Richard,

Reading your musings brought down a very unexpected attack of moist eyes on me. Many people don’t realize it, but those simple spontaneous moments are more often than not going to be looked back upon as the happiest days of their lives. I remember how my grandfather used to drop little drops of water in my face to wake me up to have breakfast with him in the morning before he went to work, and how on Saturday nights we used to sit up and watch "Gunsmoke" and "Have Gun Will Travel" together. I’ll drop whatever I’m doing just to watch either of those to this day - not because of the story lines, but just relive the feeling of those moments with my grandfather.

The same is true of the times I used to spend with my son and daughter. My son obviously feels exactly the same way, because yesterday morning he was in the middle of an investigation and called me to discuss a time when he was nine and accused me of cheating him on our score on a video game. We used to keep our scores taped to the refrigerator door. (Me: "Hey, what are you doing?" Him: "Sitting in the park watching what’s going on in this guy’s office on my computer." Man, it just doesn’t pay to be a criminal in this high tech environment. If the feds are so focused on him that they've installed cameras in his office, he's dead meat. That guy's entire life is about to collapse around him and he thinks it's just another prosperous and Sunny day). But what would make Eric think of a video game score at a time like that?  I'll tell you what it was. It was because he was involved in dealing with the ugly side of life, and thinking about the simple warmth of his childhood brought him comfort.

Then we started discussing my two grandsons. He told me that he’s decided that he’s been too intense in his focus on always pushing them toward high achievement. He said, he wants them to be able to look back on their childhood with fondest, not always worrying about impressing him with their latest efforts. I told him that he was absolutely right. Raising kids is not brain surgery. We make much too big of a deal over how to do it properly. All you have to do is love ‘em, enjoy ‘em, and treat ‘em with respect. If you do that, they’ll do the rest. If you’re too intense with them, you’re all going to miss the happiest days of your lives.

Happiness is not about wealth and fame. In the end, you’ll find that the time you spent embraced in the warmth and coziness of a loving family will be remembered as the happiness days of your life, so they should be cherished. I know, because now that my wife has passed, and my kids have their own families, I go to sleep to the warmth of those memories every night.
.
Hey!  That feels like an article. Thanks, Bill!  Now let me go dry my eyes.

Richard,

Reading your musings brought down a very unexpected attack of moist eyes on me. Many people don’t realize it, but those simple spontaneous moments are more often than not going to be looked back upon as the happiest days of their lives. I remember how my grandfather used to drop little drops of water in my face to wake me up to have breakfast with him in the morning before he went to work, and how on Saturday nights we used to sit up and watch "Gunsmoke" and "Have Gun Will Travel" together. I’ll drop whatever I’m doing just to watch either of those to this day - not because of the story lines, but just relive the feeling of those moments with my grandfather.

The same is true of the times I used to spend with my son and daughter. My son obviously feels exactly the same way, because yesterday morning he was in the middle of an investigation and called me to discuss a time when he was nine and accused me of cheating him on our score on a video game. We used to keep our scores taped to the refrigerator door. (Me: "Hey, what are you doing?" Him: "Sitting in the park watching what’s going on in this guy’s office on my computer." Man, it just doesn’t pay to be a criminal in this high tech environment. If the feds are so focused on him that they've installed cameras in his office, he's dead meat. That guy's entire life is about to collapse around him and he thinks it's just another prosperous and Sunny day). But what would make Eric think of a video game score at a time like that?  I'll tell you what it was. It was because he was involved in dealing with the ugly side of life, and thinking about the simple warmth of his childhood brought him comfort.

Then we started discussing my two grandsons. He told me that he’s decided that he’s been too intense in his focus on always pushing them toward high achievement. He said, he wants them to be able to look back on their childhood with fondest, not always worrying about impressing him with their latest efforts. I told him that he was absolutely right. Raising kids is not brain surgery. We make much too big of a deal over how to do it properly. All you have to do is love ‘em, enjoy ‘em, and treat ‘em with respect. If you do that, they’ll do the rest. If you’re too intense with them, you’re all going to miss the happiest days of your lives.

Happiness is not about wealth and fame. In the end, you’ll find that the time you spent embraced in the warmth and coziness of a loving family will be remembered as the happiness days of your life, so they should be cherished. I know, because now that my wife has passed, and my kids have their own families, I go to sleep to the warmth of those memories every night.
.
Hey!  That feels like an article. Thanks, Bill!  Now let me go dry my eyes.