Family Feathers

    Many a child has been traumatized by the big eyed bunny who represents Easter and is known to sneak around our yards at night, depositing eggs filled with tiny candies and golden coins.  As good moms, we thrust our children upon this wily creature, somehow forgetting that even we would veer away from the false lure of chocolaty goodness if it was brought to us by an over sized mutant rabbit with craziness in his eyes.  Because fun is the name of the game,  many a community leader has donned this heavy headed costume that instantly blocks their vision and demands absolute silence.  Unable to speak words of comfort to intuitive toddlers who instinctively know this is absurd, these bobble headed creatures approach our children like walking zombies and we all smile at the great fun that is taking place.   The young man in this photo is now seventeen years old and I've seen this same look on his face throughout the years.  It is a look that says, "What the hell are you thinki

    Past travel experiences have taught me that one cannot travel through security checks with more than three ounces of mouthwash, pointy scissors, nail files, lighters, or a half finished grande mocha cappuccino, no matter how tasty it is.  I am now highly aware that there are additional items that are frowned upon, as well.  This list includes a backpack full or wires and a giant wrench.   When you send that through the xray machine, you are guaranteed a free trip to a special area, away from passengers, who don’t travel with such odd items.  It’s certainly a genetic downfall that plagues my family as we simply can’t navigate the security checkpoints with ease.       On our recent trip to the Caribbean, my family began the three hour long boarding process on the Mariner of the Seas.  My brother had passed through the security checkpoint first.  It is not unusual for him to travel with enough computer equipment to operate a small business from his cabin.  This time he was

    My mother has always advocated hiding away little piles of money for a rainy day or possibly a Disney vacation.  Her vessel of choice is a small, white bucket that she places loose change in.  After retiring, she began making and selling gourmet cupcakes to friends and family.   The money earned from cupcake sales was placed in the bucket to wait for that rainy day, when it was needed.  I, too, have a bucket, but its contents have dwindled down to a partially filled tube of lip gloss and some quarters thrown in from doing laundry.   My bucket quickly became a community bucket where everyone reached for lunch money, cigarette money, movie money and more.   I realized that location is everything and that I might need to secure a different bucket and place it in an undisclosed location.     Around Thanksgiving, my mother asked me to count her bucket money (a favorite hobby of hers) and as I passed a thousand dollars and still had stacks of twenties to go, I realized that pe

Give a kid a camera and they'll take a thousand silly photos.  Give them encouragement and they'll set up an office, build a web-site, crank out audio-visual material and have you delivering dinner to them while they work. At the age of two, we stuck a computer in front of our son and said, "Here, you can't tear it up.  Try every button and have fun."  He first met "Reader Rabbit", a Disney software character, who led him down the proverbial rabbit hole where he discovered his love of all things high-tech. While he was supposed to be learning phonics from this rabbit who threw random letters on the screen, Joey learned color schemes, layout and effective user interfaces. He just didn't know it at the time.  Knowledge of all things computerized came quick.  By the age of ten, he was banned from on-line gaming for real world trading and turned to building his own web-site.   His toys had turned into capital purchases and were no longer the kind y

      I love the smell of airports.  They are inviting and give promise to fun filled journeys ahead.  My early days of travel were at the hands of my grandparents who were constantly putting my brother and me on airplanes across the country.   They wanted us to experience everything and made sure we had met the pilots, pinned on wings, and read the emergency cards so we would always be prepared.  By the age of five, I had a drawer full of wings and memories to go with them.      Once, after leaving the Las Vegas Auto Show, which in the 60’s was similar to attending the Oscars, we made our way to the airport, armed with toy slot machines and miniature roulette wheels.  Developmentally appropriate child toys, I might add.  I loved my little roulette wheel and somewhere at an airport in the Midwest, I dropped this treasure as I journeyed forward, hand in hand with my grandfather.  We changed planes and just as we were to take off, I realized my missing gambling device.  My grandfather r