My father-in-law's impenetrable fortress of security

My father-in-law Tom has been gone nearly three years. I don't think about him every day, but it's often enough that I realize how much I miss him. He was, at his core, a good and decent man. Faithful, loyal, and dryly funny.

You could always tell when he thought he had said something hilarious because he would grin and his shoulders would shake with a little laugh. I imagined him thinking to himself, "Oh Tom, that was a good one."

Tom was a product of his generation, though like my dad, he had a love for modern gadgets. Computers, in particular, were his thing.

That was partly how he became the email and newsletter guy for our church. He had the know-how and a willingness to serve, so if there was news worth sharing within our congregation, it would come electronically through Tom.

He also had his funny quirks, though who among us doesn't?

One of the things Terry and I often laugh about is Tom's garage door code.

When Tom and my mother-in-law Judy moved into their home on Green Ridge Drive 20+ years ago, the detached garage had an automatic opener with a keypad on which you could set a passcode.

Tom needed something memorable, but he didn't want it to be too obvious. He decided to use the date of his and Judy's wedding anniversary, BUT...being a guy who was always one step ahead of would-be criminals, he made a sneaky adjustment.

Tom and Judy were married on July 1, 1961, which translates to a six-digit passcode of 070161. Ever the tricky devil, Tom opted instead for 070262, increasing the day and the year by one. It was a stroke of CIA-level security genius that would make it impossible for anyone to gain entry to his beloved garage.

Absolutely no one was getting in there to steal his scraps of wood and yard tools.

Tom passed away in September 2023. Sunday mornings at church haven't been the same without him, nor have family and holiday get-togethers.

I'm now the church email and newsletter guy, having inherited the role largely because I felt I couldn't say no.

When it came to serving his church and his family, Tom never said no. It was one of the most important things I learned from him. 

We're working toward having minimal stuff in our house for the kids to clean out when we die

The basement storage room in question

Such a morbid headline today, and the second time in a month I've written something that makes it sound like I'm at death's door.

Thankfully, that is not the case. I'm only 56 years old and in pretty good health. Neither Terry nor I plan on going anywhere any time soon.

BUT...we are also of the age where we have lost all four of our parents. In each case, we were involved in the job of cleaning out their houses after they passed.

When you find yourself renting a dumpster and spending hours and hours combing through boxes in Mom and Dad's attic trying to figure out what to save and what to toss, you become conscious of the need to spare your own kids that same laborious task.

So Terry and I have committed to a program of getting rid of the extraneous stuff in our house over time.

When I say "over time," I admit that means we're not exactly in a rush. If we were both hit by a bus today, our children would have a heck of a time cleaning out the basement storage room, not to mention the rest of the house.

It's just that 34 years of marriage and five kids mean you accumulate a lot of possessions, some of which you want to keep.

Those boxes of baby clothes? We store them for grandkids, knowing full well they take up a whole lot of space in the meantime.

That wall of Christmas decorations? Hey, we're festive people!

High school memory bins? We've admittedly trimmed those down over time, but we still have yellowing newspaper articles and varsity jacket letters that will simply be thrown away when we've moved on from this life.

Speaking of newspaper articles, in that storage room are a few large bins of three-ring binders stuffed with copies of virtually every story I ever wrote for The News-Herald and the Plain Dealer when I was a sports journalist.

That's thanks to my dad, who meticulously cut out each one and taped them onto scrapbook pages for long-term preservation.

A year ago I came this close to throwing those binders away, but I just couldn't do it. It felt like I would be dishonoring years of Dad's work and turning a blind eye to how proud he was of his sports writer son.

So instead I vowed to digitize them all before I throw away the hard copies.

Which, of course, will take some time.

Time I assume I have.

Kids, my sincere apologies if I never actually get around to it.

Whatever happened to that old song, to all those little girls and boys?

 

I go through periods in which I'm very sentimental and nostalgic for the years when my kids were young.

They're still "young," of course, but I mean school-aged young. Back when every day brought one challenge or another, but the good always outweighed the bad by a wide margin.

What I miss, it seems, are the little things.

I miss the seven of us going to church together on Sunday mornings, even when I had to tell them over and over it was time to wake up and get dressed.

I miss family trips to the library when we would walk out with several pounds of books each.

I miss dinners when we all crammed around our little kitchen table.

I miss wrestling matches in the living room.

I miss vacations to Hershey Park or Sandusky or Philadelphia or wherever. The destination rarely mattered. It was the fact we were all together.

