On my son's 30th birthday

Old people tell young people all the time that life is short and passes fast and young people don't believe it. It's been that way since the earth started turning.

My son, Sean, turned 30 today and while it seems like it was only yesterday, more reflection reveals how much has been packed into those 30 years.

When he was a baby, Sean wasn't really into being held and rocked. As a toddler, when you picked him up to hold, he'd go limp so he'd slither back down. Sean was always in a hurry to be on his own.

Of my 62 years, I've spent almost half of them now thinking about Sean, off somewhere being on his own, and worrying about him and his brother. As I've written before, the Collinses come from a long line of worriers. It's what we do, even though it accomplishes nothing.

But your children are capable of constant surprises.

Like this one that occurred at Oshkosh this year (the picture above was taken at Oshkosh).

The night Sean and I flew over for the second half of AirVenture (his brother, Patrick, and I had flown over for the first half), we walked over to a restaurant on the other side of the airport, for which there was along line. We were invited to cool our heels at the karaoke bar outside; and so we did.

Sean, who I think is the type not to put himself "out there"(like his father, to a degree), grabbed the list of songs and searched for a proper victim.

I told him I was surprised he'd get up in front of people and sing. But he said he had a friend who took him to a karaoke bar not long ago and got up to sing. And he said if she could do it, then he could too.

And so he did, and while the Doors' People are Strange might not have been exactly pitch perfect, it was perfect, nonetheless.

And that's the way our children are. Like the rest of us, they are not perfect. And yet they are.

It was 25 years ago today

Today is my oldest son, Sean's, 25th birthday and just as I did on #21 and #23, I'm about to embarrass him again. Because I have an audience, Sean and Patrick get to have many of their secrets aired in public.

See this?

We had a lot of rocks in Sheffield, where we lived from the time Sean was six months old to the time he was 6. One day, he decided he would collect them, paint them, and sell them.

As with so many of the exploits of my children, I talked about this on the radio one day and when I went to get lunch at the local pizza joint, the owner said he wanted a couple of these well-painted rocks to "sell." So I delivered two of them, and gave Sean $1 each. If you're a parent, you know what this means: It means you're about to get a whole new crop of painted rocks, and a heightened expectation of riches.

I kept this one. I keep a lot of things from my kids' youth. I've got old hats they wore at baseball, old games, T-shirts and God knows what else. There isn't enough money in the world to pry this rock from my hands.

Like other parents, I look at all of these things and try to remember the kids that fit them. But I mostly can't. When Sean and his brother, Patrick, were very young, I remember holding them like footballs and thinking, "I've got to remember what this feeling is like." But while I remember doing it, I can't quite remember the moment. Few people can.

Our brains are not wired to be able to remember a snapshot like this. Our memories might be preserved but the feelings are not. As each one comes along, our brain rewrites the previous one until after 25 years, you have a composite feeling made of little pieces of 25 years. It's a good feeling -- a great feeling. But it's not the feeling of a singular moment.

On his 25th birthday, I want to believe that my oldest son had the best childhood a kid could have, that his memories of being the son of Bob and Carolie Collins are as joyful as his mother's and mine are, and that at 25, he realizes the great things that are still to come, and that they will be better than anything you can imagine.

Just like he is.

A day at Target Field

The last time I can remember all four of us being together at a ballgame was 1994, the first year Jacobs' Field in Cleveland opened and we were on our way back to New England. As luck would have it, the Twins were in town. As skill would have it, the Indians toyed with them. Those were good days.

Carolie says we went to a Mother's Day at the old Metrodome, but I can't remember it. When it comes to indoor baseball, the mind blocks out trauma.

Jon McTaggart, the chief operating officer of Minnesota Public Radio, gave us his four seats to the Indians-Twins game at the new Target Field today. Before I tell you about our day, let me tell you a bit about Jon, who've I've known since the first week I started at MPR when he was running the station in Collegeville. He also ran the new media department and was the one who approached me about being MPR's first online news editor.

Some years later, after seeing an e-mail that announced I'd be gone for a few days because Patrick and I were going to Cincinnati to watch some baseball, he literally ran down the street to the parking garage where I was exiting, to give me $20 for a hot dog and beer. "You do good work," he said, "and I want you to have a good time."

