls, though.  We love them both!

boredom

When I was seven I remember wondering how I would ever outgrow Sesame Street.  I knew it would happen.  I could see that my parents, and other adults for that matter, only had a passing interest in it, but for the life of me I could not grasp what would change about me such that the show would no longer hold my interest.

A few years later my parents worked for a school on an Indian reservation (no one--even Native people--ever called it a "Native American reservation" in my recollection) they used to have a week of sermons at the school called spiritual emphasis week.  Something that those who have not spent much time on a reservation might not know is that time has a different meaning there.  Starting and ending times for a lot of events on the reservation are more generalizations than rules, and so many of the sermons would go hours long.  I distinctly remember sitting through a two-hour (or three-hour... they did occasionally go that long) sermon at nine years old wondering what would change about me for me to be as interested as my parents appeared to be in the sermon's contents.

Even today, I am often struck by how some forms of entertainment that others genuinely enjoy are painfully boring to me, and how many things that deeply fascinate me hold no interest in most anyone else.  What is it that drives fascination and boredom?  That question has been in my mind for at least the last thirty years.

I think there are three things that cause things to be boring.

1. Something is too simple.

Why do I find most kids' entertainment boring?  Easy, it's because there's nothing unexpected or engaging in it.  Bar none, if a children's show or movie is entertaining to me it is because something has been added to it that goes beyond it's primary audience.

2. Something is too complicated.

Many subjects are boring to me merely because I don't even possess the knowledge necessary knowledge to know how to be engaged.  By definition, it is difficult for me to provide good examples because the moment I have enough insight to cite an example I have stepped toward the issue not being so complicated. I do suspect that this is the main reason I am bored by much of what is considered high literature.

3 (or 2b). It doesn't speak to my experiences in life or the needs I have that drive me.

This is sort of like #2, but the reason for lacking understanding is not due to how complicated the issue is, but rather my not being equipped with fundamental background to appreciate the thing.

The best example I have of boredom from a lack of fundamental understanding is Pride and Prejudice.  I tried very hard to care about the book and the movie about ten years ago, but I just couldn't.  I lost interest in the book about four chapters in, and I could not connect with the characters on the most basic of levels simply because I had no fundamental understanding of what drove the main character.  I even got the sense that the things I sort of understood about the main character I understood wrong.

One of my pet peeves is when I am expected to enjoy something when I do not have the underlying drives or experiences that lend value to that thing.  I suspect that most other people feel similarly.

So, in order for something not to be boring to a person it has to reside in their window of knowledge where it isn't too dumbed-down to drive engagement or too complicated to make sense.  It has to also have some basis in the audience's experience and fundamental needs.

So, what do you think?  Are there other things that cause things to be boring?  Have you been as fascinated with this as I, or do you find this whole line of thinking boring in and of itself?  What is so boring to you it is painful?

access to amusement

When I was a kid I mostly lived in rural areas and did not have a lot of disposable income, so I did not go to places like Chuck E. Cheese's, zoos, or amusement parks in general much.  We did go to some to be sure, but the opportunity to do this much was not there.  Small towns do have other things to offer, like bowling, soccer leagues, the Shriner's circus, and city pools, so I still did well.

It's in contrast to this that I notice that our kids have gotten to experience a lot of the things I would have dreamed of as a kid.  They have gotten to experience multiple amusement parks, zoos, pumpkin patches, because the opportunity was there.  In fact, we have already purchased season tickets to Silver Dollar City for the upcoming year.  This past weekend they got to visit the KC Legoland Discovery Center and the KC Sea Life Aquarium, which are two more things that are simply not accessible to a lot of kids.  Based on what I see on Facebook, though, I suspect that we do fewer events like this than the average family.

It is this contrast that is making me wonder, do kids do more things like this that back twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago?  When you were a kid did you go to amusement parks much (more than once a year)?  Did you visit zoos much or fairs, or Chuck E. Cheese's, or other such things?  Were there other things you did more that offset modern amusements that weren't available to you?