I miss "Clean the Whole House" weekend afternoons when we started in the basement and worked our way to the top floor, picking up misplaced garbage, half-finished food and dirty laundry along the way.

I miss school concerts and plays and programs of all types. I miss the excitement and pageantry of the first and last day of school.

I miss the chaos. I miss the sounds of a full house. I miss friends coming over and movie nights together.

I miss it all.

I'm not often asked for parenting advice, which is a good thing since I don't have much to offer. But when it does happen, I always say the same thing: Even in the hardest of times (especially in the hardest of times), try not to lose your perspective.

Don't forget to stop and appreciate what you have. Don't miss the opportunity to revel in the noise of young children you exhaust yourself taking care of every day.

You're going to miss it all in ways you can't imagine when you're 25 or 30 but know all too well when you're 50, 60, 70 and beyond.

That's all I have for you, but believe me...it's enough.

Once our cats are gone, we're taking a break from having pets...or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

We owned all of these guys at one point. Now only the two on the left remain.

We currently own three cats: Ginny (11 years old), Molly (9), and Cheddar (age unknown, but probably 8-ish?)

I love them all. They're affectionate – each in their own way – and they cause minimal damage to our house.

Actually, they cause zero damage as long as Ginny is on her meds. A year or so ago she started peeing in places she wasn't supposed to, so the vet prescribed some Happy Cream. Every night we rub a small dab of the cream inside her ear, which keeps her both content and continent, if somewhat zoned out.

Apart from that, all three are pretty healthy felines, at least for the moment. We've been down this path several times before, so we know in a few years they'll start declining.

It will be sad, and we will love them until the very end, but Terry and I came to the decision a while ago that these are the last three in a long line of Tennant cats.

We've owned cats together since before we were married. For the three months leading up to our wedding in 1992, I lived alone in the house we had bought with a little kitten named Alex. He was the first of our many four-legged, fuzzy friends.

Over the subsequent 34 years, we've owned as few as one or two cats at a time and as many as five. Our current three feels like a good number, especially to me as the person who daily feeds them and cleans their litter boxes.

When we lost our boys Fred, George, and Charlie in a 15-month span in 2022 and 2023, we were down to just Ginny and Molly. And that seemed fine.

Then Cheddar unexpectedly joined the team in the spring of 2024. You can read about that here, if you're interested.

Now I truly think we're playing out the string. I don't mean that to sound heartless. As I said, we love our three kitties and will continue loving them until it's their time to go.

But I've been doing the litter box/cat feeding thing almost every morning for 3+ decades. I wouldn't mind hanging up my scooper. And Terry and I would both be OK not having to worry about aging cats using our basement armchairs as scratching posts or surrogate bathrooms.

I say this as someone who has had at least one pet in the house consistently since birth. I grew up with dogs and fish, while our kids have owned cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, chinchillas, mice, and fish of their own.

I've taken care of more than my share of furry and non-furry creatures. As sad as I'll be to lose Ginny, Molly, and Cheddar, I'm ready to take a break. A permanent break.

And this time, I mean it.

It says here I'm older than three-quarters of the people I meet

There is a website called oldfart.io that exists solely to let you know what percentage of the population is younger than you.

You just enter your birthdate and the specific group to which you want to compare yourself (the entire world or an individual country), and the site will instantly crush your hopes and dreams.

Actually, it only crushes your hopes and dreams if you're of a certain age. I'm not sure what that age is, but I feel like I'm coming up on it awfully quickly.

According to the oldfart.io calculator, as someone who is roughly 56.7 years of age, I am older than 82% of people in the world and 72% of people in the United States.

The difference, I suppose, is that the world's population includes many countries with relatively low life expectancies compared with the U.S.

And let me just say, for as much as we Americans act like we have the best of everything, we do not rank highly in the life expectancy department. Depending on the source you consult, we have something like the 60th-highest life expectancy out of 230-odd sovereign nations in the world.

The top-ranked country, according to worldometers.info? Monaco, with a life expectancy of 86.7 years for both sexes combined and 88.8 years for women specifically.

At the bottom of the list is Nigeria, at just shy of 55 years overall.

Worldometers.info has the U.S. coming in at 79.76 (82.2 for women, 77.3 for men).

You only have to be a person of somewhat advanced middle age like me to find yourself more chronologically gifted than three of every four people you meet. This is somewhat disconcerting.

