Random Thoughts

My daughter brought home an American Doll book about a girl named Kit who grew up during the Great Depression. For a children's book, it was very insightful about what it was like for a child growing up during that the 1930's in America. Sad stuff really. No toys (I can't even go down in my basement without worrying about tripping over some random toy that my children have scattered like so many a land mine) . Little or no food. Not quite as uplifting (I'm being facetious) as what the Joad's went through on their way to the promised land of California, but depressing non-the-less for a children's book. Still, even then, most families stayed together.

I often wonder what's it's like for the kids who's parents have lost their jobs or worse yet, their homes in this, The Great Recession ( or whatever historians are going to call it), and for those parents looking back at their kids as they try to explain what is happening to their family. "Well Suzy, your father lost his job because the bank he worked at made too many sub prime loans to people who really couldn't afford the payment on a $750,000 home and so the bank needed to make some room on the balance sheets by laying off half of it's work force blah, blah, blah......"

I read that on Sesame Street, Elmo's mother lost her job too. Good God. Is there no end to this madness?

Speaking of stuff. Are today's high school students going to look back on their first ipods with the same reverence that I look back on my first Walkman? (circa 1981) Really though, you can't compare the two. After all, I couldn't get through both sides of Jouney's Escape without the batteries dying on that piece of junk . Still, I wish I still had that thing... bad head phones and all.

That and my first digital watch.

Better things.

I watched our high school girls volleyball team play last night. They lost. However, as I was watching, one thought came through to me as clear as day. If you took those girls and took them back in time and had them play against my high school's volleyball team, it wouldn't even be close. It would be utter destruction in favor of the girls of today. The girls now are just better athletes than in my time( thank you Title IX). If my high school team got the ball over the net in an orderly fashion, heck, it was a pretty exciting game. There is no way the could have had rally scoring when I was in high school, most of the points would have come from service errors. No lie.

I'm sure that the boys of today are better athletes also, I just don't want to admit that... and since it's my blog. I don't have to. :)

The opportunities that my daughter has growing up now are ten times what her mother had, which makes me feel good as a father.

Top Ten things that my daughter likes to do with her dad.

10. Go shopping. (Dad's an easier mark than Mom is)
9. Play cards for big money
8. Watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johny Depp version of course)
7. Swim at the pool
6. Get Chippers at Widmans
5. Listen to the Splendid Table on the radio
4. Debate the meaning of God and the Universe
3. Stay up late with while her brothers are sleeping
2. Go to hockey games (Hey, Sioux, Sioux!)
1. Cook and bake with her old man

Well. The tomato's await and there's canning to do.