Father's Day 2015

"It is a wise father that knows his own child"- William Shakespeare 

It is 7pm on Fathers Day, and I'm sitting on the back porch enjoying a cigar and stout ale...very manly, I know.  Jami has taken the kids to her grandfather's farm for a bonfire. Thus, my Fathers Day gift has been some peace and quiet, which in turn has given me time to reflect on being a father.

First, a few memories of my own father. My father and I are quite opposite in personality. I would describe my father as conservative, reserved,  and intellectual. On the other hand, I'm fairly liberal, artistic, and prone to flights of fancy. This disparity in disposition, resulted in neither one of us "getting" the other when I was growing up. What does a shrewd business professional say to his son when the latter informs his father that he intends to go to the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic Arts, to become a comic book artist? The father sees this idea as unrealistic, or a phase. When the father encourages the son to save his money and to never accrue credit card debt, the son sees the wisdom of the elder as being overprotective and an unwillingness to "carpe" the "diem". There was a disconnect.

The son does recall watching the father run down a country road carrying a torch, that as the son understood would eventually be carried to the Pan Am Games in Indianapolis circa 1987. In the son's eyes, his father was an olympian, the son's heart swelled with pride. The son remembers a Christmas when he received fake razors, and the father slathered the boy's whisker-less face with Barbasol and proceeded to shave the boy's face. The son felt like a man. The son reminisces about the time the father put up a basketball goal, and brought home a new bmx bike. The father often showed his love and selflessness in his provision for his family. 

In recent years my father has from time to time lamented over the fact that he had a short fuse and a quick temper when my brother and I were younger. And yes, I suppose I could tell a few stories of when that temper reared its red face and pursed lips. But why? That's not how I choose to remember my father.  I see my father as a man who loved his family dearly and wanted the absolute best for his family, sometimes to a fault. He worked his ass off to provide for his children, perhaps to give them the things he never had when he was growing up?

I choose to remember my father in snippets of memories that play in my mind like an old 35mm family home movie. The scene of him embracing his boys at his father's funeral, unaware that this was the first time his sons had seen him cry, plays in the theatre of my memories. The time I saw him head laying down on his crossed arms as he sat at the patio table, trying to compose his emotions after packing up my brother's Camero and watching him drive off to his freshmen year at college; this picture of love is nestled into my memory. I can easily picture my father choking back tears as I handed him my boy, and he held his grandson for the first time.  

This is the father I tenderly remember.

For my own children, I hope I can provide for them the way my father provided for me, my brother, and my mother. Also, I hope that I know them. That I can understand, appreciate, and encourage their personality quirks. For all os us, I hope that we can guide our children and help them become who they were meant to be, and not try to mold them into who we would have them be. 

Easier said than done.

Update: my daughter came home and saw the cigar that I was 3/4 of the way done smoking.  She picked it up and threw it into the yard and told me, "you shouldn't blow smoke."

the end of innocence

 "You should try losing some weight over the summer." she said to me. The "she" in question, was a serious babe, maybe the cutest girl in our sixth grade class. I probably made a joke, because then...as it is now, it was my go to defense mechanism. However, 24 years later I can still remember those words slashing their way into my psyche. It turns out that sixth grade is a very vulnerable time for kids emotionally. I was coming to grips with my appearance and growing ever more self-conscious. I was admittedly a little chunky, I had an affinity for Hostess cupcakes and was a year or two shy of a growth spurt that would allow me to shed my "baby fat". However, I was not so big as to warrant that particular comment from that particular girl. My perception was that I was fat, whether or not that was true is beside the point; perception is reality. I wonder if she remembers saying those words to me? I wonder if she ever thought how those words would echo in my head, and make me worry about whether or not people liked me or thought I was cool? The doubts, insecurities, and self loathing her words put in my head wreaked havoc on my self-confidence, the consequences of which I still deal with at age 36.

"Turn the other cheek." I was brought up in a religious family, and this adage was preached from the pulpit on Sundays. When I was in sixth grade me and my buddies used to walk around downtown Washington, IN after school. We would head to the White Steamer after school, where we would scarf down cheeseburgers prepared on a flat top grill that had been searing ground beef patties and grilled onions the same way for twenty plus years. We'd then walk around, hitting up Tater's music and movies, and The End Zone sporting goods store. We were killing time, not a worry in the world. One day another group of guys, a year or two older than us, was downtown too. In the unfair social hierarchy of the teenage world, these fellas were, to borrow a term from S.E. Hinton, Greasers. My friends and I were Socs.

