Boo(b)!

It's October in the High Country, and that can mean only one thing: it's time to take the boy to the Ghost Train. Then, for about a month after the ride, it will be time to reassure him that werewolves don't really exist as he climbs into my bed at 4 a.m. night after night after night.

I was privy to quite the kid conversation about the Ghost Train today on the playground. Silas was running around all willy nilly, as he's wont to do, when another boy approached me, kickball in hand. Fade to flashback. I was rewriting history in my mind--no longer was I the last kid picked, the sucker who shinned easy pop ups for easy outs on high bouncing pitches I should've let pass, but instead I was booting the orb so far from the dusty home plate that it became a salmon-red pingpong ball disappearing over the distant horizon--when the kickball thumped off my chest, startling me to attention.

Kickball kid just grinned at me. He must have an older brother, or a real hard time dressing himself. The collar of his shirt was so stretched out, I could see most of his chest. After the kickball surprise, I kind of wanted to sling him down by the shirt too. The gaping neckhole revealed a chest adorned with a fading temporary tattoo.

"You get that ink in the joint?" I asked, retrieving the ball.

"Huh?"

I tossed him the ball. He caught it, tossed it back.

"Where did you get that tattoo?"

He mumbled something unintelligible.

"You must have a tattoo gun at home," I said.

This intrigued him.

"Naw. Does you'ins have one?"

(For those of you who ain't from around here, "you'ins" is mountain for "ya'll.")

"No, no tattoo gun, but my son has gotten tattoos at Tweetsie before."

The ball continued its path, back and forth. Most kids flinch when the ball gets near, taking their eyes off of it. This clearly wasn't his first game of catch.

"You catch with your eyes," I said, "not your hands. You've got to see it to catch it."

"I know it," he said, as if this was the most ridiculously simple thing anyone had ever told him.

The ball passed between us a few more times before he broke the silence: "I gone to Tweetsie once when I was a little bitty baby."

A girl kid drove her tricycle between us, slamming on her foot brakes and interrupting our game. She was drawn to the word Tweetsie like a bumblebee to nectar.

"I went to Tweetsie last weekend and rode the Ghost Train!" she buzzed.

"Were you scared?" I asked.

"I wasn't scared til the creatures came on and then I hid in my mommy's boobs!"

"OOOH, GROSS!" said kickball kid. He probably had a very different opinion a few years earlier, and I'm guessing that once he gets his coodies shot his love for mammaries will fester anew.

"They're not gross," girl kid insisted. "My mommy's boobs smell nice!"

I had at least 27 responses flutter through my head; fortunately, all 27 were successfully snared by my filter. Nice smelling boobies. I can't really compete with that, but maybe, as the Ghost Train clatters across the tracks, if I've got on enough deodorant I can cram the boy's head under my hairy pit and look forward to some uninterrupted sleep later that night.

Boy Toys

Logic cannot compete with toys, and my boy has greedily consumed the McDonald's Kool-Aid. After a recent perfect day on his behavior chart at school, I gave him the honor of choosing our dinner destination. On our guilt-ridden ride to McDeath--nothing screams "YOU FAIL AT PARENTING" like serving your kid fast food--the boy readily admitted that he really doesn't like the food; he chose the Golden Arches for the toy surprise. I tried using this nugget of information to save his arteries and general well-being from Chicken McNuggets, but my pleading fell on deaf and frequently infected ears.

So there we were in the pick-up window line (he gets rather upset if you call it a drive-thru, and rightfully so, as you don't really drive thru anything). As we settled in about fifth in line for the privilege of cementing our early demise with greasy processed food, the boy eagerly eyed the display promoting the latest greatest Happy Meal toys, Bakugan Battle Brawlers. I had never heard of such a thing, but the boy assured me that we have seen them on TV and that he has always needed one. The bottom half of the display featured a selection of Build-A-Bear Workshop stuffed animals. After studying the sign for awhile, the boy said, "I like being on top." I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Huh?"

"The boy toys are on top, Dadda."

"Oh."

"Why are the boy toys on top?" he asked.

"Because McDonald's is reinforcing the oppressive patriarchal structure of American culture."

There was a long pause as Silas chewed on that statement. We inched forward one car length. I was thinking about how the boy toys are not only always on top, but they also fuel gender stereotypes. In this case, the boy toys are brawling action figures. Boys are brawling action figures. The girl gets to nurture her little pink bear. A woman's place is...

But then my thoughts were interrupted.

"I think it's OK if Ella is on top sometimes too," he said.

This is Mickey D's idea of an appropriate toy for a four-year-old boy? I'm sure I'll be uttering
the words, "Multi-headed dragons are not real; go back to bed" at 4 in the morning real soon.

Tackle Me Game

We have balls, lots of balls. I'm not particularly good at denying the boy any of his wishes, but this fault is most acute when it comes to any remotely spherical object. We have golf balls, baseballs, super bouncy balls, little balls with bells in them that are supposed to be cat toys, stuffed balls, wiffle balls, balls with suction cups that stick to glass surfaces, footballs and basketballs of every dimension, soccer balls, balls with tails and wings that guarantee a perfect spiral every time (so long as you're right handed, which the boy is not), and a rainbow of those cheap plastic balls always found piled to the ceiling in grocery store bins (the ones strategically located in the candy or junk food aisle). We even have balls that light up when they strike a hard surface, like my head. And striking my head with balls is why the golf balls and the baseballs are now stored out of the boy's reach. I actually blacked out once after taking a shot from a Titleist projectile fired from close range.

I'm not going to make it a big secret or sugar coat it: I'm one of those parents who fully intends on living vicariously through my kid. While other more well-adjusted, good-intentioned parents were playing classical music and reading stories to their unborn children, I was whispering to Silas about how some day he would be 6-foot-4, left handed, and throw absolute gas. You will bring the cheddar, boy, and you will bring it with a lot of late movement. I even have a personalized license plate that reads "LHP" (left handed pitcher). I kid you not. So it's no wonder why every time the boy's eye is drawn to something that bounces, dad says "put it in the cart."

Early intervention is key for fathers hoping to live vicariously through their sons.

With Earl Woods-like determination, I was placing a ball in the boy's hands incessantly from birth. He would pick up some other, less desirable toy, and I would stealthily replace it with a ball, taking care, of course, to position said ball in his left paw (contrary to popular belief, he comes by his left-handedness naturally, though I did contemplate tying his other less potentially college scholarship worthy arm behind his back). Eventually he started throwing the balls, likely in frustration since he wanted some other toy, but that was of no consequence thanks to the miracle of positive reinforcement. Every time a ball spun off his fingertips, dad, wild with enthusiasm, scampered after it, returned it to his left hand, and excitedly beckoned him to throw it again. And he did, again and again.

Look at those mechanics. I smell early retirement.

I was hopeful we were nearing our first breakthrough, a literal one featuring a ball actually breaking through a window, but somewhere around age two my plans for the little prodigy got derailed. Dad's campaign of positive reinforcement was no match for the vast marketing conspiracy that propelled Thomas the Tank Engine into our playroom (and living room, and bedrooms, and hallways, and staircases). Our veritable corncucopia of athletic equipment now pales in comparison to our stockpile of steamies. But every now and then, as we push past the cheesy poofs, I'll catch a glimmer in the old boy's eyes.

"Daddy, can we get a ball?"

I have to fight back the gratifying urge to quickly proffer an enthusiastic YES! But it's bargaining time, and I mustn't give away my hand.

"But you don't ever play with all the balls you have now," I reason, suppressing a smile.

"But I will play with this one," he insists.

The deal is almost closed. My temporary escape from the monotony of playing with trains is imminent.

"OK, but you've got to make me a deal."

"A deal?"

"When we get home, you've got to pick up all your trains to clear some space to play tackle me game with your new ball."

"OK, Daddy. I love tackle me game!"

...

As I put the groceries away, I hear the satisfying clink of wood and metal meeting as the boy chunks the whole Isle of Sodor into the train trundle. The pleather mini-football rests at the bottom of the plastic grocery bag, tinting it brown where the surfaces of bag and ball meet. It's on the kitchen counter, secured with a watchful eye. Silas will get it, but only after I've inspected his handiwork in the playroom. He appears, grinning, and announces that all of his toys are picked up. For once they really are, so I slowly remove the ball from the bag, a rabbit out of the hat that has the boy's full attention. Holding the ball out an arm's length, I tantalize him while, on springs, he bounces up and down, reaching in vain for our new toy. His words bounce too, keeping rhythm with his pogo feet: "Da-Da-Dee-Dee-I-I-Want-Want-My-New-Ball-Ball!"

"You'll never get this ball," I declare, tucking it under my arm for a rumble around the playroom, "because you can't tackle me!" Within two seconds, the boy has wrapped himself around a leg that lumbered in one place for too long, and I'm dragging him across the bright colors of the United States of America carpet map, hoping to unveil my touchdown dance in the Atlantic Ocean. Score! But what's this, before dad can make it across he stumbles, falls dramatically, and the ball is unloosed.

"Oh my gosh, you can tackle me!" I tell him, as if there was ever any doubt. He always "wins" tackle me game. He turns the ankle from the toppled tree loose, scrambles to his feet and jumps on top of me in an act of unnecessary roughness. The boy, unaware that dad's fall was, at best, the work of a C-list actor, is so pleased with himself that he seems to have forgotten something. After a few more unnecessary roughness penalties, I got enough air back into my lungs to pose an important question: "Where's the ball?" The wee man's eyes went wide as saucers, and he launched himself on a recon mission to find his fumbled comrade. I reached for anything I could, a bit of t-shirt, an ankle, but soon Silas scoops up the ball and turns to face me. Beckoning me, he repeats our familiar refrain: "You can't tackle me!" and it's on like a pot of neckbone. I drag him down a few times, let him run me over half a dozen times, collecting a bit of carpet burn as I am plowed through Nebraska, but no matter what I never get to go on offense again.

