RaisingDad

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine 2021 has been a milestone for my 6-year-old granddaughter (and if anyone can tell me what a milestone is, I’d be grateful). A few months back she rode her bike without training wheels for the first time, and recently she swam without floaties .     I guess all kids look cute, but she looked ESPECIALLY cute dog-paddling across the pool all by herself. She’s evolved to a more traditional way of swimming now, and, cold water or not, is not afraid to jump in. That little girl takes up a lot of my time, but the day will come when she'll have other things to do and other people to do them with, so I'll enjoy it while I can.      Myself, I didn't learn to swim until I was 13, and only because I didn't want to look like a dork to any of the girls at the public pool. You can't put a move on somebody when you're drowning.      My mother, bless her heart, was deathly afraid of water. If I ...

I was talking with our father and he told me he was worried about you.      “Why, pop?” I asked him.      “Because of this new Delta Variant of Covid,” he told me.      “I wouldn’t worry,” I tried to assure him. “It’s only dangerous to people with a pre-condition.”      “THAT’S the problem,” he insisted, “his whole FACE is a pre-condition!”        RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com. American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene     

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine Last year, my then five-year-old granddaughter came up with a math theorem that was elegant in its simplicity: 10 = 10.      I was playfully showing her math equations on my phone’s calculator, mainly adding ridiculously long numbers together, when she snatched it from my hand and taught me this important lesson: Everything Equals Itself .      It’s an obvious concept, but not one that I’ve ever seen or heard expressed before. It was an original idea, and I’m a sucker for original ideas. The brilliance of her smile showed just how proud she was of her theorem. So proud she repeated it for me again and again.     On the other hand, my elderly father is losing his relationship with numbers and their value. When I take him to the doctor, the receptionist will say, “Your co-pay is...”      “Pay it,” he’ll tell me.      I often wonder...

  How's your friend Curry?      I hear he's going downhill pretty fast.      The other day I read the following correspondence between his wife and yours on Facebook:      Curry's wife told her, “I asked my husband’s doctor if he should be vaccinated for the coronavirus, and the doctor warned me that the vaccine has been linked to Erectile Dysfunction in men.”       “In that case," your wife responded, "my husband must have gotten HIS vaccination years ago!” RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com. American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine Every Saturday I go to Las Fuentes restaurant and buy my father the family pack of red cheese enchiladas, with sides of rice and beans. My father is one enchilada-eating kind of guy. If I’m lucky, my granddaughter will join me.     Early last month, however, they had a sign on their window. It said: “Closed today.” That today has lasted over a month. They tried to hang in there, but I’m guessing the virus that no one is allowed to speculate where it came from has claimed another casualty.      Fortunately, there’s no shortage of Mexican restaurants where I live—God bless the southwest—so I went to a different restaurant, Gabriel’s. We threw my youngest daughter her first birthday party there. That was eighteen years ago, so I’m guessing your invitation should show up any day now.      “It doesn’t taste the same,” my father was quick to point out. “Are you getting them from the s...

  My granddaughter is six now, but back before her last birthday she said something that gave me a chuckle.      She's not a picky eater, but she won't eat what she doesn't like. She WILL, however, give something a try.      When I was a kid, I didn't like liver, but I used to suffer through it by drowning it in ketchup.      "What's  that? " my granddaughter wanted to know.      "Liver," I told her. "You want some?"      "Sure," she said, so I cut her a small piece.      By the disgusting face she made, she didn't like it.      " Ugh! " she said, spitting it out. "It tastes like  COVID!"   RaisingDad JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com @JimDuchene  

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine I've told you before, but my father likes to watch the very expensive MLB channel my beautiful wife is kind enough to force me to buy for him.       I know baseball is our national sport, but I personally don't understand its appeal. How can a game that lasts so long and passes so slow be so popular? However, that’s not a fault in the game. That’s a fault in me. You see, I was born missing the sports gene.      My guess to why my father spends so much of his elderly life watching baseball is that it slows down time for him. Now that the finish line to his life is fast approaching, he's looking for anything to slow it down, and baseball fits that bill.      I’ll join him in front of the TV sometimes, and that’s where I was when my beautiful wife came back into the house after a trip to the mailbox. She handed my father a letter from his brother who lives in another stat...