Frank Wiley’s behind the curve. (And I ramble about some self evident things.)

Picture, if you will, it’s a warm summer evening, the sun is starting to drop and we’re playing Wiffleball in the street. Moreover, the radio in the front yard is blaring “Billy Don’t Be a Hero.”  Yes, yes it is.  Because it’s 1976, that’s why.

Which also means that most of the cars that pass by as we play are driven by dads coming home after having spent a long day somewhere mysterious doing things even more mysterious. “At work” is pretty much all we’ve been told, because at that age we don’t even really care much anyway. All that matters is that dad is back and it’s time to head indoors for dinner.

That, however, was a long time ago and the world in which I find myself is very different indeed. I’m a dad now, but instead of a Buick the size of a nuclear submarine in the driveway there is a small Japanese SUV. There are no bell-bottom pants in sight, and, god help us, we have more than one TV in the house. Alright, more than two.

Inexplicably though, all this may be lost on Frank Wiley as he notes with a slight tone of surprise that more dads than ever are staying at home with their kids. Yeah, I know. In my neck of the woods this is no surprise, as the neighborhood is filled with cops, firemen, and restaurant/food service guys. There are also families in which the wives have the most earning potential, guys in the trades, and guys who are simply “between jobs.” Simply put, this is an average neighborhood and you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a dude pushing a stroller around while waiting for Starbucks to open. 

Yes, Wiley is simply pointing out that more dads are staying home with kids, but reporting on this trend as if it’s surprising (which it likely is to Frank, since he will admit only that this delightfully vague information has appeared in “a U.S. report” with no further elaboration) seems very… 90’s.

And yet, I must admit a certain nostalgia for the nineties, if only because back then politics seemed harmless, the interwebs were shiny as a new penny, and it had been a full decade since that movie with Michael Keaton had added that phrase to the lexicon. Just saying.

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Fearless, Hitchens style.

It was about four or five years ago that the boys and I happened to be stuck indoors on a grey, rainy afternoon of the sort that makes you question whether or not the sun will ever actually reappear. You know them: those winter days when the notion that Persephone has been spirited away makes perfect sense. Or, the sort of day during which it seems impossible to not launch yourself headlong from the end of the couch and into your brother’s midsection for no particular reason other than he responded “Did SO!”

Or then again, maybe the cabin fever induced brawl that ensued wasn’t really triggered by a Seasonal Affective Disorder-y event, but rather the maddeningly low level of discourse in which the two little knuckleheads were engaged. It was, after all, an argument that was unwinnable: who deserved time with the Xbox more. In this intellectual battle of less than titanic proportions there were assertions made about the character of the opposing sibling, refutations, counter arguments about the inherent lameness of said sibling, and then retaliatory ad hominem attacks.

It was, in short, rather like watching pundits on cable news in their never ending  race to the bottom of the intellectual pile. Which, it must be said, is why today’s loss of Christopher Hitchens was so unfortunate.

He was an iconoclast who was by turns contrarian, baffling and often maddening, but always intellectually fearless. Early on he was a member of the International Socialists, and yet by the last couple of decades of his life Hitchens spent much of his time decrying what he saw as a soft Western response to the rise of Islamofascism and supporting America's military adventures. All the while, mind you, he remained a staunch “antitheist” and saw himself as a standard bearer of traditional Enlightenment values. Go figure.

As my boys have grown I’ve always done my best to make sure that they not only think critically about the world around them, but how to. By asking questions, and by forging relationships with those who are willing to listen to questions. By talking to kids with whom they disagree. By taking positions contrary to what they’re saying over dinner just to see what they’ve got.

In short, I’d be proud to have my boys grow up to be as fearless as Hitchens. Maybe just with a little less of the drinking, smoking and self inflicted cancer. You get the idea.

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Crummy weather? Bounce bounce bounce...

There was much to be said for growing up in New York in the late sixties and early seventies. There were the as-yet unregulated plumes of black smoke that periodically belched from the tops of apartment buildings that gave the city a distinctly Dickensian feel; there were the monochromatic,  brick box apartment buildings themselves that lent the neighborhood a slightly Soviet-style dystopian flavor; and of course there were the parks. Parks composed almost entirely of bare dirt, broken glass, dog poop and concrete playgrounds.

