A Day in the Life of Chaos

I guess when the economy is in the toilet and so many American's are suffering it is easy to lose sight of success.  Of course success has many variations and it is difficult, perhaps nearly impossible to quantify.  There is personal success, familial success, emotional success, success in quality of life.  For most, the word success reflects monetary success. One of the reasons it is so hard to raise taxes on the rich in America is that aside from the fact that the control the levers of power, many Americans cling to the thought that someday they might be among them and wouldn't that be cutting our own throat? I decided long ago that I will never leave the 99 percent.  I don't have a business mind and I am afraid to take too many risks.  Aside from a winning lottery ticket, I will never join the ranks of the one percent.  I am a realist and to even contemplate such a monetary advance is akin to looking at your child play pee wee sports and think that some day they will

Being an American parent requires a lot of letting go.  It seems like you spend your child's life letting go and you wonder what if anything you ever get to hold on to.  Maybe it is simply the memories.  We certainly can't hold on to our children, if we did they would never fly.  They would never become the self-sufficient adults they must become in order to survive.  I suppose every species confronts the same dilemma.   The only difference is for most the developmental period is much shorter.  A bear for example would raise and see its cub leave in a year, an elephant in two.  Yet for a human being the time goes on and on as one stage turns to the next.  For most of us we will spend a good quarter of our life raising our children.  Arguably the time really only ends upon our own death. There is one frightening period of development all parents know we are destined for.  Sometimes we like to pretend it won't happen but it will.  It is running at us like a semi-truck five

As I grow older I tend to look back at the various stages or segments of my life and wonder which taught me the most.  Each had its moments.  Marriage taught me patience, fatherhood nurturing.  College taught me to be responsible and to take care of myself,  being a teenager taught me what it meant to become a man.  Despite all of these momentous stages one other stage stands out as the very foundation of who I am. Nothing is more impressionable, more formative, more developmental than the playground.  That small corner of a child's world was our zone.  It was our island in Lord of the Flies.  It was the place where children interacted with each other and the pecking order, the social hierarchy was established.  There were no parents, only an attendant and like a prison guard in a tower at the fictional Nazi camp Stalag 13, there was always moment when their back was turned or the spotlight didn't shine. Lake Otis Elementary school in Anchorage, Alaska was my proving ground

When I was a child growing up on MacINNES St. in the frozen northern town of Anchorage, Alaska, my world seemed like a world unto itself.  It was a clearly defined nation state with borders I needed a passport stamp from my parents to cross.  Wide roads acting as frontiers ringed the nation with seemingly impenetrable traffic.  Around my house there was a vast menagerie of streets that seemed to wind their way through all forms of terrain, perfect for a bicycle.  There were hills, gravel areas, circles that safely went around and returned to where they started.  Best of all, there were trails that skirted houses.  They led to areas that seemed vast and wild.  We gave them names like Burlington Woods and the Swamp near Geneva Woods.  Each had their own characteristics, places filled with secret trails, hiding spots and rafts of old wood.  These were the National Parks of our country, places where kids were kids and parents were a distant shout from a porch calling for dinner. My so