"Can I have the ball again?" I ask.

"No, it's my ball."

"Pleeeeeese, you never let me have have the ball."

"OK, Daddy, but you have to..." he pauses, cocks his arm, and fires a tight spiral across the playroom "...go get it!" His back is turned to me as the rest of the sentence trails off his lips; he's already giving chase before my cranky limbs so much as move. Wild laughter fills the room as he swarms on top of the ball with a dive. The ball squirts free and he pounces after it, trying to follow the unpredictable pattern of an oblong ball's bouncing. He always seems to secure it just as dad finally arrives.

"You're too slow, Daddy," he says, bucking me off of him before launching the ball once more. As my futile attempts for another turn continue, sweat affixes curls to the delighted boy's face and forehead. He throws; we chase; I finish second in a two-man race. Finally, he makes a tactical error, telegraphing the path of his next rifle-armed release. Superman-style, I lay out, sacrificing my body for one fleeting moment of glory that will only be witnessed by a little lefty QB and the carpet fiber people of Pennsylvania. I swatted the little wad of pleather skyward and wiggled under its wobbly descent just in time, scooping my hands under it for a clean interception.

The turnover, plus a bit of taunting, puts the boy on tilt. "You can't tackle me; you can't tackle me; you can't tackle me!" I teased, dancing around the room on tip toes like a wannabe Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, high stepping and stiff arming Silas's sweaty head. I think the time has finally come to toughen him up a little bit, to not let him win. His cheeks flash caution red as frustration mounts. Finally, having had all of his ankle grabs thwarted, the boy throws himself on top of California, fetal positions himself, and bawls: "Fine, I don't want to play tackle me game!"

Billy "White Shoes" Johnson

My heartstrings are forged from tug-resistant solid steel: "Crying ain't gonna get it, boy."

He responds with some sort of unintelligible grunt, a mix between an elephant trumpeting and air escaping a balloon, and pulls himself up to his knees.

"If you want it, come get it," I goad, waving the ball back and forth like the red cape of a matador.

The bull boy launches, and misses on his first charge. High-pitched panting accompanies him as he regroups.

"That's good, boy. Use the rage!" I stoke the fires as he sweeps unsuccessfully past again. I'm breaking ankles like Barry Sanders (no relation).

But the boy is a quick study. This time, as I'm smiling, laughing and posing for the Heisman, he doesn't take any time to regroup. He's sprawled out on the Midwest and wrapped around my ankles before I know what's happening. My knees knock together, buckle, and down I go. Now I'm the one in the fetal position, clutching the ball for all I'm worth. He quickly tires of trying to pry it loose, resorting instead to his favorite form of father abuse: submission wrestling. I feel his thin arm slide under my chin. He layers one arm over the other and hugs tighter and tighter... I'm getting choked out. I'm furiously tapping out, but he's too crazed to obey the universal sign that this fight is over. Elmo is smiling at me from a boxed puzzle on the bookshelf. Elmo is fading. Elmo is waving goodbye. I let the ball slip out; it's my only hope. Crazed kid doesn't notice. From under my crushed Adam's apple the word "ball" gasps its way into the air. "Silas...the ball." I feel him slowly releasing my larynx and, finally, air rushes in, nourishing my lungs. I catch a glimpse of one little bare foot and feel two little hands on my back, propelling the wee man on his hunt for the ball. But it's nowhere to be found. He looks back at me, examining my eyes for the truth.

"I don't have it, I promise," and I don't, but I see the point of the ball peeking out from under the sofa. As soon as he turns to canvas the floor for the football, I slip it out from under the sofa and run, again shouting, "You can't tackle me!" Judging from the boy's expression--he truly looks possessed--perhaps I've pushed this tough love a bit too far. I've got the whole of the United States of America carpet map between us; I hope that will give me enough time to plot my next move. The boy takes in my eyes through tear-stained vision, crinkles his nose, clenches his teeth, and begins to run. His feet move. His arms pump. But he's not coming forward. He's a cartoon character stuck in place. I can see his torso, his enraged, demon-possessed countenance, but the arms and legs spin like a fan on hi. He is a smoke-trailing blur, and I am frozen in awe. Then, like Adam Sandler in Waterboy, he takes flight for the hit, covering North America like he'd been shot from a cannon. The force of the tackle and subsequent fall separated me from the football and sucked out all the wind I had managed to gather since escaping from the rear naked choke. The boy, ignoring the bounding ball, loomed over me like Muhammad Ali over Sonny Liston. Tackle me game is over. And there ain't gonna be no comeback.

After a moment, I look up at him, and I'm encouraged by what seems to be a trace of recognition in his eyes. Trying to further coax the demons to relinquish him, through gasps for air I ask: "Would you like to play with trains?"

The Joy of Fatherhood

For a couple days before her visit, and for a couple of weeks afterwards, Silas becomes obstinate, unruly, and utterly incorrigible. My boundaries have the strength of Jell-O. No means maybe, no matter how many times it's repeated. Simple requests are met with a sort of passive defiance; he hums along ignoring me absentmindedly, as if he didn't hear. Sometimes I try to pretend I don't hear a hurtful earful: "My mommy won't make me fill my marble jar before I get a reward. My mommy will let me eat whatever I want. My mommy will read me two stories at bedtime."

"Mommy ran away, abandoned you before you were even weaned," I want to scream. "Mommy gets to swoop in like Santa Clause a couple of times a year, shower you with gifts and candy, then leave you again, leaving me to do all the hard stuff!"

Instead I play it by the book. While inwardly seething, outwardly I never put her down (at least not when he's within earshot). The experts say to never say anything negative about the unapparent parent. Children nearly always put the absent parent on a pedestal, and typically target themselves as to blame for that parent's decision to leave, so throwing the cherished absent parent under the bus can not only drive a wedge between the child and the custodial parent, but also ratchet up the child's sense of guilt. Everything is your fault when you're four, so if the absent parent is a "lying, no good, selfish, irresponsible, neglecting deadbeat," it's somehow the child's fault. So, every impulse to the contrary is choked off before it escapes, and I defend her to defend him.

Even though I know it's normal for children to put the absent parent on a pedestal, and even though I hold steadfast to the belief that, in the long run, Silas will understand and appreciate the steady, unconditional love he has only found from his father, at the end of the day logic offers little solace when, while refusing to eat his dinner, the little person who your entire life revolves around tauntingly tells you that "When I see my mommy, I'm going to run and give her a great big hug, and I'm not going to give you one."

Bicycle Bully

At the park:

Joey: Can I have a turn? Can I have a turn? Can I have a turn?

Silas (sheepishly): Um, I don't think I even know you.

Joey (stepping in front of the bike, grabbing the handle bars, shouting): I AM JOEY AND I AM FOUR YEARS OLD. I AM A BIG BOY!

Silas (not sure what to say to that):

Joey: C'mon, lemme have a turn.

Joey's mom (disinterestedly in the distance, before returning to her cell phone conversation): Joey, he may not want you to ride his bike.

Joey (undaunted, still holding fast to the handlebars): Can I have a turn? Can I have a turn? Can I have a turn?

Silas: But this is my Christmas bike.

Joey (contorting unnaturally, eyes glowing red, whiny pitch increasing to nearly unbearable levels): Puhleeeze? I'll bring it right back.

Silas: Well, OK. But only one lap.

Joey (shoving Silas off the bike and scampering aboard, flailing at the peddles before finally finding traction and speeding off):

(This is where "thank you" should've entered the conversation.)

Dad and Silas stand still, looking at their respective feet, listening to annoying cackling of Joey's indifferent mom, who's still engrossed in her cell phone conversation.

Dad: Thanks for sharing, Silas. That was nice of you.

Silas: When are we going to get the bike back?

Dad: I don't know, boy. I don't know. You want to go swing on the swings?

A Fourth Outline in the Haze

Work responsibility has not usurped my will to blog, but it's doing a number on my time. So, until something new graces these virtual pages, this recycled Facebook note will have to do. It's from April, and all this rainy, foggy September weather reminded me of it...

2 a.m. walks in a cold rain are one of the many pleasures of dog ownership. The Dude, our golden retriever pup, has developed the annoying habit of rooting around for just the perfect spot to drop a deuce. Sometimes this can take 15 or 20 minutes, which is far too long when it seems a thick layer of misty fog has infiltrated your very soul.

Tonight, as is frequently the case, The Dude and I had a third member on our expedition, Orange Cat. Orange Cat may actually believe that he is a dog. He used to fetch before I got too lazy to keep up his training. And unlike most self-respecting cats, he gladly ventures outdoors in the rain. Grooming himself is also out of the question.

So there we were, enveloped in a fog so heavy that I frequently stumbled over the edge of the road or into potholes because I couldn't see all the way to my feet. Dude's pulling the leash taut, sniffing every blade of road-side grass intently, while Orange Cat trots amiably along. And then Orange Cat's posture changed. He reversed course, back towards home, and in the distant glow of our front porch light I made out the figure of a fourth outline in the haze. Surely Phoebe, our elderly, mostly housebound cat, would have sense enough not to venture out into this cold soup. But the way Orange Cat approached the silhouette, confidently, tail in the air, and the way it, too, approached us with an air of familiarity, meant it had to be of a familiar fur. The noses of the animals even met.

