The Tooth Fairy always stocked up on quarters in our house

Strangely enough (to me anyway), one of the most-read posts in the history of this blog is one from 2013 in which I wrote about the fact that our children never received as much money from the Tooth Fairy as other American kids.

For those scoring along at home – which is to say only me – that post is #2 all-time in blog page views, a distant second to one in which I offered up my top five daddy-daughter songs.

Anyway, I thought about the Tooth Fairy again recently when she was the subject of a New York Times Strands word search.

The rule in our house when our kids were growing up was that, when you lost a tooth, the Tooth Fairy would give you one quarter for every year of age. So if you were 10 years old, you ended up with $2.50 in coins under your pillow the next morning.

This system mostly worked well, though it made quietly placing the coins under the sleeping child's pillow a little trickier than using paper money. There was always the risk of the coins clinking and awakening the little guy/girl.

It never happened, but we came close a couple of times.

I recently asked Google how much kids nowadays receive from the Tooth Fairy. The average amount, according to the good folks at Delta Dental, is $5.84 per lost fang.

A child's first lost tooth commands even more cash, averaging $7.17.

Either way, and even when accounting for inflation, that's more than we ever gave our kids.

Seven bucks = 28 quarters. Good luck slipping that under a pillow without making any noise.

It may simply have been that we were young parents who didn't know any better. Or maybe it was that we had five kids and lacked the disposal income we have now.

Either way, I feel like we owe our children some sort of dental reparations. I'll be sending them each five pounds of quarters to make up for it.

I have had to relearn where everything goes in our new kitchen

This is our new (and somewhat confusing to me) kitchen.

We recently undertook a long-overdue kitchen renovation. And when I say "long overdue," I mean it. Apart from the flooring and appliances, we hadn't made any meaningful changes to the kitchen since we bought our house in 2003.

It was the same kitchen the previous owners had had since 1995, so it was time.

This is the point when people generally ask, "Did you do it yourself?" This is also the point when I laugh heartily and pat them on the head for being so adorable.

No, we did not do it ourselves. We hired a guy named Don to do it, with substantial guidance from our awesome neighbor Lisa. The result was new cabinets, new countertops, a new sink, a new over-the-range microwave, and a new paint job (the painting having been handled by our go-to painter Erin).

I have neither the skills nor the time to have done any of that myself.

It now looks like a completely different kitchen, which is how it should look when you shell out as much money as we did.

The new cabinets are not only nicer, they're also bigger. To the point that Terry spent a few agonizing weeks trying to figure out how to reorganize everything to take best advantage of our newfound storage space.

She did an excellent job, but she also moved a lot of stuff to completely different areas of the kitchen.

You will note I didn't necessarily know where 100% of our stuff was supposed to go in the old kitchen. When I would empty the dishwasher, I would constantly go to Terry with some kitchen gadget in hand asking where it should be placed.

Since the remodel, the rate at which this happens has risen somewhat.

We're now a couple of months into having this new kitchen, and while my understanding of the layout is better, it's not thorough. I still go to the wrong place when I need a fork, and I still have to stop and think for a second when I'm looking for a storage container or citrus peeler or some such culinary paraphernalia.

I'm getting better, but progress is slow. If Terry isn't home when I can't find something, I end up opening every single cabinet and drawer. Sometimes twice.

Or I just give up.

My hope is that, by the time this current edition of the kitchen is in need of renovation, I'll have a firm grasp of where 85% of our stuff goes.

Maybe 70%.

50% for sure.

In my Grandpa Era

With apologies to Ms. Taylor Swift, I'm thoroughly enjoying being nearly 10 months into my Grandpa Era. Here's a quick photo essay documenting a small part of the adventure so far...

This is my favorite shot of my grandson Cal and me. I think it was taken when he was just a couple of weeks old. Now he's almost a year, and of course he looks much different, but I go back and look at this picture a lot.

This was in the hospital right after Cal was born, as you can probably tell from the generic hospital baby blanket. He was relatively big by newborn standards, but he still seemed impossibly small to me. I couldn't get enough of him in those first few weeks. I still can't get enough of him.

When Cal comes to my house or I go to his, I'm often tasked with diaper changes and giving bottles. Of course I never say no. He will outgrow bottles at some point, so I try to savor each feeding. It's a nice time for us to be close. I talk to him while he stares back at me and eats. I think we both enjoy it.

This was us wearing our holiday sweaters on Christmas, the day Cal turned 4 months old. I don't know how often we're doing to dress alike as he gets older, but I do look forward to taking him out for Grandpa-Calvin days. Hockey games will be high on the list when he's ready, but even simple trips to the park are going to be so much fun.

When Cal's mom Chloe was little, she used to love carrying around a little plastic orange hammer. She would take it everywhere. So Terry got Cal one just like it. So far, he sees is mainly as something to teethe on, but to each his own.

