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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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Theater Critic
Read more: Theater CriticDuring the six-and-a-half years I’ve been observing the behavior of my younger son Scotty, I’ve sometimes thought that the boy might end up being well suited for the theater. Never mind the importance he places on school productions, the way he draws pictures of himself performing in the days leading up to such events, the…
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Don’t Forget Your Lunchbox
Read more: Don’t Forget Your LunchboxDriving away from my children’s school on a Friday afternoon in early October, I’m distracted enough to make it the full length of the city’s seawall without fully understanding the discussion going on between my six-year-old in the backseat and my wife sitting next to me. The light rain falling on the minivan’s windshield is…
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Social Life
Read more: Social LifeA couple with children the same age as ours, one whose company Danyelle and I both truly enjoy, one we invite over for dinner and drinks; adult friends who fit into our lives in a way that is neither forced nor left over from the time before we had kids – long have I waited…
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This Last Day of Summer
Read more: This Last Day of Summer“And every evening, when Frith has done his day’s work and lies calm and easy in the red sky, El-ahrairah and his children and his children’s children come out of their holes and feed and play in his sight, for they are his friends and he has promised them that they can never be destroyed.”…
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The Raging Elitist 