Monday, October 31, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
Young Love
One of the things about being a guy who coaches a predominantly girls’ sport is that you end up being kind of a father-figure. At least I hope I do. One former cheerleader went so far as to ask my wife and I to be her godparents once. Last week another former cheerleader introduced me to her college roommate as her “mentor.”
One of the things about being a father-figure is having to patiently listen to things that would probably make most real fathers cringe and then gently dispensing empathy, advice or admonishment in appropriate doses.
Case in point; over the course of several months, one former athlete kept me updated on her life via email. Essentially, it was like watching the old ‘50s/early ‘60s TV show, “The many Loves of Dobby Gillis,” except that she’s a girl.
She went through a plethora of boys. There was the cowboy, the manipulative control freak, the musician, the bad boy, the other girl’s boyfriend, the Boy Scout, and the really cute nice guy who they both knew it wouldn’t last and didn’t, and the chauvinist pig.
Finally it ended with “the one.” Of course, I’m not her real dad, and many people thought that I got married too young, but I still cringed. Then, I proceeded to dispense the appropriate amounts of empathy, advice and admonishment. Immediately afterward, I was thanking God that I didn’t have to worry about such things as a REAL dad for at least another 15 years (20 or 30 if I get my way). But alas, it was not to be.
I was sitting on Grace’s bed reading a book while she took her bath next door when her younger sister Ellie called to me from her room across the hall.
“Da-aad?”
“In here kiddo.”
“Yeah, but um, I have to talk to you about something.”
“Yeah, so come in here and talk.”
“Yeah, but, um, it’s something vewy imp-O-tant.”
“Okay…” How serious can anything a three-year-old has to talk about be? I thought as I tried to quickly finish up my chapter.
She sauntered into the room and sat down next to me, folded her hands in her lap and let out a long sigh.
“What is it honey? Is everything Okay?”
“Yeah, but it’s just that I wuv Bwaden SO MUCH?”
Braden is her older cousin from
“He is a pretty good guy huh?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking up with the most dramatic eyebrows she could muster, “but I just don’t know… I love him SO much, but I just miss him. I won’t get to see him for two weeks!” she sighed, exasperated.
“And…and. I just,” she looked down at the floor and shook her head in dismay. “Maybe sum day when we’re both teen-angels we can go to the same college.”
At that point, I probably should’ve pointed out that Braden already is a teenager, but just as I was about to speak she told me more, “And we will get mare-weed and wive in
Later, on the stairs, after Grace was in her pajamas too, Ellie informed Grace that “you can be our neighbors in To-PEEK-ah.”
“Da-aad!” Grace started to tattle, “Ewen said I half to be her ney-BOHR!”
“It’s Okay, homey, when you grow up you can live anywhere you want to, she just loves you so much that she want to stay close.”
So it may be a couple of weeks instead of a couple of decades, but I’m already planning on asking a young man what his intentions are with my daughter. I’m practicing sounding intimidating.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Bill Cosby knew what he was talkin’ about
I recently rented ‘The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy made me split a gut. But I gotta admit that Larry the Cable Guy was hit and miss with because his humor appeals a little too much to the junior high boy level than I’m used to. Ron White is funny enough, but I worry for that guy and his family, is really as bad of a drunk as he pretends to be on stage?When I was a kid in college, a popular comedy album was ‘Bill Cosby; Himself.’ Even the guys who liked the racier jokes told by Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams thought that Cosby was the best. But I have to admit that back then I didn’t appreciate half of Doctor Coz’s routine. And it dawned on me the other night when ‘Bill Cosby; Himself’ showed up on late night cable why that was. It’s the same reason that Jeff Foxworthy is currently the funniest man on the planet, they’re parents.
I SO did not get many of Cosby’s jokes about being a dad. Now that I’ve been one for several years, I know why Bill Cosby is considered a genious.
“These people (kids) cannot hear.-Come here. Come HERE, commere, commere, commere, COME HERE!”
“DA-AAD, she’s touching meee!”
“Quiet down, stop touching your sister, knock it off, leave her alone, give that back to her, If you don’t stop that I’ll stop this car. Don’t make me pull over and stop this car, I’ll stop this car, don’t make me come back there….”
I didn’t have to look up a transcript because these are all things that I’ve said over the last few years myself.
“What did your mother ask you to do? Close the door, we’re not paying to cool (or warm) the whole outdoors. What did I ask you to do?” Etc. Etc.
Coz was right, we all become our parents and say things that we swore to ourselves we’d never say when we grew up and had kids. Like Jeff Foxworthy, I have three girls, so needless to say, my lifestyle isn’t anything like it was in college.
Probably two thirds of our laundry is pink, for example. Last summer even the shower curtain and bathroom accessories went pink.
I have maybe four pairs of shoes. Dress shoes, work shoes, tennis shoes and sandals. Each of the four women in my family have no less than twenty pairs of shoes- and the eight-month old only wears one pair maybe once or twice a week- she doesn’t even walk yet!
Last week I reached into the refrigerator for a pop and there was a pair of pink shoes!
You can’t walk through our living room without having to side-step a Barbie or Barbie clothes. Nothing hurts so bad in the middle of the night on the dark walk to the bathroom, than stepping bare-foot on a Barbie shoe.
I’m the kinda guy who prefers a little privacy in the john, but every other morning when I step into the shower, there’s Barbie staring up at me.
The other night it happened. I thought I’d get through my entire life without being drawn through the vortex and into their world, but what could I do? My wife Bethany had taken Grace, our six year old to speech therapy in
“Daddy, will you play Barbies with us?”
“Huh, wha?” I pretended not to hear her as I peered over my Newsweek at them on the floor.
“DA-AAD, play Barbies with us! PLEEEASE. Here…” she handed me two dolls, “you be these two and I’ll be these two.”
Oh jeeez. What am I supposed to do? How do I do this?
“Hi I’m Ewika and I’m Pwincess Anamaliese, what’s your names?”
“Uh, hi…uh, I’m, uh… Snow White, and uh, this is- er, uh, Ken, yeah, Ken. How are you? Do you want to play?”
What can I tell you, you pretty much have to make it up as you go along.
As Dr. William H. Cosby, once said, “My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own parenthood, but it didn't because parenting can be learned only by people who have no children.”
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Caught writing
Didn't someone once say "a cluttered desk is the sign of a brilliant mind?"Here's a picture of me taken by one of my Journalism students.So this is pretty much what it looks like to see me write my column.
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