I am going through a long and sentimental (bordering on mawkish) ending of sorts. It involves a 20-year-old Coleman pop-up camper.

My wife and I bought it new just after we were married. This was well before we had the twins, well before I even dreamed that was on the horizon. It’s old and worn now, ravaged by time, memory, miles and many backyard sleepovers. I am trying to figure out what to do with it as it’s barely roadworthy.

We were so delightfully young and naive when we purchased it. For weeks we looked at floor plans, considering size and amenities, before finally deciding on a smaller one that could be towed by my six-cylinder Chevy S-10. A smaller size would also make backing it up easier. Truth be told, I suck at backing a trailer. This one proved small enough it actually be hand-pushed into a space when necessary. It never occurred to us we might be camping with twin toddlers or giant teenagers, so we based our needs on just us. It contained no toilet and an interior set up to accommodate just two newlyweds and a guitar.

The camper’s been in our backyard for some time now. The boys like to hang out in it as the WiFi reaches that far. I’ve got to put it down before … well, I can’t.

You see, when we bought the camper, I purchased a nice leather-bound journal. I put it in a drawer inside the camper and vowed to write a bit about every night spent in it. And I did. The writing is not very good, few metaphors or deep insights, but the years are covered, each trip dutifully noted. Through the pages, the boys grow up, I age, the relationship with my wife deepens and a continuity and connection is established. Over the years, it has held the stories and hopes of a young family growing together. Stories of thunderstorms and frightened toddlers, scraped knees and sleepless nights. Hopes for the future in the minds of 6-year-olds and my hopes for their lives moving forward.

I am very glad I bought that journal. It sits to my left as I am writing this right now.

I spent a couple of recent evenings in the old camper, looking through what was in it when I came across the journal. With a curious urgency — fueled perhaps by the beers — I put it with the pile of things to take into the house.

Here’s the thing. The “ending” of that old camper is a new “beginning” for that journal. It is done with its long present and now can begin to show me my past: a past where I hoped for my boys’ future. It is so strange how, as one writes in diaries and personal journals, how prescient we can be. There’s an entry from 2011, written of an early morning at a state park in central Ohio, where I say: “The boys are getting along surprisingly well. They rarely fight or bicker and are good friends, it seems. Who knows how long that’ll last, but I really hope it does.”

How could I know then that, nine years later, they’d still be best friends?

Or, that at the time I was watching the beginnings of what I think will be a lifelong friendship?

How, perhaps, would I know that camping and bonding in the close quarters of that little camper would help that along? Maybe I had helped it through sheer happenstance and in a leather-bound journal I’d noted it. Now I can look it up.

Recently, a fellow father and writer on this website purchased a used camper. He solicited advice from a social media group we are in. I typed a long answer — advice on gear and the such — but I deleted it. The real advice was too ethereal and came from a place I’m at now, a place he’ll get to, a place he already is. Camping, like so many other family adventures and hobbies, is about memory-making. Their worth can only be revealed later. However, at the time you’re making them, you still somehow know that even if you don’t realize it then.

About the author

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. Bill also coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

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This blog post, first published in 2020, is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

I watch my nearly 16-year-old twin sons and their three- or four-hundred fellow students pour out the doors of the high school they attend. My mind goes back to my own high school days a very long time ago.

A lot is different. No backpacks back then or phones or cool sweatshirts or yoga pants or these damn masks, but much seems familiar. The laughing and flirting and cajoling and teasing; nice cars and beaters; happy kids, sullen kids. Couples holding hands, couples longing to hold hands. Kids with big instrument cases and large art portfolios and dangling lunch boxes and the like.

Sometimes, a teacher or the principal is outside wishing them well whether the students want well-wishing or not. It is one of those teachers that sends my mind back to my own school days in rural Ohio.

Mr. Funk (name changed, because, well, you know — unless I didn’t because Funk is such a great name) was our high school’s head football coach. He also taught, poorly, algebra or something. He always had an unlit cheap cigar in his mouth, using it more as a tobacco plug than something to be smoked. He was a better coach than he was a teacher. I liked him. He cussed better than anyone I’d met up until that point.

Many years after I left those halcyon halls, I attended a reunion and a few of the teachers were there. Mr. Funk and I got to talking. He recalled me quitting the varsity football team my senior year because I couldn’t be on the team and in the fall production of Our Town (in which I been cast as The Stage Manager, a choice role).

He said to me at the time, “Gimme one good goddamned reason why you want to do that the-A-ter crap and not play football for me this fall.” My answer, “There are girls there.” That pretty much shut him up. He turned away and slammed his office door.

He revealed to me at the reunion that he didn’t turn in anger. He thought my response  was very funny and didn’t want to laugh in front of me. “That was the best goddamned reason you could have given me,” he admitted.

He revealed something else that evening: that he was a veteran of World War II. He’d been a gunner in a tank company that fought across Europe and was a major factor in the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, he told me, many of my teachers, both men and women, were veterans.

I was gobsmacked. It simply hadn’t occurred to me. Mrs. Smith had flown bombers to England, Mr. Sharp was a Navy gunner, and so on. I had no idea.

I asked him why we never knew that. Mr. Funk said they were just doing their job, and, importantly, that they were all just civilians now, plain ol’ citizens.