I'm not one to complain that kids these days have it too easy, because each generation is faced with it's own unique challenges, and there will always be individual kids in each generation that have to face enormous hardships.  I am wondering if the difference I am noticing is age-related, money-related, city-versus-rural-background-related, or something else entirely, though.

c64 batman

When I was a kid our family had a Commodore 64 computer, and most of the games I played were on that machine.  Of everything that I played, though, the game that probably had the greatest impact on me was Batman: The Caped Crusader.  I was really into the old campy TV series, and the game was more advanced than most Commodore 64 games, so it made sense that I would like it.  It also held some value as one of the gifts for me that my dad had picked out.

As much as I liked the game, I was never able to complete either of the two missions, one against the Penguin and one against the Joker.  In both situations I was able to get right to the end, but was never able to figure out the last thing to do to complete the mission.  I spent hours trying to figure it out, and never to any avail.  In the years since I have often wondered if I was missing something or if the game had been broken.  What I would not have given for the ability to get a game walkthrough like is available online for most games today.

In thinking about game walkthroughs recently occurred to me that I could probably get a walkthrough of completing the game online, and I quickly found some YouTube videos of someone completing each mission.  That completing both missions combined lasts less than twenty minutes is not a reassurance to my gaming abilities as a sixth-grader.

I'm including the videos below of the game for my reference rather than anyone else's because there is no reason anyone who did not play the game would care.  However, I still wish it would have taken the person playing this less than twenty minutes.

Joker, Part 1:


Joker, Part 2:


Penguin:

it is finished

I walked the line last night. After four-and-a-half years, eight or nine semesters (depending on if you count the semester I skipped), and what I calculated to be just short of two hundred classes, I am done with my degree. I thought I would be graduating with honors since my GPA is 3.97 (this is me bragging), but this program apparently does not have a cum laude system. As I like to do, I would like to post some observations about the graduation process.

The speakers for the night kind of phoned it in. Three people spoke, and only one appeared to have put much thought into it. The theme of the one decent speech was that having an MBA is great because you aren't tied to one industry. It was a good point considering the venue, but there was not a lot of meat even in that speech.

Someone mentioned that MBAs are not held in as high regard right now because they, specifically those that have gone into finance, are believed to be the cause of the current economic mess. Why isn't anyone pointing the fingers at the economists and actuaries whose models suggested there was no housing bubble? I'm just saying...

All of the graduations I have witnessed have involved the graduate handing a card to a person who reads his or her name as the graduate walks across stage to be recognized. While I was watching this it occurred to me that someone could crash a graduation rather easily if he or she knew ahead of time what the name cards were going to look like. I would not be surprised if some enterprising reality show tried a stunt like that in the near future.

I have not researched the traditions surrounding mortarboards, tassels, hoods, etc. Part of me wants to believe that some of this was a practical joke that got out of hand. I heard another graduate observing that the whole regalia is about as impractical as it could reasonably be.

I always planned on taking as long as I did for both family and economic reasons. Unfortunately, this meant that most of the people I new well in the program graduated in 2008 or 2009. I knew a handful of people in the ceremony, but not a ton of them. That is kind of a shame because I think the main appeal to me of a graduation is that there is supposed to be a shared camaraderie of what we have survived.

We brought both kids to the ceremony. They were apparently a handful. Golden and my mom dealt with them well, though. I was told that there were a lot of toddlers who had to be taken to the lobby because they weren't doing well in the ceremony. I'll leave it at that.

The main thing on my mind at this point is that I am just happy to have the whole process behind me. In the year or two before I started pursuing the degree I decided that I was going to get a masters degree sooner or later, so I am happy to not have that still hanging over me. If I take academic (rather than corporate) classes in the future, it will almost certainly be simply for my personal benefit and growth, though.

wedding

Golden's brother got married last weekend. It was quite an involved event, actually, as there were seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen as well as five ushers. That is a lot of people, and was indicative of the effort put into the wedding. The ceremony was only twenty minutes long, however, which is the perfect length as far as I am concerned.

