Christmas Gift Suggestions

Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.

To an opponent, tolerance.

To a friend, your heart.

To a customer, service.

To all, charity.

To every child, a good example.

To yourself, respect.
- Oren Arnold American editor and free-lance writer (1900-1980)

When you love your children

As a child, our mobility in society is dependent on the parent connected to transportation. In our family that was Dad, the one with the motorcycle.

He worked downtown where things corporate buzzed with life.

He ran our errands to the post office. As I was setting out to find a mailbox to send Grasshopper's letter, I thought of him on his motorcycle doing the same for me decades ago. Our letters to relatives in Portugal were handed off to him for mailing.

He is gone now and I have started shifting my view of self as compared to him. I am parent too, and I do for mine some of he did for me.

The Dad Man

Joe Kelly writes extensively about relationships between Dads and Daughters.

He wrote this book which became important to me as an adult when I explored how to create a better relationship with my internalized father. This is all in the spirit of self parenting.

My dad was a typesetter, in the days when when newspaper content wasn't created by computers. This was his typewriter, the forbidden tool only he could touch. It is a treasure I kept now that he is gone. Grasshopper is particularly fond of it. Grandpa would have been proud yet frantically worried about his prized possession...
It's mine now Dad...!

Fathers

They can build a strong foundation in a child's life.

Here's to those who do... Happy Father's Day.

Continuity

One honors one's gone parents by raising the next generation. The love continues.

Snowden and Grasshopper living.

Sunday Pictures

It is a March Sunday in Arizona, but it could be a Sunday in 1972 Sunday in Mozambique where the family goes on the not so regular outings to downtown Beira. The stop at the cafe, and the walk through the park.

The San Marcos courtyard.

Commissioned art at AJ Park.

AJ Park.

Orange blossoms.

Petunias and more.

The courtyard at San Marcos.

I now have my Dad's camera from the Beira time. I always loved checking his drawer and touch his things. I felt connected. This ritual was established by him as a way to connect. I checked it for the last time two days after his death. I kept the camera.

Obama's letter to Sasha and Malia

Dear Malia and Sasha,

I know that you've both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn't have let you have.

But I also know that it hasn't always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn't make up for all the time we've been apart. I know how much I've missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.

When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me—about how I'd make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn't seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours.

In the end, girls, that's why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation. I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential—schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college—even if their parents aren't rich. And I want them to get good jobs: jobs that pay well and give them benefits like health care, jobs that let them spend time with their own kids and retire with dignity. I want us to push the boundaries of discovery so that you'll live to see new technologies and inventions that improve our lives and make our planet cleaner and safer.

And I want us to push our own human boundaries to reach beyond the divides of race and region, gender and religion that keep us from seeing the best in each other. Sometimes we have to send our young men and women into war and other dangerous situations to protect our country—but when we do, I want to make sure that it is only for a very good reason, that we try our best to settle our differences with others peacefully, and that we do everything possible to keep our servicemen and women safe. And I want every child to understand that the blessings these brave Americans fight for are not free—that with the great privilege of being a citizen of this nation comes great responsibility.

That was the lesson your grandmother tried to teach me when I was your age, reading me the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and telling me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something. She helped me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it can always be made better—and that the unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us.

It's a charge we pass on to our children, coming closer with each new generation to what we know America should be. I hope both of you will take up that work, righting the wrongs that you see and working to give others the chances you've had. Not just because you have an obligation to give something back to this country that has given our family so much—although you do have that obligation. But because you have an obligation to yourself. Because it is only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.

These are the things I want for you—to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world. And I want every child to have the same chances to learn and dream and grow and thrive that you girls have.

That's why I've taken our family on this great adventure. I am so proud of both of you. I love you more than you can ever know. And I am grateful every day for your patience, poise, grace, and humor as we prepare to start our new life together in the White House.

Love,

Dad

(Published in Parade magazine)

The Dad Man

He would have been 78 today.

Here, in his late 20s, he moved to Africa, first to Angola, then Mozambique.

Visit this Dad Man for an array of information on Father/Daughter relationships.

Celebrating Africa

In Art Masterpiece at school.

Tribal women in Namibia gather after the rains to repaint their mud houses using their fingers as brushes. They work in harmony and do not compete. I taught this lesson in a 5th grade class today and I asked most kids individually what they remembered. They remembered that the women worked as a group.

Togetherness

The where we all shared meals together before, and after you both were gone.

With Love,

ME

What I most wanted from my father

For him to encourage my strength and celebrate my savvy. It didn't happen often enough.

Here's how to do it.

Sai uma bica para ti, Pai.

Celebrating my father after 3 years of him being gone. Cafe Expresso is entrenched in the Portuguese culture. He went to the cafe all the time, mostly without us. Going for um cafe, or um garoto, became a ritual for us when we lived in Furadouro in 1976.

Any good Portuguese youth is familiar, if not a consumer, of the bica, no matter where in the world you find them.

I am thinking of you.

Ponder this

The influential artist Robert Rauschenberg died recently, and one of his obituaries carried a quote I find very relevant to being a dad:

“Screwing things up is a virtue,” [Rauschenberg] said when he was 74. “Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.”

Can you tell I have been thinking about my father? Let's honor mistakes... after all, it's how we learn life's most important lessons.

A daughter's Wish

That fathers of yesteryear had access to this resource. Great things could have been created.

Passions

Pens make me happy. My Dad always carried a blue pen in his pocket and to be able to touch it was a privilege. Gel pens top the list and my littlest youngen, like me, cannot go into a office supply store without getting a fix from the pen isle. These are the latest addition the the pen collection. Endorphin heaven.

Beira - For the history