One of the boys from their group was named Danny. He'd gone to our school a few years back, but moved away. He had apparently moved back to our little town. As they passed us on their bikes, I remarked to my buddy Bruce, "Hey that's Danny Dinosaur". We laughed. In third grade I got in a playground fight with Danny, probably because I called him Danny Dinosaur. This put-down seems comically unoffensive to me now. However, I'm sure the attitude with which I called him this pre-historic insult, was plenty hurtful. I won the fight then, if you can call it winning. When the teachers pulled us apart I was on top and strangling him with both hands.

I'm not sure if on that day downtown, he remembered our fight from third grade or not, but when he heard me say Danny Dinosaur again, it brought back that rage from our playground battle. His group cornered my group and he preceded to punch me twice in the face. The punches didn't hurt, but the sting of embarrassment was a much worse pain. 

I wanted to hit him back, but then I remembered, "Turn the other Cheek". If I could go back and tell my sixth grade self something, I'd tell myself "Hey after Danny throws that first punch... knock his ass out!" I'd warn myself about how not standing up to that bully, would create a ripple effect chipping away and sometimes hacking away at my self confidence. I'd apprise myself that if you don't fight this kid, you'll be scared to go to the movies on the weekends, or to the county fair, or to the 4th of July festival in the park. I'd tell myself that for the rest of your life you'll be constantly battling those feelings of fear that creep up inside you and make you shut down. "Sixth grade Josh, if you don't stand up to this punk now, you'll find that you become afraid to stand up for anything...it will mess you up for life."

Having learned to box, wrestle, and fight since 6th grade, I've decided that I will teach my kids to defend themselves. They will know to never start a fight, but if someone picks a fight...they will by god end it. "Turn the other cheek" is a great idea in theory...but in the real world it doesn't pass muster. In the real world, kids can be cruel. My son is learning this.

The other day my kids were all outside playing. Our house has a trampoline, playset, basketball goal, and a decently sized backyard, all of which create an enticing place for the neighborhood kids to come play. With eight kids playing in our backyard, it looked like recess at the Cecil house. Two of the neighborhood boys, both a year or two older than E, were from my observation, trying to play something. I wasn't sure what it was, but my instincts told me it was nefarious. As I continued to watch them, I noticed that they would run to a corner of our yard, or to the top of the playset, or to the trampoline. Whenever E attempted to join them, they would run away saying, "go away" or "leave us alone". Once I figured out that they were purposefully trying to exclude my son while playing in his yard, I got livid. Confronting the boys I explained that we don't exclude others in our yard, if they were going to continue this behavior they would be asked to leave. 

Reflecting on this incident now, it breaks my heart. E is such a sweet and innocent goofball of a kid. The interests of these older boys are, I'm sure, quite different than E's. While they've rounded the corner age-wise, where they're probably more into sports and less into Pokemon, E still enjoys the freedom of imaginary play. E doesn't understand that some kids don't think superheroes or Yoda are cool. When those boys attempted to run away from him and not let him be a part of their game, not only were they hurting his self esteem, they were destroying his innocence. He was learning that the world is not always nice, and sometimes kids are mean. 

I was learning that I will not always be able to protect my kids from a world that can often times be cruel. I could see the lightbulb going off in his eyes, illuminating the blissful darkness where the idealistic beliefs of, we're all friends and we can all get along and play together, sleep. It pains me. I don't want his self confidence to erode, and for him to be afraid of older kids, or of trying new things, or not being good enough. I struggle to learn those lessons today, because I did not learn them when I was young. I understand that it is my job as a father to instill that confidence in my kids. They must be brave enough to know, that even though the world around us can be cruel and unfair, they have the ability to live in it and change it for the better.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite poems, "If", by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Ain't that a kick in the nut

The soccer ball was coming right at me, it's greenish-yellowish glow in the dark pentagons had me entranced like a deer gazing into the halogen glow of an oncoming car. The projectile was on course for my my groin, it was to be a direct hit in my boilermaker, my netherlands, the holiest of holies, twig and berries, meat and two veg, bollocks, cojones, the knackers, well...you get the idea. Upon contact I doubled over as the sensation moved from my nuggets and started wrenching my gut. My son, who launched the ball, gleefully exclaimed, "I kicked the ball in your nut!".