There is so much that I do not understand about weddings. I know that most girls grow up planning every minute detail of their wedding for fun, and I know that the appeal of a wedding is supposed to be that this is a ceremony that focuses on the bride and makes her feel special. I, in my male mind, do not understand much more than this about weddings, though. I think this is epitomized in the fact that every chick flick seems to involve a wedding at some point and every time a wedding shows up in an action movie it is because a character somehow ruins the wedding event by being chased through the area where the ceremony is being held.

Something that I noted on Facebook was that I am very thankful that my parents agreed to fly here to help take care of the kids while everything was going on. There are a lot of things that people involved with a wedding are supposed to do and dealing with two kids under the age of three while doing them would be a monumental if not impossible task. Add to this that no almost-three-year-old boy does not want to sit around a church in a tux for hours on end doing nothing.

Golden's brother went to Greece for his honeymoon and I have to say that it sounds like a great place to visit. I'm interested in hearing how it went. Since we did not officially have jobs at the time and had to pay for most everything with plastic or cash from family when we were married, our honeymoon was to St. Louis rather than somewhere more exotic. It was a much nicer vacation than it sounds, far better than any vacation we have taken since, but I feel that we need to make up for the apparent lameness of our honeymoon destination next year on our tenth anniversary if possible.

So, that's pretty much it on weddings. That is, until the next one I attend.

danita remembered again

CD is 139 days old today. When NJ was 139 days old I posted this comment about how this is the same age my first sister was when she passed away. I do not plan on going through the story again since anyone who wants to can read what I wrote the last time. I feel I would be remiss in not at least making the observation again today with CD.

I cannot imagine losing a child, and those sorts of things seem to happen a lot more frequently than I would think that they should. One thing that I mentioned previously is that 139 days, or four-and-a-half months, does not sound like a long time. It is certainly enough time that losing the child would be devastating, though.

I am thankful that NJ is here only a few months from his third birthday and that CD will see her 140th day. I am not thankful enough for the things that are really important.

carver and the reptiles

Even though my parents visited us this past week, we didn't do too much tourist stuff. My parents spent most of their time either working around my house or on my grandmother's house. Everyone but my dad did get away Thursday morning when we visited my grandmother. That morning we stopped by the George Washington Carver National Monument and Reptile World Zoo. I didn't really get pictures (the reptile zoo didn't allow them anyway) but I still have some thoughts about the experience.

First, we visited the George Washington Carver National Monument. It is laid out like a park, and has one museum-like structure that we visited. There is more to the park, but that was all outside and we didn't relish walking NJ around in the heat.

I have always held a high opinion of Carver because the things he did were to benefit others rather than himself, especially his work to aid in the plight of the share-croppers. As the museum was created to honor Carver, it did a good job of improving my already good opinion of him.

NJ was drawn to one display that had nothing to do with Carver, but had a lot of buttons. He would push a button, an animal would light up, and we would hear the sound that animal made. That display probably entertained NJ for ten to fifteen minutes solid.

Not far from Carver's monument is a place called the Reptile World Zoo. It is essentially a large steel building housing an animal enthusiast's collection of reptiles. These are mostly snakes, but also include a wide assortment of other reptiles, some birds, some tarantulas, and I am sure some other things that I forget. For a museum that appears very small on the outside, there were quite a few animals.

NJ was a bit interested in the animals, but he was also spooked by a lot of them. Several of the snakes there were larger than he is and that made him uncomfortable, which makes sense because there was only a thin layer of plexiglas between him and them.

ballerina gown

While my parents are here they are doing a lot of things around the house. We have already cut down a few small trees along the house and bagged them, refloored the entryway from the garage, created a platform to put over the stairway to keep NJ from falling, and installed a sink, faucet, and garbage disposal. As a result, we have been to Home Depot a lot in the last few days.

During one of our trips, Golden and I brought a sample of the color scheme for our daughter-to-be's room to determine what paint color we will need to purchase. There is a machine there that scans objects and identifies what the color is. Our scheme will center around a color called Ballerina Gown. As it is a shade of pink, it is a color that I have a difficult time differentiating from other similar colors.

