A Hymn For the Road..........a short story.

It had come to this. I found myself at a bus station at 6 o’clock on a Sunday night somewhere in Tennessee. It was as far as I could afford to ride from Mobile. I was out of money and cursing myself for being stupid enough to spend my last dime on a bus ticket to nowhere, the latest in a long line of foolish decisions. I suppose I thought that Tennessee was closer to home than the gulf of Mexico. But Virginia was only home because it was where I was born. There was no house in Virginia, no front porch, no light on for me. There wasn’t any family waiting. My folks had passed on years ago and my wife and child had moved on from me several years back, so there wasn’t anyone left. I had called Jill a few months ago to ask about my son. We hadn’t talked in awhile and she was cold and sad on the phone. She hadn’t even asked me where I was like she always did before. It was over for her. She was tried of hoping and worn out from caring.

It had all been my fault. I had walked away from her right after Mick’s 2nd birthday. I told her that I felt trapped and then blurted out that I didn’t love her anymore and probably never did. I had been drinking too much after Mick was born. I stopped going to church with them, stopped doing anything with them. A couple of guys from the church had come over one night, said they wanted to pray with me. Something in me just snapped. Even though they were good guys and wanted to help me I had flown into a rage at their suggestion that I needed to repent of my sins. I threw them out of the house, packed my bags, and after a violent argument with Jill the screen door slammed behind me and just like that I was gone. I abandoned her with a two year old and a checkbook full of bills. I had been on the run from the law ever since.

Since that night I’d been living on the road, picking up odd jobs, drinking and wasting away. In Mobile I had taken a job at a junkyard where the greasy old boss had let me sleep for free on a cot in the back of the warehouse. One night a storm blew in off the gulf and the wind was shaking that old building to its very foundation. As I lay in the dark listening to the wind and rain beat down on the roof a memory came to mind. I hadn’t thought about my mother in so long I couldn’t even picture her face in my imagination. But there she was sitting on the end of my bed the night I had wrapped my Dad’s Impala around an oak tree after a football game in high school. I had gotten drunk at a party and on the way home had lost control and somehow managed to survive without a scratch. I was 17. My mother stared into my eyes as she held my hand between hers then said, “ Jackie, you should have been killed tonight. But you were spared. God spared you because he loves you and he wants you to learn to love him back.” I had almost forgotten that night until it came roaring back with the wind and rain. The next day I bought the bus ticket. As far as I could go for 65 bucks.

And now here I was walking the damp sidewalks wondering why I had left my free cot and job for yet another mindless trip to nowhere. I was about done. I wasn’t afraid of dying anymore. Nothing could be worse than what my pathetic life had become. I had found myself thinking more and more about ending it. It was practically all I had thought about on the bus. How much better would it have been for everyone if I had been killed that night in my Dad’s Impala.

I walked for an hour or so until I saw some sort of mission through the fog ahead. Lights were on and the old store front windows were empty but there was noise and warmth and the smell of soup. The front doors were propped open with two cinderblocks. I went in and instantly recognized the smell of bums and the sound of hungry men slurping down a free meal. This was just another soup kitchen like a hundred others I had relied on, run by some do-gooder college kids or church group. I didn’t care. I knew the drill and I was hungry so I got in line and was served a bowl of beef stew with a couple of rolls and a ham sandwich. A tall glass of tea was brought to my table by a hippie looking kid in a tie-dyed t-shirt who smiled and said, “Here you go brother.” As I ate I looked around the room at the usual faces I always saw at these places. Some were on drugs, most were drunks, some were just out of their minds whispering something to themselves as they pointed frantically at unseen demons.

Then I saw him. He was a very old black man with an oddly sane and cheerful smile. When he spotted me his eyes danced and sparkled. “ Well hello there my brother!” he shouted with a laugh. Startled, I could only think to answer..”I’m not your brother old man, and you for damn sure aren’t MY brother!” “Sure you are,” he answered. “You and me are God’s children so that makes us brothers!”

I ignored him and went back to eating, wondering why it was that God treated his children so poorly. After I finished I started to get up to leave when a strong voice began to sing. The old black man had taken his hat off and rose from his chair and with his eyes closed and his head tilted up slightly sang…

“ I will sing of my redeemer and his wondrous love to me;
On the cruel cross he suffered, from the curse to set me free.”

The room had fallen quiet. The spoons were still, the feet had stopped shuffling, the lunatics had stopped their whispering, even the kitchen had stopped to listen. The old man’s voice was raspy and worn but the notes were clear and beautiful…

“ Sing, oh sing of my redeemer, with his blood he purchased me.
On the cross he sealed my pardon, paid the debt and made me free.”