I've told this story many times since that day, mostly to people who seem to think that some book, some class, some seminar will show them how to get their troops to run through a brick wall for them. Nonsense. All you have to do is give a rip enough to run down a street for them. Trust me. It works.

So we went to the game.

Of course, we had great seats, right in front of the Indians' broadcast booth. Patrick and I have spent many years listening to Tom Hamilton, the long-time play-by-play man for the Tribe. We heard his voice coming out of the booth, and we knew exactly who it was.

"Hey, Tom!" Patrick shouted between innings. And up popped Tom Hamilton:

"Hey, where are you guys from?" he said, after seeing me in my Indians hat and Patrick in his Grady Sizemore jersey (the origins of which can be found here).

"We're from here," Pat said, telling him that we've been listening to him online for years. We didn't bother to tell him we were originally from Massachusetts, that my parents both have Ohio ties, but we otherwise have no reasonable explanation for why we're both huge Cleveland Indians fans.

Patrick got his autograph.

I'd love it if the Twins fans could have a play-by-play guy like Hamilton. Baseball is a great sport and it's worth a guy who can get truly excited about a game, even though it's the last week of the season, your team is 27 games out of first, and is about to turn in back-to-back 97-loss seasons for the first time in its awful history. And by "excited," I mean really interested and excited, not that phony nonsense.

Here, hear for yourself. Here's the only run the Indians scored in the game. It was in the first inning. No sense making it out to be more than it was. And then he got right back to his story:

Great stuff. By the way, Twins fans, Hamilton said, "It's hard to believe Ron Gardenhire has never been manager of the year, which goes to show you how much those awards mean."

Meanwhile, in the second inning, Indians manager Manny Acta decided to blow the game up to mean more than it did, by bunting. Second inning. A bunt. It didn't work. His runner on second got thrown out at third.

Manny Acta is a horrible manager. You know who should manage the Indians? Jon McTaggart.

We love baseball at the Collins house. We always will. More than that, of course, we love being all together when we can. And I love watching my two young men laugh and chat with each other at the game, reminding me again that I was right when I told them during the fights they had as kids, that they'd be each other's best friends later in life. It's later in life.

Target Field is a lovely ball park. A lot of people think it's the best park in baseball and I guess I can't disagree with that. Still, it feels a bit like the Twins tried too hard to have the best park in baseball. There are the usual luxury suites and the restaurants and all, and there are plenty of opportunities to go inside and therein lies the oddity. After complaining about having to go indoors to watch baseball for a few decades, the new facility provides plenty of opportunity to go inside.

But I may be getting an improper perspective. Both games I've been to this year -- both Indians games -- were free tickets. One was the Champion's Club behind the plate and the other was the Legend's Club. I'm probably viewing the park from the high end. I'm not complaining, though, because it's an unbelievably comfortable facility. And I love going to ballgames. And though they've broken my heart for more than 45 years, and I'll never experience the thrill of their winning a championship, I still love the Tribe.

I love acknowledging a local guy who joined the Navy and went to war in 1942 and became one of Minnesota's most decorated soldiers. (by the way, Minnesotans don't show up on time for noon starts)

Is there anything better than a seventh-inning stretch with 40,000 people singing, Take Me Out to the Ballgame? No. No, there's not.

By the way, I know it's Minnesota and everything, but do these look like people who just clinched the Central Division and are on their way to a possible world championship?

You better get your game faces on soon, Minnesota.

The toolbox

My son, Sean, turned 21 a few days ago. I don't know how it happened, but it happened and it beats the alternative of not happenning, which happened -- or didn't -- to my best friend's son a year ago, when he was killed in a one-car crash while driving home early on Sunday morning in Providence, Rhode Island.

I haven't heard from my best friend since and there has never been -- nor will there ever be -- something I can say to ease my friend's pain, even if I were able to make contact. The only thing that bonds fathers... are sons and daughters.

The utter frustration of life is fathers and sons cannot understand each other until it is too late -- or nearly so. My son loves me and I love him and both of us have known it forever, but that didn't stop us from often behaving like, well, fathers and sons.