"It's plural son...nuts," my inner English teacher forced in reply, "at least for now." 

Lately my son has been obsessed with hitting and getting hit in the nuts. One of his little buddies accidentally kicked him in his...well...little buddies. As young boys often do, they both thought it was hilarious. I'm not sure when getting walloped in baggage claim goes from being funny to being intensely painful. However, seeing another guy taking a shot to the knapsack, or fall a good distance only to land straddling a beam of some sort, will always be a little funny.

"You shouldn't hit people there son." I was attempting to explain this unwritten man rule to the boy.

"Why not?" E asked through a beaming smile.

"When you grow up, it really hurts." I exhaled.

 I'm always amazed at how durable kids are. They seem so fragile that I'm sure I handle mine with too much care sometimes. However accidents do happen. Z bounced off of our trampoline and broke her arm not long ago. I reckon throughout my childhood, youth, and young adult life, I've been dinged in the danglers on many an occasion. It always hurts, sometimes more than others, but always, it hurts. That's part of growing up though, isn't it? Moments of hurt followed by recovery, followed by moving on. 

My father surprised us with a trampoline one summer, bringing it home for no apparent reason. I spent hours and hours practicing tricks and testing the limits of it's elasticity. Naturally, I held many a professional wrestling match against imaginary foes, in fact I was the world heavyweight champion of my imaginary professional wrestling organization. Not bad for a 5th grader. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of America's Funniest Videos knows that trampolines are ripe with comedic potential. Comedy based on, as most comedy is, pain. I once over-rotated on a front flip and as I sprang forward from a failed landing I crashed, throat first against the frame of the trampoline. The speed at which I hit the cold steel caused me to feel like I dislodged my Adam's Apple. I couldn't talk or breath for what seemed like minutes. It hurt, but I recovered and moved on. 

There is a vague memory somewhere in my mind of the time I ran my arm through the window pane of our front door. At the time, I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. I recall being excited that my favorite cartoon was on, I was purposely overreacting to the news to get a laugh out of the babysitter or a neighbor. I ran to the door, knowing that because it was an old door I would need the extra leverage that pushing against the window pane would give me, to get the door to open. The pane, being equally as old as the door, succumbed to my weight. As the glass shattered my arm went through and got snagged on a shard of glass. I now have a 3 inch scar to remind me of the impatience of my youth. It hurt, but I recovered and moved on.

There is pain sometimes so crippling and intense, one wonders if healing is even possible. My grandfather, Emerson Stevens, who my first son is named after, passed away when I was fairly young. I have scattered memories along a broken timeline of him. In the summers I loved to ride around the fairgrounds with him in an old golf cart, as we delivered cans of soda to volunteers who were helping park cars or direct traffic. He would let me have as many Red Creme Sodas, as I could finish on our excursions. He took me to see, Dick the Bruiser at my first professional wrestling event at that fair. In my grandparents living room, where my family would often gather to eat popcorn and watch the IU Hoosiers play ball, he used to playfully pin me to the ground, using only his corduroy-slip-on-shoe covered feet, wrestling me from his rocking chair.  He used to get a kick out of setting off firecrackers underneath used coffee cans as all the grandchildren screamed and covered their ears. In my mind's eye he was big, strong, and slightly imposing. I always looked up to him. 

As I said, I was young when he passed away and the memories of his passing all run together in a water color painting of hospital visits and a funeral. I do remember being to scared to go into his hospital room one last time to say goodbye. Seeing my family weeping around his bedside was too much for me, I couldn't make sense of it all, and so, fear got the better of me.

I can't say for certain if he was in pain as he was dying, I was too young to remember. But, I do recall the pain my grandmother felt watching her husband's condition deteriorate. Her anguish was palpable even to my young senses. The Sunday after grandpa's death I sat next to grandma in the pew at Second St. Church of Christ. The service was over, and the preacher was making his announcements. As he told the church that Emerson Stevens passed away and explained the details of the funeral and visitation, I began to cry. Next to me, my grandma began sobbing and out of the corner of my eye I could see her shoulders bobbing up and down. I remember she put her arm around me and hugged me close to her, as much for her comfort as mine. She said, "We'll be alright." As much to convince herself as me. 