Still, I can't deny it's true. I'm thrilled at work when I'm not the oldest person in a meeting. Most of my colleagues were born sometime after I graduated from college.

There are positive and negative ways of looking at this situation:

• POSITIVE: I am a person with many years' experience in the full-time workforce, giving me wisdom and insight I can share freely with my younger co-workers.
  
  
• NEGATIVE: I am going to die soon.
  
  

I'm kidding about the dying thing, of course...I think...at least as far as I know.

I've only become aware of my impending senior citizenhood over the last year or so. Before that, it never really occurred to me.

That's mostly because I don't feel especially old. I have no chronic pain, I still move well, and I still heal up pretty quickly (if not as quickly as I used to). I'm winning the battle against aging in my mind, at least.

But eventually, we all lose the battle against math, by which I mean not the school subject but the inevitability of time.

The numbers are what they are, and they say I am older than 75-80% (or more) of anyone I'm likely to meet on this planet.

On the other hand, I don't feel so bad showing up at a restaurant at 4:45pm for dinner. Call me an old fogey, but I'm opting to beat the crowds every day of the week.

(NOTE: Not to emphasize the age thing, but happy birthday over the next week to my older siblings Mark and Debbie. Mark's birthday is this Friday, while Debbie's is next Monday. They both make aging look easy.)

Parents, make sure you get video of your kids doing everyday things, not just the big holidays and special occasions

 

The advent of home movie cameras in the mid-20th century (and later the camcorder revolution of the 1980s) meant that families for the first time could capture video of events formerly documented only through still photos pasted into scrapbooks.

The result, for many of us, is a library of old reel-to-reel, VHS and Super 8 tapes on which our moms and dads recorded birthday and graduation parties, Christmas morning gift openings, and other such notable celebrations.

All of those are wonderful, and I'm grateful for modern conversion devices that allow us to transfer those memories into longer-lasting digital formats. But as a parent of grown children, I will say this: My favorite videos aren't necessarily the parties and school concerts, as great as those are.

My favorites are when we thought to record the kids just doing normal stuff. Whether it was playing with toys in the living room, interacting with siblings, or even something as seemingly mundane as reading a book on the couch, the clips I most value are the ones that remind me of the stuff of everyday life all those years ago.

The video above is an example of that. It was shot by Terry in late August 1999, just as our oldest child Elissa was starting kindergarten. It shows Elissa getting on and off the bus, and her almost-three-year-old sister Chloe saying how much she would miss her.

That's it. Nothing seemingly special, yet it means everything.

It brings me back to a time of the most enjoyable chaos I've ever experienced. It triggers memories of family dinners with young children, cherished bedtime stories, and everything else that made up the fabric of our existence.

So parents, keep on taking video of the big things. But every once in a while, record the smaller stuff, too. One day you'll be grateful you did.

(NOTE: Speaking of Chloe, she begins her 5-year medical school journey today with a week of orientation at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Good luck, Dr. Edmonds! By this time in 2031, you will officially be Dr. Dr. Edmonds. Or Double Doctor Edmonds. We'll have to figure out how to say it...)

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 disposable 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.

Everything can change (for the better) with a single phone call

It was a Thursday in late April. I was working from home and had come downstairs to spend a few minutes with my daughter Chloe and grandson Cal. They were hanging at our house that day while son-in-law / husband / dad Michael was out of town for work.

I was holding Cal and talking to Chloe when her phone rang. She looked at the screen and said, in a tone of excitement, "That's a 216 number!"

It took me a second to realize what she meant.

Chloe had been accepted into The Ohio State University College of Medicine a few months earlier. She had visited the school a couple of times, and she and Michael were already making plans to sell their house and move to Columbus.

The only thing that could keep them in Northeast Ohio was if Chloe were to gain admission to the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Or should I say "the highly selective Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine," as that's sometimes how you see it referred to.

Chloe had been waitlisted at Lerner, which essentially means, "At the moment, we're not accepting you. But we're not rejecting you, either."

She had also been accepted to one other med school and waitlisted at yet another, but ultimately, this was a two-horse race. It was either going to be Ohio State or Lerner. She had told the Lerner folks that, if she were to be admitted there, she would absolutely attend, no questions asked.

The problem is that only 32 students are admitted to the Lerner College of Medicine each year. That's 32 out of about 2,000 applicants.

There is no doubt Lerner is an outstanding medical school. Elite, even. But for many, one of the main draws is the fact that it's free.

