Back when our kids were little, after dinner we’d load them into a red wagon and stroll downtown along a riverside path, and buy ice-cream cones. I wouldn’t mind if my kids grew up thinking that all life is as idyllic as this, but sometimes seamy stuff intrudes and must be dealt with. One evening, when...

“Hey Dad, where’d we get this?” My 8-year-old daughter Wendy handed me an ancient comic book that she’d found in the attic. It was the Classics Illustrated bio of Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919). It made me smile to see it. “My mom gave it to me when I was your age,” I told her. “Is it any good?”...

It was 7 o’clock on a Wednesday morning about six years ago. As I lay waking up in bed, my wife, all dressed for work, gave me my orders. “Now listen carefully,” she said, “Drop Marie off at school, take Sally to Brittany’s house and take Wendy to Gayla’s.  Now, repeat that back to me.” I...

Well, here it is January and we’re yet one more year into The Future. I knew The Future would be like this – with robots bringing me snacks and my self-navigating solar car moored near my front door. Not that I drive much. I telecommute. A few minutes on the laptop, and my contribution to the world of...

When my daughter Sally turned 8, I bought her a new wooden canoe paddle and burned her name into the blade. With the gift came a promise: In July she and I would take a three-day canoe trip on the river that flows past our house. We hung the paddle over her bed. Sally was excited. In fact, we both were,...

“Daddy, why did the lady give you money?” asked my daughter Marie back when she was 5. We had just crossed a toll bridge and Marie was trying to make sense of the transaction at the booth. I would’ve liked to answer: “Don’t you know? THIS is where money comes from. Whenever grownups run low on...

It was midnight. Three other fathers and I were sitting around a campfire, talking, drinking illicit beer and staring into the flames. We were on a YMCA Adventure Guides camp-out. Our kids were asleep in the cabin, their marshmallow-smeared faces glued to their pillows. Out by the fire one of the guys...

“Tell me a story about The Green Man Goes Trick-or-Treating.” When my daughter Sally was 3, that’s what she’d demand every night at bedtime for about a year. The Green Man is a weathered bronze statue of a soldier that stands on a big rock about two blocks from our house. I’d tell Sally bedtime...

“Wendy!” I said, “What happened to your dress?” It was a cute little green-velvet number that my wife Betsy had bought for our 7-year-old to wear in the school concert. Up near the nape of her neck, there was a ragged hole big enough for a butterfly to sail through. Wendy reddened, tears welled in...

Well, here it is February, the month of Valentines, and time for the annual report on my daughters’ love-lives. The girls are now 7, 10 and 14 years old, and they are all in love. With a 15-year-old named Pete. I’d been hearing about Pete for a year or two, always as an object of fun among Marie and her...