The 43

In recent Septembers, mostly since my grandfather died in 2005, I've thought about a Bears game he took me to when I was almost 10 in 1980. This might have been one of the few things we did just us. My grandfather was technically my step-grandfather, and in 1980, he and my grandmother had been married about three years. From the start of their marriage, we started calling him Grandpa, and for the next 28 years, my sisters and I were blessed he took on the grandfather role that would have otherwise been absent in our lives. I'm not sure why he wanted to take me to a Bears game, but I think he got tickets through a local hotel or other business (tickets were easier to come by then). I'd stay overnight at my grandparents' house, and the next morning, we drove to a hotel from where the bus down to Soldier Field would depart. The night before the game, my grandmother and I saw "Urban Cowboy" at a theater in Lombard. We got there late and ended up staying to see the...

I have somehow fallen into a pattern in which I'm not getting to bed until after midnight, am sleeping a little too late, and am tired all day. I'm even yawning as I type this from Littlest's speech therapy playgroup. I'm not sure how I got into this routine, but with it coinciding with the boys back in school and me not getting too much exercise, I've been sleepy. At least I'm through fantasy football draft season, which I don't think was helping as I researched and drafted for the current NFL season. I'm hoping I can snap out of this pattern soon. In the meantime, I need some caffeine.

We took the kids to a Salt Lake Bees game today. The Triple-A baseball season is winding down, and this was our last chance to use some free tickets the boys got. We invited one of Eldest's friends, a girl we'll call M who came with her parents. It was their first ballgame ever -- I forget that if you didn't grow up in a big league town, your likelihood of ever seeing a baseball game decreases. Every time I take Eldest to a sporting event, I try to explain what's going on during the game and get him to pay attention. But he never seems to, and today with M -- they are so goofy together -- he wasn't even close. I almost think Littlest was paying more attention to the game. That's OK -- we all had fun at the game. The Bees feature the Bumble Express -- a train that's really a glorified golf cart -- that the kids rode. They also played at the playground beyond center field for an inning. We got ice cream and hats (50 percent off), sang "Take Me Out to the ...

We visited my grandmother a couple days ago, and we'll see her one more time this trip, and perhaps one more time at her house that she's lived at for more than 33 years. Grandma is moving to Texas to be closer to my mom and sisters, leaving Midwest winters behind. It occurred to me on the recent visit that these would be the last time I'd be seeing her house. My grandfather bought that house I think sometime in the 1960s, before he married Grandma (he's technically my stepgrandfather), and it's been her home too after they got married in 1977. Grandpa died in 2005, and she's been alone there (not completely alone, she's got a small dog) since. It's more house than she needs, and there's not much left for her here in Illinois, so this move will be good for her. But anytime you leave someplace you have lived for so long, it's always bittersweet, and it is for me knowing when we depart from one last visit, that will be it. My grandfather collected ...

Summer is my favorite time of year, and I loathe to waste a day during the summer. But sometimes, you just need a nada day. Today was a nada day. We had about our fifth consecutive day of temperatures in at least the high 90s and were coming off several busy days for all of us. It just turned into one of those days we didn't do much. Wife went for a run before it got too hot. She did a little shopping with Eldest. I took the boys to Target. I also blogged and played Wii Fit. We made a simple, easy dinner, then watched "Wipeout." Littlest played a game on the DS. Eldest and I played "Lego Indiana Jones." I watered the lawn and garden. And that was about it for a sunny but brutally hot (and a little humid, which is unusual for Utah) day. That was all we seemed to have the energy for -- we theorized taking the boys swimming, then decided we were all too tired (though I'm sure they would have found the energy). One nada summer day once in a while is OK. We get b...

I went for a walk tonight around dusk and watched the sunset from Sugar House Park near our house. It was a pleasant night here in SLC, and I needed a little exercise today and didn't feel like running, so I walked over the the far southwest corner of the park to get a view of the setting sun as it dropped below the horizon. I've written before on watching summer sunsets. Summer is my favorite time of year, and though I'm not going to pick a specific time of day I prefer every summer, dusk floods back the most memories. Actually, dusk floods back some early memories -- one specifically from 1975, when I was 4 1/2 years old. On a particular summer night, with the sun setting and the air warm, we as a family went the drive-in to see "Escape From Witch Mountain." I think we might have driven down Milwaukee Avenue and stopped at Superdawg on the way (which makes me think we saw the movie at Pal-Waukee, which would have been a long drive down Milwaukee from the city; I...

While living in Madison, before kids, before we were even married, I went for a walk through the far West side neighborhood we lived in and listened to a old tape of songs off the radio from 1984. It was a tape I hadn't listened to in years. It was at a time when I was getting serious about writing -- in a time before blogs, web publishing, NaNoWriMo , and so on. One of my possible projects was an idea I had in college to do sort of a written "Wonder Years" focusing on childhood summers (my favorite time of year). And I found unlikely inspiration from this cassette -- inspiration I've tried to recapture over the years. In the subsequent months, I wrote four "stories" for this project. I got some input from a friend, tweaked them, and never quite went back. Well, that mildly inspiring cassette/walk was from a cassette I had recorded about 12 years previous. And that was ... about 14 years ago. I look at the little victories -- semi-consistent blogging, the Na...