The song was familiar to me. When I was a child it was a favorite at the church Mom always took me to but nobody there ever sang like this..

“I will tell the wondrous story, how my lost estate to save,
In his boundless love and mercy, he the ransom freely gave”

Tears had begun to track down his cheeks and disappear softly into his beard. I found myself with a knot in my throat and my hands began to sweat as I watched his face with amazement. How could this old bum with nothing and nobody sing such a song?

“ I will sing of my redeemer, and his heavenly love to me;
He from death to life hath brought me, Son of God with him to be.

He must be crazy I thought. Instead of whispering and pointing he sings. But he could sing, really well, the kind of singer that might have really been something at one time. The kind of singer who might have done it for a living before the wheels came off and he ended up broken and busted up eating free soup in a rescue mission. When he finished the room erupted in applause. He seemed not to hear it as he sat back down and began to eat. I stood there looking at him for a minute as the noise slowly returned to the room. “That was some nice singing,” I managed to say. He looked up briefly from the soup and smiled, nodded his head and said nothing. “ I recognized that song from when I was a kid,” I offered awkwardly. I began to get irritated with him for not responding to me. I heard myself blurt out, “If God loves you so much old man, why the hell are you here?” He sat up straight, looked at me brightly and said, “Whatcha mean what am I doing here? Why, my God is supplying me this wonderful bowl of stew, that’s what I’m doing here! Ha! Don’t let my looks fool you brother. I got joy you know nothing about.” “Yeah, but you got nothing else,” I said in a quieter voice. “Well of course not. You got anything else?” he paused for effect. “I didn’t think so!. See?? I told you we was brothers, we’re just alike , practically twins you and me..Ha!”

He continued to eat and I sat there staring at him, unable to look away, much less leave. When he finished his meal he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Jack is it?” he asked. “ Jack, I’ve got something to give you. Ha! I lied a minute ago when I let you believe I didn’t have nothing! Ha!” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wrinkled and stained folded envelope and slid it across the table to me. I opened it cautiously and pulled out a bus ticket to Richmond, Virginia leaving in an hour with my name typed across the front. “what the hell?” I whispered .

The old man leaned forward and spoke in a quiet voice so just he and I could hear. “See, you’ve got business in Richmond. There’s something there that you need to make right. It won’t do for you to be running anymore. You’ve got to go home and be a man. You got to take whatever you got to take when you get there…but its time for you to go home.” He stood up, put his hat on his bald head and smiled down at me. “One day soon Jackie-boy you gonna sing of YOUR redeemer” And just like that he shuffled through the opened doors and disappeared down the street. I made my way back to the bus station with the words to that hymn in my head. As soon as the bus ramped onto I-40 I was sound asleep and going home.

My golf education

I did the unthinkable yesterday. Played golf on a holiday. It was predictably brutal. One of the ironclad rules for living that I have always lived by is …don’t play golf on the weekends and especially if a holiday is involved. Don’t get me wrong, I love golf, the great outdoors, the camaraderie of the fellas, and the opportunity to smoke a fine cigar. But for me golf is a sport to be participated in on a weekday with an obscure tee time like Tuesday at 10:45. If a round of golf cannot be completed in 4 hours or less it morphs into something ugly. It becomes a tedious slow motion death trap. You find yourself watching from a distance 50 year old men plumb-bobbing 4 foot putts. After taking three shots to advance the ball 200 yards, some 65 year old retiree in lime green Bermuda shorts stands in the middle of a fairway confidently waiting for the foursome on the green to clear before he hits what is sure to be a fabulous 225 yard 3-wood. Meanwhile back on the tee you and your buddies debate the ethics of firing a drive over his balding head. Although all agree it would be “freaking hilarious” the decision is made to be patient. After all, it is pointed out, he is probably somebody’s grandfather.

On this particular day I was graciously invited to join a group of guys from my church who had an early tee time on Memorial Day. I agreed to violate my ironclad rule of living in this case because I actually felt like playing golf for a change. My enthusiasm for the game has considerably waned in recent years what with two kids in college and my only getting worse with age impatience with anything that forces me to wait for stuff. But on this day I was excited to get out on the golf course. At this point I should point out that my last purchase of golf equipment occurred pre-millennium. I bought a driver which at the time was all the rage 15 years ago. It was called the “Blue Rage” and it was manufactured by a company that no longer exists I think. I have a set of Titleist irons that are the same age as my son. My putter is the putter I bought back before I got married. Anyway, you get the picture.