As he is not yet a father -- thank God -- I thought long and hard about what to give him on the occasion of his 21st birthday. And then his brother, Patrick, called and said he needed to change the light bulbs in his car and didn't know how to do it. "Oh, and all of the lights except for one are burned out, it's night, and I have to drive home," he added. So I gathered some tools, and headed into St. Paul to change his light bulbs. It was there in a dark garage with nowhere near enough tools to do the job that I realized the gift I'd give.




The next night, I went to Sears, bought a toolbox and then -- and you have to understand I want my ashes spread in the hardware department when I die -- raced around to fill it with the right tools to start.

Then I came home and wrote him this letter to put inside:

Dear Sean:

Many years ago -- probably about 16 -- I was trying to get at some water pipe that was frozen below the kitchen at our house in Sheffield. I didn't have the right tools so I just took a hammer and whacked at the cabinet floor covering the pipe. "Mom, Dad's breaking the house," a young child said. That was you, with an early -- yet precise -- assessment of my handyman skills; this, on top of my historical lack of success with tools (See attached).

I don't know when it was that I started getting interested in tools; perhaps it's a "guy thing" that develops sometime, you just don't know when. I was a late bloomer. And since you are like me, this gift will probably mean nothing to you. But someday it will. And just as your grandfather (Papa) gave me my first toolbox, I give this to you, including a few to get you going. Rest assured: you'll need more.

I think tools are a metaphor for life in general. You start out with barely enough to get by and when you try to use what you've got, well, sometimes you end up breaking the house. But you keep at it and you just keep adding more tools. You add more tools first because you might need them someday, and then just because tools are cool.

I give you this with these few words of advice, metaphorical or not:

1) Don't buy cheap, crappy tools. No matter what kind of deal it seems like, no matter how much -- or how little -- you spend, when you get home and open the package, you've got cheap crap. Buy good tools.

2) Don't throw away tools. Find a good home for them instead.

3) Build something someday. It doesn't have to be anything big. It could be an airplane, it could be a birdhouse. Just build it as well as you can and it'll serve as a reminder to all that you were here.

4) Don't be afraid to break the house.

5) If you have a son -- or daughter -- someday, give 'em a toolbox when they turn 21. And then someday later, give him your tools. One at a time, so that when you're gone, they're still building things that remind people that you were here.

That way, when your kid uses a tool you gave him, he'll be reminded that his Dad loved him like there was no tomorrow.

As I love you.


Dad

Lucky 21

My oldest son, Sean, turned 21 today. So today I celebrate his ascension to adulthood and mourn the loss of a damned good tax break.

I wish I had a really great picture to post here, but alas, Sean is one of those people who doesn't like to have his picture taken (pssst.... there's one back in one of the entries in July).

Sean has always been in a hurry. Always. He was born a month early and has been go-go ever since. We lived in White Plains, New York at the time and when my wife said it was "time," off we raced to the hospital. Only it wasn't time, it was too early. So the docs -- we had two great obstetricians -- did what they could to delay his delivery because they weren't sure he'd be fully developed.

So Carolie had to put up with contractions for something like three days. It was a, ummm, interesting time.

I remember the Cardinals and Dodgers were playing in the National League Divisional Series, so Carolie would sleep between contractions and I'd watch the game. But they had a fetal monitor going and it would also show a number that seemed to indicate a contraction was coming.

I thought it was a cool machine, and so a couple of times I'd notice the number on the machine going up, so I'd whack Carolie awake and say, "it says you're having a contraction." I only did that twice.

Eventually Sean was born at 4:36 (or was it 5:36 Eastern Time?). He was colicky and didn't like sleeping much and didn't like us sleeping much either, apparently. Then he had to go back to the hospital for jaundice. Tons of fun, and we thought we were -- as most new parents do -- the first people on the planet ever to have a baby.

We had lunch together today and tonight his friends are taking him out and I'm guessing they'll do some bar hopping because isn't that what you're supposed to do on your 21st birthday?

Alas, I don't want to know. He's an adult now. And I'm not supposed to worry.

Right.