Well, yes, now that I think about it there really wasn’t much to be said for growing up in the city. As a kid there were few options that didn’t involve concrete in one way or another, so a lot of my early childhood was spent nursing skinned knees, elbows, hands, and pretty much every other bit of me that I had little choice but to leave unprotected.

But luckily enough it’s not the seventies any more, and here in  the sylvan climes of suburbia we have many more options to keep our kids active, most of which involve the kids getting to keep their skin. To wit: the little ones will likely enjoy bouncing an afternoon away someplace like Bounce City with its 16,000 climate-controlled-square-feet of bouncy castles, slides and obstacle courses.

Bounce! Trampoline Sports is another choice for keeping the kids busy on grey winter days, and it’s one of the growing number of indoor trampoline parks that give the slightly more adventurous set the chance to play dogeball and basketball on court-sized trampolines. Which, if nothing else, ensures a chaos/fun filled day.

There are a growing number of these facilities around the country as well, so odds are that you’ll be able to find a place where ever you may be. And best of all, you can leave the Bactine and Band Aids at home.
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Nanuet Teacher says there’s no Santa? We’ve got a Nanugrinch!

Holy cats! Right here in Nanuet, a teacher of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed second graders decided yesterday that it would be wisest to let the little munchkins know what’s what; namely that this teacher believes that there is no fat man at the North Pole. No Saint Nick riding the Beach Boys’ Little Saint Nick. No right jolly old elf making his list and checking it twice. In short, that there is no Santa Claus.

That’s right, we got trouble right here in Nanuet city. There has of course been a predictably high level of dudgeon directed at Teacher X in the wake of these revelations; the only real question is just how long it will go on. (And yes, I do know who Teacher X is, but we can’t really have angry mobs with pitchforks and torches running in the streets, now can we? That is, after all, Fox News’ job.)

Speaking of which, I really can’t wait until Murdoch’s guardians of all that’s good and right in ‘Merica pick this story up and run with it like a fumbled ball at a Rose Bowl game. This incident was, after all, just another skirmish in the War on Christmas perpetrated by Teacher X in the service of the secular-atheist-pagan-whatever agenda. Right?

Or then again, out here in not-crazy-land this incident may be seen for what it is: a rigid teacher with a reputation for being particularly strident was having a worse day than usual and decided to take it out on a little kid who had the temerity to point out during a geography lesson that Santa lives at the North Pole. And for good measure, Teacher X decided to note that it’s actually the parents who leave presents under the tree. Yeah, I know.

But here’s the thing, either way you choose to interpret this little contretemps, Teacher X is wrong. There is, as all sensible people know, a Santa Claus. Yes, as a parent I do assist in the process by gathering wish lists from my kids, but that’s where it ends. Sure, I’m in my forties and the kids are well into their teens, but that changes nothing. I collect a list and the rest is Magic.

And, I might add, my folks who are in their seventies now are more than happy to point out the same thing to anyone who asks.

So, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, have a great Ramadan, and enjoy the Winter Solstice while you’re at it.

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(Oh yeah, and Nanugrinch? Who doesn’t love a new and completely unnecessary portmanteau word?)

There a number of rites of passage we all remember for our childhoods, some fondly and others not so much. Some are religious: Confirmations, baptisms, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, or even the appropriately vague Coming of Age ceremony for commitment-phobic Unitarians. (My peeps!) Some rites even seem designed to invite the chaos that we spend much of our time trying to avoid as parents: Walkabout and Rumspringa come to mind.

Among the suburban and rural set, however, there is the nearly universal cultural rite of the Acquisition Of The Driver’s License. It’s a milestone that represents freedom and responsibility for teens and sleepless nights for parents. Not to mention the financial burden of insurance premiums higher than the net worth of the teens themselves.

There’s a cost benefit ratio for you to mull over on some dark night.

Anyway, if your progeny haven’t reached that stage yet and are still stuck catching the school bus with a Pokémon backpack and a lunchbox full of Uncrustables, they’re still in luck. There are plenty of opportunities for them to get behind the wheel of a fun, fast go-kart that will be just quick enough to alarm the old folks and frighten the horses.