As I watch those students streaming out the double doors today, I am struck with that notion: What I am looking at are citizens. What I am seeing are almost adults “doing their job” participating in a nation, parts of a grand scheme — as we all are. I know I am looking at engineers and designers, scientists and mechanics, doctors and teachers, lawyers and cooks, military personnel and carpenters — citizens all.

I hear the word “heroes” a lot these days, to the point where it almost devalues the word. It seems everyone is a hero. You know the list: front-line health care workers, grocery clerks, delivery drivers, law enforcement men and women, parents and so many more. But here’s the thing. I believe most of those folks would echo Mr. Funk. They are just doing their job.

And that, friends, is what I see every weekday as I wait in that lot. Citizens doing their job. These young men and women, and so many like them, go to school or work from home, and they get the job — the job that we expect of them as citizens — done. All this quarantining, the masking, the canceled shows and performances, the tournaments unattended, the first-grade art show and middle-school recorder recitals gone, for now, all of these things that make a school year a bit more tolerable are currently unavailable. And yet they, if you will, soldier on.

I am, sadly, aware of the struggles many children and young adults suffer these days. I know teen suicide rates are up as are eating disorders and dropout rates. Self-mutilation is on the rise. Depression and anxiety are affecting more kids than at any other time in the past. I know parents are facing incredible difficulties as well. Frankly, the whole situation sucks. I probably could have opened with this paragraph and painted a terribly tragic picture of the state of education in this pandemic age.

But, you know what, I deal in hope, and I have plenty of it. When we do what is asked of us as a citizenry — masking, hand washing, distancing and showing compassion to others — we win wars. We solve complex social problems. We feed the hungry. And, we beat pandemics. We harbor hope.

I’ve read more than one article about our kids in schools that elevates them to the status of heroes. I guess you could say that. But most heroes don’t feel they are that. Most feel they are just doing their job.

Finally, I’ll add this. When we get through this national crisis — and we will — we are going to have a crop of hardworking, problem solving, resilient young adults ready to take on the world. Citizens all, they will be ready to help this great country move forward in hope and compassion, in duty and honor. I see them every day. They’re great kids. They are our future and our greatest hope.

About the author

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Photo: ©ASDF / Adobe Stock.

I’ve been wrong about something. There’s not much unusual about that but, sadly, I was judgmental in my wrongness. I probably even judged you.

First, a quick story – which for me is oxymoronic – but I’ll try …

The Cincinnati Reds are in the World Series and it’s the night of the fourth game. These are the 1990 wire-to-wire Reds and they are putting the whomp on the A’s. I am working tables at a high-end restaurant on the second level of a downtown Cincinnati hotel. Delmonico’s at The Westin, or Del’s as everyone calls it, has floor-to-ceiling windows that look down upon our lovely downtown square with its sculpture fountain, cleverly (and with Midwestern practicality) called Fountain Square. The dining room itself is tiered so most every table has a view.

I am a “captain” on this night; my buddy, John, is my back waiter. We are assigned the coveted bottom tier station right on the window. It is a crazy night, and everyone wants a table on those windows. Needless to say, I am not keeping track of the game, but I do have an unprecedented view of the crowd outside growing and growing. The box score is on a big screen in a corner of the square I can’t see. All I can make out is a sea of red and I can hear the occasional roar when our team makes a play.

Around 11 or so we are winding down. A few tables are left watching the crowd and lingering over coffee. I decide to go downstairs to get a drink while John watches the tables. Are we allowed to do this? Well … let’s just say we all did.

The bar is called The Corner Bar because it is, well, on the corner of the hotel facing the square and the main street that led down to the colossal Riverfront Stadium, home of the Reds. I take the service elevator to first floor and head to the bar which has an entrance from the hotel atrium. It is important to note that I am wearing tuxedo pants and shirt — with studs — a black bowtie and a white waiter’s jacket and a long white apron, French bistro style. I look good and professional.

The hallway I walk down is angled a bit and I can’t really see into the bar although it is noisy, which I expected. I turn to walk in and, just as I cross the threshold, the whole place busts out in madness. Several tripods of camera lights flash on and a camera is pointed right at me as I enter. Next to the door is a reporter and he is saying something about the hometown crowd and “live from downtown Cincinnati …”

Yep, I’d blundered right into the live feed of the local crowd on the nationally televised game in Oakland. Literally, as they opened the feed, there I am in my full waiter regalia, nametag and all. I got calls for days about it. The first guy anyone sees in Cincy is a local waiter trying to get himself a drink.

I quickly duck toward the service bar, also ducking the reporter who was looking for someone to interview. Seeing as how I was on the clock, in uniform and all, that seemed like a good idea. I order a couple of Black Russians, put them on a tray and duck back out.

John and I spent the next hour or two watching and waving at the crowd. Even though I’d recently left New York City where I’d worked in bars and restaurants for the past four or so years, I’d never seen this level of fandom. People were so happy, marching triumphantly nowhere, jumping up and down, drinking and cheering. It was unforgettable…

I’ve told this story over the years a number of times, the focus, of course, being on me and the surprise and all of it. But recently when I told it to a buddy I hadn’t be in touch with for some time, something weird happened. The crowd looked different in my memory.

Where I’d seen chaos and a sort of madness before, now I saw the joy and unbridled excitement of the win. Where once I’d seen homemade banners and brooms (it was a sweep, remember?), I saw folks making those banners, lettering a bedsheet in there sleepy suburban home, and bringing it down to the big city. I somehow saw people stopping at a hardware store for a broom, or a liquor store for a flask.

