Category: Family

Totally Lost

It’s not often that Eyegal and I get hooked on a TV show. Usually, we’re much too busy in the evenings to become regulars at anything, but I can think of three times it’s happened in the past:

1) Thirtysomething. This was a show about angst-ridden yuppies in their 30s with young kids living in Philadelphia in the late 1980s. We watched this show during optometry school when we were poor twentysomethings who looked forward to the day when we would have enough money to be angst-ridden yuppies. It all looked so good at the time, but reality is rarely as good as the dream itself.… Read the rest

by MTEG
Posted on August 27, 2007January 2, 2022
11 Comments on Totally Lost

Each Moment Is, and Always Has Been, a Gift

I knew that drop off day last Thursday would be busy and unpredictable, so I took Number One Son out to lunch at Little Rosie’s on Wednesday to serve up a little fatherly wisdom along with some steak fajitas, chips and gaucomole on the side. So far so good: no apparent E. coli poisoning.

I started off by saying that if I were to tell him everything that I know that he needed to know as a college freshman starting out, that I would flat-out fry his brain. Instead, I promised to keep it simple.

First, I wanted him to know how I “backended” into my career as an optometrist, having never even thought about that profession during college, but instead seeking it out after my first choice of clinical psychology “didn’t work out.”… Read the rest

Dropping Off a Kid at College

We’re off to Tuscaloosa today to drop Number One off at Bama. That’s right, pull up to the curb, shove him and his stuff out the door, and then pedal to the metal baby!

I know, I know, it probably won’t be quite that simple. First off, you won’t be able to even find the curb for all the hundreds of cars ahead of you, and then there’s the small matter of getting the stuff up to his room. And do you think Eyegal is just going to plop all that junk in there without doing some “arranging?” I don’t think so.… Read the rest

by MTEG
Posted on August 16, 2007January 2, 2022
16 Comments on Dropping Off a Kid at College

Those Sunburn Blues

With temperatures in the triple digits this week, I had a flashback to a scene from a few years ago when our family sought relief from those sunburn blues in the form of a jazz concert at Big Spring Park in Huntsville. Afterwards, the muse struck, and the result was a wee little essay (or is it a beatnik poem?) which was published in The Huntsville Times about a week later:

A simmering sun burns off the last of the July haze and slips beneath the rim of the Von Braun Center.

Over by the Big Spring, the Grissom High School Jazz Band tunes up for its upcoming European tour in front of a hometown crowd.

… Read the rest

by MTEG
Posted on August 15, 2007January 2, 2022
3 Comments on Those Sunburn Blues

The Naked Dream

“The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

–Genesis 2:25

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

–Genesis 3:7

Yesterday was Number Three Son’s first day of public high school. Like his brothers, he was homeschooled for the first eight years (oh my, the poor barefoot, sheltered, undersocialized, top-buttoned-up little thing!) and now we’re turning throwing him into the deep end of the pool. Sink or swim, son. That’s life.

He woke up considerably earlier than usual yesterday and made the necessary ablutions and preparations (including turning on the early edition of Sports Center).… Read the rest

Time to Move On

On the way to Roanoke last week, we took a turn on 460 West for a short side trip to Blacksburg and the campus of Virginia Tech. I had planned to walk the drill field area, check out any remaining memorials and perhaps take a picture of Norris Hall and post it here. But it was a gray, overcast day and spitting rain. The thought occurred to me that the weather was merely reflecting the sorrow and the tears that were still being shed in that place.

As we drove around the drill field, we noted that the spontaneous memorials had been removed, replaced instead by a permanent one currently under construction in front of Burruss Hall.… Read the rest

Traveling Mercies

First, the good news: The 1998 Toyota Sienna van with over 165,000 miles which I duct-taped together for the ride to Virginia survived the trip up and back.

And now the bad: The air conditioner did not.

In fact, the air conditioner went out about two hours into the trip on the way up. But thankfully, it was overcast and cool once we hit the mountains in east Tennessee, so it didn’t really matter. It even stayed relatively cool for July during our visit.