The boys and I are fans of our local indoor go kart park, Grand Prix New York. The track is reasonably challenging and there’s a restaurant, a space for parties, and a bar for Mom and Dad when they’re ready to hang up the helmet.

The best part about racing karts is that by the time the weather turns warmer and everyone is comfortable behind the wheel, there are countless places to race outdoors on larger tracks with faster karts. New York, for instance, has dozens of tracks, as does nearly every other part of the U.S. So go make Art Ingels proud. The kids will thank you.

Grand Prix New York (GPNY, to the cool kids)

August already? Believe it.

August... what I had neglected in my earlier musings about the beginning of the end of summer is the old fashioned family-car-vacation. (Not that I'll miss this particular year in the least anyway. First it wouldn't stop snowing, and then it wouldn't stop raining. Then it was hot enough that 24 hour news “reporters” felt compelled to cook things on the sidewalks, and then just this week the NWS took to issuing tornado warnings for Bergen and Rockland counties. And yes, that's just half an hour from midtown Manhattan. Yeah, I know.)

But anyway, August is here and before you can say “back to school sale” my lovely bride and I will be tossing the kids and what I'm betting what will be a surprising amount of our belongings in the back of the van and setting off north. Yeee haw. We're gonna see us some boats and some aquariums and we're gonna play us some mini golf. You know the drill, just like when you were a kid and you and your siblings had to sit in the back seat on the way to visit a house where George Washington's secretary's half-brother may or may have not slept. Or signed something. Or whatever.

Either way, August, here we come.

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Sick day redux. Or, an Active Dad concedes the day.

It seems like just days ago that one of the boys was home sick, which had triggered a minor episode of Proustian remembrance on my part. Except that for me, sick days past were mostly about getting to eat as many bologna sandwiches and goldfish crackers as I wanted. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, the reason it seemed just like mere days ago that I was tied to the house with my very own little Typhoid Mary is because it really was, as it turns out, just days ago. And now the other boy is home sick. But that’s ok, because part of being an Active, Awesome Dad bla bla bla… is that I’m ready for any contingency. When the boy finally dragged himself out of bed we stuffed a pancake or two in his face and then the fun, such as it was, began.

We started off slowly with some streaming Netflix and an episode of American Pickers. And anyone who’s seen Mike and Frank poking through a box of oil cans will tell you that any given episode is stultifying enough to make the folks down at Auction Kings seem positively bacchanalian by comparison. (What? Is that a Charles Lindberg scrapbook? Stop it!) Anyway, once we had our fill of rural barns overflowing with moldering crap we moved on to the Xbox.

Here we rely heavily on Gamefly. Although not nearly as cheap as the low-end Netflix membership, belonging to Gamefly is still a far less expensive way for your kids to amuse themselves than getting tangled up with a seemingly never-ending stream of positively smelly game titles at full price. For $20 a month (which the boy pays for himself by doing extra chores around the house) the nice people at Gamefly send us two video game titles to keep around as long as we’d like before sending them back in their little pre-paid envelopes. Then, as if by magic, new titles arrive, and before you can say Master Chief we’re shooting aliens. Or jacking cars. Whichever.

So, are these responsible ways to spend a sick day? Would the day be better spent doing extra credit for homework? Or maybe getting a head start on that copy of Great Expectations that’s looming this Spring? Well sure, but sometimes being an Active, Awesome Dad means conceding that it can be good for the soul to do absolutely nothing productive. Which is also better than eating faceload of bologna sandwiches.

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Batting cages or little league? Cages every time.

Having been around a little, I can tell you that kids are unique and as different from one another as can be. That said, they do all share some common traits, one of which is an almost supernatural ability to produce common emotional responses in parents and caregivers alike. These responses are of course enormously complex and fall on a wide spectrum… but that’s still not going to stop me from indulging in my fondness for oversimplifying everything.

To wit, at one end of the emotional spectrum is baffled disappointment: “Why did my boy just lick the kitchen floor from the back door all the way to the fridge?” At the other end is justifiable pride when he scores against that big goon of a goalie who’s either a 20 year old ringer or a fifth-grader with a glandular problem. “Run boy, run!”