In this most recent remembering, I saw the families. There were kids and teens everywhere, breathing in the wildness and screaming their hearts out. I saw high fives between dads and sons, hugs and kisses for the littles. I’d forgotten that.

What has all this to do with me being wrong and judgmental? When the world shut down in March because of COVID-19 and it became clear there would be no baseball Opening Day, no parade, no rallies, I was initially sad but quickly came to see that it was best and I didn’t miss the games that much. And then … the season began again, truncated and limping, and I was happy to see the games again.

Anyone who knows me knows I know baseball’s the best sport. I am quick to point out what I see as the flaws in football and basketball, hockey and soccer, and many other sports. Ipso facto: Your enjoyment of your chosen sport is inferior to mine.

But as golf and the NBA and the NHL began playing again this summer, I saw how much it meant to the fans of those sports. Here’s what I am most sorry about — missing the fact that all these sports bring great joy to families around the world.

Yours is not a failed attempt at mine, and vice versa. I shouldn’t question your choice of sport, your level of fandom. A friend of my wife works in the front office of the champion Bolts down in Tampa. He recently posted an image of his him, his wife and two young daughters posing with that big ole Stanley Cup won this pandemic season, they look so happy. Another buddy is an avid fan Manchester United and gets up early in mornings to watch the English soccer games; it makes him happy. A buddy in L.A. watches endless golf matches even though he has never held a driver in his life.

The sports thing — and the music thing and the art thing and the movie thing and, well, all the stuff folks love — it brings us together. My twin boys, pushing 16 now, are getting the short stick on this one this year. There’ve been no Friday Night Lights to get wild at this year; they’ve missed that. Even though some sports play on to limited crowds, there is no theater this fall, no music concerts, no quarterly art show. Clubs are not meeting, no debate, no chess or after school diversity programs.

I am sorry for them, sorry for us. I forget, my being a bit introverted, how essential “others” are to us, to them, to society writ large. Every day during this ongoing pandemic I see these kids get screwed and I wish something could be done for them. So, we’ll watch the World Series on TV together and I’ll tell stories and we’ll try to create community, remembering that in households across our home town and the country and the world, you all are trying to as well.

Hopefully, soon, we’ll all be able to rally at the fountain square or watch a sports game at the corner bar. We’ll meet you there, all right?

About the author

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Sports crowd photo: ©Jason Stitt / Adobe Stock.

I’m gonna break character here and tell y’all something. Normally, I try to remain positive and affirmative and gentle, bordering on Pollyannaish, but some days I feel different, discordant … broken.

The something I want to tell you seems obvious to me. These are dark fucking times. You may quote me.

The news, honestly, breaks me often. The pain and suffering. The jingoism and economic imbalance. Pleas for money so our kids can fucking eat. Campaigns that say nothing of weight or promise and only attack with a ferocity that shears my soul.

I go on Facebook — the only social network I use, and shouldn’t but do — to see puppies and kittens and kids growing up and affirmations from that Nordby guy and C.S. Lewis quotes from my neighbor and people falling down and old friends and guitars. Instead, I get only bitterness from disgruntled “friends” and ads for things I don’t even know what they are and posting after posting of the tragedies around us.

You know what’s absent though? Others. A shit-ton of friends who’ve just given up on the whole thing are absent. Small businesses no longer notify me of the “open mic” nights, artists and old mates and musicians aren’t making the videos or telling the stories or showing me pictures of their works in progress. I miss that.

Also absent in the media that bombards us:

Hope.

Remember back in ’08 when Obama ran on a platform of hope? All those yard signs and posters and bumper stickers with that “Hope” logo. Yeah, that was sweet. Now they’d look anachronistic and naïve, don’t you think? Imagine walking through your neighborhood and seeing one. You’d probably think, “What the fuck! Like, where is hope anymore, hell, what is hope anymore?” We seem a long way from those days.

But are we?

Darkness still brings out the light

Our local food bank recently moved from a church basement to a much larger and easier to manage former retail space. There they can work with more families and donating is much easier and, although there are more in need, more are donating. That sort of looks like hope to me.

Families, students and teachers from all across the globe are struggling and wrangling and blundering and, ultimately, succeeding in finding a way to educate and engage in this socially distanced era. All so a generation of kids can get an education. Wanting that for them sure seems like hope.

My own sons, 15-year-old twins, work incredibly hard at their schoolwork and their friendships. They chat and play games online at home and sit for hours masked and uncomfortable at school all day in hope of a better future.

Protesters want a more just and right future. This is hope.

People on both sides or in the middle (or wherever) truly want a better future, but for whom? Well, that’s to be determined but it’s important to see that almost everyone is looking forward to something. That’s hoping.

I see hope in the wave of an old friend, not seen for months, in the school parking lot. I see hope in the first soccer practice in months, in a high school orchestra spread all over a stage and auditorium so they can play together. I see it in free masks and smiling eyes at the grocery store, in the orange and rust mums planted on autumn porches. Whether we want to admit it, we do these things and so many more in hope of a better future.

I see a lot of folks, myself sometimes included, mired in fear because we see so much to be afraid of. A long litany would probably be effective here, but I’ll pass. Don’t even do it yourself. That’s what I’m trying to get at here: fear is darkness, light, hope.