When we get to the first tee it started. I look around at the equipment that these guys are packing and I feel like an old man sitting on a plastic chair at the Royal shop waiting to pick up his repaired typewriter! When I pull out my trusty old Blue Rage the fellas start with the jokes…” Nice driver Mr. Trevino, can I have your autograph?” I look around at the drivers around me and they all look like croquet mallets only shiny and metallic and quite intimidating with all sorts of cool technology like little screws that you can turn to alter the balance or to play a fade or a draw. And it wasn’t just the drivers, these guys had incredibly gleaming irons and space age looking putters. The best part was when one of the guys in my foursome whips out the “Laser Range Finder 2000”. All you had to do is point this one-eyed monster at the target, peer into the monocle and BAM, the exact yardage to the hole appeared on the screen. It was as though I had walked off the set of the Flintstones and found myself playing golf with George Jetson. I promptly responded by carding an 8 on the first hole.

Thankfully my woefully under-equipped game did improve and I didn’t embarrass myself too badly. My Blue Rage actually out drove her high tech competitors on several occasions and I ended up in the middle of the pack with an 86. Although I was happy with the score and the fellowship, spending 5 hours to do it in 95 degree heat was about as dreadful as it sounds. The cigar was good though.

Book Reviews!!

10. Stan Musial An American Life George Vecsey

Terrific biography of the greatest baseball player that nobody ever talks about. Although he finished his career with over 3600 hits, 475 homers and over 1900 runs batted in, won three World Series titles and three MVP awards and had a career batting average of .331, the fans left him off a 1999 vote to determine the best 25 players of the twentieth century. Why? Mostly because he was boring. He never married an actress, never said anything controversial, and he played his entire career in St. Louis, not New York. Great read that shines some long overdo light on a wonderful player.

11. Men & Dogs Katie Crouch

My list of favorite female writers is embarrassingly short. Its nothing intentional. Its just that I tend to prefer masculine perspectives. So I set out to remedy that with this novel by the highly respected and well recommended Katie Crouch. The book was well written, creative and in spots actually beautiful. But in the end I didn’t care one way or the other about any of its characters. They all seemed shallow and self-indulgent. By the last chapter I wanted all of them to be consumed by the wrath of God for their pettiness and incessant whining. I will not here end my search for fine contemporary female fiction. But my first attempt was a dud. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

12. Knuckler Tim Wakefield with Tony Massaroti

Yes I know. I read tons of baseball books this time of year. I can’t help myself. It’s the game I love more than any other. Tim Wakefield is a rarity, a 42 year old who still plays and one of the last of a dying breed of pitchers who have made their living throwing a knuckleball. Add to that the fact that he plays for the Red Sox, my favorite team and there was no way I wasn’t going to slap down the 28 bucks for this hardback. It did not disappoint. Wake is as tough a competitor as anyone who ever played the game, but he has done so for over 15 years without making enemies. Friends and foes alike all admire him and want their kids to be like him, none more so than Joe Torre the manager of the arch rival Yankees who famously placed a call into the visitors locker room after the Red Sox had come back from being down 3-0 to win the 2004 American League title…just to personally congratulate him. That’s the ultimate respect…and no player deserved it more than Tim Wakefield.

13. Love Wins Rob Bell

Whenever a book by an evangelical shoots up to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list it gets my attention. I saw Mr. Bell interviewed on CNN and he was awful, tying himself into a pretzel of contradictions trying to explain/defend his thesis that essentially 2000 years of orthodox theology about the nature of salvation, the meaning of the cross, and mankind’s eternal destiny..well..has just been a huge misunderstanding! I run over to Barnes & Nobel immediately to see what all the fuss was about expecting a giant door-stop of a book outlining this dramatic departure from biblical doctrine. Something between Augustine’s City of God and a dusty tome by Martin Luther. Instead what I found was a cute little pamphlet of a book with artsy indentations and tiny little paragraphs of simplistic non- sequiturs. Although Bell does at times stumble into some brilliant observations, mostly he just asks question after question like some breathless sophomore in a theology class. I’m sorry, if you’re asking me to turn my back on the work of brilliant men over twenty centuries, if you’re asking me to turn aside central doctrines about the meaning of salvation and eternity you’re going to have to do better than this thin gruel of a book.

