It was the spring of 1991.  The trees on campus, bare twigs that had been stripped of their color several months before were sprouting anew, the breaking lime-green buds almost imperceptible except that every view seemed two tones lighter and happier.

I was sitting in a classroom on the second floor, overlooking the 20′ wide swath of curving concrete that navigated our small campus; pedestrian infrastructure to carry students to and from classes and dorms.  There was a slow-moving tightly packed mass of people, all buzzing around an obscured centerpoint of activity.  I watched as the crowd moved along the wide sidewalk, hoping to get a glimpse at what the excitement was about.

As the crowd slowly cleared a few pine trees that were obstructing my view, I could see right into the middle of this galaxy of swirling humanity, and it gave me chills.

Two young men, both students, were wearing desert camouflage fatigues and “boonie” hats, carrying their bookbags to class.  Two of our students had returned home after fighting for Kuwait in Desert Storm.  Real life heroes, and they go to my school, I thought.  Women cooed and swooned around them while other men flitted about, playing the small sidekick cartoon dogs to their cartoon bulldogs, who were largely unaffected by all the attention.

In the coming weeks our campus experienced odd space-time fluctuations, as the presence of either of these two young war vets appeared to slow time to a crawl in the space immediately around them, every motion and every word observed and absorbed as though it were being spoken by Perseus himself.

Here’s hoping all our vets are treated like Greek heroes today.  My family thanks you for all you’ve done to provide us with the opportunity to live the way we do.

This was taken more than a year ago, but with the warmer weather recently I found myself thinking about the fun we had that day.

We’re teaching Agalia to write. Problem is, she hates doing it. Drawing, too. I’m sure it has something to do with how as parents we haven’t been judicious in how we dispense praise, probably flying in the face of experts who say we praise our kids too much. But whatever. We want her to feel like she belongs wherever it is she wants to be. Ballerina? Yeah! Champion powerlifter? Absolutely!

But with drawing and writing, she can immediately tell that what she’s drawing or writing can’t compare to the drawing and writing being done by the big people in her house who’ve had nearly four decades of practice, and she doesn’t like it. Not one bit. So she’d prefer to not do it than be reminded that she isn’t very good at it.

While there are lots of things she’ll learn in school that she’ll never need in life, communicating via the written word won’t be one of ‘em. So we needed a tool to help us make writing and drawing fun.

As luck would have it, anything to do with butts is funny to a three year old. Time to butt your teeth? Hilarious. Can I have some butt on my toast, please? Hysterical. So we devised a plan to take two great tastes and make them taste great together. I bought a dry-erase writing book and invited Agalia to help me practice writing.

I drew a C. A drew a line. I got a smile. Then I drew a B and added a few lines. Squealing laughter followed. Then C got some gas. So did B. Soon the whole alphabet became wind breaking party.

Now I just have to hurry up and teach her all I can about writing and drawing before butt humor isn’t funny anymore.

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‘Harbinger’ makes me think of Harvey Wallbanger, which makes me thirsty. Here’s a nice, long sip of spring.

Here’s the 20 tulips in one of our plant beds. Why are there only seven tulips in your 20 tulip plant bed, you ask? We’ve detained a paunchy “squirrel of interest” for questioning.

This is one of three robin nests we have in our yard. They must’ve been hitting the wallbanger’s too.

Let us all raise our purple hands and praise the coming of the sun.

If I got email about how my woman would be impressed with the increased size of my magnolia, I would totally click.

To make wine you must first squish some grapes. To squish some grapes, you must first be able to grow the emmer effers.

This weekend we planted the family garden. I built the garden last year for Agalia, to teach her how caring for something can help it to grow. My parents had a garden when I was a kid, and while I don’t remember being all that excited about it when I was young, it feels like I’m paying homage to my parents in making this small attempt to go home again.

Agalia seems to share the same gardening enthusiasm I had back then. That is, almost none. She helped with a bit of the raking and the plopping of beans into the furrowed soil, but bolted as soon as something more interesting came along. Like an ant. Or a pretty rock. Ah, well. Maybe she’ll be like me and her appreciation will grow as she does.

I’ll provide photo updates as the green and yellow beans, carrots, onions and peppers make their appearances in the Family Clay Garden.