Somewhere in the middle, however, is that sweet spot of maudlin sentimentality evoked by kids when they do nothing more than grow up. A maudlin sentimentality for which I’ve found that I have no patience. The sort of maudlin sentimentality that I don’t feel for my boy’s little league days. I’m probably just a bad father.

It’s been a couple of years since the older boy has played, and since April 1^st is right around the corner I was just thinking that I miss almost nothing about little league. I don’t miss the early start of the little league season. I like baseball well enough, but when Coach called up every December, that’s DECEMBER, to let us know that he was starting indoor practice in January it was all I could do to be polite. Mostly.

Nor do I miss all that time spent freezing my butt on the aluminum bleachers in April, or all that time spent baking in the sun on those same aluminum bleachers in June. I don’t miss all the shrieking little league parents who are blissfully unaware that they are walking, talking clichés. I don’t miss watching other people’s kids whiff the ball repeatedly. My kid does that plenty, thank you very much.

But here’s the thing; I do miss getting out to the batting cages with the boy. (Just enter your zip code and the website will find one for you.) In late winter and early spring it was always a great way to get out of the house and do something fun, active and productive. He loved the challenge, and I loved the opportunity to show off just a little. Right now it’s still too early in the season to be outside much, so it’s the perfect time to take the kids for a little no-pressure batting practice. Just make sure you don’t run into Coach.

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Steve, deathcore, and Weird Al. Go.

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,

Be gentle and peaceful each day,

Be warm and human and grateful,

And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,

Be witty and happy and wise,

Be honest and love all your neighbors,

Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,

Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,

Criticize things you don't know about,

Be oblong and have your knees removed.

Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,

Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,

Put a live chicken in your underwear,

Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

O.K… everybody!

Steve Martin, Grandmother’s Song.

The first time I heard that song I nearly embarrassed myself in a way that would have been hard to recover from. (Not unlike ending a sentence with a preposition, I suppose.) Put simply, I was the first bright-eyed kid on our block to get Let’s Get Small when it came out in ’77. When I brought it home, my pals and I crowded around the tired old turntable in the living room and started listening to the tracks, one by one, until we were nearly breathless from laughing harder than we ever had. That is, until the Grandmother’s Song came on and I nearly peed myself right there in the living room, which meant I was just a heartbeat away from a defining adolescent experience that would have embarrassed even Charlie Sheen.

Anyway, all of this is to say that it wasn't long before I convinced my dad to take me and a buddy to see Martin do his thing live at the Westchester Premier Theatre. It was a fun night, not just because Martin was as great as we had hoped, but because it was a chance for my dad and me to get out and do something new together. And since then, I’ve found that taking my own kids to shows has been just as fun.

It was just about two years ago now that I took the oldest boy to see Job For A Cowboy at the Starland Ballroom. It was a hoot, not because of the thoughtful, melodic quality of Cowboy’s music, but because it was something I never would have done if it wasn’t for the boy expanding my horizons a bit.

Since then I’ve taken the boys to a number of other things, most of which have been, quite frankly, rather more tame. There have been Rifftrax shows, Cinematic Titanic shows… and I just got us tickets to see Weird Al in May. (squee!) So embrace the live show. Assuming your progeny are older than the Blue’s Clues set, there are lots of choices that you’ll both connect with. Do it.

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International Women's Day.

So it’s International Women’s Day, which got me thinking about moms. What should you do for your mom? Give her a call, or maybe go visit and fold some laundry for her?

Then you point out that it might be sort of condescending and feel contrived to do such a thing… which might be true. But go give her a call anyway, just because she misses you and would like to hear from you. Go on.

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PS- Pretty random? Yeah well, it is random Tuesday:

"Spring thaw!" Or: "So that's where the Christmas tree went."

So, say it’s the mid seventies and I’m eight or nine years old. Where is the one place I’m likely to be? Sitting at a desk doing my homework? Helping little old ladies across the street? Cleaning up a park with the Cub Scouts? Fat chance. No, I would have been safely ensconced at the foot of my parent’s bed watching TV, that’s where. It was, after all, TV that showed me the most amazing things in the world. Wile E. Coyote, for instance, taught me rather a lot about physics, M*A*S*H taught me the difference between being a smartass and a smart smartass, and the Marx Brothers taught me just about everything else I needed to know.**

Still, though, my favorite shows were documentaries about science in general and archeology in particular. There was nothing better in the world than an episode about mummies, lost cities in the Amazon, or best of all: long lost flights that reappear only after having been ejected from the glaciers that had been their final resting place.