14. Bonhoeffer Pastor Martyr Prophet and Spy Erik Metaxas

After Love Wins I felt the need to wash my brain out with soap, so I went 180 degrees in the other direction looking for a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer figuring that I needed to read about someone for whom Christianity had consequences. This book was simply transformational. One cannot help but be overwhelmed by the power of his mind, the sweep of his story and the sadness of its end. To see how this great man was transformed by the times he lived through from being a man of reflection and theory to being a man of action, bravery and defiance is inspiring to behold. And it raises the quiet question in your heart with the turn of each page..”would I have been as strong?” Long after the Rob Bells of this world will have faded from memory, future generations of Christians will still marvel at and be challenged by the life and thoughts of D. Bonhoeffer.

15. Meditations On The Psalms D. Bonhoeffer

OK..after reading ABOUT him I just had to read something BY him so this collection of sermons and meditations on his favorite book of the Bible was the one I chose. Some of them were written during the 18 months he spent in Nazi prisons which only added to their emotional power. Missing are the cute stories and platitudinous blather that pass for sermons today. Every word had meaning. The time was short and he had something to say and the urgency and gravity of the hour leaps off the pages. Beautiful and convicting stuff.

16. Collected Poems 1909-1962 T. S. Eliot

I try. I really really try to like poetry. Part of me feels guilty and simple every time I pick up a book like this. I bravely plow through it trying desperately to be enlightened. I mean, he’s TS Eliot for crying out loud! He’s great, right? I read poetry like a child reads an encyclopedia, vaguely aware that stuff is going on but hopelessly clueless. Every now and then I find a poem that I get and that actually stirs me to the point that I experience something of the art that’s there, Byron’s “She walks in beauty like the night…” or Dylan Thomas’ “ do not go gentle into that good night”. But mostly I read poetry and feel dumber for it. No thanks.

17. Alexander The Great Philip Freeman

This is an incredible tale about a giant of a man who by the sheer power of his passion and will conquered the known world…all by the time he was 29. The most interesting part of Alexander’s story is the complex contradictions in his character. He could be generous and touchingly kind one minute and stunningly brutal the next. He was a man of big appetites for conquest, revenge, and sex. Reading how the Macedonian culture was so openly bisexual was a bit of an eye-opener. Here’s the most macho man in history openly cavorting with young boys…very weird. An amazing read primarily because of the glimpse it offers into the ancient world.

What do seat belts and antsy 5 year olds have in common?

Yesterday started like every other day. After performing the morning routines I got into my car, backed out of the garage and instinctively reached over my left shoulder for the seat belt, pulled it across my chest and heard the snug “click” as it became operational. This has not always been so. When I was a teenager I drove a 1966 Volkswagen beetle which had no working seat belt…among the many non-working things it didn’t have. Once I got married my wife hounded me about my seat belt usage until it finally became second nature. Now I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere in a car without a functioning seat belt. But on this particular morning my car radio was ablaze with warnings about a new State Police initiative called “Click-it or Ticket”. Yes, my all-knowing, all caring government was giving me fair warning this Memorial weekend eve that if I was caught not using my seat belt, there would be hell to pay. “Cops nationwide are clamping down!!”..the commercials warned. “It’s the LAW”!! And just then in a flash of clarity it occurred to me. This is why the United States of America will NEVER get its financial house in order.

Some government agency somewhere had decided to devise a national advertising campaign to bring attention to the fact that law enforcement would be lying in the tall grass of interstate highways all over the country looking to catch us not using our safety belts and if we knew what was good for us we better buckle up. Our government then went to considerable expense ( advertising ain’t cheap ) to remind us that failure to wear a seat belt is now against the law. So now I must add seat belt usage to the list of 39,678 other routine details of my daily life that now has fallen under the scrutiny of my government.

All crimes have victims. If I fail to use a seat belt and have an accident that causes avoidable injury then I and I alone am the victim. My fellow passengers aren’t affected. The guy I hit wasn’t affected because I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He was hit because I was frantically trying to change the channel of my radio to avoid yet another annoying commercial warning me to Click-it or Ticket! So, why is not wearing a seat belt illegal? What business is it of the government whether or not I wear a seat belt? Under what provision of our Constitution does the authority for such a law reside?

You may say..but Doug, this law is for your own good! The government is using public policy to promote your general welfare. Maybe if there’s the threat of a fine people will be more willing to do the right thing. This law will “save lives”! Suppose I don’t want saving? Am I not allowed to make a stupid decision that doesn’t hurt anyone else? If the government is so concerned with saving my life why don’t they come into my house, go through the fridge and throw out all the crap I eat that’s full of fat and sugar? No..wait. Lets not give them any ideas.