This trip reminded me of something that has always irritated me. Why must all paint colors aim for evoking an emotion rather than describing the color? As someone who is colorblind, "Ballerina Gown," does not tell me what the color actually is. How does it differ from Cupid Arrow, Poetic Princess, or Scented Valenti? Maybe they could keep the current names, but also have more practical names for colorblind people. I would be better off with a name like, "Just a Bit too Pink to Be Off White." That would tell me something.

parents visiting

My parents are visiting this upcoming week. As usual, there are things that my dad will probably be doing on the house. As usual, there really isn't much of a plan as to what is happening when. As usual, the most important thing is that NJ's grandparents get to spend quality time with him.

Golden has been a little stressed trying to get the house prepared while NJ has been busy getting it unprepared. Golden has done a good job, though. It's not easy keeping this place clean with a two-year-old whose purpose it is to make the house messy.

The biggest issue that we run across when having people over is figuring out what to prepare for meals and snacks. I grew up with my parents and I cannot remember half of what they like to eat. I should have paid closer attention when I was growing up I guess.

They were talking like they would be getting in late Saturday night, but they are leaving from Columbus, Ohio, in the morning, and I cannot imagine that trip taking more than ten hours. Maybe it could take twelve hours if there was a lot of construction.

Hopefully the trip goes well and NJ enjoys the time with his grandparents, since that's the entire purpose of the trip anyway.

on responsibility

I am a generally responsible person. I am sure that I have my lapses and my personal issues, but I think that I am responsible when it comes to most things. Perhaps the word "responsible" sounds a bit egotistical, but in this post I am not necessarily approaching it as a positive.

I think that my tendency toward this trait stems most specifically from my dad (though no one would ever say that my mom is irresponsible). He has felt an obligation to take care of my mom's parents, and now his mom, even though other relatives are also available to assist. They have done this to their own detriment out of a sense of duty.

I have gone through different phases with how I felt about responsibility. For a while I felt somewhat superior for being more dutiful than others. I am sure that at that time I seemed like a trumped up twerp to those I worked with. In retrospect, this was probably painfully evident in one specific job I had in high school.

In another phase of my life that wasn't so long ago I had some resentment about my responsibilities. I would see irresponsible people and wish I had the freedom to be irresponsible too, if even for a short while. This came down to the fact that I felt at the time I was never really given the choice to not be responsible. The likely negative impact of irresponsibility was greater for me than most other people. I do not think that I resent responsibility like I used to now, but I do sometimes daydream about being irresponsible.

Somewhere in there I developed a rather severe opinion of people who are irresponsible in life. I feel for the downtrodden who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own, but I have little sympathy for those who had every opportunity that I have had and simply made stupid or selfish decisions. That probably comes a little from disbelief that someone could be that way and a little from wanting to be a bit irresponsible myself.

Lately, I have been more philosophical about the responsibilities of life. I'm not asking what it all means, but rather how responsible are we supposed to be? I always operated under the assumption that responsibility is next to godliness (far moreso than cleanliness). I want to know how true that is. Golden sometimes says that she is like Martha from Luke 10:40. I never correct her, but Martha was probably more like me than her.

A common theme in narratives is that the regimented and responsible person needs to become more of a free spirit (it is interesting how it rarely works the other way around). I can buy that to some degree, but I don't know where the line should be. Everyone seems to have a different idea of where that line is, too.

I can't get rid of all responsibility. God, family, and work all deserve some duty from me. It can go overboard as well, though. At what point is doing something that is not incredibly responsible a good thing and at what point is it a bad thing?

namesake

My mom mentioned to me a couple of days ago a story that has been in the news in Pittsburgh. Someone whose name is very similar to mine has been on trial for homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence. She is not sure, but she thinks the person may be a second or third cousin as well. We have people with his last name in his home town in our family, and there is apparently someone else from that part of the family with whom I share a first and middle name.

The story itself is sad. Someone who is six years younger than I am is on trial for inadvertently killing someone else, and he has the potential to spend ten years in prison. Distant relative or not, there is nothing good about that situation.

What is weird is that, since that person has nearly the same name that I do and may be distantly related, it is a little easier to put myself in his shoes. I don't drink, and I would be too cautious to drive drunk even if I did, so it doesn't make too much sense that I would imagine myself in this situation. Under normal circumstances I would not give it too much thought. There's something about my namesake going through something, though, that makes it easier to empathize.