Dark fucking times, right? Maybe not so much.

I truly wanted this piece to be edgy, rough and cutting, but I couldn’t do it. I fall back on hope, every damn time. I turn on the light of it, and the brighter hope shines, the darkness of fear cannot get a foothold, the shadows are too lit.

The Avett Brothers have a new song out called “Back Into the Light,” the chorus of which goes:

It’d make some sense, if some was made to me
Sometimes I don’t see love in anything
And just when I surrender to my shadow
I snap out of it, and step into the light
I step back into the light

It is easy these days to surrender to our shadows. Fearmongering, it seems, is a national pastime. So watch a parent with a baby and see that light. Watch a teacher in their classroom, virtual or not, and see that light. Look for candidates of compassion, leaders with values, and see the light surrounding them. Look into the eyes of your own children and there, just behind that glaze of confusion and fear, you will see the fiery spark of hope. I promise.

I am a Pollyanna after all, albeit one with resting bitch face.

About the author

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Light through door photo: © peterschreiber.media / Adobe Stock.

Hey, my teenage sons — it’s time for your old man to give you a little more unwanted advice. I know the two of you are soon to start your sophomore year of high school and don’t really care for “words of wisdom” and that sort of crap; I can dig that. I also know that you are built on strong moral and intellectual foundations – cool. You are trusted and respected by the adults around you and in your peer group – well done. However …

You have been thrown into the most manic of maelstroms and the weirdest of worlds teenagers have faced in a very long time. Nothing is even close to the way it was just six months ago. Your school, your friends, your teachers will all be literally unrecognizable. There will be plexiglass everywhere, checkpoints, masks and distancing. There will be fear and anxiety in the air. Folks will be testy and it’s not gonna be a lot of fun, although you have the character to make the best of it. I think. Honestly, it’s all going to seem really unfair.

Unfairnesses, plural, are what’s being thrown at you. You know I’d take them if I could, every rotten tyrannical tomato and caustic cabbage and raunchy raw egg, but I can’t. I’m afraid it’s your turn to duck. But I’d like to help, so I’m going to tell a probably pointless story.

I knew a girl in college, the girlfriend of a very close friend of mine. She was nice, a little aloof, pretty, and very focused on her dream of becoming an actor. I got to know her well enough. We had classes and did shows together. I was around her a lot and, by the third year of school, we were fairly close. That summer we ended up in a crowd that played a lot of euchre, the card game we still play regularly. Almost every free night we had was cards and beers and music and … well, you get the picture.

And that’s when I started to notice that, well, she cheated.

Euchre is pretty easy to cheat at, especially if you can count cards, which is made even easier because you only use half the deck in the game. I’d watch carefully and see her check the bottom card, shift cards in the deck, and even move clearly ear-marked cards into her hand as she dealt. I saw that she like to pick her chair, sometimes adamant about it, and came to realize that she wanted to be next to someone who didn’t protect their cards from the eyes of others.

I didn’t call her on it. I knew that would be drama fodder for her. So, I just made sure I never sat next to her, and if I partnered with her, I played poorly. And, I knew I couldn’t trust her.

She went on to grad school I think, and we lost track of each other years ago. Recently, I reconnected with another friend from those days and we got to talking about the old times and the gang we hung with, as one does, and the cheating girlfriend came up. I said that it always bothered me that she cheated at cards and never felt I could trust her. She laughed and told me she cheated at and on everything. Tests, papers, boyfriends, friends, taxes, husbands, bosses, coworkers, games – everything.

I wasn’t terribly surprised, but I did wonder aloud why she was like that. My friend said, quite simply, that she chose it. Apparently, she’d been a good and honest girl all the way until she got to high school. Then she lost a brother in Vietnam. Her parents divorced. A dog died. All sorts of unfairnesses plagued her and, she decided if life was going to be so cruel and arbitrary, she’d stop playing fair. She made a decision to change her life for, well, the worse.

Forgivable? That’s your call, but I don’t think so.

So, what’s my point here?

Don’t cheat, that’s all.

I know, I know, you are both not wired that way. I’ve seen both of you actively not cheat: calling your own foul ball in a baseball game, telling the ref the ball was out on you on the soccer pitch, realizing you’d seen another’s hand in a card game.

Here’s the problem, boys, you’re going to see some folks cheating this year. With the mix of half in school and half online learning the stage is set for it. I’ve seen article after article on the problem in magazines and online in the past few weeks. And, to make matters worse, you’re going to see a lot of kids justify it by saying if life can be this unfair, why should I care if I cheat? Why does it even matter?

One word. See if you can get it from its definition: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

Correct: integrity.

People see integrity in others, I guarantee it. I see integrity in you.

You will, also, see the lack of it in others for the whole of your lives. In swampy politics, sketchy business models, even in salacious, pointless entertainment shows and a broken music scene. People are dishonest, people cheat, people use others and disregard resources and do not follow rules (I am looking at you anti-maskers). For the honest among us, that hurts and, worse, tempts us toward the same devious chicanery we see others blithely get away with.

I see the potential for this year challenging your integrity. I don’t know how to tell you to defend it, but I know you need to try. Defending it will ask for courage, decency, honor and truth in a world that devalues all those values.