Despite his breed's nose, Dude isn't always the most aware pup. A night before, we nearly walked right into a spotted bovine, obscured in the fog, before the dog's sensors tripped and a barking frenzy ensued. But, finally, he became aware that our three had grown into a foursome. I felt the nylon of the leash strap dig into my hand as he yanked me towards the nosing shadows, and then the fourth member of our party emitted a low rumbling, like a grizzly bear.

But, thankfully, it wasn't a grizzly bear. Just a possum who, like us, was on an early morning stroll.

Dude never did take a shit.

Love Triangle

Ella, the boy’s step-sister, has frequently proclaimed her intention to one day take Silas’s hand in marriage. The boy, though prone to sew his wild oats with an endless string of babysitters—if making them play trains with him can be considered sewing wild oats—does not object, and insists on at least seven kids. Ella also planned to marry some kid named Carter from her daycare. Apparently she’s learning from my example—one marriage is never enough. Or maybe she’s planning a move to Utah.

Now she’s in big school, and this Carter kid appears to be a flash in the pan. That would be good news for Silas if it wasn’t for David, the BMOC of the kindergarten class at Blowing Rock Elementary school. Ella made the connection tonight at the dinner table that there’s an Ella, a Rachel, and a David in her class, just like at home. But there’s nary a Silas at her school, and perhaps that’s telling, as the boy appears to be a passing cloud in her distant nuptial forecast.

“Oh, David! I am soooooo in love with David,” she announced at dinner, picking at her last bit of a second helping of shells and cheese in hopes that dessert would be her reward for making a happy plate.

This revelation piqued the boy’s interest. His expression seemed to say, “Who is this David mofo? I wonder if I can kick his ass?” Apparently he inherited his dad’s jealousy gene.

“I’m sure David’s great,” I interjected (after all, he shares my name). Then I stirred the pot: “But you’re still going to marry Silas, right?”

“I’m still going to marry Silas, but I’m going to marry David first,” she proclaimed.

First is everything when you’re a four-year-old. Second is just the first loser. Silas did not take well to being a loser. The boy, jilted by a would-be lover for the first time, folded his bottom lip inside his mouth, squinched his nose, put a death lock on Ella with his eyes, and Romeo-like, held his breath in an attempt to put a premature end to his unrequited existence. Two silent tears did nothing to quench the red hue that rose in his cheeks.

Feeling a bit complicit in this unfolding melodrama, I tried to restore peace to the dinner table.

“You guys won’t be getting married for like 20 years; you don’t have any idea who you’re going to marry,” I said.

The boy finally gasped a big chunk of air. In a soft almost inaudible pout, he said, “But I want to marry Ella.”

She stared at him with a mix of, I think, compassion and delight. She didn’t want to hurt her future second husband, but the strange power she discovered over the opposite sex was exhilarating. In my mind I imagined an endless string of broken hearts.

“You know, you don’t even have to get married,” I told him, still hoping to defuse the drama. “You can take care of me when I get old instead. We’ll move to the beach and go fishing.”

This set the gears in the boy’s mind turning. The pout gradually receded from his voice as he made a plan. Dad would drive the boat and he would hold the pole. We would catch those fish with the swords. I have to admit, this was sounding promising.

Ella, drawing the salt from her well-sucked thumb, sat quietly, taking this all in. Cheer finally returned to the boy’s voice as the father-son fishing scenario swelled with more and more details. It turns out that I will be a shrimp and shark sailboat captain, and we’ll use nets and little hooks. The little hooks are so we don’t catch any big sharks. We’re planning to eat the little ones.

Defiantly, he concluded: “I don’t want to get married. I’m going to live with my Dadda.”

Ella burst from the table, crying out indecipherable utterances of unbearable pain en route to her bedroom, where she threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow.

Rachel called after her: “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sad!” she shouted. “I want to marry Silas!”

Perhaps tonight the boy learned a valuable lesson too: always play hard to get.

Dear lord, I wonder what it's going to be like when they get to high school?

Once More to the Sanderling

Essayist E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake," a vivid description of a trip he took with his son to the same lake where White's father had brought him as a boy, always stirs my memories of my own father and our sojourns to the Sanderling. Now my trips to the coast are with my own son. The years and the yearning fade away, and, if only for a few days, three generations merge into a single grain on the grand strand. Here's a passage from White's classic:

I knew it, lying in bed the first morning, smelling the bedroom, and hearing the boy sneak quietly out and go off along the shore in a boat. I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father. The sensation persisted, kept cropping up all the time we were there. It was not an entirely new feeling, but in this setting it grew much stronger.

My father is with me always, but nowhere is his presence more acutely felt than at our family beach house. Silas would be so fortunate if, when his father grows up, I can become half the man my father was.

Existential Crisis

On our way to school one morning...

Boy: "Dadda, who made the grass"

Me: "God made the grass."

Boy: "Dadda, who made the trees?"

Me: "God made the trees."

Boy: "Dadda, who made the John Deere elevator?"

Me: "Excavator?"

Boy: "Yeh. Ex-cuh-vuh-lator. Who made the excuhvuhlator?"

Me: "Well, people made the excavator, but God made the people."

Boy: "Dadda, who made God?"

Squirmy Wormy

In a 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Al Gore claimed: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." I am forever in his debt for the Internet. I can hardly even remember the days when I used to waste countless hours that would've been better spent sleeping (or studying, or working, or writing, or living) in front of the antiquated black box that my elders refer to as the boob tube. No more TV for me. Now, procrastination finds me courtesy of Facebook and online fantasy baseball. Ah, Al Gore giveth, but he also taketh away. Another of his inventions, global warming, has down right ruined the once cool and breezy Blue Ridge Mountain summers of my wayward youth. Upper 70s = windows and screen doors open and the peaceful song and dance of chirping toads chasing chirping crickets. Upper 80s = an expensive call to the friendly HVAC technicians at Watauga Heating & Cooling. They were so friendly, in fact, that they used Senator Gore's technology to download countless hours of pornography to my PC while doing the install. I imagine they probably just tacked on "Cooling" as an after thought since no one really needs air conditioning in the mountains. Right? Not any more, thanks to Senator Gore. I’m not suggesting some grand conspiracy theory—I don’t think the porn industry and Gore are somehow “in bed” together, leading to countless porn downloads by countless HVAC techs across the globe—but, regardless, no longer are my late night (porn-free) surfing hours accompanied by nature's music; instead, the steady hum of the ironically named heat pump drones on.

(Before I go on, I would like to apologize if you got a distasteful mental image when I mentioned Al Gore, the porn industry, and “in bed” above, all in the same sentence.)

So what does any of this have to do with the boy? Well, Silas, who has an aversion to wearing clothes anyway, didn't seem to mind the heat. He was not yet two at the time, and the promise of central cooling gently circulating pet dander throughout the house wasn't enough motivation to get him to suspend his constant desire to be held and/or played with. I had to 86 an old stack of mostly rotten firewood to clear a spot for the air conditioning unit. It was a sizable stack, but with only normal delays for freaking out every time an upset section of log revealed a giant snake or spider, I could've knocked out the job in about an hour or two. But the wheelbarrow wasn't full once before the boy, already bored with the dump truck load of toys I hauled out to the yard for the occasion, took to writhing and crying in the grass. I might've stuck him in front of the TV and gotten back to work, but, at not yet two, his taste for TV was still undeveloped. I couldn't even trust it to get an uninterrupted shower in, much less a project in the yard. And besides, I was still idealistic enough as a fledgling parent at this point to think that I would be forever limiting his exposure to the evils of television. Fortunately, I did have just the thing for this, our trusty backpack. Before I loaded any more wood, I loaded up the boy, snapped him in, and slung him over my back. He directed the rest of the project contentedly from his perch between dad's shoulder blades. More projects have been neglected than completed over the years, I'm afraid, but the backpack quickly became an integral tool whenever dad became motivated to tackle chore time. It was particularly useful for doing dishes and laundry; you can only wear the same shirt so many days in a row.

The backpack: it's how house and yard work gets done.

It doesn't work so well for inside jobs, but by the time the boy outgrew the backpack I had discovered another method for making yard work manageable: earthworms ("squirmy wormies" in boyspeak). I don't know if Al Gore invented the earthworm, but they seem to be thriving in our little corner of the warmed globe. Every time a bored and attention-starved Silas approaches, one needs only to turn a bit of earth, pluck out a worm, and—voila!—five or ten minutes of uninterrupted time to get back to work. He takes some leaves, a bit of dirt, and makes a "quarium" for them. The little trunk of his tricycle, the backs of dump trucks, Tupperware containers—if it will hold worms, it has. The health of our yard and garden, robbed of the benefits of so many worms, would probably be considerably improved had we not discovered how much the boy loves them, and my conscience doesn't care to count how many of them have been martyred in the name of weekend warrioring in the yard. Collecting squirmies is not in and of itself the problem, it's the not letting them go. Invariably, a dump truck is left out in the rain, and its bed becomes a watery grave for floating, bloating worms. Or a Tupperware bowl goes untended for a few days under Al Gore's sizzling sun, shriveling and finally baking its occupants. Now Silas has become pretty adept at capturing and sequestering squirmies all by himself. Instead of constantly badgering me about my progress in detecting them, he'll burst around the corner, worms snapping back and forth in both hands as he bounces up and down, and shout "squirmy wormies!" For a few minutes anyway, I’ll plod on with my yard work—no weed is safe.

I’ve been working on convincing Silas to do the environmentally responsible thing and practice catch and release. Ol' Al, not to mention countless captured squirmies, would surely appreciate that.

Delicious and nutritious.

