childhood

At 16 I Had No Muscles But I Drove a Muscle Car

I recently read Auto Biography by Earl Swift in which he retraces all the owners of a ’57 Chevy and it’s had me thinking about my first car. It was a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda. I unwrapped it in the Fall of 1990. Twenty one years after it rolled off the assembly line. It was a cool car. I, on the other hand, was not cool car guy. Nor was I even a cool guy. In the movies a guy gets a cool car and then suddenly he has people following him around buying him pizza. That’s Hollywood. In real life I didn’t smoke or have a varsity jacket. No tattoos. I didn’t listen to cool music or have a cool haircut. I was tall and awkward. After my 16th birthday I was a tall and awkward kid driving a 1969 Barracuda with a slant six engine. The car was a surprise. My father and I went car shopping in the months leading up to my birthday but unbeknownst to me, that was a ruse. My muscle car was parked in the […]

On Fatherhood: Almost 40 With a 4 Year Old

How different his world is in 2014 than mine was when I was his age in 1978. This is the blessing of the late blooming father. Had I begun the child rearing phase of my life a decade or more ago things would be different. We could enjoy the Hunger Games together, we could both simultaneously suffer from Bieber Fever and I could have eaten all of his leftovers without worrying about calories. Not so when 35 years separates us. Now I can easily justify saying, “When I was your age.” “When I was your age, we called a thirty second video clip a commercial.” Will I be able to teach him to appreciate the things that made me who I am today or is he too far removed from my generation? Will the coming of age moments for me be relevant for him? Will the movies, books, video games and music mean anything now or will they be campy and ironic to him? I’ve begun compiling a list of media he will need to consume (and appreciate) as he

You Say You Want A Revolution?

There will certainly be a time in our son’s life where he will think he is cooler than us and rebel against the way we chose to raise him. He will be on his way to becoming a Jedi of his own. In an attempt to limit the damage to his ego and curb his embarrassment when he realizes he is, and will always be, less cool than his parents, I will attempt now to predict the ways in which he will play in opposition to our interests. This way, how can it be his revolution if I called it first? Note, on this day in 2013, I predicted he would go through these phases and also predicted they wouldn’t last long. -Dad. I’m really digging this new band. Actually… The whole genre. I’m really into Christian Rock now. -Dad. I like wearing white tank tops because they really show off my gold chains. -Dad. I know you like watching Seinfeld but that show is thirty years old. Can I please turn on Sports Center? -Dad. I can’t believe you

Catholic School made me a Sinner

I put in twelve years of Catholic school… I was released on my own recognizance but served parole under the watchful eyes of a Baptist college. You could say I was “institutionalized” and feared life on the outside. Twelve years of a regulated wardrobe can have a lasting effect if they occur between five and seventeen years of age. I was the kid at the skating rink in navy blue dress pants and a white dress shirt. My time with Catholics made me a sinner. I’m not sure if it’s that they taught me what sins were or made it so damned easy to be one. I get it, you break the rules… you’re a sinner. But they made the rules, and had I not gone to a Catholic school, I wouldn’t have known they were there to break. I worried for my friends who weren’t baptized because, after they died, they’d spend their life in purgatory with all the dead pets, but they didn’t know what purgatory was. What came first, the chicken or the idea of a life

My childhood “Boy named Sue” moment

In grade school, we wore navy blue pants and white dress shirts. The boys had triangular collars, while the girls wore the rounded ones that little Catholic school girls wear. There was an unfortunate era when my sister and I wore the same size shirt even though we were two years apart. And, of course, there was that day. One of those days that sticks with you forever and came back to me the other day when I was trying on used sweaters at an outdoor market in Amsterdam. “This is a girl’s sweater,” I said to Susan. “Oh no, it’s not. It looks good on you,” she answered. “Irrelevant how it looks, the buttons are on the wrong side.” Back to grade school. The unlucky day must have been around 5th grade, and it was made clear to me by my teacher that I was wearing a girl’s shirt. She asked, of course, in front of the class, “Are you wearing your sister’s clothes?” The class turned and erupted in laughter. “Stork-dork’s wearing a girl’s shirt!” So my question

My theme park – My babysitter

I grew up in the theme park Busch Gardens and its water park sister, Adventure Island. They were my babysitters. They were my Grandma’s house. They were home. They were where I went when school was out for the summer, where I went when I was too sick for school or where I went when the parents didn’t want me around for the day. They were where my sister and I did our homework and worked on after-school projects. We weren’t latchkey kids. We were turn-style key kids. “Pick you up at the gate at 5” was as synonymous as “Don’t give your grandma a hard time.” Growing up, my parents both worked in management there. He was the VP of Marketing. She did the same for the Special Events department. Both titles had their own distinctive perks for two spoiled theme park kids. Marketing, through the eyes of a child, was more about trade than advertising. We had plenty of coupons and free food cards to eat wherever the current ad campaign was partnered. One month it may be

WHERE ARCADE GAMES GO TO DIE

With not much on my plate yesterday I made the short trek out to Crabtown to see what it was all about. I figured if it was listed on the internet on a website devoted to classic arcade game rooms and was ranked high on the most games list… I should check it out. Especially if Mapquest said it was just 9 miles away. I clicked on “map the scenic route” because it was going to take us to the heart of Glen Burnie, MD and all routes in Glen Burnie are scenic routes. As my buddy Ben said on our drive out, “If you’re ever feeling down about yourself, go to the Wal-Mart in Glen Burnie.”Growing up in a game room in Tampa I have missed the days of sweaty palms full of quarters and the sounds of dozens of games all blaring the sounds from the high scores screen. I look for classic games when i travel and have seen a few here and there but the idea of an old game room full intrigued me. The posts

Scroll to Top