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Pool Rules: Force Teachers to Swim
Read more: Pool Rules: Force Teachers to SwimOver the years I’ve developed some rules for dealing with young kids at swim practice. One is, never ask a swimmer, “What are you doing?” The question is totally unproductive: it’s almost guaranteed to be uttered in anger and frustration, and the kid’s not going to have a good answer. Better to just go ahead…
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Nature’s Prozac
Read more: Nature’s ProzacSitting atop the roof at Folly Beach’s Catch 23, formerly Snapper Jack’s of bridal massacre fame, my college roommate Dan and I discussed the nature of unexpected joy, those fleeting moments in which the miraculousness of one’s existence is suddenly a palpable thing, when the light coming in the window or the thought of a…
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Snow Day
Read more: Snow DayIt was a Friday morning, and my day had gotten off to a late start. I stumbled still half-asleep into the living room, and the sound of Cartter’s heavy footsteps hustling from his bedroom in the back hallway roused me to alertness. “Scotty, guess what I found?” Scotty matched his older brother’s tone of enthusiasm…
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Killing Christmas
Read more: Killing ChristmasThe morning of the kids’ last day off from school over Christmas break, I was roused at six a.m. by a moaning sound that mixed with the whir of the box fan in Danyelle’s and my bedroom. It was so constant and steady that I thought the spinning blades must have randomly achieved some resonant…
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The Tiniest Bather
Read more: The Tiniest BatherAs I pointed at each little pair of dots in the picture next to the table of contents, my 6-year-old Scotty peered over my shoulder, and I asked him, “Can you tell what those are?” A dog lay next to a campfire, looking out into the surrounding wilderness. “Stars,” said Scotty. It’s what I’d thought…
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Christmas Routine
Read more: Christmas RoutineRounding the bend on Scotland Drive each evening on my way home from the pool, the twinkle of the lights strung around my neighbors’ trees and shrubs arouse no feelings of Christmas cheer, nostalgia, or grinchy bitterness. I look left and right, hoping for something to well up inside me, and I come up empty…
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Simple Gifts
Read more: Simple GiftsStarting up the Nix Creek trail that wends its way around the headwaters of Sapphire’s Upper Lake, the boys tromp along ahead of me, little camo packs with sandwiches and waters on their backs. Their jackets come off and go back on again as their body temperature fluctuates in the cool November air. The skies…
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Girls. Lots of Girls.
Read more: Girls. Lots of Girls.When I was fifteen, during my sophomore year in high school, my best friend on the swim team quit. He apparently reached the conclusion that spending twenty-five hours a week at practice wasn’t worth it if he was never even going to be able to beat the likes of me, let alone the sea of…
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The Fair
Read more: The FairDriving away from the carpool line on a Friday afternoon in early November, the conversation quickly landed on the topic of “manning up.” Upon alighting in the backseat, our first-grader Scotty told of how he had forgotten his lunchbox at recess, and how rather than letting it remain at school overnight for the umpteenth time,…
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Parent Teacher Conference
Read more: Parent Teacher ConferenceI’ve had about enough by the time my third-grade son’s reading teacher pushes the little stack of papers toward me again. “If you’ll just help him with these questions . . .” she says for the third time. She wants Cartter to speak up more in class, to present himself more confidently. To her, his…
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The Raging Elitist 