Nightcrawler tiara. It's what all the cool kids will be wearing this summer.

There's Plenty of Room at the Duneside III

I’ve never really taken the boy anywhere, well not anywhere other than his grandma’s house and Garden City. We are so blessed to have inherited a beach house—passed down through three generations—that we’ve always just high-tailed it to the coast whenever the opportunity to vacation presents itself. And the fact that the beach house would not be vacant Labor Day weekend did nothing to quell our urge to splash in the surf, so we decided to carve out a new adventure. OK, so we went to the same beach, but this time we’re renting a tiny one bedroom condo. Baby steps. Maybe some day we’ll choose an entirely new destination. I can safely say that we will not be returning to Duneside III, room 202.

We drove down late for two reasons: I was hoping for some peace while Silas slept (have you ever traveled with a four-year-old?), and I wanted to miss the migrating mass of wide-eyed humanity making one last dash to the beach before the unofficial end of summer. No luck there, as we became the caboose of a fifty-mile long train thanks to a nasty pile up near the dreaded Conway bottleneck. An hour and twenty minutes of sitting still in the truck afforded me the opportunity to surf the full glory of Myrtle Beach’s still distant classic rock stations, and I heard “Hotel California” no less than three times. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget, indeed. Thankfully, Silas slept through the whole clusterf*ck, and by 1:30 a.m. we were living it up at the Duneside III. They haven’t had an air freshener here since 1969, and you can actually see puffs of thirdhand smoke emit from the furniture when you lower your haunches.

Duneside III is nestled a shell’s throw from the Kingfisher pier and Sam’s Corner, a 24/7 greasy spoon that, along with the pier, form the epicenter of what used to be a sleepy little family beach town. Rather than kingfishers, or any type of fishers, for that matter, the pier is home to a pair of watering holes, one at the base of the structure and another at its termination, way out over the breakers. An endless stream of vacationers traverse the pier as if walking to its end and back is their own personal pilgrimage to Mecca. A full moon, wreathed in a halo, keeps watch from a nearly cloudless sky overhead, but, at the very limit of my vision, an occasional flash of lightning fills in the endless, black stretch of ocean with a fleeting boundary, the distant horizon. I don’t think the rain’s headed our way. Waves approach in a series of tiny detonations set off by the shearing of the pier’s pilings. But the tranquility of this scene is ungraciously interrupted by “live music” in the form of a sort of dueling banjos of bad cover bands taking place on the pier, which brings us back to “Hotel California.” Now I’ve heard it four times in the last few hours, but never quite like this. And, I hope, never again quite like this. I think there’s an unwritten rule that no band shall ever cover “Free Bird.” That would be blasphemy somewhere on about the same level as diddling the preacher’s wife in church, on a Sunday, during the service. And if we were going to construct a top ten list of songs that should never be covered, “Hotel California,” while paling in comparison to “Free Bird” in terms of its rock anthem awesomeness, would at least make the top five.

The band closest to the beach, and to my position perched on the balcony of Duneside III 202, is mercifully taking a break to blow the meager contents of their tip jar at the bar, allowing me to hear Bob Segar’s “Turn the Page” wafting in from cover band #2’s position out over the Atlantic. The band on break played the same thing not 15 minutes ago. And this, too, is a song that belongs somewhere on our list of songs not to cover, as your local everyday-ordinary-average-run-of-the-mill cover band probably cannot relate to the concept of “playing the star” or being “strung out from the road.” Later, a painfully long drum solo is punctuated intermittently with the snap of bottlerockets. Their whistling blasts make me flinch every time. In my mind’s eye I see a chubby bleach blonde emerging from Wings with a new thong. She will don it for her stay on the back of her boyfriend’s crotch rocket, clinging tightly to him as he pops wheelies up and down Waccamaw Drive, and Myrtle Beach’s annexation of the sleepy little family beach of my youth will be complete. I just hope I can sleep through it.

I smoke the day’s last cigarette by lying down in bed.

Toy Story

"David, you're the bestest David ever in the whole wide world."

The boy often calls me by my first name, which I do not mind. I call him by his first name, too.

I replied, "Aw, that's so sweet. Thank you. You're the bestest Silas ever in the whole wide world."

"Thanks, David. And you know what?"

"What?"

"You're the bestest toy buyer in the whole world."

There's always a catch.

Toy Story II

Circumstances conspired to my committing one of the least pardonable sins of parenthood on a recent road trip. I gave in to hungry boy's incessant requests to patronize the Golden Arches (better known as McDeath). At least he got apples instead of fries with the Happy Meal. Silas, of course, cared less about the food than the toy surprise that dad would pass back to him once his food found its way to his belly.

"It's a transformer, I think," I said as I made the awkward handoff to the seat behind me.

"It's a robot, dad, not a transformer," he corrected.

It was a robot, one that fired projectiles from a gun-like attachment sprouting from its right arm. I was thinking about potential lawsuits as the sun said its final goodbyes, heading west. Darkness infiltrated the cab, and I heard the boy rummaging about, straining the limits of booster seat confinement. He had dropped his new toy and, whether or not he could reach it anyway, could not see enough to pinpoint its whereabouts.

"Turn the light on daddy," he said.

I explained to him that I couldn't. It was distracting, kept me from seeing out to the road that I had to concentrate on.

"It's just not safe," I said.

"Just for a second, daddy."

"Not safe," I repeated, "You'll just have to get it when we get home."

"Nooooooo," he moaned; an annoying blend of demanding and whining creeping into his tone. "Turn the light on!"

"No," I said, finally. "And no amount of whining is going to make any difference."

"Fine, than you're not my father. And I'm never ever talking to you again."

There was a long pause. In the silence I determined to ignore the hurtfulness of those words. He didn't mean it.

I think he was considering the impossible impracticality of this vow of silence.

"You're not my father," he repeated, before adding this amendment: "And I'm never ever going to talk to you again, unless I want food or a toy."

I couldn't help but smile a little at that.

Through the rearview mirror, I saw the defiant set of his jaw in the lights of a passing motorist. His countenance soon softened; he drifted off to sleep. I think we both needed it.

First Blood

It was born in his marrow. It merged onto the circulatory superhighway at various onramps throughout his skeletal system. Driven by a double pump, it circumnavigated every vessel of his being, carrying both the essence and detritus of life. Its work chanced to bring it to the nasal cavity just as Silas was mounting the arm of the living room couch which, to a boy of four years, bears a strong resemblance to a diving platform. For this dive, Silas would be performing a leap of faith onto an adjacent piece of furniture. There was only one witness--Silas's five-year-old stepsister, Ella, who steadfastly maintains her innocence--so details are sketchy. What we know for sure is that something went terribly wrong, and it--his blood--was forever loosed from its confines.

The red river's crest was barely visible beneath his left nostril when a series of powerful sniffles sent it back through the nasal cavity, down the throat, and finally to the mouth. Meanwhile, a steady flow of tears served as the catalyst for increased snot production. En route to the mouth, the red river picked up this snotty debris. It pooled there on his tongue for a second. Unseen taste buds, housed in the papillae bumps on his tongue, alerted the brain to the presence of a strong metallic taste bathed in a slimy sauce of saltwater and bacteria. This was not to be swallowed, replied the brain. Silas tilted forward, formed a wide O with his mouth, and, in an action best described as a hybrid between spitting and spitting up, listened to his brain. If only he listened to and heeded the innumerable warnings from grown ups about not jumping on (or off of) the furniture, this snot island dotted plasma puddle would've avoided an unexpected off ramp onto the kitchen floor.

This was his first bloody nose. Before the damage could be assessed, Silas had to unlearn the urge to try to retain free flowing liquids with his well-honed sniffle. Due to his impatience with nose blowing--you have to stop playing for like two seconds--he is rather adept at sucking up snot. If no grown up sees the emergence of those green-yellow bubbles, it never happened. I was actually delighted that, unlike most other kids you see on the playground, my boy was usually bereft of the two-pronged snot highway. I cannot count how many times I've been staggered by this unsavory image: daydreamy children with curious, probing tongues sating themselves with the salty emissions of noses chilled by a cold winter wind. It's not chicken noodle soup, kids, but I digress. On this occasion it was important for Silas to stop sniffling so the headwaters of the red river could be properly charted. Was the bleeding isolated to the nose, or did he have a mouthful of missing teeth, too? It was hard to know with blood springing out of so many holes.

By now Rachel and I were pushing a small forest's yield of paper towels in his face. "That's good," I told him, as he mouthed deep breaths one on top of the other, "just try to slow it down a little." The sight of the towel growing red did little to stem the hyperventilating, but at least his nose finally, reluctantly relaxed. Chaotic conditions in the kitchen weren't helping matters. The boy still favored tears to words. Ella, ever fascinated by all bodily functions, crowded in for a better look, all the while simultaneously absolving herself of compliance in the accident while scolding Silas for not making good choices. She takes after her mother in the latter regard. Rachel, the self-proclaimed bad cop in our sometimes blend-resistant miniature Brady Bunch, reminded Silas how many times she had told him not to jump on the furniture. ENOUGH! Still unsuccessful in my attempt to survey the damage, I shooed the womenfolk from the kitchen and tilted Silas's head back, hoping that the platelets could better do their job with gravity on their side. I prodded his mouth open. The three grand worth of dental work that had repaired the damage done from relentless Juicy Juice toothbug attacks was intact. It appeared the river's source was purely nasal in origin.