From the time he could smile, one thing that has always made Cal happy is when you whistle at him. Or at least it works when I do it. This shot was taken on Easter, and I think I'm whistling to try and amuse him (otherwise I can't explain my face). My guess, though, is that someone off camera is responsible for Cal's big grin, because I'm not sure my whistling was ever that amusing.

Grammy and Grandpa with little Cal. One of the things I've enjoyed about being a new grandparent is sharing the experience with Terry. We talk about Cal all the time, and we marvel as he reaches new milestones and learns new skills. I knew we would love him, and I knew we would enjoy being grandparents. I just didn't know we would love it all so much. It's wonderful.

Our $50,000 hockey investment has yielded a million dollars' worth of family fun and memories

I had never been a season ticket holder for any sport when the Lake Erie Monsters came to Cleveland in 2007.

But I knew I liked hockey, and we had a bunch of young kids who I thought might feel the same. So Terry and I took the plunge and bought two season tickets for the Monsters' first season.

Actually, we got involved so early that the Monsters didn't yet have a name when we wrote our first check to "Cleveland Pro Hockey Ltd" or some such legal entity. I was at then-Gund Arena when they later announced what the team would be called.

Since then they have morphed into the "Cleveland" Monsters, and we recently finished our 19th year as full season ticket holders.

That puts us in relatively rare air. Back in 2016-17, the team's 10th year of existence, they put the names of those of us who had been full season ticket holders (officially "Monsters Hockey Club members") from the very beginning on one of the dasher boards at ice level. Here's Jared and me posing with that list of names in February 2017:

While there may appear to be quite a few people there, it's still a small list when you consider the team now averages more than 11,000 fans a game and annually leads the American Hockey League in attendance.

Next season is the Monsters' 20th, and I hope they do something similar to recognize those of us who took the plunge early and never left.

More importantly, I can't say enough about what a great thing the Monsters Hockey Club has been for our family. 

In 2020, the team was kind enough to make a video about us that was shown several times on the arena "Humungotron" and shared on the Monsters' social media channels:

Of greater worth is the one-on-one time I've spent over the years with Terry and each of the kids at those games. Sometimes we watch and comment on the hockey, other times hockey is just the background to deeper conversations about life.

We've also met many wonderful fellow hockey fans who sit near us, some of whom I chronicled in this blog post.

We've cheered game-winning goals, mourned lost opportunities, and eaten more arena popcorn than anyone probably should.

Recently I tried to calculate how much money we've spent on Monsters hockey over these two decades. I don't have records of how much we've paid each year for our tickets, but I seem to remember them being as cheap as $1,700 total for the first season and as expensive as $3,000 for the 2026-27 season (which in fairness includes a couple of hundred additional dollars for the AHL All-Star Game being held next year in Cleveland...also in fairness, we have really good seats).

Figure our average ticket outlay over the years has been somewhere in the middle, say $2,300 a year. Multiply that by 20 years and you get $46,000. Then there's the food and team apparel we've bought, which is somewhere well north of $5,000 at this point.

All told, we've sunk $50K+ into this team – and it has been worth every penny.

I had no idea it would last this long for us, and now I can't foresee a time when we're not season ticket holders for our favorite local hockey team.

I've already told my 9-month-old grandson Cal how much I can't wait to take him to the arena. He smiles back at me indulgently, figuring that whatever Grandpa is saying, it must be something fun.

Oh, it is, buddy, it really is.

Go Monsters!

Forty years into this thing, I think I'll keep her

This is Terry and me the night of her senior prom in 1987.
We were babies.

This Saturday, my wife and I will celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary. I know many couples who have been married longer, but I'm proud (and exceedingly blessed) to have been with Terry that long.

Actually, when it comes to how long we've been together, the real figure is a nice round 40 years. We started dating in March 1986 and have (mostly) never looked back.

Terry and I were talking recently about what we would do if something happened to the other person, and we both said we wouldn't remarry. This is especially believable for Terry, as I think women generally do better than men living on their own in the second half of life. But I also know I'm not helpless and would be fine flying solo if I had to, albeit sad over what I had lost.

I try never to take for granted the fact that when I get home from work, my best friend in the world will be there. Often she will have cooked a delicious meal and will have spent her day taking care of one or more household issues with a skill and grace I could never match.

It's a blessing I neither deserve nor necessarily knew I wanted until I had it.

Because here's the thing about life: You have no idea what's around the corner. You can plan for the proverbial Second Act – and to some extent you should – but no one has ever said you're entitled to a prescribed number of years on this planet or with your significant other.

You could live to be 100, you might get hit by a bus at 50. Who knows?

Only God does. So it's probably wise to enjoy the here and now at every opportunity for as long as you can.