Good luck and come to us when you are struggling, I was a bartender for 30 years and have some stories to tell about cheats and frauds and how things worked out for them — honestly, it never well. I’ve also seen the best people lead the best lives because they protected themselves and their souls — that place where integrity lives.

C.S. Lewis said: “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

I say it all the time: Just do the next right thing. That’s always what you need to do. And sometimes, that is a very difficult call. I know you’re up for it, and I think your generation is as well.

***

Advice is hard … Here, this one’s easier and succinct: Don’t fry bacon naked. You’ll thank me for that someday.

Peace boys, it’s a tough time to be 15. I’m truly sorry for that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Photo: © Zoran Zeremski / Adobe Stock.

I’m finding it difficult deciding what to write about, my friends. It’s not that I don’t have ideas; it’s just that I don’t know what might be best or how to make sense of what I do know.

I have written here about baseball a few times. I guess I could again, even without games being played, big or little league. Baseball memories linger long, as you know. In fact, I just came across an image from a Little League game some years back. It was taken from behind the backstop showing one of my twin sons crouching in too-big catcher’s gear and the other twin on the mound, his left arm just coming down after the pitch, a slider it looks like. Between the two, the ball hangs, fuzzy in its movement, like a ghost in flight between one memory and another. It was the first time for a “Peebles battery” and the picture brought the moment right back to me.

However, without a season currently, the memories seem to hurt more than console.

I’ve written on faith for you in the past, sometimes unpopularly, I should add. I could, I suppose, go there again. I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude: the sheer simplicity of it, the inherent humility in it, the wonder at witnessing it in others, especially my now teenage sons. I know how it helps my faith, which, if I were honest, needs all the help it can get right now. I guess I could ponder that, as well. Stumbling and getting my knees scraped up as I careen and crash down my faith journey could make a good story.

But I haven’t been to church in months. I’m not sure my heart would be in it. Also, I can only hear my cries for gratitude landing on so many who have so little to be thankful for right now, which feels a bit insensitive, I guess.

Beginnings, endings make more sense than present

You have indulged my baffling fascination with what I’ve called “beginnings” and “endings.” Thanks for that. I think a lot about timelines and where we are on them, in whose time … it’s difficult to explain.

Anyway, I currently live a life that seems to simply be the present. I’m sure many others feel that way. Asking ourselves to consider what is ahead or closely examine what was just behind us is, if you’ll forgive me, untimely. Literally, now, this now, is not the time.

I could fall back on my folksy, narrative style and tell a story. Like this one: I was standing in my kitchen with my hand in a deli bag of sliced salami — as one does — when one of the boys walked in and said, “I don’t know what to do.” I guess he was bored but the question seemed more weighted than that alone. I immediately handed him a slice of salami and said, “You do now.” He took the slice, thanked me, and wandered off. Maybe I could vamp on that a bit, rhapsodizing on the notion of how, sometimes, all you can do is the next right thing, but I’m not sure it would be very genuine and, honestly, I’m not sure I know what the next right thing is anymore.

I guess that is the root of the problem here, isn’t it? The things I used to feel were so right, don’t seem to make as much sense anymore.

Should I write of a pandemic that is killing so many, wrecking the economy, and ruining the daily lives of families everywhere? I could but, I’d probably have to leave out a lot. Like that this time has definitely brought our family together just as it was beginning to fracture into the busyness of high school life. There would not be so many games of Scrabble or euchre or hearts, far fewer movies and dinners together and cooking sessions. I would not have the opportunity to watch our sons face the stress and adversity that remote learning and social distancing has placed on them. They’re 15, and, well, would most certainly rather be among their peers, especially girl peers.

Honestly, I’d probably be tempted to brag about them, tell you how proud I am of the grace and pleasantness they’ve exhibited through all of this. I am not sure that that sort of message would make sense when I know parents everywhere are having a very hard time with their teenagers — children in general, I’m sure.

Showing my age, privilege

Should I write about protests and racial injustice? I am an old white Boomer and fear I am as much the problem as solution, and I am sure my thoughts are less than relevant.

I could tell you about my feeble attempts at explaining all this to my sons, my years of explaining our privilege as whites in an uncomfortably “undiverse” community and school district — a subject they are better equipped to advise me on than I them.

If I did try to write on this subject, I’d have to admit that I am not a protest kind of guy. The energetic and emotionally charged crowds truly frighten me. I want my sons to know they are free to protest, march and voice their disdain, but I’d be afraid for myself and afraid to look the fool to them, honestly.

What of the lack of leadership I see at the highest levels in our country? I could justifiably rant for thousands of words on this alone. My guess is, I don’t need to. Integrity, decency, honesty, humility are all not hard to spot — and the lack of them is even easier to discern. Also, the final one-word answer to that is simply this: VOTE!

There is one thing, though, that I truly don’t want to write about: my anguish.

Sometimes the suffering and pain I see overwhelm me. I sit in my cozy home, surrounded by a loving family where I watch the world burn with a literal and figurative fever that rages in a way I have never seen before.

On the news, I see images of courageous healthcare workers behind masks and gowns, and see only the burden and sadness in their eyes.

I watch videos of these huge marches and see only the individuals behind the posters and raised fists, and I feel the bitter, justified anger in each face. But I also see the hope in the same faces and choke back a sob at the two emotions so painfully entwined.

