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Recently, we let our kids watch their first PG-13 movie. We were on a rare family trip that necessitated staying in a hotel, and Mrs. Doubtfire was on TV. “What the heck?” I thought, “I saw it when I was a kid.” I was entertained by Robin Williams’ performance back then, and I still am.…
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Behind schedule and running to catch a train in a crowded station, that intellectual giant Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan, suddenly stopped at his friend’s behest and took stock of his behavior. “I don’t run for trains,” his friend told him. I used to share that inclination. I remember heading out from my…
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The butterflies started in my stomach about 15 miles before we reached the hotel. Danyelle and I were driving south through the lowland forest of Retirement-Land, South Carolina bound for a resort outside Beaufort. A weekend away from the kids awaited, and for some reason, I dreaded getting there. “I’m nervous,” I confessed. I recognized…
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It’s all too easy to slip into a bad mood at my son’s Saturday morning basketball games. I don’t want to have to be anywhere at 9 a.m. on a Saturday to begin with, much less the noisy, crowded town hall gym, biting my lip as I watch kids commit endless infractions that go unpenalized…
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I like to claim that the Wendy’s near our home, the one on the corner of Houston Northcutt and 17 North, is the slowest Wendy’s in the world. I generally budget a half-hour wait time when using the drive-through to get my kids’ cheeseburgers. It’s fully worth it. Wendy’s is the burger against which all…
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Some of the best conversations I have with my second grader come in the last few minutes before I drop him off at school. We ride all the way across town together in near silence, just the two of us, and then as we roll onto campus, we’re suddenly ready to talk. He wakes me…
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I think when my kids grow up and move out that I’d like to go back to the places we took them where they ran and played and laughed without knowing what was coming, not caring about what was next, the places where I watched them be completely free; I want to go back to…
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Sometimes I envy people who seem more decisive than I am. Why are they so sure of what to do when I’m so full of doubt? I think I’d like to be more like them, always moving forward, not bothered by the possibility of unknown risks, easily dismissing my past failures. Then, I remember that…
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My old man has this joke about Jesus on his way to be executed. The telling pivots back and forth from increasingly animated descriptions of Jesus’s torment – the crown of thorns, the weight of the cross, the spitting and jeering of the crowd – to an imitation of Jesus stoically pressing on despite his…
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Sometimes driving Cartter to school is a learning experience. This morning, for instance, I learned that Polar Bears have black fur underneath their white fur because it “attracts the sun.” “Why do they need white fur, then?” I asked. “So they blend in with the ice.” “Why do they need to blend in with the…
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The Raging Elitist 