DadsCenter.org Blog

Trapped Miners

It’s getting harder and harder to read the stories about the missing miners and the efforts to lower 9-inch and 2.5-inch tubes into areas they ought to be, etc.  I’m sorry, but if I’m 150 floors below the earth, a nine-inch tube, even if it finds me, isn’t going to do anything to reduce the anxiety of knowing I’m not going to fit in that hole….

More senseless murder, this time on a schoolyard

Teen arrested in N.J. schoolyard deaths

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Police arrested a 15-year-old boy on murder and other charges in the execution-style killings of three college students in a schoolyard, slayings considered jarring even in a city used to violence, law enforcement officials said Thursday.

The teen was arrested Wednesday night, and a 31-year-old man was set to surrender Thursday, authorities said.

“We believe that others were involved in this heinous crime,” prosecutor Paula Dow said. “We’re looking for them.”

They were seeking him based on fingerprint and ballistics evidence, Mayor Cory A. Booker said.A man named Jose Carranza was to turn himself in on three counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted murder and other charges, Dow spokesman Paul Loriquet said.

The teen, whose name was not released because of his age, was arrested on the same charges, authorities said.

Four friends, ages 18 to 20, were shot while hanging out in a school yard Saturday night. Authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive.

And our kids wonder why we don’t allow them to go over to our own schoolgrounds and why we keep asking the police to spend more time over there…..

More Alabama Wisdom

My old dear friend and neighbor, Larry Trotter of Montgomery, AL, told me about 20 years ago that bridges all over that state were in sad shape then and that it would take some major incident, ala Minnesota, for the politicians to wake up and do something about it.  Knee-jerk reactions already have been heard from DC about trust funds, etc. to pay for such investments.  Why does it take such a catastrophe to get a call for action?

More Fob

Well, the Alabama press and editorial writers all made fun of Ol’ Fob, the former Alabama Gov. Fob James, when he was at a State Board of Education meeting and was talking about textbooks and evolution and said he didn’t believe he came from a monkey and then walked across the stage making fun of the cartoon image we all have of a bent over monkey standing straighter and straighter till you get to us.

Now, it appears that famed paleontologist Maeve Leakey has found evidence that further disproves the famed image from Darwin and the like.

Ah, the editorial writers of The Birmingham News, The Montgomery Advertiser, Mobile Press Register and Huntstville Times, bet they just scurry past that story….

Maybe The Bible is right afterall… Bet Mr. Croft will find issue with Mr. Leakey’s findings, too…..

Where are the words separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution?

The last governor I worked for was Gov. Fob James of Alabama. Sometimes he could be a little too much of a throw back to another time, but they have asked Matt Lauer from Today who his toughest interview was ever and he said, without hesitation, it was the governor. For as the governor was on his late 90s push to bring back prayer in public schools, Matt asked him in a live interview about “the separation of church and state,” to which the governor replied, tell me where that is in the U.S. Constitution. Lauer was stunned. After fumbling for a second or two, he said, “Well, it isn’t.”

I was standing a few feet from the governor as he sat in that chair in the governor’s mansion foyer. Fob had made his point and the interview soon was over with.

So here we go again, another atheist, this one from North Texas, who wants to banish all references to God from the face of the earth. Because he doesn’t believe in something, all the rest of us, too, should be banished from expressing our faith. Meet David Wallace Croft. Perhaps he and his costly attorneys could tell us all where the words church or even state are in the road map to democracy. We shall be waiting a long time….

Perhaps Mr. Croft should read about the Danbury Baptists and the letter President Thomas Jefferson sent them. Can you imagine being this guys poor kid? Mr. Croft may not believe in hell, but his child, through peer pressure sure must.

I wish parenting was easier

I keep reminding Kari that if it was easy to raise seven kids, well, more people would be doing it.   But alas, we seem to have a special formula going because for the past two years, we’ve been doing it.  Not that we haven’t had our share of errors and trials; as I said, it’s not easy to raise one child, let alone seven of them.

Many are the days when I go to bed wishing that adult life were a slower affair, that there weren’t so many demands on my time and Kari’s that we were able to spend more time with each of the kids, particularly individually. In some ways, I can feel them each reaching out for individual attention and we try, but I think in the end it’s like oxygen, you can never get enough of it.

Try doing all that, and then going through the changes we’ve all endured to meld this family into one, to deal with the stresses that have come from each of the children learning a new birth order role, to moving into a new house, new neighborhood, new schools, new family–you get the picture.  On top of that we’ve gone through the process of having the pool built, which disrupted activities in the backyard and put an end to the trampoline; though that had become a sore source of fun because of all the arguing over whose turn it was to jump, etc.  By the time it came to begin the pool, I was more than ready for the “tramp” to be put away for good.

