"Finish it dad," said my seven-year old son pointing the jailhouse tattoo on my foot. Of course, I didn't get it in jail, rather as a freshman in college. I was living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland attending Salisbury...

I hate mowing lawns. Hate. HATE. Mowing the lawn was the one duty I was tasked with as a teenager, and it scarred me for life. The Midwest in the summertime is a special Hell, and for your sins, you'll...

Sean Connery and Romeo Void taught me something a long time ago: Never Say Never. Well, in Sean's case it was Never Say Never Again, but you get the point. You're smart. I think I need to clarify a bit...

Ah, the prism of a six-year-old's eye. "The boxes are cool! They're like square mountains." His Star Wars figures were already scaling the cardboard heights. Pew! Pew! A mixed unit of Stormtroopers, a Batman, an Iron Man - "No, it's...

Are you guilty of it? Sometimes I am guilty of it. I find myself unconsciously encouraging one son over another because of their age or their skill set. Sometimes it comes up immediately, "Why did you clap for him and...

I'd said it a few times over the course of the years. "You know what would be awesome? Taking the Queen Mary 2 across the Atlantic. THAT would be a 10th Anniversary." We didn't do that. The past year, Year...

To Little Dub and Little Dubyette: I don't know how to explain the concept of time to either one of you. I say things like "Inna second" or "Inna minute" and a moment later you're asking me again. Time is...

He stands at the water's edge. Small stones tumble from his hands in arrhythmic patterns, catching slender shards of late afternoon sunlight - absorbing and treasuring that single breath of prized warmth and glow - before surrendering to the inevitabil...

I used to claim, fogey-like, that I didn't understand the appeal of The Hills and its cast of real-life mannequins. "I don't understand this", I would say to Beth. "Is this a reality show? Is it scripted? Did Spencer Pratt's...

Sweltering. Oppressive. Like an inferno. There are no words to really describe when it is too hot, for when the weather is even too hot for the shade. We've had over 42 days in the 90 degree plus zone. At...