A Dad, A Mom, and Three Little Heathens

We've told them many times. 4 times exactly. My children and the Brothers for some reason like to play in the Leafy Spurge that grows in the gully behind their grandparent's house. Because the toxic weed excretes a milky and sticky fluid, they wipe the sap on their faces and arms as war paint. 12 hours later they pay the price for their wild foray into the traditional past. Hives, blisters, and red puffy marks follow the same designs as the war paint like some symmetric allergy. The first time it happened, we could not figure out what it was. Five of them, all covered in their tribal welts. On the day before Thanksgiving, We invite the neighborhood over to my in-law's house to celebrate an early feast before the next day's main event. We call it pie night. The theory is that we never have enough room to eat as much pie as we want with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberries, salad, and whatever you stuff your face with on Thanksgiving, so we eat our pie on th...

One of the best things about raising children is all of the firsts that happen for each child. When I was young, living in the old house on Bright Street, my father would mow the lawn with this really old tank of a lawn mower. This was still in the days that when the equipment broke, you fixed it multiple times before you threw it away. The mower was a red affair with a dented gas cap that would cross the threads if placed without care. I would watch my dad mow with precise lines the small lawn in front of my childhood home. I always wanted to help and often, I would follow in his foot steps, watching the impressions of his feet in the newly mowed lawn. My trailing behind dad could not have lasted long. He, I'm sure could not have known that I was behind him all the time, and he, of course, realized how dangerous it was for me to be directly behind him when he would stop and turn. That is how I think I found myself pushing on the middle rung of the lawn mower shortly after...

Buddies, even in a hail storm As most of the nation's attention is drawn to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey, We in the West are burning up, literally. The fires rage in Washington and Montana and the rest of the West breathes it in. The high school football games were canceled because of air quality, (This comment is in no way meant to make light of those suffering in Texas. Instead, I'm stating that we haven't seen the sun for a while.) Portland was a blur behind smokey skies on September 5, 2017. (SBG photo)&nbsp Need I say more. Now this will seem obvious to most of my readers because you're here with me, but for those of you who read my stuff internationally, you may find our normally clear skies unappealing this time of year.   We like pine trees and forests in the West, but we don't like to breathe them. And this is the season of the burn. Every year my home state burns. Every year I breathe it in and wonder when the rains will come....

I'm not kidding. We literally travel in a huge circle around the grand stands when we go to the fair. It takes us all day. (Although, we make several trips to the food court that disrupted our circular pattern.) Our sojourn to the fair does not include buying a lot of junk, riding rides, (This did come up as a major concern for the first time with the kids) or exorbitant purchases. We go to the fair to see strange things, strange people, and to eat a lot of really unhealthy food. We also go to bond as a family, to get some cotton candy, and to walk in a really big circle. Just through the turnstile and ready to go The first thing that we did is visit the commercial buildings. We meandered through the merchandise, the orderly stalls, and the sales people barking their wares and hoping to catch the passers-by in a moment of weakness. Some merchants are better than others.  We passed by sewing machines that sew automatically, stacks of miracle cleaning solutions, plush toys...

Originally posted September 3, 2016 Meet Sarah This is the beautiful, somewhat crazy, lady I convinced to marry me. Although the better half of our relationship, she at least bears half of the blame for the three little heathens we have set loose on the world. I owe most of the good in my life to her. This might sound a bit like a romantic move on my part to enter her better graces, (and it is) but I realize that without her, I would probably be someone's itinerant visitor who occasionally sleeps on the couch and eats the left-overs no one else wants. (Who am I kidding? I don't eat leftovers.) That or I would probably be a permanent resident in someone's basement bunking with some millennial trying to upgrade my armor in World of Warcraft. My successes, if they can be counted as such come from her vision of my better self. I've got it made... Who am I kidding? She needs counseling just as much as I do. She married me for heaven's sake. Meet Jesse: ...