The boy's hands, too small and too delicate, despite the dirt under the nails, to seem real, became blood-speckled as he pawed at the paper towels. "I need to wash my hands; I need to wash my hands!" he squealed, freaking out as he saw that he wore his own blood for the first time. I think he was less concerned with hygiene than the prospect of running out of blood, so I assured him his body would make more, hoisted him onto my hip, and hefted him down the hall to the bathroom. His tight hug dotted my evergreen shirt with festive splotches of red, a development that amused him. By the time we got to the bathroom--five seconds at the most--the tears and his blood had almost dried up and he couldn't wait to see his booboo. He smiled at his Rudolph-red nose, and, rather than wash his hands, plunged his face under the sink's still-cold stream, instantly undermining the persistent work of his platelets. The blood ran anew, and Silas, laughing hysterically, flashed the translucent red teeth of his smile. It's amazing how quickly the fortunes change at four.

Two days later I chanced to find him on the arm of the living room sofa, toes taut, body leaning forward, contemplating his next move. Our eyes met. He slowly climbed back down. His guilty smile was blood free, for now.

Take It Like a Man

It looked like a couple of cats had been sleeping on my chest and were startled awake, leaving a zigzag of red welts in their wake as they dug in and dismounted. But the animal was a twenty-month old boy in withdrawal. A boy equipped with beaver-like sets of incisors, a quartet on the top and the bottom, perfect for latching on, extracting. And I couldn't give him what he wanted.

Attempts at sleeping Silas in a crib were short-lived. It was just too dangerous. There are two types of cribs: ones he's ejected himself from, resulting in a loud thud of head hitting floor, and ones he's never been in. So we climbed into his big boy bed and under his sheets--bears playing polo--at an early age. I knew it wouldn't hold him, and that he would seek me out in the night as soon as he woke up, but at least he could come and go without the risk of brain damage. Story time consisted of me plunging diligently ahead while he ignored me, opting instead to slip from his sheets to circumnavigate the bed's stuffed mountains of animals on all fours. Even if he wasn't paying any attention, he always protested when I put the book down and reached for the light. If I had a dime for every time I've heard, "One more book, dadda...".

The noisemaker droned on. I put a knee up to protect certain sensitive areas from the incessant wiggling of sharp elbows and knees. Toys, strewn about the floor, slowly revealed themselves in the soft glow of the night light. I hummed a lullaby or two, coaxing him back under the sheets. He alternated between stillness and restlessness. Silas's first haircut wouldn't come until age four, and the cold damp of his tendrilled mane, still wet from bath time, soaked through my t-shirt when he pressed his head to my chest. I hoped against reason that stillness would win out soon, and strategies of extraction played through my mind. It was hard to escape without waking him. Maybe he would fall asleep close to the wall; I would arrange a buffer of pillows and stuffed animals to guard against an accidental exit from the open side of the bed.

But he didn't fall asleep. Silas submarined lower, sinking his head from the crook of my armpit to the depths beneath the polo bears. His hands worked at my shirt, forcing it upward to reveal two red bumps amidst a tangle of fur. He did his best--or his worst--to find the milk that so many times had soothed him to sleep. I nudged him away. He fought me to latch on again. I pried free, not delicately enough to avoid wincing. This must be what it feels like to get tattooed, I thought. He tried once more; I resisted. Now my chest was damp from a mixture of wet curls and tears. So I resolved to lie there and take it, I suppose, like a man.

She left when he was 20 months old and not yet weaned. Each night, for weeks and weeks after she was gone, the last thing I did before I left him, finally sleeping, was fetch my shirt from the floor by his bed and pull it over my head to cover the wounds that never heal.

An angel's smile reveals an assassin's teeth.

Drop it like it's hot (lava)

Silas: Why do they call it chocolate lava? We don't eat lava, right?

Shoutout to the New and Improved Mrs. Sanders

Someone pointed out to me that the previous post neglected to mention that it's not just the two of us anymore. In my fledgling and oft-neglected blog, most of the focus has been on cataloging my experiences raising the boy alone. But I would be remiss not to point out that I am blissfully re-married, and now the burdens of parenthood and managing jobs, school, bills, a home, a garden--everything--are shared. And it doesn't feel like a burden at all. The picture below attests to the fact that our future's so bright, Rachel's gotta wear shades. And those bright, beautiful smiles in the picture should make it obvious why I'm finding it so hard to get motivated to go back to work.

Just the Two of Us

I had only had my new truck for a couple of weeks when my wife, with little warning and carrying not much more than the clothes on her back, climbed in the cab, highlighted R with the gear shift and backed down the driveway and out of our weekday lives. Four months shy of his second birthday, Silas didn’t grasp the magnitude of the situation. Mommy was leaving us. I thought probably for good. When she tried to hug him tight, he wriggled from her arms and insisted on scavenging through the minivan, the ride I would be keeping since I refused to let him go. I hated to part with my new toy, but the minivan was more practical for my new gig: single dad. It’s not like there was really anything to consider: truck/boy. It’s an easy call. When she announced that she was leaving my reply—after months of fighting and fruitless attempts at therapy—came without hesitation: Do whatever you want, but the boy stays with me. She agreed without argument, so I had custody of the boy during the week and my truck on weekends. We met nearly every Friday evening at a rural gas station equidistant from our separate dwellings to trade vehicles and mammals (I got the dog for the weekend; she got the boy). I got out of the minivan, into the truck, and beat it back up the well-worn path to the mountains. Usually, I left Silas sleeping in the back. I hated leaving him without saying goodbye, but not wanting to interrupt his nap afforded the perfect excuse not to have to exchange pleasantries. There was nothing pleasant to say.

I remember the tail lights glowing red and the finality of the instant the glow left. The marriage therapists, a husband and wife team, had mostly just sat and listened, emitting the occasional “hmm” and “oh,” verbal feedback to either show they were actually listening or to encourage one of us to keep talking. They offered up the occasional “How does that make you feel?” bullshit. But, with the image of tail lights imprinted on my closed eyelids, I realized they only offered one thing of value. When she told them she was thinking that some time apart might do us some good, they broke from their non-advisory stance and quoted some studies that showed that couples who split up rarely find the path that leads them back together. Don’t go, they told her. When she left anyway, despite her assurances to the contrary, I knew that it was for good.

The truck disappeared around the sharp curve below the driveway en route to an empty apartment over an hour away. I climbed in the van through the open sliding door, reached over the driver seat, found the keys, and cranked it up. Finding Nemo flashed on the tiny DVD screen above us, and Marlin’s undersea search for his abducted son briefly diverted Silas’s attention. Still in fleece footed jammies despite the muggy August morning air, he appeared to have been debating whether or not to eat whatever it was he had pulled from beneath the seats. I jerked the lever, and the sliding door lurched noisily down its track before sealing shut. Before the air conditioning got good and cold, two lanes of wet traffic traversed silently down my cheeks.

It’s difficult to reconstruct the right reality, to explain what I felt in that moment. It would be easy to reach the conclusion that I was hurt by the breakup, but part of the cocktail of emotions included, instead, a large shot of relief. With her removed the expectations were removed. I would pay the bills, cook dinner, wash the dishes, push the vacuum, pull the weeds, and, most importantly, care for my son’s needs. For months I had been doing all of this anyway as she slept the days away or whiled away countless hours on the internet. Now I wouldn’t expect any help, and there wouldn’t be any fingers to point or shouting matches when the help wasn’t forthcoming. But even if I had been virtually living as a single father while we all still shared the same home, there was something intimidating about those two words—single father—and something shameful about not being able to mask that reality. I tried to pretend that we needed the money and she couldn’t find a job in Boone so she had to leave. It was just too far to commute, so she got a little apartment. It was only temporary. But I knew better, and soon everyone else—family, friends—would know too. More than loss on that day, I felt the chest-compressing weight of failure and anxiety. Not only would concerns over how the breakup would affect Silas in the short and long term always lurk in my shadow, but I also had to figure out what to do with him. I started work in a week and, thanks to the sudden and unexpected departure of the person who was supposed to be Silas’s primary caregiver, had no daycare lined up. Thankfully, I was able to orchestrate a team of baby sitters to tide us over until a fulltime slot in a daycare became available. He’s been in good hands when he’s not in mine. But, now three years later, with his mother relocated across an ocean to London, the fallout of failure still lingers.

I hear Bill Withers singing:

We look for love, no time for tears

Wasted waters's all that is

And it don't make no flowers grow…
Just the two of us
We can make it if we try

And we’ll keep trying until the doubt is replaced with castles in the sky.

I'll Have the Ketchup and the Catsup, Please

I just watched in horror as the hot breakfast I was implored to drag myself out of bed to cook slipped, uneaten, into the trash can. The fork skirted around scrambled eggs and hashbrowns as if they were radioactive waste. The fork deftly scraped every atom of ketchup off the plate, leaving the remainder untouched. More ketchup was called for, the fork again sucked clean, before "I'm full" was announced. Soon someone will realize that it's a long, long time until lunch.

Lotty Dotty We Like to Potty

Rachel: Ella, what's going on in there?

(very long pause...finally Ella comes running, pulling up her undies)

Ella: We had a very potty iscussion. I went poop twice and Siwus went poop once. And my panties were aw da way down. Downstairs. And we were saying we were gonna pee on things.

Conversations and Questions

Silas: Daddy, I want to see my momma.

Me: It's too late tonight (his request came after 9 p.m., which is not only past his bedtime, but means it's after 2 a.m. in London), but we'll look for her on the computer (skype) in the morning.

Silas (his back turned from me, masking, I think, a tear or two): No. I don't want her on the computer, or on the phone, I want to hug her.

Someone please tell me what page to turn to in the playbook for the appropriate response to this request.