So you can imagine my excitement when I surveyed the back yard this morning and found it completely free of ice and snow for the first time since December. Whooo! The Spring thaw is here, and this afternoon was the first chance of the season to press the boys into service. We were out and about and found all kinds detritus that had been locked away in the rare deep freeze that this winter had brought: turns out our Christmas tree was just a few feet from the driveway, there were shovels and rakes past the deck that I have no recollection of owning, and there were a couple of bats and waffle balls still out near the swing since a nice spell of weather in early December had lulled us into a false sense of security.

Unsurprisingly the boys didn’t find the whole enterprise nearly as entertaining as I did, and in fairness to them our little expedition wasn’t nearly as cool as the one that found Mallory, but hey, spring is here and I got them outside and moving around on a nice afternoon.

**Which, upon reflection, probably explains my skill at charming middle-aged dowagers.

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(Mallory turns up here too, just in case you're not the link clicking sort.)

Chunky Monkey vs. the Contagion.

It was a cold afternoon outdoors, although that didn’t matter much since we lived in an apartment with radiators that spent much of the day banging, wheezing and spitting out enough heat to make sure that we had to keep the windows open anyway. That particular afternoon, as did so many others, found me laid up in bed with a fever and sore throat, waiting impatiently for my mother to get back from the store with the two prizes that would go a long way to making me feel less put upon by the cosmos: Goldfish crackers and bologna. They were, when I was a little kid, the official Sick Treats.

Since then, of course, Goldfish and bologna have been forever ruined for me as an adult because I can’t help but associate them with a high fever and the urge to pull out my own tonsils with a spoon. Still, those afternoons of Dickensian wretchedness have inspired me to make my own boys’ sick days as much fun as possible. So, when our younger boy turned up with a fever and a guttural cough that sounded for all the world as if Carol Channing had swallowed Phyllis Diller whole, I knew just what to do.

First, a trip to Shoprite produced a tub of Chunky Monkey ice cream and a bag of mini Butterfingers that went right in the freezer (Winning!). Then a pair of Motrin and a long hot shower got him feeling perky enough to sit up at the computer where we had a few frozen Butterfingers and played some Butterfinger-themed flash games. (Just for thematic coherence, if nothing else.) When that got old we moved on to Pogo.com where we competed against each other in a few spirited rounds of Word Whomp, Mini Golf Madness and Poppit. After that we were off to Nick.com for some Tartar Treachery with Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.

By then the boy was starting to wilt a little, so we moved back to the couch where we turned on Netflix and finished off the afternoon by streaming Cave Dwellers courtesy of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo.

So no, not everyday can be an off-the-couch active day, but we do what we can. Jeez, I just hope that when the boy grows up he doesn’t associate Chunky Monkey, frozen Butterfingers and Mst3k with his own bouts of medieval-style contagion. Nah, it’ll probably be fine.

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Oh, and help yourself some Cave Dwellers. Mmmm.

Charm, hair and the big work.

As any parent will tell you, children seem to have an innate ability to charm. It starts at birth, really. One moment your lovely bride or significant other is in the throes of childbirth which, you both learn a little too late, is an experience that makes you confront the very nature of existence and the fact that you may have terribly misjudged the direction in which you wanted your life to go.

But of course this existential crisis is short lived, because a moment later the doctors present a tiny little person for your approval, a human being that you made. It’s a momentous event for everyone, but as much as anything else it signals the beginning of a long relationship with a little person that will be based largely on a game of cat and mouse in which you try to get them to stop spreading peanut butter in their hair while they try to charm you into not being annoyed.

Although there are few defenses against a youngster that is determined to use his innate charm to prevent you from keeping him neatly shorn, (the only real solution to the peanut butter quandary) we found one good way that also serves a greater purpose.