For months after grandpa was gone, my parents, brother, and I would go to Bloomington to visit and make sure she was doing alright. When we would leave to go home, she would walk out to the driveway to see us off. I can still see her waving goodbye as we pulled away, barely capable of holding back the tears, voice cracking as she pleaded for us to come back soon. It was her pain, seeping out of wounds that life left behind. She was scared of being alone, how could she not be? For over fifty years she had shared her life with the man she loved. That kind of relationship between two people creates a fertile soil for a pain that few will experience. A pain rooted in love and loss. Even considering the pain that grandpa's death caused her, I know grandma wouldn't trade her life with him for anything this world could offer. 

And so, life moves irrevocably forward and it has be twenty-plus years since I last saw my grandfather. 

Grandma will turn 98 this year. She has lived well in the years since she lost her husband. She worked into her 80's, at one point working as an activities director at nursing home helping to care for residents much younger than she. Perhaps to find solace after grandpa's death, she picked up a paintbrush and began to paint vibrant oil paintings. As it turns out, she is an immensely talented artist. She still lives at home by herself, in the house where she and grandpa built a remarkable life and raised a family. 

She hurt, but she recovered, and she moved on. 

below is a link to a news article the Bloomington Herald Times featured on my grandma.

"Home is Where Her Hobbies Are"

Grandma at her home on Moffet Lane.

it's a bird...it's a plane...no, it's a sibling rivalry.

 The ruckus came from the "purple room", a room that was painted a deep plum color when we first moved into our house but has since been painted a more neutral color. I peeked my head around the corner to investigate what was causing all the commotion. Fighting imaginary villains and henchmen, my boys were a a flurry of arms stretching out to shoot lasers and fireballs, and legs performing shin-high karate kicks. My boys were playing superheroes, the images from their comic books, and characters from their cartoons were coming to life and I couldn't have been a prouder poppa.  

I can't say my kids current exploration into being caped crusaders isn't somewhat influenced by me. After all, if you've seen the Super Cecils trailer I created over Spring Break, you might assume playing superheroes in our house is encouraged...which it kind of is. What really struck me is the way that E, aka Master Blaster, encouraged his little brother and more or less invited him into his super hero fantasy world. I think E was assembling his own little super team. In the movie trailer we made L wanted to be called Monster, since joining the ranks of E's superhero squad, his character has mutated into Power Boy. So there in our once purple sitting room, Master Blaster and Power Boy were fighting the forces of evil and the occasional dragon, completely unaware that I was watching. Lost in their imaginations and playing as brothers and friends.

My hope is that these boys will in some way maintain this bond throughout their lives, that E will always encourage L and invite him into whatever it is that E is doing. I hope that L will always relish the role of sidekick to his big brother.

When I was younger, I got into a bit of trouble after chasing my older brother Nathan around the house with a butter knife, hell-bent on exacting revenge for what I perceived as his cheating at Skip-bo. In reality, he was probably just better at it than me since I was only 5 or 6 and the intricacies of the card game were lost on me. Handling a loss was never my strong suit. On another occasion, I recall throwing a brick at my brother as he jumped on the trampoline. The trampoline was sort of my domain, it was were I practiced my superhero/ professional wrestler moves. He must have kicked me off for some reason or another, and I responded adversely.

Growing up, my brother and I weren't overly close. We played together more out of a mutual need to pacify our boredom than any genuine affection towards one another. It was not that we disliked each other, although there was the typical picking on each other that is prevalent amongst siblings, our disaccord more often resulted from having disparate interests. Where I preferred comic books, professional wrestling, rock music, art, and contact sports; Nathan preferred 4H, country music, golf, fishing, & excelling at school.

