Human Beings the Great Garbage Collectors

What is it about the human species that we feel the need to collect garbage? I was thinking about this while running the other night. I had passed a house with the garage door open and what looked like a vast mountain range of cardboard boxes that rivaled the Rockies. While it was pretty dark, I could clearly see that this concentration of “stuff” was causing a sink hole to develop beneath it.

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Could College Move-In Day Have Been That Long Ago?

When I think back about my first day at college — move-in day — I dredge up all kinds of memories: excitement, dread, freedom, fear of the unknown, not knowing how to do laundry, nervousness, freedom, uncertainty and liberation. Plus, that everything I owned, down to the very pair of underwear I was wearing, had my name written on them in permanent black ink. That was thanks to my mother. I think she assumed that my new roommate, or maybe the townspeople of St. Augustine, would be highly interested in sneaking into my room to make off with my shorts, shirts, and yes, underwear. But thanks to her handy anti-theft devices, should that unthinkable happen, I could march around campus, or town, demanding to see people’s underwear and then scream, “A-ha, those aren’t mine, but you should change ‘em once in a while.” She probably thought it would also be a good way to make friends. I don’t know what my brother-in-law’s memories will be of that day — the kind that you can relive in vivid color 15 years later. But I could see in his face some of what he was experiencing as we moved him into his new dorm room at the University of Central Florida last week. There was a lot of terror and this look like he was quickly losing control of the situation. Oh, not at the thought of this new life ahead of him, of having to fend for himself, find classrooms all […]

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The Talking Sewer Line

Stupid talking sewer line. That’s what I have. A chatty one with an upset stomach. It started with nothing — a little burp once in a while the washing machine was draining. Gurgle. Glug, glug. Ffffft. Nothing too bad. Barely noticeable. When my wife mentioned it, I shrugged my shoulders and waved it off. “Probably, the line had a little Mexican food and is sleeping it off. No worries.”

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A Baby is Born … And We Got Through It

What is it about a refrigerator door loaded with junk — inundated with old pictures, to-do lists, magnets, bits of Thanksgiving dinner leftovers and random tidbits of life — that something meaningful occasionally cuts through the clutter while you reach for the water pitcher and gives you a boost. I read the saying, almost crowded out by a Key West chicken magnet and a New Yorker cartoon, and laughed.

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New Baby Means Goodbye to Normal

So, this is fatherhood. Not so bad. Not so different. Normal life, I have been told, is over. Now the search begins for a new kind of normal. For a routine. For just a little bit of sleep. (In 22 years, I’m told, I’ll get some.) It’s been two weeks since my daughter, Amelie, was born, and already I have changed 32,000 diapers. Having never done so before this experience, I think I’m adjusting quite well.

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