I can say one thing at least. I won't be drinking and driving any time in the near future.

setting limits

Over the last few weeks, and especially in the last week, NJ has thrown more intensive tantrums than in the past. This is frustrating for two reasons. First, we are not sure if he is really throwing a tantrum or if he is teething or something like that. He does have molars coming in so maybe that is the problem. On occasion, but not always, he puts his hand in his mouth when he is putting on his show. Second, if this is the sign of him being more defiant, I want to make sure that we are not caving to him. If it is a pain thing, though, I don't want to be callous.

I am no genius with kids, and I definitely have never had illusions that I knew what parenthood was like until now. However, I always figured I knew enough about setting limits that it would be more, rather than less, obvious how to handle individual situations. What I didn't consider is how difficult it is to identify what age justifies what limits.

At two, I know that NJ is testing his limits. He generally knows what he wants and how to get it. I do not think this is a good thing. Setting limits and keeping him to them while he is at an age where he does not understand punishment is not something that I fully considered until recently. I know what my parents did that worked on me, but that was from when I was much older than two.

All I have to say is that kids should come with owner's manuals.

the perfect parent

Everyone is human. Everyone makes mistakes. For the life of me, though, I cannot think of anything seriously morally wrong that my parents did in my entire life. I think they must be as close to perfect as possible.

When you grow up in a family you get to see everyone's flaws because it is difficult to be fake to people you are living with, so it would stand to reason that I should have seen something that my parents did wrong. I can't think of anything, though. They didn't even do the things that a lot of people in church seem to think aren't really sins.

My mom was not a gossip. My dad was not greedy. They never told a lie. They never took advantage of a situation for financial gain. Neither of them did anything that even appeared remotely unseemly. I think there is a probably warranted feeling in American culture that people who have the appearance of piety are not so holy when no one is looking. I did not have that opinion when I was growing up, though, because what people saw of my parents in church was exactly the same as what I saw at home.

While this is a spectacular legacy, it was a little annoying to grow up with, because no one can live up to perfection. It took me a while to truly accept the concepts of grace and mercy because seeing near perfection gave me a brutal view of anything that could be even a close approximation to sin for a while. That shouldn't be blamed on my parents, though, because to do so would be to blame them for not slipping up at some point. That is lunacy.

As NJ is growing up I am becoming more and more alert to the impression that he will get from his parents. His soon-to-be sibling will be watching as well. I don't want either of them to think that they have to be perfect through their own power, because that can ultimately lead to a frustrated rejection of God or a lifetime of faking it. I also don't want them to think that anything is acceptable because grace covers it, because that can eventually lead to serving something that isn't quite God or even passively rejecting Him. Most importantly, though, I don't want them to think their parents hypocrites. I don't want them to have an excuse to reject God. How is that possible, though? Nobody is perfect.

dust words

I think that in just about every serious relationship there are words that one person uses that the other person thinks are weird. I definitely use a few words that Golden has questioned.

The first time I can recall Golden making a big deal about one of the words I used was in a presentation I did in a class that we were both in. Twice in the presentation I used the word "disparity." Golden's opinion was that I sounded like I was trying to show off that I knew what the word meant. Maybe I did, but every time we have heard the word used since, I have given her a nudge.

Another word I use quite a bit is "munch." Golden used to tease me about saying that I needed something to munch. Now I have influenced her enough that she uses the word as well. Heh, heh, heh.

A final word that I use that sticks out to Golden is "crisp." If it is a freezing morning, I will describe the cold as biting. However, if the morning is simply chilly, I will describe the temperature as crisp. For a while, Golden was not convinced that I was even using the word correctly.

I have to be fair, though, that Golden and her family use words that I haven't gotten used to either. If they say to put food on your plate they tell you to, "dip your plate." She also uses a word the word "swig" to describe a sip. This is a word that my dad uses as well, but that I simply have never gotten used to.

I should be thankful. Apart from a few differences in the words we use, we really aren't very different. I would say there is hardly any disparity between us at all.