Short stories and photos shared with humor and love
Pending one last exam season and the continued benevolence of fate, our son Vinnie will graduate from college in three weeks. Though his actual major remains somewhat murky to us, he is excited to make his way out into the world and, if his internship and work experience are any indication, we think he's in [...]
By the 12th time you've moved a student into college housing, you and your kid have lowered your standards considerably. Carefully annotated check lists? Not necessary! Labeled plastic bins? Clearly, a waste of space. (Thankfully, because I've never labeled a plastic bin in my life. I like the festive, scavenger hunt atmosphere of a frantic [...]
We packed the car with seasoned precision and pointed her south for the last road trip of Spring Break 2014. Molly looked up from her perch in the backseat, rubbed a left bicep made tender by one too many games of Slugbug, rolled her eyes at her father's repeated attempts to turn nasty potholes into [...]
It seemed particularly fitting to those of us who had hosted Fundamentally Sound, an acappella group from the University of Wisconsin, that the all-male performers chose "brotherhood" as the theme of their competitive set for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella Midwest Tournament. The young men recently completed a low-budget tour that included home [...]
In some ways, the best 21-year olds are the broke ones, the whole basement-cleaning, snow-shoveling, sink-caulking, closet-organizing, errand-running lot of them. For two beautiful weeks we owned a 1992 model and, from the first phone call that heralded the opening of BKH (Broke Kid at Home) season, “I’ll be home on Tuesday. Do you think [...]