The folks at the St. Baldrick’s Foundation have been raising funds to fight childhood cancer since 2000 when they had the novel idea to ask volunteers to shave their heads. The “shavees” are all good sports who participate in one of the local events held every March during which volunteer barbers, shavees, friends and family get together and have a fun time.

So if you’re the sort who likes to walk, run, bake cupcakes or whatever to help with the big work, why not add a little something new to your repertoire? It’s a fun day out, and if nothing else it’ll save you the bother of negotiating yet another haircut with the little charmers in your life.

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Oh yeah, and it makes for good entertainment too. Our younger boy as shavee last year:

(And if you insist on being a complete social media nerd, you can find St. Baldrick's on twitter and facebook. Go figure.)

Charlie Sheen: so much distraction, so little time. (For this at-home-dad, at least)

At the risk of beating a dead, clichéd horse, I would mention this one thing: there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Yeah, I know! Just like so many dads out there, my days are filled with trying to be productive work-wise, getting on the elliptical so I don’t end up looking like Tim Curry, chasing the kids around, driving back and forth between Home Depot and Shoprite, keeping the house in a state respectable enough that we don’t risk a visit from Bob Villa and then perhaps spending a little quality time with my Lovely Bride. Jeez, I’m feeling a little dizzy just thinking about it. In short, Time is at such a premium that unwelcome distractions are a constant threat and are to be guarded against with all the tenacity of a toddler fighting bedtime.

That being said, many of the distractions we face daily in our digitally overloaded world are diabolically compelling. To wit: Charlie Sheen. I know, I know… just hear me out: I’m the sort of guy who counts himself among those who are deeply, sincerely un-interested in celebrities, and yet you have to admit that Charlie is bringing the Rant to a whole new level. The manner in which he’s able to articulate what the demons in his head are saying is truly stunning: "Guys, it's right there in the thing, duh! We work for the Pope, we murder people. We're Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be?”

How complicated indeed. The level of commitment and eloquence he brings to the table can only be envied by mere pretenders like Tom Cruise. Charlie favors us with more: “People say, 'Oh, you'd better work through your resentments.' Yeah, no. I'm gonna hang on to them, and they're gonna fuel my attack. And they're going to fuel the battle cry of my deadly and dangerous and secret and silent soldiers. Because they're all around you. Sorry, you thought you were just messing with one dude. Winning.”

The man is an artist. How, I ask, can anyone resist being drawn into the sideshow atmosphere that Charlie creates for himself? Sure, there aren’t enough hours in the day, but I think I’ve finally met my match. "I'm sorry, man, but I've got magic. I've got poetry in my fingertips. Most of the time — and this includes naps --”

Yeah, Charlie, I wish I had time for a nap, but even if I did it probably wouldn’t produce poetry. You the man. The crazy, crazy man.

Feeling the need for speed?

There a number of rites of passage we all remember for our childhoods, some fondly and others not so much. Some are religious: Confirmations, baptisms, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, or even the appropriately vague Coming of Age ceremony for commitment-phobic Unitarians. (My peeps!) Some rites even seem designed to invite the chaos that we spend much of our time trying to avoid as parents: Walkabout and Rumspringa come to mind.

Among the suburban and rural set, however, there is the nearly universal cultural rite of the Acquisition Of The Driver’s License. It’s a milestone that represents freedom and responsibility for teens and sleepless nights for parents. Not to mention the financial burden of insurance premiums higher than the net worth of the teens themselves.

There’s a cost benefit ratio for you to mull over on some dark night, huh?

Anyway, if your progeny haven’t reached that stage yet and are still stuck catching the school bus with a Pokémon backpack and a lunchbox full of Uncrustables, they’re still in luck. There are plenty of opportunities for them to get behind the wheel of a fun, fast go-kart that will be just quick enough to alarm the old folks and frighten the horses.

The boys and I are fans of our local indoor go kart park, Grand Prix New York. The track is reasonably challenging and there’s a restaurant, a space for parties, and a bar for Mom and Dad when they’re ready to hang up the helmet.

The best part about racing karts is that by the time the weather turns warmer and everyone is comfortable behind the wheel, there are countless places to race outdoors on larger tracks with faster karts. New York, for instance, has dozens of tracks, as does nearly every other part of the U.S. So go make Art Ingels proud. The kids will thank you.