The Origin of The Dude

Anyone who has subjected themselves to the uniquely blissful, trailer park zen experience of watching The Big Lebowski knows that it's one of the F-bombingest movies of all time. Ostensibly, our golden retriever pup came by the name The Dude to pay homage to Jeff Bridges' turn as The Dude in the cult classic, and it never gets old to turn the phrase "The Dude abides" after our Dude performs rare acts of obedience (it turns out that Marley might've been a more apt monicker so far as film allusions go). When he's not abiding, which is most of the time, our Dude is dislocating the shoulders of anyone who dares venture on a walk with him, humping the neighbor's dog (who is male, yet oddly doesn't object), or getting one of us up every 30 minutes to take him out for an explosive diarrhea session after he's ingested yet another foreign object. Instead of "Shut the fuck up, Donny," it's "Quit fuckin' shitting, Dude," at four in the morning.

One should never let reality get in the way of a good story, but in reality The Dude's name has much simpler origins. We purchased the pup as a Christmas gift for my father in law, who had recently laid to rest his golden oldie, Chester (the Molester), who had in fact made his mark like an old male dog before becoming an old male dog and succumbing to the vet's needle. Things got really ugly towards the end, and it had to be done. We decided to just call the new model Dude, as not to get too attached, while we sheltered him until Christmas. It seemed like such a thoughtful gesture to replace the fallen golden with The Golden Dude, as my father in law has taken to calling him. Unfortunately, my mother in law had other ideas. Adamant about not having another golden, she went out--with full knowledge of the gift we had in store for her husband--and got a dog from the animal shelter a few days before Christmas. We gave them The Dude anyway, but two pups proved to be too much, and a few weeks later our thoughtful gesture was re-gifted. And the dog we didn't want to get too attached to has been sitting at my feet ever since.

Much to my better half's chagrin, I stubbornly clung to the name, The Dude, until it stuck as his official name. The only problem is that I call everybody dude, and this has created a few instances of confusion for the other boisterous boy that, like the dog, is rarely anywhere but attached to my hip. "Dude, No!" are common words around these parts. Sometimes a surprised Silas will get a hurt and confused look and ask, "Do you mean dude me no or Dude dog no?" Most of the time it could probably go for either of them, kind of a blanket condemnation of all preschooler and puppy bad choices, but Silas is very relieved on the occasions when it turns out that he is in the clear.

I love how the boy says dude, drawing out the ooooh in his angelic drawl. Hearing him say it got me to thinking. Maybe The Dude's name does have deeper origins; dude was in fact the very first word the boy ever uttered. Long before my dog walking days, I'd strap the boy in the backpack carrier and traipse around the neighborhood giving him language lessons. Well, I suppose it was a lesson if you consider my repeating "Daddy" over and over again in hopes that it would become his first word to be a lesson. He had the "D" down, but the stuttering "D-d-d-d-duh" sounds were soon followed by an ooh instead of an ah. Add another "D" and you've got "duh-oooo-duh."

"No, Da-a-a-a-a-a-d," I'd coax.

"Duh-oooo-duh," he'd reply.

"Howabout Da-da," I said.

"Duh-oooo-duh," he insisted.

Sigh.

Defeated, I decided to nurture the boy's new gift of language as best I could. The cows in the pasture up the road must have thought it strange to hear me and Silas inflecting the seemingly endless varieties of "dude," like in the beer commercials, as we took our evening strolls. Soon we were delighting in similar sounding words like doo-doo and dookie. It's much nicer to say than it is to scrape off his bottom during a diaper change. "Dude! Did you go doo-doo?"

Since then we've had many adventures (and misadventures) with words, like the time when--in front of the babysitter, no less--two-year-old Silas drove his ride-on toy into the wall at breakneck speed, nearly tumbled over the handle bars, and shouted, "FUCK!" Maybe he wasn't all the way asleep yet that time when I watched The Big Lebowski while he snuggled me in bed. Dude, everything comes full circle.

Everybody's Searching for Something

This was a paragraph or two jotted down at the beach over two years ago. It's since been through a few revisions, finally morphing into what you see below:

Last night my eyes searched the sky for a coy moon. It’s less than half a moon, yet much more than a sliver. There’s enough glow to backlight the hazy clouds, so I know just about where to look as I anticipate its triumphant return through the puffy, cumulous outline. It’s like a game of hide and seek with the clouds in total control, at least until the sun breaks over the horizon. The night before things were much more clear. The moon, then half full and undaunted by drifting encumbers of clouds, parted the sea with its spotlight. The shaft of light ran from the tide pools to the distant horizon, illuminating each swell as they approached the end of their journey. Beyond the moon’s beam was a cold darkness, an impenetrable black framing the glowing ocean. It was as if a path had been illuminated for me. Whether gliding back and forth on a porch rocker, or traipsing barefoot in the cool, moist sand, the moonbeam beckoned me, seemingly coming to an end at my feet no matter where they stood. I felt then as if I knew my way; I could walk across that water.

But I barely got my toes wet. I just watched, taking in the scene in awe. And then, before I knew it, the moon gave way to a brilliant sunrise. The haze amplified the orange glow that foretold the sun’s arrival, until finally a blinding orb rose from the sea and burned away the haze. It was a new day, yet it seemed like an ending. And I missed the night.

That afternoon was a science lesson for my two-and-a-half-year-old son, Silas. What do you call a group of porpoises? Cattle roam in a herd. Geese fly in a flock. Whales putter through the sea in a pod. Whales and porpoises are close enough, and the alliteration is nice, so why not? Yes, we saw a pod of porpoises. They danced to the surface for air in pairs just beyond the cresting of crashing waves. Pelicans, too, worked the unseen, from our vantage point on shore anyway, school of fish. The noble sea birds stretched their necks and tucked their long wings, morphing into a missile before dive bombing into the unsuspecting school, more often than not emerging with their gullets full of sea water and lunch. Silas, taking it all in from his familiar perch on my right hip, asked, “Ride, dada?” Just like all the horses and cattle he sees during our drives in the rolling hillsides of home, he wanted to ride the porpoises. It’s hard to convince a toddler of the impossibility of some things. But he comes by it honest; just two nights ago I thought I might walk on water, and even if on the following night the moonlit path eluded me, I know the way may return tonight, tomorrow night… I am a dreamer.
But back to our science lesson. The tension was mounting, and I knew that if I did not redirect my son’s attention, I would either be plodding through the chilly ocean in search of an amenable porpoise, or watching the boy thrash about like a beached whale when I told him, finally, that we simply could not ride the black, bottle-nosed mammals. Tantrums at two beat all. But the little diggers came to my rescue. I had to look no further than my sea tickled toes, where tiny clams, deposited by the surf, left the safety of their colorful calcium shells, latched on to the porous sand, and burrowed under the surface. We had to look fast, as a second or two after each wave passed, the clams were gone, either swept away by the next wave, or adroitly angled just below the surface in the nick of time. “Look at the little diggers!” I exclaimed. I didn’t know exactly what to call them at the time. And, reluctantly at first, Silas obliged. But once he caught sight of one, with its lavender spirals radiating from the ligament uniting its perfectly symmetrical halves, he was hooked. The porpoise pod was now free to roam in peace. And the little diggers got an assist, as Silas quickly learned to grab handfuls of wet sand, spot a digger, and splatter the sand on top of it just before the arrival of the next wave.

That evening I pulled the trusty Audubon Society guide off the shelf. The little diggers are called coquina. Scarcely the size of your thumbnail, they come in nearly every color imaginable, their iridescent white circled by various shades of pink, blue, orange and brown. Silas saw their picture and, pointing, shouted, “Diggers!” They are so plentiful in some areas of Florida, the guide informed me, that their shells merge just beyond the low tide line to form a kind of limestone coral. Much of the architecture in St. Augustine, America’s oldest city, is constructed from the sea-swept remains of coquina. I’m not sure Silas will remember much from this lesson other than that the coquina share his love for digging in the sand, but I hoped that somehow my own curiosity rubbed off on him, and that, as he ages, perhaps he’ll trade choo choo trains and animated movies for books.

The next night at sunset we returned to the water’s edge in search of the little diggers, finding them plentiful. And for every one that burrows its way under the surface, half a dozen half shell remains, presumably picked apart by the last wintering sanderlings, tumble by like rainbows in the foamy green surf. I wanted an intact remains as a keepsake, and mined the shell-specked sand devotedly while Silas gathered larger shells and smooth, sea-worn stones to toss at the oncoming waves. Often I would find two coquina shells that looked nearly identical, but trying to fit them together revealed less than a perfect match. It seems that in life they are perfectly mated, but in death they are forever separated. I could’ve plucked any number of live ones for my purposes, but it wasn’t for me to take that, to have that.

Silas went to bed with his father, but awoke three hours later to find himself alone, dad out searching for the moon, foolishly, for tonight the clouds returned, bearing rain. The window to our bedroom stood open to better hear the ocean, so I heard his faint cries of “Dadda” break the rhythm of the surf from the adjacent porch, and quickly rose to soothe him. He asked for a hug, and my arms sought him out through the darkness. I held him tight until it seemed he had drifted back into his dreams. But before he slumbered, he wriggled free from my arms and showered my face with kisses. “Thanks for the kisses,” I whispered. “Thanks for the kisses; now goodnight, sweet boy.” And I slipped away, still dreaming.

Puppy Love

These words replaced my sleep this morning ("Dude," for those who don't know, is our dog).

Ella: Dude was licking our butts. And we let him because it tickles.

Silas: But did you know, that dogs sniff butts to make friends? And last night, Laurel, I sniffed her butt because we were playing puppy and making friends. But I just sniffed it once.

