I have just come home, and Eli runs up to me. “Dad, I left you a Boxcar Children book on your nightstand. It’s your Easter present.” “Thank you,” I say. He turns back toward where he has been playing. “Eli,” I say. “Where’s my hug?” He smiles, and walks back in my direction, slowly now. …
The Columbine killers, a new book says, weren’t twisted little psychopaths who intended to kill dozens. They were one twisted little psychopath and his pathetic sidekick, and they hoped to kill hundreds. But otherwise they were regular kids. USA Today reports this as if it’s news, though the article is strikingly similar to Slate‘s breakdown in 2004. …
I think the pony who wandered into our yard saw our compost bin as a fast-food stop. He is cream-colored with curly hair, and very gentle, and he follows anyone who will feed him old lettuce leaves. We tied him up out back and I hopped in the truck with Isaac to drive around looking …
“The truth is that only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticise the state. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city; the gods of the hearth.” (G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man)
We have this plague in our house that bounces about from person to person, lingering mostly in the lungs, with occasional forays to the intestines. I’m thinking that if it stays with us much longer I can claim it as a dependent on next year’s tax forms. Come to think of it, the little bug …
When he hears the jingle of my keys as I come into the house, Isaiah drops whatever he is doing and comes thumping along on his stubby feet, half crying and half laughing his name for me, which is “Daa.” I pick him up, he wraps his short arms around my neck, rests his head …
I had to fly last week, and while in the air I read Wendell Berry’s Home Economics. I couldn’t decide if that was ironic or fitting or both. I rose in the darkness, first at home, then on that cold plane leaving colder ground, and it was only after we were airborne for a while …
Yesterday’s WSJ tells how the U.S. Army is using video games to sell military service to kids. You might have noticed these at your local state fair or other amusement venues; children are invited to pick up a gun and shoot at targets on a screen. The last time we were near one of these …
I hit the heavy bag Monday for the first time in five years. I didn’t have wraps or bag gloves, but there it was, hanging insolently in the corner of the gym, practically begging for a beat down. Which it got. I have a bruised hand now, but it felt really, really good. A therapist …
A new study argues that single parents cost American taxpayers $112 billion, in the form of welfare, education, prison, and other expenses. There’s also a pernicious estimate of foregone tax revenue, as if it’s unproductive fellow citizens that cost you and me, and not a cabal of Congressmen who spend our money like drunken New …
Father’s Day morning, the Wife brought me homemade blueberry muffins in bed. I sat reading short stories and eating blueberry muffins, and it was blissful. Soon I heard them conspiring outside my bedroom door, the little ones and their mother the ringleader. In marched a little troupe of celebrants, each bearing a gift. They perched …
Eli woke up crying last night, growing pains in his legs. I remember those pains, and my mother giving me two chalky St. Joseph’s aspirin, the ones with orange flavoring. There’s something about being cared for by your parent in the middle of the night that almost makes the hurt worth it. So I gave …
Rick Hilton needs a swift kick in the ass. That’s my opinion on the never-ending Paris Hilton spectacle. And while we’re at the butt-kicking, we can line up any number of successful businessmen, movie stars, and sports heroes who have neglected the fundamental duty of fathers, which is to train up our children in the …