Completely free. A five-year medical degree without charge.

Even with its relatively affordable tuition, Ohio State can't compete with free.

So before diving in and making full preparations for a move south, Chloe wanted to hear one way or another from Lerner. She needed closure, which is understandable.

As a frequent participant in online medical school applicant discussion forums, she knew exactly when the Lerner folks were likely to make their "yes" or "no" calls to wait-listers.

Which is why the appearance of an unknown 216 (Cleveland) number on her phone in late April gave her a jolt of adrenaline.

She answered the call with a cautious "Hello?"

You know how, if a room is relatively quiet, you can hear someone on the other end of a cell conversation? I made out just enough to decipher that the caller was Dr. Christine Warren from the Lerner College of Medicine.

I heard Dr. Warren say she was calling with good news that they were formally going to offer Chloe admission. I saw Chloe's eyes go wide and a smile start to play across her face.

I began silently jumping up and down in celebration while still holding Cal, which made him a little nervous. He obviously didn't know what was going on.

When Chloe got off her call, I ran over and hugged her, and we both started jumping up and down.

Cal cried a little, scared by all the commotion. I cried, too. Only my tears came from the realization that all of our lives had changed in an instant.

Not only did that phone call mean Chloe, Michael and Cal would continue living relatively close to us, it also meant that Chloe was going to save herself a few hundred thousand dollars in med school tuition.

Terry was out of town at the time, and I enjoyed listening in when Chloe called her mother and told her the good news.

Terry, bless her heart, always had faith that Chloe would get into Lerner. Both of us wanted whatever was best for Chloe and family, but we also wanted them to remain local so that we could continue seeing our little grandson as often as possible.

I had already resigned myself to the idea that Chloe was going to Ohio State. We would undoubtedly make the drive of 2+ hours to Columbus regularly, I figured, which was certainly better than nothing.

But Terry never wavered. She said Chloe was going to get in, and she did.

Which in retrospect makes sense, I suppose. I mean, she is already DOCTOR Chloe Edmonds, having earned her PhD in neuroscience two years ago. I don't know how many Lerner applicants can say they hold PhD's.

Then there was the fact that Chloe is an experienced researcher who has been published in multiple medical journals. The Lerner College trains physician-researchers, which is right up Chloe's professional alley.

And ultimately, there's the fact that she's Chloe. Chloe does big things. She decides she's going to do them, and she does them.

And now Dr. Edmonds is on her way to becoming Dr. Dr. Edmonds. Well, actually, if all goes well, she'll be Chloe Edmonds, MD, PhD.

Amazing.

She starts the program July 6, with the traditional white coat ceremony scheduled for the following Sunday.

You can bet we'll all be there to see her get that well-deserved white coat.

And you can bet Cal is going to continue getting all the Grammy and Grandpa time he can handle.

All because of one two-minute phone call.

Nothing beats the hotel pool when you're traveling with kids

 

A video clip of us in a hotel pool, somewhere outside of Philadelphia, 2006.

We used to take a couple of road trips every year when the kids were growing up. One was always to our church's annual Bible school, while the other was often to one or more cities in Pennsylvania.

I don't know how or why Pennsylvania became our destination of choice, though I suspect it was because it was close, it was relatively inexpensive, and it had a lot of places to choose from.

I know we went to Hershey multiple times, but over the years we ended up covering other parts of the state as well. Wherever we went, we looked for two things in a hotel:

1. A sufficient number of beds to accommodate the seven of us
2. A pool

And that was about all we needed.

The pool, in particular, was a big attraction. No matter what we had spent our day doing, the kids were often more excited to jump into the pool that evening when we got back to the hotel.

Which was fine. It gave Terry and me time to rest, and it allowed them to work out whatever energy they had left before it was time for bed.

Actually, Terry and I didn't always get to rest, as evidenced in the video above.

This was shot 20 years ago during a family trip to Philadelphia. As you'll see, I'm in the pool with the kids holding little Jack, who I don't believe was even 5 months old yet. My job was to carry him around so he could watch his siblings play while not getting splashed in the face.

I miss those days, but I don't miss the level of tired I know Terry and I were feeling at that moment. Family vacations were equal parts fun and fatigue for us.

Which again was fine. We were making memories, and we had enough sense to realize it.

You know, I can't remember the last time I was in a pool with all of my kids, but I do know one thing...The next time it happens, I probably won't be carrying Jack, who is now 20 years old and half a foot taller then me.