But the trip back yesterday evoked way too many memories of those hot retro rides from the 1960s–the choking exhaust fumes, the jarring sound of air brakes, the wet cling of the clothes, the rush of hot air through your hair and into your ears.… Read the rest

Almost Heaven? Not Quite

Yesterday’s post on cars sure got Fusion followers waxing nostalgic. If you haven’t weighed in with your earliest car memories, then please feel free to do so. Hal did, and just to bring the point home, so to speak, he sent us a picture of the now-famous ’66 Plymouth Valiant, customized for those long cattle drives home along congested Houston freeways:

Today, I’m duct-taping together a 10-year-old Toyota van with 165,000 miles on it, saying a prayer, and heading to the Land of No Computers, a place where the electronics are still circa 1975 (and I’m not taking a laptop). That’s right, we’re off to grandma’s house in Virginia.… Read the rest

Grace, Raw and Uncensored

Grace can take a myriad of forms, but for a 16-year-old male who suddenly beholds the set of wheels that he has longed for all his life, this is Grace, raw and uncensored:

When he was about 4-years-old, I recall taking Number Two Son to an outdoor store in Bowling Green, Kentucky where he spied the ride of his dreams: a colorful mountain bike that was several sizes too large. He just couldn’t conceive of why he couldn’t simply drive it off the lot, and he cried huge, Cadillac-sized tears. My heart broke a little bit watching that, but I hoped the day would come when that would be replaced with a scene like that above and those tears would be a distant memory.… Read the rest

by MTEG
Posted on July 24, 2007January 2, 2022
23 Comments on Grace, Raw and Uncensored

Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors

For the most part, we’ve enjoyed our neighbors over the years and had good relations with them. But there’s always the exception. Like the septuagenarian widow next door who from the moment we moved in 12 years ago has viewed us at best as a modern-day reincarnation of the Adams Family and at worst as a clan of pesky rodents dead set on ruining her pristine, picture-perfect Southern Living magazine house and showcase yard.

Over the years, she’s accused us of various neighborly transgressions including damaging her sprinkler heads while mowing the property line (she actually has one sprinkler head on our property, and it’s never been damaged), mowing too far onto her property, not caring about or keeping a showcase lawn like hers (guilty!),… Read the rest

by MTEG
Posted on July 23, 2007January 2, 2022
10 Comments on Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors

C’mon In Boys, The Water Is Fine–Part 2

There are certain immutable laws of the universe which govern the course of the day. The sun rises in the east and sits in the west. Politicians will talk a good game, and when push comes to shove, fail to follow through (or use their fists instead). And whenever I absolutely have to be somewhere in a hurry, I will inevitably end up behind an octogenarian in an Olds. Or in this case, a memaw in a Marquis.

There were no cars behind me or coming toward me, and it would have been a simple matter to have downshifted, crossed the double yellow, and blown granny’s doors off on my way to church.… Read the rest

C’mon In Boys, The Water Is Fine–Part 1

“Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward…Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.”

–Delmar O’Donnell in O Brother Where Art Thou

The phone rang in the middle of the night, shattering my blissful slumber like a Louisville Slugger against a plate-glass window.

Okay, whoa—better nix the miserable metaphor and start over. It was really only 10:30pm. But after the kind of day I had Sunday, I needed the extra rest.… Read the rest

Pitch Perfect

Philip Yancey is one of my favorite contemporary Christian writers. My first exposure to him was during my premed days at Harding when I read Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, a book he coauthored with Dr. Paul Brand. Since then, he’s only become better and more prolific. As someone who in the past has described himself as a “reluctant Christian,” Yancey to me feels like spiritual next-of-kin.

Two weeks after the Virginia Tech massacre, Yancey waded into the morass of grief that was Blacksburg, Virginia and delivered these words.

I sent this link to Number One Son, figuring that he might appreciate some of the things that Yancey had to say as he prepares to take up the tricky business of learning and living out his faith on a state university campus.… Read the rest

Father’s Day Postscript

If you’re a dad, I hope it went well. For me, everyone basically left me alone on the couch all afternoon to ice my right ankle which I rolled badly while running a trail yesterday morning and to rehydrate after crashing and burning in the rising morning heat somewhere around mile eight.

Man, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Consigned to the couch, I watched the US Open. I don’t play golf and rarely watch it, but I was trapped. But it became interesting and even mildly dramatic, going down to the final hole before a winner was decided.… Read the rest