While we, more often than not, tended to mutually exclude each other form our own activities, I do have a bunch of fond memories of growing up with a big bro. I can remember playing baseball at our friends' the Boyd's house. I was in the infield and my brother in the outfield when the opposing team hit a shot over my head. I jumped up fully extended to snatch the ball from the air. My full extension caused me to also lean back, putting me into a position where my feet were no longer beneath me. I landed flat on my back which either knocked the wind out of me, knocked me out, or a little of both. I can't imagine that I had the grip strength or mental acuity to close my mitt and complete the catch. However as I came to my senses with he other players around me, it was revealed that I had indeed got the batter out with my golden-glovesque play. I have my suspicions now as I did then, that my brother unbeknownst to me placed the ball in my glove as I lay motionless on the ground to trying to recover. Whether it was out of pity or some form of admiration at my effort, I don't know. What I do know is I was thankful for it then and respect him for it now.

On another occasion, when we were very young, I remember playing war, or guns, or army...whatever we called it, with the neighborhood kids. I being 5 or 6 at the time was convinced that my camouflage pants and shirt lent me a level of stealthiness that bordered on invisibility. My big brother was on the opposing side as we battled over some unknown grievance between our factions. In the middle of an open-field skirmish that was to be the climactic firefight of our neighborhood game, I crept out of my team's fort. Belly crawling towards the enemy, I hoped to establish a superior vantage point from which I could pin the opposition down with my unseen bullets. My foes were many, and none were fooled by my tactics nor blinded by my camouflage outfit. My brother on the other hand pretended that he did not see me or notice that his entire team was peppering the crawling camo kid with gunfire. As I popped up out of the grass, which was likely fresh cut, I managed to take down my target with one well timed kill shot. My brother acted surprised when his kid brother sprang up buzzing his lips to emulate the tumult of a sub-machine gun. He fell to his second or third death in that day's game of war, seconds later I succumbed to his team's retaliatory fire. There we lie on the battlefield of our backyard, two brothers bonded in war by death...for at least the next ten-Mississippi seconds until we could regenerate. I wonder now if as we lie there on the ground, my brother knowingly accepted his mortality because he understood that I wanted to feel special and heroic using my camo to create a sneak attack. I know that when I popped up and saw that my plan "worked", I felt pretty cool.

My childhood is punctuated with moments of closeness and distance with my brother. As I became a teenager and young adult that distance grew as my teen angst, moodiness, and self-centeredness grew. As I've grown older, I understand that the angst of my youth was silly, my moodiness was born of a need to be different, and my self-centeredness was and is a cancer that eats away at the real relationships that matter in life.

Not long after I graduated college I found myself working a sales job that I absolutely hated and wasn't very good at. I quit that job to pursue a music career...I quickly found myself broke. My brother ended up buying an old guitar and amplifier from me even though he had no intention of playing it. He never said it, but I think he gave me the money because he pitied me and understood what I was trying to do. I was trying to figure out who I was, I was trying to become a man.

A few years later, when I married Jami, I asked Nathan to be my best man. I could think of no better term for him even now. Best Man. He is the best man I know, I admire him and have a profound respect for who he has become. We are much closer now than when we were younger. When our families get together our kids play together, our wives talk, and Nathan and I try to get our dad laughing so hard that he wheezes. He went from being a CPA, to going to seminary, and is now the CEO of Center for Global Impact, an organization that works in Southeast Asia to help young girls find freedom from the darkness of the sex-slavery industry. This weekend his organization is having a 5k race to raise much needed funds. One aspect of the race is that participants are encouraged to dress up like a favorite superhero. I, however, won't be dressing up as my favorite superhero because they do not make a costume of my big brother (If they did it would be a pair of khakis pulled up to a questionable height and a polo shirt tucked in, real business casual).

To E and L I say:You have something special. You have a brother, a life-long companion. Friends will come and go, but your brother will be there forever. Don't take that for granted, especially in your younger days. I did, and regret it.

To Nathan I say: Though I rarely speak it aloud, (because it is not the way of Cecil men) I love you bro.

A Super Preview

Below is what happens when a dad with video experience, an overactive imagination, and years of comic book reading under his belt, gets bored on Spring Break. For your viewing pleasure...the scratch to my creative itch, enjoy!

Sight for sore legs

There was a time when I used to enjoy running, perhaps tolerate is a better verb. This was primarily before child #4 came along. I was doing garage workouts similar to Crossfit WOD's, the only difference was that I didn't go around talking incessantly about how I do Crossfit.

INT: WE ARE AT A DINNER PARTY, GUESTS ARE MINGLING IN THEIR EVENING WEAR, AND MOST ARE HOLDING A BEVERAGE IN ONE HAND AS THEY TALK CAUSALLY WITH OTHER GUESTS.