Now, lets get back to our fiscal nightmares and my epiphany. The reason we are doomed is simply this. For every personal liberty loving crank like me there are 7 or 8 of my fellow citizens who are perfectly fine with handing out citations to seat belt rebels. They applaud , indeed, demand that their government “do something” about every problem that society encounters whether large or small, grave or trivial, cost be damned! Don’t believe me? On my commute yesterday after the seat belt ad came news that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has found 500 million dollars of our money to fund a new program called…wait for it… the Race To The Top Early Learning Challenge. Among other issues the program will deal with “5 year olds who cannot sit still in a Kindergarten classroom” Ms. Sebelius noted expertly , “because if a 5 year old cannot sit still it is unlikely that he or she will do well in Kindergarten” The only thing sadder to me than the utter sophistry of that statement is the price tag of her foolishness. We will spend half a billion dollars to get the ants out of juniors’ pants. That’s half a billion dollars that we do not have. But not a peep of protest comes up from the American people because it will be cast as a program that’s..”for the children”. The simple fact is that over the years we have become accustomed to the notion that there isn’t a single problem facing us that can’t be tamed by the application of a government program. If we lack the will to end the small outrages like seat belt laws and billion dollar “why can’t Johnnie sit still boondoggles” we have no chance at entitlement reform. Poor Paul Ryan probably never dreamed that he would be depicted in campaign commercials literally pushing a wheelchair bound grandma over a cliff all because he had the audacity to ask the question..”How in God’s name are we going to be able to pay for Medicare in 20 years if we don’t fix it?” Unless and until the American people rediscover their love of liberty, Democrats will always win the spending argument. I’m not optimistic.

Quanitative Easing in the Dunnevant House

Our nation is currently running a 1.6 trillion dollar annual account deficit. That means we are spending 1.6 trillion dollars more than we are bringing in to the treasury. To fund this shortfall the Federal Reserve sells U.S. treasury notes. 30% of these notes are bought by people and other countries and 70% are bought by the Federal Reserve itself. This is called “quantitative easing”. If my math is correct that means that each week our government spends 31 billion dollars that it doesn’t have, 21 billion of which it borrows…from itself. This is what passes for monetary policy in 2011. I wonder how “quantitative easing” would work in the Dunnevant household? Hmmm…

Me: Hey sweetie. Whatsya doing?

Pam: Oh..just took Molly for a walk and in so doing I created or saved 250 calories!

Me: Awesome! Guess what?! I just got the new Down East magazine in the mail and look at this incredible lake house! Its on Lake Megonticook, only 5 miles from Camden and the price was just slashed to $850,000.

Pam: Honey that’s great but this is probably not a good time to be buying a lake house what with you losing your job and all.

Me: That’s just a temporary setback sweetie. Heck, we’re Americans and we can do anything when we set our minds to. Just think of all of the enjoyment we will get out of this place for years to come. Not to mention the boost this will give to the economy up in Camden.

Pam: Well, when you put it that way, how can we not invest in our future enjoyment and overall standard of living? Who are we to withhold economic benefits from the fine people in Maine. I’m sold! But what about the money?

Me: I will call the bank and work out a bipartisan compromise that will raise our debt ceiling.

Pam: I don’t think that’s a very good idea, honey. One of their rude employees called the other day complaining because we were late on all of our payments. They said something about we were spending much more than we were making each month and that if we didn’t stop soon they were going to be really mad.

Me: HaHa!! Crazy right? Don’t they realize what good things we are doing here?! I’ve created or saved countless jobs over at the Cadillac dealer and Home Depot, not to mention all the financial stimulus that you have provided to Panera and New York and Company.

Pam: True dear…but maybe they do have a point. Are you sure that withdrawing all of the money from our retirement plan last month to pay for our 30th wedding anniversary cruise around the world was the right thing to do?

Me: You silly goose…of course it was!! That’s in our future and we must never hesitate to invest in our future. Think of all of the wonderful memories we’ll create or save on that trip.

Pam: Good point love. Besides, I suppose if the bills pile up too high there will always be Kaitlin and Patrick there to take care of it all after we’re gone.

Me: Exactly! And I’m sure they won’t mind at all. A small price to pay for the wonderful life we gave them. I’m hungry! What do you say we go over to the Melting Pot for a ridiculously expensive six course meal? Take a quick shower while I call MasterCard to inform them that I’m arbitrarily raising my credit limit.

