RaisingDad

The Moon’s A Balloon by April Duchene   The white balloon waited, its head tapping the ceiling.     Waiting for the boy to come and play.     The balloon remembered when it first met the boy. It was with all its balloon friends, waiting to be chosen. Chosen for what, it didn’t know, but it did see other balloons bob with happiness when they had been chosen.     Most were chosen by little children, little children who held onto the strings happily in their tiny fists, but it was a woman who chose this balloon. When she put it inside her car, it stayed there, very well behaved, wondering what was going to happen next.     When she took it out of the car, a little boy ran up to greet her, his father standing close by. They had both been watering the bushes in the front lawn.     “Happy birthday!” the mommy joked, handing her son the balloon   ...

When all the hubbub was over and my father was back sitting in his favorite chair, happily eating the very same snacks that he almost choked to death on, my mother wanted to know why he got mad at her for turning off the TV, and my father quite reasonably answered, "Because, if it was my time to go, I wanted to go watching my favorite TV show."     Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

Back when my beloved mother was still alive, she told me about something scary that happened to her and my father when they were home alone.     Not scary in the “Boo!” kind of way, even though the house I grew up in was supposed to be haunted. Nothing frightening or supernatural ever happened to me, unless you count the spooky noises and noxious fumes that emanated from my brother’s side of the bedroom we shared, if you get my drift.      If you don't, that's probably for the best.      Anyway...     They were sitting in the den, watching TV together. She was sitting on the couch and my father was in his favorite chair, when—all of a sudden—my father began to choke.     “Honey!” my mother screamed as my father began to turn purple.     In a panic, she picked up the remote and turned off the TV, and then began to slap him hard on the back, trying to dislodge whatever it was he was choking on.   ...

I always like to say I enjoy sports as much as the next guy, as long as the next guy doesn't enjoy sports at all.      For example, yesterday I spent the afternoon doing yard work. When I was done, I asked my sixteen-year-old daughter, "Who won Super Bowl LII?"      "Philly, dad," she told me.      "Yo, Adrian!" I said, using my best Sylvester Stallone voice. " We did it! "      And then I started jumping up and down with my arms up in the air like Rocky Balboa at the top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's steps.      You know the saying: "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you."?      Well, I'm pretty sure my daughter was laughing at me.      Keeping that in mind, this is the email my brother sent me today:   When you talk to your buddies at work, remember... yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday . ...

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine desertexposure.com   I don’t know what it is about newspapers, but they must think their readers have unlimited time and money to cook the recipes they feature in their pages.     Most of us, we have jobs. We don’t want to come home and spend hours fixing something that can easily be bought at Sam’s or Costco or the corner gas station. Not to mention the cleanup afterward. Also, if I fill my refrigerator with food, where am I going to keep my beer?     The recipes always seem to require a cornucopia of ingredients that you probably don’t have and will never use again. I don’t think Jesus multiplied the fishes into a number that high. It just seems to me that newspapers should acknowledge that we live in a different world now, and there’s no longer enough hours in the day for us to prepare these extravagant meals.     Recently, my local newspaper printed something by T...