Okay, okay...Father's Day got to me...

Okay...my compulsive sense of humor usually keeps me from getting all mushy. And Bagman helps by keeping me kind of wild and lusty and Butler helps by keeping me kind of proper and rigid. And I once wrote a blog about crying that I can't easily find now or I might link it.

And I was in a crappy mood this weekend anyway and woke up Sunday just wanting to kind of get it all over with. But I put on a good front when my son, Brian, his wife Melody, and grandson Conner showed up. The plan was for Karen and Melody to cook breakfast for me and Brian.

Yeah, yeah...Father's Day...that's the usual plan. And then they showed up with the biggest card I'd ever seen that they had made for me. Melody had done the artwork on the front and there on the inside were Brian's handprints!

Now this doesn't show the scale. But it was adorable. I looked a little tonight through old scrapbooks because everyone who has ever raised kids has had at least one card or paper sent home from kindergarten or church school with those cute, tiny fingerpaint handprints...and I know we have some of Brian when he was four or five or six and although I couldn't easily locate them, they could probably fit in one his current, big old meaty thumbs.

Big as they were -- suddenly he was my little boy again. And then I read the message he had written on the right side of the card...


...and you can't read it all in the photograph but if you look, you can get the gist...and I don't have the emotional stamina to transcribe here. I don't think a tear actually squeezed out -- because that's me, dammit -- but when I looked up at the faces of Brian, Melody, and Karen -- it looked like they were all preparing to catch me if I fainted so something must have been showing.

And Brian was holding Conner...and I just pray that someday years from now...Brian's going to get the same affirmation of his life that Brian gave me.

BAGMAN: Get a grip, Mark! Don't get all mushy now!

And we went to the pool and after they left, Karen and I ate a pie that Melody had made with incredible thoughtfulness...inventing it with chocolate, more chocolate, chocolate chips, just a little peanut butter (because she knows me well), and more chocolate! I'm sorry that Blogspot hasn't developed the technology yet to allow me to upload taste. It was so good that it almost negates the idea that it's the thought that counts. Because the thought was incredibly sweet.

But, in all honesty, the taste was pretty sweet too! It might be a toss-up.

Anyhow...one amazing, powerful, wonderful Father's Day for this old fart.

And stay tuned because after next Saturday I might not be blogging as much because we're getting a visit from Jean, my daughter from an earlier life who has somehow found the courage to reconnect with me. Last time I saw her she was maybe 10 years old or so. She is now 32.

BAGMAN: Oh no! Not more mush! Can't we at least find some time to make off-color remarks?

Happy Father's Day, More Friday-Shootout

First of all, Happy Father's Day

Secondly, I had three other things I was going to add to Friday's Hometown Shoot Out Metal theme but was either too busy, too scramble-minded, or -- and I just forgot the other thing -- but I never added them, so this below is a kind of a postscript to Friday.

A stain on the barbecue grill

This last one, above, does deserve a little explanation. It is the section of hydraulic hurricane doors at Charleston Center where I work. I don't usually write about work despite the fact I would love to write a book on it. But the book would have to be published posthumously.

However the hurricane doors are interesting. Charleston Center is a wonderful alcohol and drug treatment facility that includes 44 beds on the fourth floor for inpatients. When it was built 12 years ago, a great deal of attention was paid to the hurricane risk the building presented being close to the ocean and it was designed to handle a large storm surge. Two huge, hydraulic doors were designed for the front and back doors. They have only been used once when we were threaatened by Hurricane Floyd which, thankfully, move up the coast and we avoided a major hit. (Regrets to Wilmington, NC!!).

The County's facilities management folk come in with small forklifts, move them from under the stairwells (where the detail above was shot), put them in place in special seals on the doors, and after making sure the building is totally empty, they use air pressure to make them watertight and the building is sealed up tight until the threat is done.

This year, since they haven't been used for awhile, I asked to have them tested before the hurricane season was on us. Facilities management came out and then called me to say that it wasn't necessary.

After all the careful planning, design, expensive construction and installation -- and after even using them for Floyd -- some practical-minded person finally noticed after 12 years that Charleston Center has a huge side door off the childcare area on the side. We have two state of the art hurricane doors but we have three entrances.

Since we are government (don't get me started...) my guess is that when the building was being built the third door was cut as a budget-saving concession.

Next week, maybe I should go and count the number of tires on our fleet vans to make sure each one has four.

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Okay...I've now got the first period of time, a couple of hours, I've had in a while and am going to go and look at what everyone else did on Friday's shoot-out. Sorry I've been absent.