I think he can handle getting splashed in the face now.

When people say nice things about your kids

This is going to sound strange, but when Terry and I used to go to our children's parent-teacher conferences, it was always somewhat uncomfortable for me to hear a teacher talk at length about how much they enjoyed having one of our kids in class.

Don't get me wrong, I really did love hearing the compliments. We were blessed with good kids who worked hard to do well in school.

My son Jared worked particularly hard at figuring out the bare minimum effort he needed to do well. Like, if 90% got you an 'A,' he would inevitably clock in at 90.2%.

But hey, it was still an 'A,' and we'll get back to Jared in a moment.

I don't know the exact reason why effusive praise of my kids made me feel somewhat awkward, but I have two theories:

(1) I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop: "Chloe is a great student, BUT..." Rarely did this happen, but I always assumed it would happen.

(2) Being born and raised in Ohio – which I don't consider a Midwestern state but which does have certain Midwestern sensibilities – there is a part of my brain that assumes you should always do your best and not expect anyone to say too much about it. And the same holds true for your kids.

Returning to Jared, following are two videos I posted on Facebook last fall that illustrate the point. Both are taken from Cleveland Guardians baseball broadcasts, and both feature Hall of Fame play-by-play man Tom Hamilton saying very, very nice things about my eldest son.

As mentioned here before, Jared works in communications with Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays. He's good at what he does and puts a lot of time and effort into keeping it that way.

He has matured greatly since his teenage years and is a good example for any young person looking to get into the sports business.

Jared did a one-year internship with the Guardians early in his career, and during that time he got to know Tom. Now, whenever the Guardians travel to Tampa to take on the Rays, the two of them always catch up.

That resulted in this clip from September 4, 2025, in which Hammy (as he's known) gives Jared a shout out and calls him "one of the bright young stars in media relations."

That was so nice of Tom and very much unexpected. And it could have ended there with a nice memory.

But a few days later on the broadcast, Hammy was at it again. This time he not only mentioned the birth of our grandson Cal, he also heaped more praise on Jared (listen to the very end of the clip).

When Jared received this second mention, I started to wonder if people thought we had compromising photos of Tom or that he owed us money or something.

Again, I loved it, but...I also squirmed a little. And knowing Jared, I think he probably did, too.

All of which is to show that either I need to loosen up or maybe you really can have too much of a good thing.

Now, you could argue this whole post was just an excuse to share these two videos and brag about my son. And you would be right.

But in my defense, my joy over Tom Hamilton's comments is mixed with just enough discomfort to make the whole thing feel OK.

You live for the smile

At some point every day, our daughter Chloe and our grandson Cal will FaceTime Terry to say hi and talk. Sometimes it's multiple times a day.

If I happen to be home when these calls come in, I peek over Terry's shoulder and give them a big hello.

Actually, as much as I love Chloe, my big hello is almost always directed toward Cal. And no matter what mood he seems to be in, he will usually return my greeting with a big cheesy smile.

I don't have to tell you veteran grandparents my heart then melts. It makes my day.

When your grandchildren are still babies, that's what you're constantly going for: the smile. They can't yet talk, but the message that happy grin conveys is clear: "You're one of my favorite people!"

Recently I had the privilege of watching Cal all day on a Saturday while his parents took a day trip and Terry was out of town. We did all the usual stuff you do when caring for a 6 1/2-month-old, but a lot of our time was spent just having fun.

We did The Flying Calvin until Grandpa's arms gave out. We played with his toys. We made up "The Naked Baby Song" while changing his clothes (which, if I may say so, was a pretty good impromptu composition).

The whole time I was just looking for the smile. And I got it. Many times over.

Chloe, Michael and Cal ended up spending that night at our house because the power at their place was knocked out by a windstorm. I was sad they had to throw out all the food from their refrigerator, but I have to be honest...

I was even more sad the next day when their power kicked back on and they went home. I was kind of hoping for another day of Cal smiles. 

Hang in there, Bus Stop Dad, you're doing great

My morning drive to the office takes me through 6+ miles of mostly residential streets. I see people walking their dogs, little kids playing in front yards, and bathrobe-wearing senior citizens fetching the newspaper.

The cast of characters varies, but there are three people I see consistently. As I head down Lander Road, I always notice a particular dad standing with his two little boys while they wait to catch the school bus.