HOST:     

I read recently that China's lack of infrastructure development, could potentially cause a                     massive collapse in its economy.  

CROSSFITTER (Feigning interest):         

It's funny because I was just thinking the other day that if I don't emphasize mobility in my Crossfit WOD's more, my time in some of the benchmark WOD's could suffer.

HOST:    

I'm afraid I don't see the connection.

CROSSFITTER:       

Is this dip Paleo?

HOST:     

I'm not sure what that means.

CROSSFITTER (Yelling):          

Crossfit !!!!!

In an effort to stay fit and to get out of the house, I would regularly load up E, Z, and H into a massive triple jogger stroller. The idea that seeing a man running down the sidewalk pushing a humongous stroller with 3 kids in it, never struck me as unique. However, every time I went out it never failed that I would get at least one honk from a passing car whose driver would give me a wave or a thumbs up. At first I thought I was just seeing people that knew me from work or something. As time passed and the pattern continued, I began to understand that passing cars were equally amused and impressed at the sight of a father pushing his 3 kids whilst out for a run.

I think people overestimated the difficulties I must have been experiencing. People probably assumed that the added weight of pushing 3 toddlers, must have infinitely increased the trials and tribulations of an otherwise leisurely jog. While I can attest that the 3 kids and jogger stroller added some resistance to my run, particularly on hills, the reality is it probably was not that much more difficult than when an octogenarian decides to add some hand and ankle weights to their mall walking routine.

The ego boost I received from passing cars probably took 20-30 seconds off of my mile, it was great feeling like some sort of Super Dad. On one occasion one guy rolled by, and shouted out of his open window, "You the man!". Thanks random stranger, I am the man. Not only am I great father for spending time with my kids, but my cardiovascular conditioning must be on par with triathletes..."I'm the Ironman!"

I sometimes wonder what kinds of memories my kids will have of me. Will they remember the times we went running? Will they remember how they used to shout green-light, and daddy would sprint as fast as he could pushing them in the stroller as they raised their hands over the heads screaming gleefully like they were on a roller coaster? Will they remember the countless trips to the park, or the times mommy and daddy would take them to the Farmer's Market? Will they fondly recall the times we had movie night, and ate popcorn and drank chocolate milk?

There is a running joke in my family, about how I was always changing what I wanted to be when I grew up. My parents and brother can all confirm, that at one time or another I wanted to be: an actor, a professional wrestler, a comic book artist, a chef, a rock star, an advertising executive, and a slew of other things. The fact that I came to finding my career as a teacher at the ripe old age of 36 is likely correlated to my constant fluctuation in career paths as a child. As I stated, I'm a teacher, but I've come to realize that's not how I want to be remembered. I want to be remembered as a good dad and husband. The highest achievement I could have would be for my grown kids to say, "Dad, you remember that time we...?" "You were a great dad."

So, with all of that in mind...

Mom, among other things, thanks for making that watermelon cake with green icing for my birthday that one year. You went to Bloomington one time for work, thanks for bringing home those He-man action figures that turned into rocks. Thanks for coming to all of my football games, and even though I acted like I was embarrassed because you were so loud and you always had that noise maker shakey thing...I secretly appreciated it. Thanks for telling me that I'd make a good teacher.

Dad, among other things, thanks for taking me to Olive Garden on quite a few of my birthdays. Thanks for taking me to Wrestlemania VIII, even though I'm pretty sure you don't like professional wrestling. I wish I would've returned the favor and gone fishing with you more, even though I'm pretty sure I don't like fishing. Admittedly, I sometimes thought you only had me and Nathan, because you wanted help with yard work...but, thanks for making me mow the yard, trim the hedges, shovel the driveway, etc. You should know I still hear your voice in my head, telling me if I'm going to do something, do it right. Thanks for giving me a couple of hundred bucks the day I moved my family to Las Vegas...you said it was to help with moving costs, but I know you just wanted to give me something tangible so that I knew you loved me. Also, thanks for not telling me I made a mistake when less than a year later, I moved my family back to Indiana.

Mom and Dad, you remember that time you asked the neighbors to put the presents under our tree while we were all at Grandma's house? And when we got home we thought Santa visited us?  You were great parents.