I look for leadership, direction, encouragement, and comfort from those in power. Instead, I get nothing but rhetoric and mixed messages and my anger turns inward metastasizing into deep resentment and, honestly, debilitating rage.

I would like to apologize for my lack of courage. Other writers here have found theirs and have written on these very subjects with great eloquence and strength.

So, that’s where I am at right now, any advice would be welcome.

As always, peace to you,

Bill

P.S. I forgot to mention, I’ve got a pretty good piece about teaching the boys to mow the lawn:  rules, and advice, stories, that sort of thing. That’d probably be best, don’t you think?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. Bill believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Make sense of world in crisis photo: © funstarts33 / Adobe Stock.

Hey, my teenage sons — and friendly others — you might remember that I’ve been offering advice to you — my boys, not the others — instead of talking about what you’re up to as I did for so many years. Honestly, I thought it would be easy to give advice and drop wisdom bombs. You know what? It ain’t.

Before I get started, though, let me tell you a quick story.

Since right around the time you boys were born, 15 or so years ago, this same guy in the deli at our local grocery store has been slicing our ham and salami and bagging up fried chicken for us. His name is Neil, and he recently retired. I saw him the other day at a convenience store where we were both getting coffee. When he recognized me, he smiled and shook my hand warmly and said, “Hey, it’s Super Nice Guy!”

I was a little take aback, but who doesn’t like a nickname — truth be told, I always thought of him as Neil the Chicken Guy. I smiled and told him I always appreciated what he did for us and mentioned that he always gave me a couple of more pieces of chicken than I ordered. He said he was glad to do it. Neil also said he thought I was the kindest customer he had and that he enjoyed talking baseball with me and watching the boys grow up. I made an impact on this guy just by being nice to him, which is sadly rare way to treat a retail employee.

Just by being nice.

So, I guess that’s my advice for you this time is: Be nice. Good advice, right? Well, yes, I guess so. But, what does that even mean?

As parents, we say “be nice” all the time. I looked the word “nice” up: pleasant: agreeable; satisfactory. Sort of a generic entry there, don’tcha think?

Be good. Be kind. Be safe. Be nice.

I’ve been saying these things to you since before you could talk. So much so, in fact, that it begins to mean nothing. I wonder if they even mean anything to you anymore. We never define exactly what entails “being nice” or any of the other words we so casually offer as you go out the door. Perhaps, they’re only platitudes given up as much for ourselves as for you, as though I’m covering my own ass by telling you these things. You know, “I told him to be nice, officer. It’s out of my hands now.”

I notice, however, that there is a consistency here in all those trite directives I’ve been offering, but not where you’d expect it. It’s that first word, “be.”

Man, that’s a complicated word. But, it is a verb and that helps. I understand verbs.

The word “love,” for instance, is both a verb and a noun. I’ve never been able to pin it down as a noun. It’s one of those that is different to every person and in every case. But, as a verb, it is more definite, more actionable.

Maybe that’s what we mean when we say “be nice” or any of the others. The focus is not necessarily on the amorphous noun but on that little word in front. I am asking you to become nice, occupy nice, live in nice. And, you know what, I see you do it.

I’ve watched you be nice so many times over the years. A hand offered to help a player up on the soccer pitch. An encouraging word given to a scared friend or frustrated brother. An unsolicited hug for me or your mother. I’ve witnessed you being respectful to your teachers. I’ve seen you being kind to your grandparents. I’ve seen you be patient with younger kids, watched you be safe on a playground.

The only way we can see these nouns like love and honor and respect and integrity is when they are acted out in front of us. Listen, boys: it’s easy to see the meanness and baseness and discourtesy of this world we live in. Just turn on your phone or your television. It seems nearly every show or movie depends on some unsavory elements to move forward — some are just devoted to being mean or showing cruelty and disrespect. And the news so often just shows us the bad.

But, and I truly believe this, it is just as easy, if not easier, to see kindness and decency and niceties and so much more.

Integrity flies by in the cab of the firetruck as it screams by our house from the station around the corner. Courage is made real in the intent and decency of medical professionals. Honor is there in the hearts of our teachers. Cashiers and servers, cops and clergy, roofers and landscapers, “chicken guys,” will all respond in kind when offered kindness. I’ve seen it over and over in my life. You will, too, you’ve just got to look for it.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to revise my advice today. “Be nice” is too vague to be helpful. I’d say just “be” might be enough.

Be nice, be kind, be helpful and courageous and wild and playful and hopeful, just and right. Be love, be integrity, be honor and decency and respect.

Let them occupy you. Let them be in you, and I believe they are. I believe they are in all of us. Be the things you want in others, be toward them as you’d have them be to you.

Just be.

Be yourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Photo: © Jette Rasmussen / Adobe Stock.

I remember being extra fidgety one Sunday morning while sitting in the stark white Presbyterian church of my childhood. I used to bounce my leg a lot when I was little — something one of my own sons does now — and my dad would pinch my knee between his thumb and forefinger to grab my attention so I would stop.

This particular Sunday, my dad had done this a few times, each with increasing pressure. It was an autumn day and the Cincinnati Reds — the legendary Big Red Machine of the 1970s — were in baseball’s playoffs once again, and I was distracted. I really didn’t want to be there.

Finally, my dad had to whisper between gritted teeth to stop fidgeting.

“But I’m soooo bored,” I whispered back.

