Walking April 23, 2018
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Blogging, Friends, Love, Poetry.2 comments
I walked without you tonight
Along the paths and sidewalks
Around the school
Near the football field
Visiting the places you loved to see
I walked without you tonight
Missing our chats and smalltalk
I spoke for you
As I always did
Though tonight you weren’t there with me
I walked without you tonight
Past feral cats and startled raccoon
Without you near
Close by my side
In shadow of bush and budding tree
I walked without you tonight
Quiet and calm and a lazy moon
Walking companions
Companions no more
Safe voyage crossing the midnight sea
A Long Walk January 2, 2016
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in death, Family, life, Love.2 comments
It’s about 3:00 AM, and my sister and I just finished helping our 94 year-old aunt make the trip to and from the bathroom. My aunt awoke around 2:15, needed help getting out of the recliner she now sleeps in, needed some help using her walker to navigate the 30′ trip (she’s fallen several times recently), and required both help and a bit of coaching to complete the return trip.
As you might surmise from the starting and ending times, we didn’t set any speed records on our trip. However, this isn’t written to complain about the early hour, the duration of the trip, or any inconvenience this represents to me.
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Engineering a Son December 11, 2012
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Learning, Love, Parenting/Children.add a comment
This past weekend, my younger son brought home a project that he had been working on for class in college. To the uninitiated, the device below might appear to be a simple pneumatic motor, a mechanical device that converts air pressure into rotational movement.
Time February 15, 2012
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Blogging, Family, Friends, Love, Memories, Parenting/Children, Relationships, Writing.2 comments
Time is a funny thing.
No, I don’t mean “time is hilarious.” Time is… peculiar.
This morning, as I was getting dressed, I looked at my forearm as it emerged from my sleeve and thought, “That looks like the forearm of an old man.” At 50, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me to have revelations like this, but it honestly surprised me. I stared at my arm blankly for a minute, thinking of the inevitability of the aging process, and the peculiar manifestation of it in the texture of that region of skin. (more…)
Just like that… January 14, 2012
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Family, Laughter, Love, Parenting/Children, Relationships, Theology.Tags: family resemblance, parent child relationships
2 comments
We sat down at lunch, as we have at various times over the past five weeks, and he carefully managed the potential disaster-in-the-making known as a Qdoba Chicken Queso Burrito (with Tortilla Soup poured onto the rice). As he somehow avoided spilling a single grain of rice, we laughed at the little children around us (both of us tend to be magnets for kids, as we happily engage them in goofy faces and childish play), and we talked.
We discussed a wide range of topics. Last night, while shopping, we’d discussed the design of intake systems for performance cars (the merits of hood scoops versus cold-air intakes). Today we talked of Facebook, parent-child relationships, and sexuality. In other words, just another typical conversation with one of my sons.
In the middle of his junior year of college and with his older brother married and living 90 miles East of us, you would think that I would be accustomed to my younger son being four hours-away. You would think that him being home for several weeks over the Christmas break wouldn’t create an intense sense of loss as I watched him drive away today. You would think I’d have seen this coming.
You would be wrong.
A Fool and his Words are Soon Parted 