The boys wear Minecraft-themed coats in the fall and winter. I would guess them to be maybe 7 and 9 years old. They are always moving, chasing each other around or running up and down the driveway to blow off morning steam before having to sit still for several hours at school.

Their dad is a tall fellow with a beard. Usually he's holding a mug that I assume contains the coffee he needs to jumpstart his day. That day, I imagine, consists of getting the boys onto the bus, hustling to get himself ready, then heading off to work to put in 8-10 hours in support of his family.

I have seen the mother only a few times, because (I'm guessing) she needs to be at work earlier than her husband, so it's his job to make sure his rambunctious little sons get to school.

"Rambunctious" is a word my mom would have used for them. "Spirited" is another euphemism meant as a polite alternative to "occasional pains in their teachers' asses."

Maybe I'm wrong about the boys, though. They could be angels in the classroom and hellions at home. I can only go by what very little I observe of them as I drive past at 35mph.

The dad, however, I do know. I don't know his name, of course, and I don't know what he does for a living or where he grew up.

But I know the life he leads. I know the things that keep him awake at night when he thinks about his wife, his boys, and what he needs to do to make sure the lights stay on and food appears on the table.

I know the uncertainties he has even after nearly a decade as a father. I know his often-troubled internal monologue and the confident front he puts on for others.

I don't know him personally, but I know him as a member of the Brotherhood of Dads.

He's out there day after day with his kids, his coffee, and his anxieties.

And there's no place in the world he would rather be.

Part of him looks forward to the day they can drive themselves to school while part of him dreads it. He knows these exhausting mornings are the stuff of memories and that someday he'll miss all of it.

I don't think I'm reading too much into this situation, even though I see him for only 2-3 seconds at a time, three mornings a week.

Because I've been him.

And I'm here to tell him, whatever his name is, that he's doing a great job. Much better than he thinks he's doing. And that those boys have a million reasons to know they are loved, including the fact that their father uncomplainingly stands outside with them while they wait for the bus in heat, cold, rain and snow.

Keep going, my friend. In case no one has mentioned it today, you're an amazing dad.

There's a lot to figure out when you move into a new office

 

My (relatively) new digs at Materion.

A month or so ago, I moved out of the office I had occupied for nearly four years. It was a literal upward move, as I went from the first floor of our building to the third.

I wasn't particularly looking to move, but my boss Uli wanted me to be closer to many of the people I support and/or work with directly. My first-floor office, you will note, was in the middle of a ghost town with only two co-workers located anywhere near me.

I liked the peace and quiet there, but as is almost always the case, Uli's instincts were correct and my move to the top floor has been a really good thing.

Still, like any office move, there was some work involved.

For one thing, I had to get all of my stuff up to the new place. That included a wide range of knickknacks and sports bobbleheads. I packed everything away, threw it on a rolling cart, and managed to transport it all in an hour or so.

My new office is larger than the old one, with plenty of space to display all of my stuff (as you can see in the photo above). It also includes a little conference table, which I didn't have before.

More important, though, is the area around my new office and what it has to offer.

For one thing, the neighbors are excellent. Next door to me on one side is Galina from our tax group, and on the other is Rich from the finance team. Both are great, and I can say with confidence that none of us makes any noise that would disturb the others.

Then of course I had to scope out the coffee situation. Down on the first floor, I was usually the first or second person to arrive in the morning, so I would always make the coffee.

It was Starbucks drip coffee stored in a pump-dispensing carafe. It was good, but it was also the only option. You either drank what I made or went elsewhere if you preferred another type of java.

On the third floor there is a Keurig machine with lots of k-cup choices, almost of all of which are caffeinated. There are usually a couple of Dunkin decaf cups laying around, and those are what I drink after being told by my doc to limit my caffeine intake.

You take the good with the bad.

Near my office is also a table on which there are always snacks and a jigsaw puzzle for anyone who wants to spend a few minutes there putting a few pieces into place.

The last thing I need is the snacks, and I am not a puzzle person, so I steer clear of that table when I can.

Other things you have to account for when moving into a new office include proximity to the restroom, access to a reliable printer, the amount of space in the fridge for your lunch, and the location of stairwells for quick building entrance and exit.

I will say my new pad scores well on all of these factors,

As long as I keep my own personal stash of decaf k-cups, I'm in business.

