Fatherhood

At the golf-scramble the other day, there was golf,  a dinner, a silent auction and a live auction. Needless to say, there were quite a few members of the family, co-workers, and people from the community present. What got to me were the children present. There were about six or seven toddlers ... all of them were very cute, with little hats when they were outside, bring carried by doting parents, being fawned over by loving family or friends who just wanted to see an amazing, loving smile. I still think that if you lined them up, side-by-side, that Patrick would be the cutest of them all, but I expect that each of the parents there would tell you the same thing. But, in this case, I'm right!

The strength of a small town was hammered home yesterday. I just spent the day away from my wife and son, helping out at a golf-scramble in memory of a tremendous young man that I worked with. His loss was a terrible accident. He came into my life for a short time, but was a part of this community. There were people in pain, but coming together to help each other come to grips with what has happened and make it into something positive ... there was so much raised for his fiance and son-to-be ... and it wasn't about the money; at the core, this was about helping each other. I spent a few hours talking to his grandfather ... every topic under the sun.  The biggest thing that ran through the conversations was the value in living in a small town ... a tight-knit community. As I sat thinking about all this last night, I realized that these are the same values that I was raised with as a "military brat." My parents were from this same type of town and had instilled th...