Last weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday night we went out to eat with a bunch of people from Max's lab group/department at this place called Niffers. Henry really liked the restaurant for four reasons. One, they served breaded and fried cream corn and fried pickles. Two, they decorated the joint with antique toys and hung fish art from the ceiling-so he was able to point and identify a season of antiques roadshow objects for quite awhile. Three, they have a little kids area with legos (the bigger ones), a kitchen set, and a collection of toy cars. Four, Max's labmate, Phil, who shares Henry's excitement does about cars and trucks, was there and he listened and showed at least an equal level of excitement when Henry brought out his toy cars and his giant sticker book with only transportation stickers.
On Saturday, we, along with Wildlife Faculty member and his family, were invited over to the home of Max's labmate, Connor and his wife Cate, for North Carolina BBQ. Henry was loving it because there were "new" toys to play with. The food was great, Cate made this awesome vegan cornbread of which I had at least four pieces and Kelley made chocolate chip raisin bran bars of which I had at least three . I kind of felt a little embarrassed when Cate's daughter asked for more cornbread and Cate had to tell her there wasn't any let as I had just eaten the last piece.
(warning: this may be boring and ends a little cheesy)
And then on Sunday, we went to the UU in the morning and a Humanist Dinner that night. The UU service was lay lead and the topic was your hero, the individual leading the service had picked/thought of Richard Bach as their hero, who redefined hero to be someone who channels human energy. I have never read Richard Bach and do not think I will. (Max called him a Christian apologist and put right down there with CS Lewis-that is not a good standing in Max's view) I found the quotes of his that were shared to be mostly platitudes. The speaker also made a reference to the magical physical principles that allow planes to fly, as an engineer I cannot help but think of that being ridiculous.
The discussion following the lay leader's talk was interesting. Richard Bach apparently married a woman, had six, yes six, children with her and said you know, marriage is not for me and let her with the six kids. Then he married again, this time his soul mate, and they were married for 20 yrs during which he wrote about this woman being is soul mate a lot. Then, you guessed it, they divorced because he wanted to keep wandering and she wanted to retire but they were still soul mates. And then, even though Mr. Bach was against marriage and had already found his soul mate, he married a third time. So, Richard Bach's is kind of one of dead beat dad that fleas commitments but that image was washed away with being a free thinking, wandering soul writer/pilot. Someone in the audience pointed out that we should not judge Mr. Bach based on what we consider a normal, nuclear family and tried to justify Mr. Bach's path, by noting how much they love their family that had been created under nontraditional means. For myself, I cannot be so objective. I think he is a hypocrite (which CS Lewis was not) and would not meet my requirements for being a hero.
A hero to me would be someone who acts in a selfless manner, maybe someone like my dad, who gets up every morning before the sun to go work as a laborer, a job he enjoys but is intensely, physically demanding. It is not fancy, or glamorous, and my dad doesn't have a youtube video dedicated to nifty things he has said (I would like to point out my dad is quite clever, if you call and ask, "What are you up to?" his reply will be, "About six feet."), but damn his worked really hard along with my mother to give me and my siblings opportunities and find happiness. Maybe not a hero in the way of Martin Luther King, Jr...but a respectable degree of hero-ness can be assigned to hardworking, present fathers/mothers.
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