Roam & Ramble - Bob\'s Blog

Remembering Earth Day

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 23:01:28 GMT

I love Earth Day.

My dad was a teenager in 1968. That was a rough year. He told me stories about the Tet Offensive. MLK and Bobby Kennedy. The Civil Rights Act. A nation in chaos.

Then he’d grin and say:

“But hey, that was the same messy year that Apollo 8 carried three astronauts beyond the arms of Mother Earth’s orbit for the first time. Think of that, kiddo. We went to the moon!"

Those three brave travelers were Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, and William Anders.

On December 24, 1968, they made their fourth orbit around the moon. The first humans to see the dark side of our billion-year-old neighbor.

Put yourself in their space shoes.

The moon blocked out the universe like a black hole. They lost starlight. Lost communication with Earth. Gliding through deeper darkness and silence than anyone in history has ever experienced.

Frank Borman said, “The moon is a vast, lonely, expanse of nothing.”

Jim Lovell added, “Space is black. Black. Ink black.”

Now imagine emerging from that blackness... and over the dark rim of the moon, the earth rises like a blue and green sun.

As they cleared the moon, they saw Earth suspended in the starry infinity. Half in light, half in shadow. In all that colorless void, one circle of life: us.

Jim said, “The Earth is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space."

Anders grabbed the camera, and swapped the black and white film for color. In 1/250th of a second, he snapped an image that changed our civilization.

The photo was named “Earthrise.” Humans had never seen Earth so honestly and objectively isolated in space. That photo tilted our consciousness. Scientists called it the “Overview Effect” because that view changes how you see Earth (and yourself).

Some said it showed how insignificant we were. Others said it proved how precious we were. I side with the latter. I think anyone with a kid might lean the same way.

That photo inspired the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. 20 million Americans marched to celebrate our planet. That was 10% of the population! When was the last time 10% of the nation rallied for one cause?

But they did more than celebrate. They demanded clean air, clean water, and protected lands. They were so loud that the government had to shut up and listen. That photo, that momentum, that unified voice gave birth to the environmental movement and the Environmental Protection Agency.

I love that story. I love that photo.

I don’t know if there’s any image that could unite us today like “Earthrise” did. Consumerism, technology, and social media have created a dark side of the moon right here on earth.

But maybe. Maybe we can reach the other side.

Maybe we can come through and see, on the rim of all these distractions, something real: the earth rising. Maybe our consciousness will tilt again, and we’ll gather again, and march again, and protect our home again.

Mark your calendars. Earth Day is next Wednesday, April 22, 2026.

"Earthrise." December 24, 1968,

Comments

Media Jean: There’s a photo of earth on your living room. Is that “Earthrise”?

Chip: Yeah. Every Christmas Eve, we stand in front of the photo and read the first 10 verses from the book of Genesis. That’s what the Apollo 8 astronauts did on their Christmas Eve broadcast from space way back on December 24, 1968.

Media Jean: That’s kind of a funny tradition.

Chip: Dad likes how God kept looking at Earth, and kept saying that Earth is good.

Media Jean: Well, duh.

Chip: Ha ha. God says, “Earth is good” and you say “duh”?

Media Jean: Ha ha. Maybe that can be our Earth Day T-Shirt. A picture of Earthrise and the words, “Earth Day. Duh.”

Chip: Ha ha. It is super obvious. I mean, Earth is our home, and we’re not taking very good care of it.

Media Jean: We could do a series of Earth day posters too. Like, “Earth Day. Clean Water. Duh.”

Chip: “Earth Day. Clean Air. Duh.”

Media Jean: “Earth Day. Plant Trees. Duh.”

Johnny: This is a great idea!

Media Jean: Look who’s here. The Lurker.

Johnny: Monitoring is not the same as lurking, okay? Let’s focus on these posters and t-shirts. Causes like environmentalism, they’re a goldmine!

Media Jean: “Earth Day. Buy Less. Duh.”

Johnny: Hey!

Chip: “Earth Day. Reduce and Reuse. Duh.”

Johnny: Stop that!

Media Jean: “Earth Day. Save, Don’t Spend. Duh.”

Johnny: That’s sacrilege! We’re capitalists!

Chip: “Earth Day. Go Small. Duh.”