A Q&A interview with my 7-month-old grandson Cal

NOTE: It's not often we here at 5 Kids, 1 Wife, 1 Grandchild score anything you might call an "exclusive," but we've definitely hit a home run today. We're proud to present the first published interview with Calvin Edmonds, world-renowned formula expert, diaper connoisseur, and – in what I do not consider to be any sort of journalistic conflict – our grandchild. Calvin recently sat down with us to share his views on life as an infant and how easy it is to manipulate your parents and grandparents.

5 Kids, 1 Wife, 1 Grandchild (5K1W1G): Calvin, this is so exciting! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule of rolling, crying, pooping and attending the occasional library story time to talk with us.

Calvin: It's all good, Grandpa, my pleasure.

5K1W1G: So...you've been around for 7 months now. How is it going for you? Has life been everything you expected?

Calvin: Honestly, I didn't have any expectations at all. One minute I'm in a warm, dark, cramped place, the next I'm in a hospital NICU hooked up to all sorts of machines. I had no idea there was anything outside the womb. Let's just say I'm still adjusting.

5K1W1G: Your parents, Chloe and Michael. They meet your every need and respond to your every whim. You have to be happy with their performance so far.

Calvin: Oh absolutely, they're amazing. I didn't realize I would be given my own personal servants, but now I can't imagine life without them.

5K1W1G: Any constructive feedback for them?

Calvin: I don't want to sound ungrateful, since those two are rookies at this just like I am. But I will say that sometimes when I cry, they take upwards of 15 seconds to figure out what I want and give it to me. Seven months into this gig, I don't think we need those sorts of delays.

5K1W1G: What about your Grammy Terry and me? How are we doing?

Calvin: All due respect? You guys are suckers. I thought I could make Mom and Dad do whatever I wanted, but you guys...it's like mind control. You're hilariously easy. Whatever I want, whenever I want it, you give it to me.

5K1W1G: We view it as our mission in life. Any areas of improvement for us?

Calvin: I enjoy coming to see you, but you can't drive down to my house more often? Akron too far for you to spend time with your one and only grandchild?

5K1W1G: Well, I mean, Grammy comes to your place quite often. It's just that I have to work five days a week to keep her in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed.

Calvin: Sounds like an excuse. Let's work on that.

5K1W1G: We will, I promise. I see your mom already has you in swimming lessons and music classes. How engaged are you with these activities?

Calvin: More than you think, though my job is usually just to look around and occasionally smile to let her know I'm enjoying myself.

5K1W1G: Speaking of your mom, she plans to become a doctor. How do you feel about that?

Calvin: My experience with doctors is that they talk to you like they're your best friend then turn around and give you shots. I don't trust 'em. At some point during med school, I predict Mom is going to see through this charade and rethink her life choices.

5K1W1G: And your dad, Michael. What does he do for work?

Calvin: It has something to do with trucks. And buildings, I think. I'm not entirely sure. I mean, I'm 7 months old.

5K1W1G: With a surprisingly advanced vocabulary. Hey, I can't help but notice you have a couple of teeth now. Are you putting those to use?

Calvin: If by "putting those to use" you mean biting my mom from time to time, then yes. Food-wise, they've been giving me cereal and other mushy stuff, but nothing that really requires you to have a good set of incisors, you know? I assume the steak and hard candy will come later.

5K1W1G: What about hobbies? Any personal interests you've picked up?

Calvin: My dad and I are gamers. Well, I mean, he does the actual "gaming," but I'm usually strapped to him in the carrier while he does it. I've seen enough to know that if you put a PlayStation controller in my hands, I could dominate at FIFA.

5K1W1G: At this point in the interview, we should probably address the elephant in the room – your looks. You're a strikingly handsome fellow. Gerber Baby cute. How has that affected you?

Calvin: <sighs> Look, I appreciate the compliments, but do you know how hard it is to look this good? People treat you differently. They stare at you. They don't care about your thoughts or ideas. Like the other day, I had just finished reading "The Communist Manifesto" for the third time, and I wanted to share with Mom my criticisms of the book and where Marx went wrong. But she wasn't having any of it. Over and over, all she did was get in my face and ask, "Who's a cute boy? WHO'S A CUTE BOY?!?" Me, the answer is me. I know that, she knows that. Can we move on? I'm telling you, it's exhausting being one of the Beautiful People. You uglies have it so much easier...

5K1W1G: Wait, what?

Calvin: Nothing.

5K1W1G: Well, I think it's just about nap time for you, so one last question. If you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Calvin: Oh, Grandpa, that's so cliche. You're better than that. Why don't you just launch into your "I was on two game shows" story for the thousandth time?

