No more teenagers in the family

For the past 6,883 days, we have had at least one teenager in our family. Tomorrow that streak comes to an end when our youngest, Jack, turns 20.

I say "at least one" because for most of that time, there have been multiple teens among our children. There was one stretch from September 2013 to March 2014 when four of them were teenagers.

Come tonight at midnight, the counter resets permanently to zero.

It's another one of those little life milestones you don't think too much about until they actually happen. As I told someone recently, the combination of having our first grandchild and seeing the family teen years come to an end really brings home how quickly time passes.

Other than a string of car accidents and some other relatively minor crises, I've enjoyed having teenagers. I really have.

I got to see them all graduate high school and go off to college. Four have degrees, with Jack currently working his way through the second semester of his freshman year at Cleveland State University.

I've seen one get married and have a baby, one get engaged, and one build an incredible life with a longtime partner we absolutely love (that last one is Elissa, whose boyfriend Mark has long been a full-fledged member of the family and is one of the best bakers I've ever met).

On the other hand, as the kids have gotten older, I've come to realize that much of my fondness for their teen years stems from how much I didn't know. As they get into their 20s and 30s, they're very free about confessing stuff they did as teenagers that, in retrospect, I'm glad I wasn't aware of.

Ignorance is truly bliss, in this case.

Still, Terry and I can't deny that we've been blessed with five great kids who are turning out to be some pretty great adults. We experienced our share of homecomings, proms, high school sporting events and all the other stuff that comes with having children in the 13-19 age range.

And now we're past it all. Time to move on.

Which is just fine.

(Happy early birthday to the one and only Mr. Jack Tennant!)

I really miss the World Book Encyclopedia

NOTE: This is a somewhat adapted version of a post that originally appeared on the blog back in 2015.

When I was growing up, we had a full set of World Book Encyclopedias on our living room bookshelf, and I devoured them.

(To be clear, I don't mean I ate them. I read them.)

Here's exactly what they looked like:

I'm not kidding when I say I read them. I would literally open up a volume and just read whatever article I found. This is a main reason why I'm so good at general-knowledge trivia. A lot of the weird stuff I know comes from reading the 1964 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia.

There were certain articles I returned to time and again. "Snakes" was one. "Space Travel" was another. I also remember them having cool plastic overlays illustrating the different organ systems of the human body. Not sure if that was part of the "Anatomy" entry or what.

Still, there was no article I turned up more often than the one on "U.S. Presidents." The pages for that entry were torn and dog-eared from use. I can still picture the two-page spread in which the World Book editors very helpfully laid out illustrations of all the presidents from Washington to Lyndon Johnson (this was, remember, the 1964 edition).

I memorized those photos to the point that I could recite the presidents in order by the age of 6. My dad took me to the Hob Nob, the bar at the end of our street, a couple of times and had me show off my little presidents trick. The friendly drunks there were very appreciative of my skills, and both times I did it, Doris the barmaid gave me a free Coke. Not a bad deal.

Anyway, I used those World Book Encyclopedias a lot throughout my school career, usually as the basis for some written assignment or other. Like, for example, I remember having the "V" volume open at the kitchen table while I wrote out a report on the state of Vermont. Later essays depended heavily on Volume "I" for Iceland, "D" for diphtheria, and "R" for my favorite president of all, Teddy Roosevelt.

I later went to college in the late 80s and early 90s, which you geezers will remember was still essentially the pre-Internet age, so the World Books even helped me out as an undergraduate.

Then, with the advent of CD-ROM drives in the mid-90s, the encyclopedia people started putting their stuff onto CDs. Which at the time was pretty cool. "All of those encyclopedias on this ONE tiny disc?" As you might imagine, it was a lot cheaper – both for the manufacturer and for the consumer – to produce encyclopedias on CD rather than heavy-bound books.

However, I'm proud to say you can still buy the print version of the World Book Encyclopedia. The 22-volume 2026 edition can be yours for the low, low price of just $1,349.

Seems like such a small investment for guaranteed free drinks at your neighborhood watering hole.

You're my little potato

Me reading a book to Cal at his house recently. He seemed to appreciate the effort, but his expression told me, "I think Mom and Dad do this better than you, Grandpa."

My four-month-old grandson Cal is comforted by the funniest things.