And I’m living off the feelings from being a child and wishing my own dad had spent more time we me and our kids.  I’ve said it before, but I had vowed to only have two kids of my own, now I have two more than my own fokes.  Dad spent much of my childhood ready to fly to Russia or somewhere to bomb them Ruskies back into the stone ages, as the old SAC saying went.  That’s not to say he didn’t spend time with us, but it was limited, as all parents’ time is.

I wish I had a better understanding of all our kids.  They have such diverse needs and issues of their own that it’s hard.  Cop out?  Maybe a little, but in reality that is the way it is.  One of our children has developed an appreciation for sewing.  It’s a joy for her and she has found a similar love and connection for it that Kari shares.  And once they begin a project, it’s all the child wants to do, again, back to the can’t get enough oxygen concept.  It’s also a topic that her natural mother can’t/doesn’t/won’t whatever do with her, so for me , it’s doubly special for the two of them. But then the other six need attention, too.

Our teen and pre-teen boys, too, are logged into video games in a way I refused to do so as a teen.   To me, there is more to life than sitting in front of a computer screen all day and trying to get to Level 70, whatever that might mean.  To me, a Level 70 isn’t going to get me into college, isn’t going to get me a job, and isn’t even something I can walk out of the room and have something to show for my efforts, other than sitting at the dinner table and telling my siblings that “I’m a Level 70,” for them all to look at me with little or no interest either because they don’t understand or, more sadly, because they don’t want to make the one feel like he’s accomplished that much.

Kari keeps telling me more and more than she and I need to take a break for a weekend and get away.  I wish and have been wishing for awhile that it was that simple.  Last year we were able to take a few more trips alone together than we’ve been able to this year.  But this year and the fall have been different.  I spent five weeks in a wheel chair recovering from a second knee surgery because Dr. Craig Duhon of Rowlett, TX obviously missed problems in my knee when he had the first crack at fixing it and a second doctor found a whole lot that needed repair that likely didn’t happen in just six months.  My advice is to not go see Dr. Duhon for ANYTHING.

We all had such a good time as a family at Yosemite.  I’ve been longing to go back, with the kids and with just Kari, too.  The kids are particularly interested in a return trip for Christmas.   Imagine what The Logger’s Retreat would be like in mid-winter.  One of the log entries at the house said one group had to walk to the top of the mountain because they could not drive because of the snow.

And then there is the prospect of changing jobs here in the next month.  Another “new.”  I’m ready to have a spell of “old and boring,” but I know, too, that with my personality, Kari’s and seven kids, we’re always going to be changing.  I just pray it continues to change for the better.

And so, I go back to my main theme.  I wish parenting was easier.  I wish there was more time in my life for tending to the children.  For fixing up the house and making our backyard “Kari’s Paradise” even more special than it’s become.  And I wish there would come some answers on what my future employment will hold.

Please pray for us all.  We need God’s hand on us even more today than yesterday and even more tomorrow than today….

A Friend’s Review of The Bourne Ultimatum

A Female Friend writes:

“I agree with you, it was a great movie. I saw it Saturday night.  I’m not a fan of action movies, but this one did please me, is full of action since the beginning of the movie, and better yet, does not have special effects.”

A “Good Divorce”

I have endeavored long and hard since filing for divorce in 2003 to provide as stable an environment as possible for my girls.  Working the crazy job I have had at the Dallas school district has not made that proposition easy, but somehow I managed.  Recently I was reading a newspaper column that used the term “good divorce.”  I think the way they saw the term was that the relationship between the adults could some how be amicable afterward, you know, say Mike and Carol Brady finally gave up and stayed as friendly talking to each other as they did as they sat in their beds so calmly rested before going to bed after having raised six kids all day long.

Sounds good on paper, but invariably, by their definition, we’ve not had a good divorce.  It was the wisest of moves on my part of file when and how I did.  That is a move I shall never regret, and perhaps, though we shall never know, a move that added years back on to the end of my life.

And then thankfully, the good Lord in his wisdom brought me a new life and new family.  Yes, there are more kids and new kinds of stresses, but life is better, even when the Ex throws a ticking problem over the fence for us to deal with.  Good divorce?  Maybe in TV Land.

Go See Bourne Ultimatum

You will be glad you did.  You might want to watch Identity and Supremacy before you go, but do yourself a favor, see this film first in the theatre.  You shall be glad you did.

Date Night: 12:01 a.m. The Bourne Ultimatum

I’ve never been to the first run of a movie at its release.  Tonight is date night for me and Kari.  The Bourne Ultimatum begins at 12:01.  We have our tickets bought already and it’s just 5 p.m.  Had a nap today, too.  Why wait until tomorrow when we can live a little differently tonight?  Or so I say now, before trying to stay up until 2:30 a.m. after the movie.  What a fun experience though.  We’ve been watching the first two movies to get reacquainted with the series, and reading the books, which of course, have nothing to do with the movie, save the guy’s name is Jason Bourne and he goes to some of the same places.  Anyone at the film co ever heard of Carlos?  Where did that story line go?