Grand Prix New York (GPNY, to the cool kids)

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Got a 4th grader? Maybe 5th or 6th? Then go skiing.

It was a crisp morning above the frost line on Whiteface Mountain during, lets say, 1988. The air was still and a few inches of fresh powder were a nice change from the usual late January ice that makes skiing in the northeast a more of a chore than it really needs to be. It was, all in all, a fine morning, right up until my buddy Dave and I found ourselves facing a drop so sheer that we weren’t really sure that we were supposed to be there. Clearly we had missed a trail marker while we were chattering and trading stories about the previous night that had started at Lums and ended up, well, never mind.

Anyway, retreating back up the lengthy trail wasn’t an option, so we decided to face this nasty bit of black diamond the way only real men would: we took off our skis and started sliding down on our butts. Genius? Absolutely, and we were feeling pretty good about the whole business until we heard the telltale swish of a skier flying down the hill behind us. Needless to say it turned out to be a kid, all of six or seven years old, and not only was he flying down the hill in perfect form, he even spared a second to glance back at us with an expression of pity I’ll never forget.

It had never occurred to me until that moment that kids and skiing not only mix well, but are a perfect match. And it was just that combination of fearlessness and ability to pick up new things that I was counting on years later when we took our boys to Ski Big Bear when they were about six or seven. Since then, the three of us have had a lot of great days not just skiing, but enjoying some of the other benefits of a day on the slopes: getting a chance to shoot the breeze while standing on line, talking music and whatnot on the lifts, and just generally having a good time away from the pressures of school and the distractions of home.

So even if you’ve never been skiing or are looking for an excuse to get back out after some time away, now’s the perfect time to pack up the kids and take advantage some of the resources out there. There are, for instance, late season packages, discount ski passes offered by retailers such as Costco, and the very tidy Liftopia.com. And… now’s the time to start thinking about your fourth or fifth grader for next year because there are skipass and passport programs available for free lift tickets wherever you may be. Do it.

Ski Utah's 5th grade Passport and 6th grade Snowpass programs

New York’s 4th grade program

Pennsylvania

New Hampshire

Michigan

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Hey Midwest, had enough? Come on over and crash with us for a while.

I’ve been told, I think, that there are all sorts of reasons why the Midwest is a paradise unrivalled in modern history and that living there is just peachy. Mostly that thinking seems to revolve around how the people who live there are genuine 'mericans and that they love mom, apple pie and the flag just a little bit more than anyone else. Detractors will note that while that may or may not be true, it’s kind of hard to ignore some of the nonsense that goes on in the heartland.

But, as I live in a glass house as fragile as any other, I’m going to stop there before I singlehandedly jinx all of New York. Goodness knows we’ve been in a scrape or two. ‘Nuff said.

But anyway, if you should wake one day to find yourself living in heartland, there is one unassailable reason to pack your bags and catch the last milk train to the coast: blizzards. Or as I think of them: feet and feet of blowing misery if not outright attacks on middle-aged men prone to shoveling-induced cardiac arrest. In short: white blankets of bother.

I only bring this up, of course, because another blizzard is chugging across the Midwest as I sit here pecking out this little missive. Another frozen Sherman marching to the sea, leaving Oklahomans kinda sorry that they have to leave the warmth and comfort of those moms and apple pies to go outside and shovel yet again.

And the fix? Come on out and visit us in New York. Sure, we’ve had more than our share of snow this year, but we’re done now. And jeez, you wouldn’t want to spend your days worrying that you traded blizzards for fires and earthquakes, like some other coast I could mention.

Irony Radar.

- Communicate with parents straightforwardly and simply, avoiding educational "jargon."

This morning I came across this sentence, quotation marks included, on EducationWorld.com. Now it is true that my irony radar may be a smidge oversensitive, but I’m still pretty sure that if somebody felt the need to highlight the word jargon because it may be too confusing, it was probably a poor candidate for a bullet point about avoiding confusion.

Does any of this matter? Heck no. If nothing else it just exposes how little it takes to amuse me. Which is why the interwebs and I are so in love.

( Education World ® - Curriculum: A Dozen Activities to Promote Parent Involvement! )