Like running water. I find if he's tired and cranky but not yet ready to go down for a nap, I can take him the bathroom and turn on the faucet.

That sound calms him down, as does looking at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Taken together, the water and seeing his own face always stop his tears, if not make him downright happy.

There are also certain songs that soothe him. Actually, I'm not sure whether it's the songs themselves or the fact that his mom, my daughter Chloe, is singing them.

Chloe has always had a nice voice, and Calvin responds much better when she sings "The Eensy Weensy Calvin" (a slight adaptation of "The Eensy Weensy Spider") to him than when I do.

There is, however, one song that makes him happy no matter who sings it. And the recorded version seems to work best of all.

That tune is "My Little Potato" by the group Metamora. (The link takes you to YouTube. If you're interested in just the lyrics, here they are.)

It's a playful, silly little song, but also a heartfelt tribute to newborns everywhere and the people who love them.

You’re my little potato, they dug you up, you come from underground. The world is big, so big, it’s very big. To you it’s new, it’s new to you. 

And later...

You’re my sweet potato, they dug you up, you come from underground. You smile a smile, a little smile. The world is small, so small, it’s very small. 

Chloe discovered it from a friend who is also a relatively new mom, and over the last few months, it has been in heavy rotation in her car and on my Apple Music playlists.

It is, in effect, my Cal anthem. I've played it for him on my phone and have softly sung it to him while trying to get him to sleep.

It reminds me of everything I felt as a new dad back in The Day and everything I'm feeling and learning as a new grandpa.

He won't remember it as he gets older and baby songs give way to toddler songs and little kid songs and eventually popular songs of the type he will love and his grandfather will patiently endure.

No matter, though. As long as he knows he'll always be Grandpa's little potato, that's good enough.

Sleepovers: 1983 vs. 2026

I continue to (somewhat shamelessly) post photos of my grandson on this blog.

There was a period in the early 1980s – probably '81 through about '84 – in which the social highlight of any given week for me was sleeping over a friend's house. Or having that friend sleep over my house.

I spent countless nights sleeping in friends' bedrooms and basements, often on the floor. This didn't bother me because I was a teenager, and teenagers can sleep on concrete.

Come to think of it, we did sleep on concrete once. I don't know why, but we spent much of a night sleeping on my friend Kevin's driveway. A couple of people slept in lawn chairs, and a couple of us just laid down where we were and slept for several hours.

Outside. In the middle of summer. In the driveway.

I don't know that I could pull that off now.

Anyway, sleepovers were always a lot of fun. I regularly slept at my friend Mel's house. When I did, I would grab my sleeping bag and literally nothing else, hop on my little BMX bike, and take the 15-minute ride to Mel's place on the north end of Wickliffe.

His mom would have 2-liter plastic bottles of Pepsi for both of us: regular for me and diet for Mel because of his Type 1 diabetes.

The morning after a sleepover, before I went home, Mel would inject himself with insulin. He would ask me where on his body he should do the injection and, if it wasn't someplace crazy like his eyeball or his face, he would jab the needle wherever I asked him to. I was always fascinated by this.

Mel's mom also supplied us with Little Debbie Swiss cake rolls, which now that I think about it, Mel seemed to eat without reservation. Those things weren't exactly sugar-free. Or maybe there was a sugar-free version?

All I know is, we would spent the evening drinking pop, downing those chocolate treats, and listening to the early 80s' New Wave music we both liked...Duran Duran, The Fixx, Flock of Seagulls, Men at Work, etc.

It was wonderful.

Terry and I still engage in sleepovers, only now they're always at our house and they involve my daughter Chloe and our grandson Cal.

Chloe will sometimes come and spend the night when my son-in-law Michael travels for work. Because we are so obsessed with her child, she gets a much-needed break from feeding, changing and generally caring for him. And we get to see our favorite little boy.

Everybody wins.

Unlike my childhood sleepovers, however, there is little to no soda consumed, and our overall sugar intake is considerably lower.

The music is still there, but it's limited to whatever tunes Cal's little infant gym will play.

And our bedtime nowadays is considerably earlier and entirely determined by Cal.

Other than that, the enjoyment factor is just as high, and I look forward to these sleepovers just as much as I looked forward to the ones four decades ago.

Probably more!