Kaitlin Elizabeth Dunnevant

My daughter turns 24 today. Kaitlin Elizabeth Dunnevant. I’ve always liked the way her name rolled off the tongue. Lots of letters and syllables coming together to make a pretty sound. On her birthday I will take a minute to make a partial list of the many things that come together to make her so wonderful.

* She is the lump in my throat every time I watch Father of the Bride.

* She is the unexpected catch in my voice whenever I brag about her at work.

* In a life of mistakes she is evidence that I got something right.

* She is the smile on my face every time I see a blonde curly-haired two year old in a yellow dress.

* She was the pit in my stomach whenever teenage boys with bad intentions came around, and they all had bad intentions.

* When her softball team lost a thrilling game in the bottom of the last inning she was the only one with tears coming down her cheeks. She may be the most competitive Dunnevant of them all. It’s a glorious thing.

* On the five minute drive to school in second grade I could always make her smile at least once no matter how miserable she was and no matter how hard she tried not to.

* I marvel at the level of discipline she has developed.

* She is the pride I feel when I see her curled up on the sofa reading yet another book. My gift to her.

* When I see her fierce loyalty to friends, her tender heart to the less fortunate, her love and devotion to all things family I realize how amazing my grandchildren will be to behold.

* She is the shame I feel still that I spent the first 24 hours of her life disappointed that she wasn’t a son.

So on this day, may my daughter with the crooked smile, the curly hair, the brilliant mind, stunning beauty and doting father have an awesome day. And tonight at Outback you can have something besides water!

The Tale Of Three Mothers

There are three mothers in my life. My biological Mother, my Mother-in-law, and my wife. On the eve of their big day, a few words.

Whenever someone accuses me of being opinionated and strong willed I blame my Mom. She is an amazing woman who shaped me in a thousand ways. My ability to think on my feet I got from her. My passion for travel from her. My curiosity about the world…her. My Mom also infused in me a love for the Bible. Verses dripped from her lips like an act of God, not in the phony forced way of many, but rather it was as if she had literally grafted God’s word to her heart and it flowed out contemporaneously and naturally in conversation. This was a woman who took her faith seriously and she had little patience with those who didn’t. It has been said that my Mother could argue with a fencepost but what is not said is that there exists no fencepost in the world that would stand a chance against her untrained logic. One of my earliest memories on this earth involves my Mom’s beautiful, rich virbrato alto singing “Tell Me the Old Old Story” while giving me a bath one summer night when the fire-flies were pulsing just outside. She had a way of calming me and wrapping me lovingly in her arms before putting me to bed that told me that I lived in the safest place on earth.

Mother-in-law jokes are a National tradition in this country. But for me none of them are ever funny. Although she had many reasons to worry when her daughter announced our intentions ( I didn’t exactly have a spotless resume) she never held back her support for me. In 27 years of marriage she has never once interfered in our lives..not one time. She has always been there for us when we needed her, as dependable as a best friend. She adores her grandkids and would run through a gauntlet for all of us. My marriage is as strong as it is in no small part because of her steadfast loving presence in our lives.

I married my wife for many reasons but primarily because she was so scorchingly hot. In this I was not unlike most other men on our planet. It’s only after the wedding that the luckiest of us discover what an amazing and undeserved windfall we have stumbled into. My wife turned out to be one of the finest human beings I have ever had the good fortune to know. Never was this more evident to me than on the two days that our children were born. I was just not prepared for her strength. I wasn’t ready for her toughness. In the years after I have stood off in the corner of rooms marveling at her amazing powers of organization, her blinding efficiency and the unfathomable depths of her mother’s love. In our house I’ve always had the easy job of making money and being Mr. Fun. I come sweeping in after dinner collapsing on the floor in a pile of tickling and giggles. I had the awesome job of giving them their baths and reading bedtime stories and kissing their sweet faces before the lights were switched off. But my wife had literally everything else. She was the one who made sure they got signed up on time for little league. She was the one who made sure that they turned in their homework, filled out their applications for church camp, got their shots, ended up with straight teeth and remembered to bring flowers on teacher appreciation day. My wife was the reason that our kids made it, the reason that they became the beautiful bright well-adjusted adults they are today. I just watched in baffled amazement and paid the bills. She has simply been the most valuable member of our family for the past 25 years and is the only thing that stands between me and oblivion. Mother’s Day is the day were credit is given where it is most assuredly due. I consider myself blessed that I have three women to praise.

Lucky me.