As a musical instrument the flute or the clarinet can be used in conjunction with other instruments to create harmony or counterpoint. The same is true of the human voice. It can sing, for sure! But as a solo instrument, there are limits. The flute can be the primary instruments in a large orchestral work, … Read more
The Mimi’s Restaurant at 3375 E Main St. Ventura, California went out of business in February of 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The building at that location has been an empty shell for several years. But I still remember the evening we took our toddler to eat there. It must have been sometime in 2008. … Read more
A Concerned Father’s Bequest: Confidence and Competency Yesterday I read the unhappy news of a murder in the 12600 block of Riverside Drive in Los Angeles, California, some 47 miles away from where I live. Almost 30 years ago I dated a woman who lived in the Valley Village neighborhood almost right next to where … Read more
Patience. It is such a small word. But there is a lot in it. Our relationship to time, and our ability to endure it, changes drastically across a lifetime. It seems like forever from your seventh to your eighth birthday. Time moves slowly. Everything is intense. Impatience is all. By the time one enters middle … Read more
Indecision. A time of transition. Change: The process of leaving one situation and entering another. The world might look like one thing at the end of it. Or it might be totally the opposite. You might arrive at place x. Or at place y. It can be stressful. You arrive at a turning point where … Read more
“Are you looking for Father David?” No, I am looking for my Uncle Bill. This was the response I always gave to that question, although I never said it out loud. My Uncle Bill was known as “Father David” in his religious order, the Dominicans. They were his religious “family,” and when he was ordained … Read more
It was quite a show on Sunday February 9, 2025, or so I heard: Kendrick Lamar performed in the cultural center stage of the Super Bowl halftime show at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, decrying his supposed bitter rival Drake; I know this because I read about it in the news. I did … Read more
Often a reader of this blog might remark that while one gains a good glimpse of what I might think about fatherhood, politics, literature, or whatever, one does not get a good up-close inspection of myself and my daily surroundings. Much is abstract and ephemeral, little is concrete or immediate. I will try to remedy … Read more
Back on October 7, 2023 the Hamas terror group in Gaza unexpectedly burst across the border into Israel and killed some 1,200 Israelis. Others were reportedly raped, and 250 Israelis were kidnapped back to the Gaza Strip where most of them perished. I wrote about it a week later here. That was over fifteen months … Read more
Way back on January 1, 1995 I sat down with my good friend Brent Burns at the Marine Room Tavern in Laguna Beach, California and we penned our resolutions for that new year. (Here is the document.) I hoped we might make this a tradition. We could hold each other accountable for trying to become … Read more
I often think about the old question: How much of a person comes from their “native temperament” – the DNA they were born with, and how that influences their behavior? And how much comes as a result of how they were raised – the values they received in their upbringings? This is the infamous “nature … Read more
Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, was gunned down yesterday on a crowded Manhattan Street. A hooded man walked up to him and coolly shot him down in what was obviously a cold-blooded killing which had been carefully planned. The assassination seems to have been motivated by grievances against the health insurance industry, but facts … Read more
The American presidential election is twenty-one days behind us, but it seems much longer. Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris, both in the popular vote and Electoral College, and the Republicans also have control of both houses of Congress. Supposedly it was going to be a nail biter of an election, with the female vote … Read more
There are plenty of consolations for aging. But the physical decay of your body is not one of them. It is this simple: everytime I see a present day photo of my face, I am unhappy with what I see. And then when I see that same photo five years later, it looks a lot … Read more
When my younger daughter was in sixth grade, my wife and I received phone calls from other parents complaining that Elizabeth played “too rough” with their daughters. Surprised to hear this, I gave these comments some thought. What is the nature of my younger daughter? I reflected. What does she need? What would be best … Read more
I am currently well into the new 2024-2025 school year. But I am barely hanging in there. The goals I wrote down are simple to understand and two in number: That is it. But, WOW, that is turning into quite the challenging task. From getting them both out of the house on time to drive … Read more
What is more important? Having a career which is a good fit? Valuable work that pays well and which you enjoy? An engaging job? Professional success? Wealth and power? Or a happy marriage? A spouse with whom you get along? Fulfillment at home? Children and grandchildren? Hobbies and friends? It can seem like a choice: … Read more
The ancient Spartans refused to give sway to their fears of a foreign invasion by building walls. “The walls of our country are the tips of our spears,” they reportedly claimed. The Spartan army was feared such that attacks against their interests would be dealt with outside their homeland. But it is understandable: one ruminates … Read more
It is a strange thing. My blog statistics have shown a strange development lately: most of my blog “hits” are originating from the People’s Republic of China. Why is that? I have no idea. I really don’t. I never really know what is going on with respect to how visitors arrive to my webpage. True, … Read more
Approximately 30 months ago I wrote about my amazement that the United States Supreme Court might reject decades of judicial precedent by overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: ”Abortion and Roe v. Wade: A Flawed Legal Decision, a Necessary Health Policy”December 2, 2021 Then six months later after I wrote that initial essay, … Read more
So I just turned 57-years old. I wish I were 58. Or 61.5 years of age, more specifically. Speed up the years! Why? Because I could retire then. I am in the final full flush of my career: meshing decades of hard won experience while still being young enough to put in the exhausting work … Read more
I wrote over two months ago about how Donald Trump and the “burn it all down” faction from the GOP in the House of Representatives sought to derail any foreign aid measures to Ukraine. For weeks and weeks I would go to Google and type in “House vote for Ukraine,” and it seemed nothing was … Read more
I have been coaching high school tennis for four years now. I do this because my daughter was on the team, and I wanted her team experience to go well. So I became the coach. “If you want a job done well, then do it yourself,” I thought to myself. After all the isolation of … Read more
Some eighteen months ago someone stole my road bike out of my garage. My older daughter came in late at night and failed to close our garage door, and the next morning my road bike and my wife’s sewing machine were gone. I suspect opportunistic thieves (like the lowlife “porch pirates” who steal Amazon packages … Read more
My daughter turns 17-years of age today. I am a bit dumbfounded. Last year she turned 16-years old, and that date is very much wrapped up in her gaining a driver’s license. Here she was 14 months ago taking her first driving lesson – My daughter was a high school sophomore at the time. This … Read more
In his biography Open the tennis champion Andre Agassi said the following, “A win doesn’t feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn’t last as long as the bad. Not even close.” This is a way of saying that we respond more powerfully to a negative stimuli than to a … Read more
I apologize in advance, dear reader, for bringing politics at length into one of my posts. Most Americans, myself included, are exhausted by recent political and cultural strife. A deeply polarized America is full of contention and division. I don’t wish to contribute to that mess. But politics is important, alas, and so I want … Read more
NOTE: A good tennis buddy Julio Cabral and I are both approaching retirement age as public school teachers. We are trying to help each other transition from the world of work to the mindset of the retired. I have done considerable research on this, and I know it can be difficult. Change, even positive and … Read more
Back in 2017 I was with my friend Chris Prewitt at the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament with our ten year old daughters. We had just entered the sprawling complex, and there were people everywhere. Among the throngs of spectators crowding around us, Chris warned our daughters the following: “If we for some reason get separated … Read more
What to do in the summer of 2024? Two summers ago I traveled to Costa Rica with my family: Last summer I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with my older daughter: What about next summer? What should I do? Where should I go? I’m not sure. I’m sort of tired of Latin America. Was Puerto … Read more