I've given a lot of thought in recent years to when I might retire. If all goes according to plan (and again, it rarely does), I probably have another decade or so in the full-time workforce.

It's a balancing act between the financial math and maximizing the time you have to enjoy your nest egg and focus on things other than your job, bills, young kids, etc.

Our financial guy ran some numbers suggesting I might retire as early as age 62. Depending on market performance, the math does check out, but I'm not sure the intangibles do. I don't know if I'll be ready at that point to move on.

The point is that, however things play out, I have someone at my side with whom I share life's joys, its challenges, its frustrations, and its revelations. We'll celebrate this fact on Saturday with the traditional anniversary dinner somewhere nice, probably followed by an hour on the couch watching "Blindspot," a TV series we both enjoy.

And then it will be off to bed to rest up for another day of whatever comes our way. If that's not the definition of "as good as it gets," I'm not sure what is.

The only 3 things I don't like about summer

When you live in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. as I do, you spend a good chunk of the year looking forward to summer (which as far as I'm concerned begins today).

We only get four months of truly warm temperatures, so it's a big deal when they finally arrive.

And by the way, referring back to the opening paragraph, I live in Lake County, Ohio, about 3 miles from the southern shore of Lake Erie. Thus, I live in the Great Lakes region and not in the Midwest.

Yes yes, I know we're considered part of the Midwest for purposes of the U.S. Census, but I firmly believe we are more accurately classified as Great Lakers in geography, accent and temperament.

Anyway...

We here spend so much time looking forward to warm summer breezes that we idealize the season to an unrealistic degree. As if summer is the perfect state of being and there is no more desirable plane of human existence.

I'm almost onboard with that perspective except for a few things:

(1) I'm a regular walker. One of those arm-swinging fast walkers, in fact. I'm on the road four and sometimes five mornings a week. In the winter when I get home from a brisk walk and shed my hat, gloves and sweatshirt, it feels good. In the summer, I have nothing to shed at the end of a walk besides my reflective vest, and I sweat. I keep on sweating, even after showering. Doesn't matter if we have our air conditioning on full blast, I'm going to sweat for an hour after a summer morning walk. I don't like that.

(2) Summer means the return of Compost Paul. Compost Paul is the name of the plastic bin we keep on our kitchen counter in the warmer months. It holds food scraps destined for our outdoor compost bin ("Compost Paul" being a slight variation of "Compost Pail"). Compost Paul fills up fast, and quite often I'm the one who fills him up. Which means I need to be the one to carry him out to the bin, empty him, and rinse him out. I dislike this chore, and I consider it a black mark against the whole summer season.

(3) I spend an inordinate chunk of the summer worrying about the end of summer. I'm not kidding. The calendar turns to July 1st and all I can think is, "Summer is already half over. School starts next month. Oh no!" This is insane, and I realize it's the very definition of a me problem. Still, a big black cloud seems to hang over my summers, as if every day is a Sunday and I'm going to back to work the next morning. I may need some therapy.

All the same, welcome back, summer. You were (mostly) missed.

Why does everyone around me suddenly seem so young?

I feel a lot like this white-haired guy each time I announce a baseball game.

Recently I was chatting with some of my Lake County Captains co-workers. (I say "co-workers," though it should be noted I'm not a full-time employee of the team. I'm just there on most game days to serve as the public address announcer.)

Jack, who directs game operations and is my boss, was celebrating his 25th birthday. He was born in 2001, about five months before September 11th. One of two young women in our conversation mentioned that Jack was "a pre-9/11 baby," while they were both born in the months after 9/11.

I casually noted that I was nearly 32 years old on September 11th, 2001, had been married for nine years at that point, and already had four kids and a mortgage. Which they all thought was pretty funny.

I did, too, though my laugh was a somewhat half-hearted one as I realized how often this sort of thing happens.

As you enter the later stages of your career, you find yourself with increasing frequency to be the oldest person in the room. You look around and think, "I literally have a pair of jeans older than him."

Which is somewhat jarring, though I still manage to find the humor in it. Even the absurdity.

Those three kids on the Captains staff have lived in parts of three decades. Me? I've touched seven decades, having been born in late 1969.

The great thing is, they don't treat me like the old guy. I get the same in-game feedback they get whether I do something well or I screw it up.

That is, of course, how it should be.

I will also say this: The young people working for this minor-league baseball team are impressive. They're smart, driven, and focused on delivering the best experience possible for the fans in attendance. I learn something from them every game.

I also like to think they learn something from me, though often that "something" is only the name of a random 80s song playing through the ballpark sound system.

Hey, if I have to be the most chronologically gifted person on the game day staff, so be it. I'll crank up the hearing aids, polish my cane, and do my best not to worry about the fact that almost none of my co-workers were around when Ronald Reagan was president.

Or George H.W. Bush.

Or Bill Clinton, for that matter.

Sigh.