His response still echoes in my mind some 45 years later, “If you’re bored, you are not paying attention.”

Baseball is life; life is baseball

I’ve been accused of watching too much baseball. I do watch a lot, almost every game the Reds play over the summer, and the All-Star game, and the playoffs and the World Series. Yeah, I guess maybe I do watch too much baseball, but I never find it dull.

“It’s so boring,” my friends say.

“It’s so slow, waiting around for the pitchers to pitch and the batters to adjust the Velcro on their gloves,” they lament. “There’s no action.”

I guess that’s how you could see it. But I see it differently. I find my attention drawn to the edges where my imagination makes it even more interesting.

Let’s take a look at that scene in the batter’s box. See that hitter there, waiting for the pitch? Ignore him. Look around him. Behind him. Around the edge of your TV screen. See those three boys in rally caps, age 8 or maybe 9, hanging on every pitch, waving their rally towels to distract the pitcher. Man, they look like their having a great night, staying up late and rooting for the home team.

Now a left-handed batter is up. Behind him there’s a grandfather and a little girl laughing and talking as he points to this base, that player, teaching her the game he’s loved for so many years. Do you see her hair ribbons? They are the team colors.

At another game, in the front row, an elderly man wears a pink cap to every game so his wife knows he’s at the game and thinking of her.

Now there’s a pop-up over the netting. Look at that crowd, all trying for the ball, hoping for a souvenir, and smiling and laughing and cheering for the teenage boy who snowcones it just at the last minute.

Now, ignore the tears in my eyes as he hands it to his little brother and the crowd oohs and ahhs at the sweetness of the scene.

Pay mind to the ball boys and ball girls handling those sizzling fouls up the lines then turning and giving it to the kid with bushy hair and an oversized glove.

Often the camera operators will pan the crowd and what do the find? Families. Friends. Young couples. Happy people. Serious fans. Maybe a team of Little Leaguers in their uniforms.

Now, let’s look again on the field. See that player with the giant biceps and the long face in the batter’s box? Watch as he hits a three-run homer the day he returned from bereavement leave for the death of his father, his biggest fan. Cry with him, watch the hugs in the dugout, hear the crack in the announcer’s voice. Feel your heart soar and break in the exact same moment.

Another game now on Mother’s Day. The boys on the tilt are in pink hats. Some of the bats are pink. The lineup is listed as “Wendy Votto’s son” and “Maritza Puig’s son” and so on. It is not at all difficult to let your imagination go and see all those athletes as little boys batting off tees, dropping routine flies and stealing their first bases. In them, you see your own boys and girls on the fields of their youth. Perhaps they even become you striking out to lose the big game, or accidentally making your way around the bases on an error filled grand slam.

On yet another day, a boy named Eugenio smacks his 48th home run of the season and sets a record for the most major league homers for a native of Venezuela player. See the pride in his face, the joy of his teammates as they celebrate with a bottle of champagne and sing his native national anthem. Look just one more time, see the little boy dreaming of this day? He’s still in that grown man.

Attention paid pays dividends

So, what makes baseball not boring to me? The stories. Good ones, happy ones, sad ones, ongoing ones. That’s why I watch baseball. It’s one long damn story and I am glad to be a part of it, from that first T-ball game I coached to the World Series games I’ll be watching soon — it is all one story and I love it.

I’ve been telling my sons for 14 years now “if you’re bored, you’re not paying attention.” I think it has worked. They are content looking out a window on a long car ride or sitting through a long Easter Mass.  I see them looking up, looking out, looking around the corners and at the edges because that’s where the stories live.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Attention on the diamond photo: ©terovesalainen / Adobe Stock.

A pair of hawks, probably Cooper’s hawks, command the sky over my backyard and the surrounding acres. I spotted their nest high in an old oak across the street. I’m sure they are a mating pair, although at first, I thought maybe they were a hen teaching her fledgling to hunt. I actually thought that until two minutes ago when I looked up the breed and found out any hawks would only have eggs right now or, more likely, an empty new nest.

So, not a mother teaching a child to hunt or a father teaching a child to soar like I wanted it to be. What I’ve been seeing is likely courtship, nest building, pair bonding. I wanted to extend a metaphor about teaching children to soar and take care of themselves; about the joy of flying and learning and beauty. I had planned to beat that metaphor to death.

I continue to watch them, the hawks, even though I can’t mold them into the symbol I wanted them to become. They fly down again and land on a low branch on a maple not 20 feet from my window. They stand close together and … well. Their tails are red, one more than the other. Dammit, they aren’t even Cooper’s hawks; they are the much more common red-tailed hawk.

Now I won’t be able to share this quote from a college commencement speech Mr. Rogers gave so many years ago:

“In fact, from the time you were very little, you’ve had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving.”

It’ll be hard to work in how those hawks made me think of this quote as I saw one take off and then the other and watched them soar and swoop in the cold February sky, thinking the whole time them parent and child. The effort and the ease of it, the work and then the reward of it all.

What better way to learn to circle through the sky than experiencing another doing it with you, showing it to you?

How can I say, now that the metaphor has failed, that we are like those beautiful hawks, we parents? I look to the wild and see labor of love. Nature doesn’t tell herself about love and ability, she uses no words, explains nothing, just as we cannot explain what love is, what a song or a story or laughter is.