5K1W1G: That hurts.

Calvin: Sorry. I love you, Grandpa.

5K1W1G: I love you, too, buddy.

I haven't been a tall person in more than 40 years, but I still occasionally do tall person things

My son Jack making me look like a dwarf.

I was just down in our basement laundry room taking clothes out of the dryer when I stood up and nearly hit my head on the metal gas pipe running across the ceiling.

Actually, my head didn't come anywhere near the pipe, but I flinched as if it had. This is funny for a few reasons:

1. That pipe is probably 6 1/2 feet above the floor. I am not, have never been, nor ever will be 6 feet, 6 inches tall.
   
   
2. For that matter, I am not, have never been, nor ever will be even 6 feet tall.
   
   
3. The last time I was considered anything approaching "tall" was during Ronald Reagan's first term.

As I've chronicled here before, I spent a few early years of my life being tall. From about 5th grade through 8th grade, I was taller than most of my peers.

This was only because I hit puberty way before the majority of my classmates. I spent 6th grade literally looking down on them with my suddenly deep voice and hilariously wispy mustache.

I played two years of middle school basketball as a center, not because I was especially skilled but because I was still relatively tall and could grab rebounds.

I could also commit fouls, which I did with frequency. I fouled out of almost every game in which I played.

Genetics being what they are, I stopped growing and everyone eventually caught up to me. I have spent my adult life at a shade under 5-10, which mathematically makes me of slightly above-average height compared with the typical 5-9 American male, but in reality has meant I'm just another guy who isn't short but isn't tall.

Still, even three years of tall person-hood back in the early 80s ingrained in me certain tall person habits that surface from time to time. Like ducking under metal pipes that are nowhere close to my head and thinking I can reach things on the top shelf of the grocery store when in fact I can't.

My sons are fairly tall at 6-1 (Jared) and 6-2 (Jack), but that either comes from Terry's side of the family or a recessive gene linked to my Uncle Jim, the tallest of my dad's brothers.

I don't remember how short I really am until I stand next to one or both of my boys, at which point I feel like the mayor of Munchkinland.

But I will always remember the time when I was the Shaquille O'Neal of Mapledale Elementary School. It was glorious.

Hearkening back to when I was tall. Bob Holmes to my immediate right was the only boy who could challenge me for vertical endowment.

Happy birthday this week to my wife! And apparently me!

My daughter Chloe made this birthday cake for Terry a few years ago.

This post first appeared here on September 22, 2023. I bring it back because my wife's birthday is this Wednesday, and because she still considers us to be the same age even if officially she is a year older than me from March through November. Also, I'm now 56. And for the moment, so is she.

Do you have a hard time remembering how old you are?

I ask because I don't. I never have to stop and think, "Wait, am I 52? 53? 54?"

I just know I'm 53.

I notice a lot of people have to give it real thought when asked their age. It may take them a good 5 or 10 seconds before they can confidently offer an answer.

In their defense, if you're in the lower-middle and upper-middle parts of a particular decade, those years and birthdays do tend to run together. By that I mean, for example, when you're in the 52-54 or 56-58 age ranges.

Those particular years are, for practical purposes, all essentially the same.

But you know right away when you're a "milestone" age like 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. And you can usually remember if you've turned the "1" number (21, 31, 41, 51, etc.) in the last 12 months OR if you're in the final year before a milestone (19, 29, 39, 49, etc.)

Other ages, though? Yeah, they go by so quickly they can be difficult to keep track of.

As I said, this is never a problem for me. I can rattle off my current age at a moment's notice even despite my wife's attempts to throw me off.

Terry is about 7 1/2 months older than me. We were born the same year, she in March and me in November. It is her policy, when she turns a certain age, that I am immediately that same age. In her mind, there is no time lag between us.

So for instance, if the calendar suggests that on March 18th (her birthday) she turns 40 years old and I remain 39, Terry sees things differently. To her, we are both instantly 40, birth certificates be damned.

I am so used to hearing this from her that I will admit an occasional fraction-of-a-second hesitation in declaring my age to anyone who asks. But it's so slight you wouldn't notice, and thus I claim no real trouble in remembering how old I am.

For now, that is. Try me again in 30 or 40 years. By that time, it will be sufficient if I know my first name and can come within a decade, plus or minus, of my age.

There comes a time in life when it's all about the little victories.