The Tummy Timebomb is Ticking

It's reasonable for me to hope he hits the toilet. Since he was born with an epiglottis that didn't form a proper lid over his esophagus until he was 7 months old, Silas honed his vomiting skills at an early age. It wasn't uncommon for him to return his milk, along with rancid smelling stomach juices, 10 or more times a day when he was an infant. Since then barfing has evolved into a form of expression. Get him upset enough, and the boy rewards you with a putrid projection of half chewed goldfish and bile. That's mighty good motivation to encourage him to "use your words" to express feelings.

If anything, from the common cold to a nasty ear infection, invades his immune system, a few days of intermittent vomiting is sure to ensue. That brings us to now. Not too surprisingly since he seemingly clings to me 20 hours a day, Silas has acquired the energy-sapping cold that I haven't been able to shed for the past four days. I knew something was up when he refused food all day. The kicker was when he fell asleep on the couch before dinner despite the fact that we had company, Rachel's friend Brady, who he adores. The boy is radiating heat like the tip of a cigarette lighter on the fourth of July, yet he says he feels cold. His breathing is quick and labored. He is sick alright. And I wait, praying that tonight I won't be faced with the difficult decision of which to do first: soothe him back to sleep or mop up his mess. I can almost feel the warmed remains of the last thing he consumed, a yogurt parfait from McDonald's, penetrating the paper towels swaddled around my reluctant hands.

I have hundreds of barf stories, each its own merit badge of fatherhood. His excellent control of his regurgitating faculties is both blessing and curse. He has become quite adept at hitting the toilet (more on that in a minute), but he also has the power to summon his cookies whenever it suits him. The boy detests school, and he has a knack for developing sudden and suspicious early-morning illnesses as dad frantically tries to shuttle him off and get himself to work on time. One morning I felt like I was being duped, so I loaded him up with ibuprofen ("This will make you feel all better so you don't have to miss school and daddy doesn't have to miss work") and slapped him in his car seat, figuring a little over-the-counter pain meds couldn't hurt since the only thing really wrong with him was an acute desire to cuddle with dad on the couch watching Thomas the Tank Engine all day.

"Daddy, I don't feel good," became the chorus on the way to school, with a healthy dose of "My tummy hurts" spliced in for good measure.

"The medicine will start working soon, and you'll be all better," I assured him.

"Nooooo," he whined, stretching it out into several syllabus, "I don't want to go to school. I want to go to your work with you, dadda."

That confirmed it for me; he only breaks out "dadda" when he is in his most manipulative mode. The wee man is trying to pull a fast one on his old man. I walked briskly ahead of him down the hall to his classroom, my chin held high as he came dragging along behind me, tethered to my hand. I have won this power struggle. But as I looked back, the smug little smile at the edges of my countenance faded. A swell of sea green washed the color from his cheeks. He was going to blow.

"Silas, don't..."

It was too late. The teachers' bathroom was two turns and twenty feet away, and a stream of breakfast was already shooting from his hole like a garden hose half-plugged by a thumb. My grip tightened. I swear I heard him gurgle "hurry, daddy" as he hung like a flag taut in the wind behind me on my sprint to the john. Miraculously, instead of settling on the walls and floor around us, the foul lava lashing from the vomit volcano became a lasso-like extension from the boy's tongue. He guided it safely through tight turns before snapping it home with a violent splash, even having the courtesy to miss my hand as it lifted the seat just a split second before impact. It was like watching a scene out of The Matrix, only with barf instead of bullets.

Silas braced his hands on the toilet's edges and hunkered down, determined to deliver the rest of his load. His tiny body recoiled and backfired again and again until, finally, the flush told us it was over, for now. My head bowed--not only had I lost the power struggle, but the boy really was sick--I helped him wash his hands. We scurried out of the school house the way we came in, and I noted, thankfully, the lack of puke particles in our wake.

"You did a great job getting it in the toilet."

"Sorry I threw up, daddy," he said, twisting the knife of guilt another notch deeper.

"It's OK. You couldn't help it. You really are sick."

Plan B.

The only thing that stresses me out more than running late for work, I now know, is running late for work with a vomitous three-year-old in tow. He's not feeling well, I reasoned, so he will gladly sit still and draw with crayons or play on the classroom computer. No one will even notice him.

In unison, twenty college freshmen--even the guys--greeted us with, "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww, he's soooooooooooo cute," as we burst into the class in our familiar formation, dad striding ardently with Silas, squeezed hand turning red, dragging along behind. So much for not noticing him.

"OK buddy, sit right here and draw," I said, plopping down a pack of paper I ripped from the copier on our dash to class.

As I made my way through the aisles, returning a batch of essays I'd recently commented on, I explained that the boy was sick, and that he would be joining us today. After I had handed back just a handful of essays, the boy announced that he had something to show me, and the class's progress was stunted again and again as I examined his quickly dashed off scribbles. He tore through the stack like a star athlete signing glossy 8x10s.

"That's nice, but there's a lot more space here where you could color."

"No, I'm done with this one."

About three words into my general feedback on what students could focus on to improve their essays in their next draft, Si announced that he had another one to show me.

"It's a snake, dadda."

Snakes and the ever-so-similar letter S--which figures so prominently in his name--were the only two representational symbols Silas had a grasp on at the time.

"That's great, it really is, but can you show me all of your pictures after class?"

My face glowing red, I forged ahead, hoping to spark a discussion on the day's reading, but not one eye in the room was on me.

"I'm out of paper, dadda."

"You can use the backs," I replied, bunching his minimalist Pollocks together and flipping them over.

"I don't want to draw on the back."

Rather than fighting this battle I returned to the notes on my legal pad for the day's class. I threw a question out to the group....

Silence...

I could feel the boy moving behind me but tried to ignore it. No one is looking at me, but at least, for once, I don't see anyone texting as I scan the room.

More silence...

Then, finally, laughter as a series of snakes took form on the chalkboard. He hummed as he made his way left to right, his shirt gathering a line of white powder.

I don't remember now what bribe was proffered--a trip to the toy store, an edible treat--but after I whispered in his ear he again agreed to sit quietly, and the waxy residue of the crayolas left their marks on the back of the copier paper. I strode confidently back into the role of teacher.

"OK class, now we can start."

College girls, several of whom have served as his attentive babysitters over the years, are his favorite demographic (can't really blame him there). Even the most devoted dad eventually reaches the threshold of tolerance for building train tracks, and Silas cherishes the level of doting attention that only comes from a hired hand. Before me I saw a group of college students, and it was my duty, even under these circumstances, to shepherd them on their quest for knowledge. But the boy's eyes saw prospects, a fertile ground from which he would harvest a hide and seek partner. Only a minute or two after his pledge of silence, Silas crept from his seat and sidled over to the young lady closest in proximity, gazed deep into her eyes and uttered the line that would do us in for the day: "Will you be my babysitter?"

Uproarious laughter filled the room.

At that point I probably should've offered her some extra credit to remove him from the class and entertain him for an hour, but clear thinking was beyond my meager capabilities at this point. I couldn't have been more embarrassed if I had farted in church. I so clearly had a complete and utter lack of control over my kid!

"OK, this isn't going to work. Give me your journals and check your emails; I'll send you instructions on how we're going to make up what we missed today. Class dismissed!"

The boy was very popular with 20 college freshmen that day. Actually, make that 60 college students. I had two more classes later in the day, but rather than repeat this disastrous scene I just left their essays in two neat stacks at the front of the room, and instructed them to check their email for the day's notes and a revised schedule.

One of my students played with him for a bit while I gathered my things. Surprised by his level of energy, she asked me if he was really sick. I was sure to tell her at our next class that, not ten minutes after she posed that question, I was trying to squeeze his head through the neck of a barf-encrusted shirt and prying chunks of smelly, half-digested cereal out of the crevices of the boy's car seat. He puked all over himself, his seat, and the truck on the way home.

. . .

Two days after the cold that inspired this trip down memory lane, I'm happy to report that the boy seems to be back to good health, and that, for perhaps the first time ever, we survived an illness without any throw up!

Silas Blows His Own Horn

Conversation this morning after the boy's bath:

Boy: My willie looks like a slug.

Dad: Huh. It's not all slimy, I hope.

Boy: I have the biggest willie of all the boys at my old school.

Dad: (Shocked into silence, wondering what exactly they do at school.)

Boy: My willie is sooooo big, daddy.

Dad: Um. Ok. Well that's good. It's good to have a big willie, I guess.

Boy: And you have a giant willie, daddy.

Dad: Um. Well actually.... Um.

Footprints

I am a wide, flat river stone.
He crouches, poised to spring from me
to his next adventure.
More and more
I feel the emptiness of wet footprints.

Watauga #6

It probably wasn't really a question of a 12-year-old's manhood. Playing our fourth game in two days, all of us mountain boys were wilting in the 99-degree heat. In that heat the fires of frustration are easily kindled, and the AAU baseball team I coached had done plenty to fluster me that weekend. But if we could've hung on to win our last game it would've salvaged the weekend to some extent, left us without a bitter taste for the ride back up the mountain.

The bases were drunk with two down, and we clung to a one run lead. "Roll us a ground ball," I shouted out to the mound, "and we'll get out of this thing." The pitcher obliged, and the batter sent a topspin bounder to third. Just knock it down, smother it, step on the bag and let's dump the ice from the coolers and head home. In his defense, he caught an in-between hop, and, unlike most plays at third, it wasn't a reaction play; the ball wasn't hit hard and he had a little time to think about it. Letting the ball play you was not an acceptable thought. Our third baseman abandoned his crouch, straightened up, and hopped a bit backwards as the ball careened off of his knee. When it was finally corralled by the glove of his neighbor, the short stop, the game was tied.