“Smiled you into smiling,” a past tense verb leading to the present tense. And there, I think, is the essence of it all. Love must be a verb, teaching must be verb, parenting and mentoring, action verbs.

That means that we labor to show our children these things.

The first time I encountered the Rogers quote, I continued the thought in my mind.

When I see my nearly 14-year-old son honor someone, I know that I honored him.

When his twin brother marches up to me after an event at the school and says, “Dad, I broke my glasses,” I know his mother and I honested him into the truth.

A kind word to a classmate, is the kind word offered to them.

We laughed them into laughing, held them into holding, dreamed them into dreaming, cried them into crying, shined them into shining.

One of the hawks sends a shadow across the backyard. Maybe I wasn’t as wrong as I thought I was. Perhaps, now that I know they are just a pair of birds, what I noticed was the action of them, always above, on the hunt, always watching.

I probably won’t see when their nestlings are hatched and fed and ready to leave; the first fall from the nest; won’t see the wings open and watch as the wind fills them as they glide away. But I see it now, don’t I? I see it in the flaps and dives of these two birds, these parents.

Just as I see me, my wife, teachers, leaders, friends … you, mirrored in the hearts and souls of my sons, your daughters, our children.

We’ve shown them into showing.

Graced them into grace.

Hoped them into hope.

Flown them into flying.

Watched them into watching.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Hawk photo: IthacaBarbie on Foter.com / CC BY-NC

I’m older now. I sense finality more. Last ballgames, the last time they need your help on the sledding hill or on their bikes or getting dressed or tying shoes.

+ + +

Do you know Shel Silverstein? It doesn’t matter much, a poet – any artist, really – is only showing you what you already know. Does this line sound familiar? “Once there was a tree … and she loved a boy.” Yes, The Giving Tree.

I have a weird and long history with his work. I first encountered him in my youth in the 1970s in Playboy magazine, which, at the time I was reading for the articles and interviews. Later, in college, in an acting seminar I was taking, I helped develop – and later toured to elementary schools – a short work based on his poems. At that time, I would have never guessed I’d be folded up on a tiny chair, reading some of the same poems to my twin sons’ first-grade class some 25 years later.

Silverstein is sometimes called a children’s writer, but there is a lot of his work that would prove the contrary. Even in the books and poems he wrote for children, there are nods and winks to the parents and caregivers. I remember reading The Giving Tree once and choking back a sob at the deep joy and sadness in so few and simple words, perhaps you have as well.

I was reminded recently of his poem “Happy Ending” from his last book Every Thing On It, published posthumously:

There are no happy endings.
Endings are the saddest part.
So just give me a happy middle
And a very happy start.

I never thought about beginnings and endings much as a younger man and hardly at all as a boy. I suppose that may be because they often seemed simultaneous. Eighth grade ends, high school begins; friends go, others move in to fill the spot; this job gone, a new one comes along – nothing was ever final.

I’m older now. I sense finality more. Endings are often poignant and bittersweet. If you’re a parent you’ll recognize them – last ballgames, last sippy cups, the final swim in the baby pool, the last time they need your help on the sledding hill or on their bikes or getting dressed or tying shoes … you know. I think that’s what Shel Silverstein means by no happy endings — a story may end positively enough but that means the story is over and stories, when finished, are sad. They fall into memory and retire — quietly, softly — to our hearts when they’d much rather live on.

As a parent, though, I was always thrilled about those starts. God, memories just swamped me, as happens — the rolling over, the cruising, the toddling; all the new and different foods; beach trips and diapers and more diapers and sand and sunburns; the first teams, the first games, the first wins, the first losses; the first strum on guitar strings, the first carefree dancing … why am I crying?

Endings averted … for now

Our twin sons are nearly 14 and heading for high school next year. End, start. Start, end. It’s tough to watch, this cycle. Although it is heartbreaking at times, it also is where we witness great joy.

We were in the basement playing ping-pong recently and as the boys hit back and forth, I noticed our old Nerf basketball hoop was drooping, the duct tape failing against the wooden shelf. I went to pull it down and hesitated – an ending. For a brief while – brief for me, longer for them — many months, let’s say, the boys played some version of a basketball game. They called it “Get-the-ball-and-shoot.” You gotta like a game that’s rules are in its name. They did it for hours. There was pushing and arguing. The rules were refined, penalties assessed. They were 6, maybe 7 years old then. It was cute to listen to though a little hard to watch because there was an inherent, well, wildness to it.

Anyway, as I stood, hand reaching up only a little, Zack said: “Don’t take it down, Dad … yet.”

“Yeah, just leave it up for a while longer, it brings back good memories. Three serves seven.” Nick said and served.

Even they know endings are hard.

Do you measure your kids each year or half year as we do? So did Shel Silverstein. Do you mind if I share another? This is called “Wall Marks.”

Those scratchy marks there on the wall,
They show how short I used to be.
They rise until they get this tall,
And Mama keeps reminding me
The way my dad would take his pen
And as I stood there, stiff and straight,
He’s put a ruler on my head
And mark the spot and write the date.
She says that it’s my history,
But I don’t understand at all
Just why she cries each time she sees
Those scratchy marks there on the wall.

Boy, he knew, didn’t he?

Excuse me, I’m going to go downstairs and make sure a Nerf basketball hoop and net stay up for, well … forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Wall marks and growth chart endings photo: Bill Peebles