Go Ask Daddy About Woodwinds, Airships and Gridiron Boots

EJP

I should have been a baritone saxophone player in a studio band. Not a sports writer turned blogger.

I loved jazz. I could hold down the bass line and also rip it a solo. I had a colossal, bad-ass baritone sax named Maddie. I named her after Cybill Shepherd’s character in “Moonlighting.” That’s how cool I was.

My music dreams died when we moved to Carolina from Colorado.

My high school here didn’t have a jazz band. I chose another elective: Astronomy. No one else did, though. Garinger High canceled the class, and made my elective choice for me: Intro to Journalism. I became a staff writer on the student paper, The Rambler.

5 For Friday: 📋 Things I Never Thought I’d Say To My Girls

Welcome to the jungle.

Here, things aren’t always as they seem. Survival becomes paramount. Expect the unexpected. Know that the deck is stacked against you. The odds, not in your favor. Things will never be the same.

We’re talking parenthood, y’all.

There are good things. Like when your kid hits a home run. Or aces a spelling test. Or picks her nose at the buffet undetected. There are tough times, too. Like when your kid scores in her own goal.

📺 5 for Friday: TV dudes and women who shaped my childhood years

That’s me in that picture, getting ready to take on the short-track at Hickory Motor Speedway, back in the day.

Influence.

On who you are. What you think. What you like, hate, want, aspire to be. There’s so much of it. Advertising. Social media. News media. Family. Friends. Your work environment. Before all this, though, there’s TV.

Fiction. Non-fiction. Animation.

Before you join the workforce, or the social media realm, or even the dating world, these influences have prepackaged you to an extent. Like to partake in fisticuffs and treat your lady as a prize? Perhaps you watched a fair share of Popeye.

5 for Friday: Have a question, kids? Just go ask daddy

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The questions never cease.

The girls are on to me, and know that I’m busy jotting down what they ask.

So sometimes, I don’t jot. I just answer.

Other times, I jot, and I research, and I answer. Maybe it’s no coincidence that this happens to happen with the coolest of questions, such as …

Five for Friday: Movies to watch with your kids when mom isn’t lookin’

photo credit: DSC01754 via photopin (license)

I’ll buy chips for my kids on the way home from soccer practice.

Allow them to wrestle and chase each other. In the grocery store. Look the other way when they throw a little swagger in their soccer game. I’m a little funny, though, when it comes to movies.  My oldest is 14. She can watch PG-13 movies. But I cringe.

Not the language or violence, necessarily. But the themes. The innuendo. The … I dunno, sultry stuff.

Makes me want to throw up a little in my mouth and pee myself a little. I’d rather her see a car chase with a smash-up ending, hear more applications of the F-word, or get startled by a killer, zombie, or politician in the court room than to hear locker-room talk.