Their first base coach shrugged his shoulders apologetically. "Tough break." Our eyes met, and, inexcusably, regardless of the sweltering anger boiling within me on that unforgiving day, I replied, "That kid needs to get the beans beneath the frank."

I don't even remember how they finally put us out of our misery, but we lost the battle. What I do remember is that comment, and I've spent the last six years regretting saying it as the boy whose manhood was questioned proved time and time again that he is tougher than I'll ever be. Our third baseman that day was Will Dicus; no one knew at the time that a battle bigger than any baseball game was raging inside him.

A few months later Will, then 13, was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma. The prognosis was dire. A return to the diamond seemed unlikely, even insignificant in light of his new opponent. Will was competing for his next breath, and the doctors placed their bets on cancer.

Will, of course, had other ideas, and even after losing part of the bone in one leg to cancer surgery, he was eager to limp back out to the mound. Though he had played other positions when not pitching, on the bump is where he most excelled. Baseball, as the slogan goes, is life. And it turns out that baseball wasn't such an insignificant concern in the case of Will Dicus; it was the driving force that kept him climbing the bullpen mounds and defying the grim prognostications of the experts for so long.

"Sorry I'm late, coach. I had chemo this morning," said the wisp of a right-hander as he ambled in from the cold to join his teammates in the indoor practice facility.

"Feel like throwing a pen today?"

It was a stupid question. That five ounces of cowhide and cork was cancer's kryptonite in Will's right hand.

"Yessir," he said, already angling towards the mound.

It doesn't take long to find a volunteer to suit up to catch him. Over a year after his diagnosis, cancer had taken the zip off his once overpowering fast ball, and, now a member of the Watauga High JV baseball team, Will is learning how to pitch. At the tender age of 14 he's like a grizzled veteran who, after the mileage on his arm has robbed him of his best stuff, reinvents himself as a crafty control pitcher. Every practice pitch is pain and joy. Physical pain, to be sure, and mental anguish when the catcher has to move his mitt to snare a stray fast ball, or when the curve ball spins, screaming hit me as it meanders through the strike zone rather than darting down and away for a swinging strike. But, mostly, there is joy. Joy to be a part of a team, to wear that uniform, to compete. Joy to play the game you love. Joy in every never to be taken for granted breath.

We had a wealth of pitching that year; in fact, four of Will's teammates would go on to play college ball. Every night at home I'd fiddle with lineups and struggle over whether or not to pitch him in a game. I wanted to find the perfect time to ease him back out on the mound, but time and innings were commodities in short supply. Before cancer, he was always his team's ace, but now he didn't give us the best chance to win. But this is the JV baseball team, not the world series. How can you measure the joy it would bring him to get back on that hill against wins and losses? What if the opportunity you denied him means that opportunity is forever lost?

He and a few of his friends on the team got into a spot of trouble during the season. Boys being boys. Sometimes boys need a bit of extra "conditioning." I stood, arms folded, as his teammates ran from pole to pole on the outfield warning track early one Saturday morning. Behind me in the dewy grass, I hear the grunts of a 14-year-old young man, emaciated, skin pulled taut around his cheekbones from the cancer treatments, churning out pushups.

"Will, get up."

"Coach, I can't run, but I can do pushups."

"Will, get up."

"Coach, if my teammates are being punished, I want to be punished, too."

"Will, get up."

"Coach," he said, a few blades of cut grass clinging to his trembling arms, "I made the same decision they did."

I took a knee, looked him in the eyes. "Stop. This is supposed to be punishment for you, not for me. I can't watch you do this."

"What can I do instead?"

His teammates reached the pole. Sucking air, they asked how many more. "Keep running," I barked.

After much negotiation, Will reluctantly agreed that dumping out the thousands of baseballs in the practice building and sorting them into buckets--heavy, water-logged ones in this bucket, BP balls in another, balls for taking infield here, balls in good enough shape for a pitcher to use for a bullpen there--was an acceptable punishment. He didn't want special treatment.

WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S A WAY...EVENTUALLY

Spring time in the mountains is a hard time to play ball; the rain and snow resulted in a schedule logjammed with makeup games, and by the end of the week Will's number 6 would finally be called. We needed his innings; instead, we got more rain and his first start was washed away. But, finally, he got his shot.

"Will, go get loose," I said. There was the slightest hesitation; he had this look on his face that said, "Seriously, me? Now?" But he quickly shuffled out of the dugout and found the bullpen mound. His teammates actually cheered. Eventually I had to send someone to get him; apparently I should've told him to get loose QUICKLY. "Ask him if he would actually like to pitch in the GAME," I said. His teammates were on the field waiting for him as the gate behind the dugout finally opened, and Will's appearance was met with the thunderous approval of all the Watauga faithful in attendance. Perhaps he just wanted to make a grand entrance.

Despite the beauty of the moment--a young man proving the naysayers wrong and fulfilling his dream of pitching high school ball--his outing was not a thing of beauty. He walked a batter, allowed a few hard hit balls, but he preserved the shutout in a lopsided win over North Forsyth. Our opponents' parents and fans must have been scratching their heads. Why was everyone in our dugout and in our section of the stands hanging on every pitch in a game that had long been decided? Why had the volume level suddenly been cranked from whisper to roar? I coached baseball for more than 10 years, and I'll always remember those three outs more than any other moment. I wish those North Forsyth parents knew they were witnessing a miracle that day. After the last out both teams lined up on their respective foul lines and filed past each other, exchanging the traditional post-game handshakes and "good games." The opposing coaches were heaping compliments on me about what a well coached team we had when they sensed that something was amiss.

"What's wrong?" asked one coach, a leathered, stump of a man with white hair escaping from under his cap.

"Just stay with me a minute," I said, keeping my back to the team as they trotted down to the left field corner for our post-game talk.

"You ok?" said his younger, leaner assistant.

"Just give me a second."

I remember trying not to make eye contact. My turf shoes scratched at the dirt in front of home plate.

"That kid's got a bad deal," I choked out finally. The tears came. "The one that pitched the last inning, Dicus, he's got cancer."

"No way," said the stump. "Gosh, you wouldn't know it; he threw the ball well."

"You should've seen him before cancer. He threw harder at 12 than he does now, but he works so..."

The word "hard" was unintelligible, consumed by the high-pitched whir that accompanies the failure to hold back tears. There was so much more I wanted to tell them about Will.

I had my left arm outstretched, my hand clasping stump's shoulder. He was holding me up as my blurred eyes continued to monitor the progress of my feet. He broke the short silence: "What's his prognosis?"

"Not good. This could be the last time he gets to pitch."

"That's just a shame; it just ain't fair," Stump said.

"I know it. I know it. Hey, I gotta go talk to 'em. But do we one favor, ok?

"Sure, anything."

"Pray for Dicus."

With that I took off for the left-field foul pole. It was the shortest post-game speech in history, but I more or less held it together. I'm sure the more perceptive among them could tell I had been crying.

Will's ERA his freshman year was 0.00. One game, one inning pitched, and no runs allowed. But it wasn't his last game by a long shot. When his health allowed, he contributed a few innings over his sophomore and junior campaigns, actually throwing a no-hitter against Freedom in a JV game and gutting out five innings in his lone varsity start, a win over a good West Wilkes club. When you looked at his stuff, it was hard to figure how he got anyone out. It must have been his will, his determination, his competitiveness, his passion, his confidence, how he cherished each pitch. Most of all, it was those eight guys with him out there who absolutely refused to let him down. Maybe it was divine intervention, but somehow his teammates made plays behind him that they couldn't otherwise make. It was like the deep green canvas of the outfield grass had been repainted with streaks of Watauga blue. Guys were flying around, making plays.

But the end of Will's story didn't play out the way the Hollywood script writers would have written it. The ever advancing cancer had spread throughout his body, viciously attacking the lungs, squeezing the air from him. Each day required a stronger cocktail of pain meds, and Will wouldn't get to take the ball his senior year. I've been away from the program for a few years now, not by choice, but by necessity. I have my own son, whose mother left us when he was 20 months old, to care for. Even if I wouldn't be there to witness it, I had been certain that Will would get the ball on senior night and, with his teammates, find a way to win the last chapter of the epic tale he had woven for so much longer than any of his doctors had expected. I would tune it in on the radio, read about in the paper. The tears would flow all over again. Instead, I read an article about how Watauga's senior night, usually the last home game of the season, had been moved up; it would take place on the night of one of the first games of the year. The article didn't say it in so many words, but I knew Will didn't have long. Even without the prospect of pitching as motivation, baseball sustained him. He supported his team as they claimed the conference championship. He fought on through the year, but when Watauga got upset in the first round of the state playoffs, bringing an unexpected early end to their season, Will was lost. His mother posted in her online journal what her son had told her: "It's all over." And a little over two weeks later it was.

Will's mom signed off every journal entry with the same three words: "Hug your kid." It hurt to hear the news of Will's passing on Monday. As a father, I tried to imagine being in Will's parents' position. As a coach, I grieved for the young men I forged bonds with on the baseball field. But no tears came. When I finally lumbered off to bed, I found myself pausing in my doorway before glancing across the hall and taking a detour. I crept into Silas's room, wedged myself into his bed and wrapped my arms around him. Then, the tears came. I felt the loss. I felt their loss. There was no miracle ending for Will Dicus, but the lessons from his too-short life will make a lasting difference in the countless lives he touched. Thank you, Will, for teaching me to never take my son for granted.

Hug your kid.