Johnny: How dare you insult consumer culter!

Media Jean: “Earth Day. Log Off and Go for a Walk. Duh.”

Johnny: Fine! If you’re going to be like that, I’m leaving! Just throw away another money-making idea! Go ahead, see if I care!

Media Jean: Did he log off?

Chip: No, he’s still on the network.

Media Jean: This one’s just for you, Johnny. “Earth Day. Cut CEO Salaries. Duh.”

Johnny: ARRGGHH!

Chip: Yup. Now he’s logged out.

Media Jean: Ha ha. Are all capitalists so touchy? Hey, I just looked it up on EarthDay.com. The 2026 theme is “Our Power, Our Planet.”

Chip: I'm on the website now. They have a manifesto!

Media Jean: And they have activities!

Chip: I bet my dad has all kinds of ways to get involved.

Media Jean: I’m on my way over!

A transcendent moment to last a whole life.

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 07:00:00 GMT

I keep trying to tell my life’s story here. But looking back over these pages, I don’t see a lot of story. I see a lot of life, but not much story.

I’ve been too distracted by Today to give Yesterday its due. I suppose it’s just the age-old puzzle: how do you do something with your life while you're also living it?

That was certainly my dad’s dilemma. As a kid, he dreamed of being an ornithological painter like Audubon. He filled notebooks with awkward pencil sketches of every bird in town. He sometimes used grass and flowers and berries and dirt for paint. The faded pictures have a strange beauty even now, like smudged portraits by Mother Nature herself.

Dad gave all that up when he discovered engines. He found mechanical beauty under the hood that almost rivaled anything he saw in nature—and it paid a lot better. So he put down the paintbrush and picked up the socket wrench.

Yet, as always happens with our passions, he never forgot. Something inside him held onto the brush, year after year. And one day, not long after I was born, he started painting again. Not birds this time, but landscapes.

His hero was the 19th-century painter Thomas Moran. Dad wanted to travel around the country like Moran and paint those landscapes he felt were too big for a camera.

Don’t get me wrong. Dad stood in awe of the national park photos of Ansel Adams. “I love to look through his eyes,” Dad told Mom. “He shows me the land’s secrets. He shows me what it is. But only paint can show me how it feels.”

I have all 24 of dad’s landscapes. Most are small oils, 2’ by 2’ or 2’ by 4’. But one life-changing May, while mom and I hiked around Yosemite Valley, dad spent ten days in camp, trying to capture Half Dome on a 10’ wide by 12’ tall canvas. He could see it right there, through a gap in the trees.

Right there, close enough to touch.

But he couldn’t capture the feeling, not to his satisfaction. How could he, with so little practice? He grew so frustrated that he threw the brushes into the campfire that night. The next morning, he was back at the canvas again, but this time armed only with a palette knife. That's all he had left.

Mom and I woke to a gentle scraping sound. We climbed out of our sleeping bags and just stood in the pre-dawn light, watching dad push long streaks of gray and white and light blue across the canvas until the paint looked like liquid rock, until dad was, for that moment, not painting Half Dome but creating Half Dome.

As the sun rose, as the warm colors climbed that rock, dad stepped away from the canvas. Like a man in a daze, he stepped back... until he bumped into mom.

And this I remember, because a son always remembers when he sees his dad cry. I remember tears streaming down his unshaven face. I remember his eyes, never closing, wide, wet shining eyes, staring not at the thing itself, not at Half Dome illuminated in the new day’s sun, but at his Half Dome, Half Dome in the pre-dawn cool, Half Dome Dreaming.

He touched, for one moment, who he might have been in another life. From that day on, Dad painted every chance he got, which really only amounted to a few hours on the weekends. He never found his way back to that transcendent moment, not even when we visited Yosemite the following year, but then most artists rarely do.

How many times did Bob Dylan make it farther down Highway 61? There were so many transcendent moments (Tangled Up In Blue, Shelter from the Storm, Sara, Series of Dreams)—but no one lives that free or true or connected the time.

I think Dad was, in the end, happy with his paintings. But there was always that ache, that question: Could I have been ...?

But to follow that question to an answer, he would have had to discount everything that came before, including my mom and me. And he would never do that.

Several of his paintings hang in my office. Most look like a beginner’s passionate attempts at something great, like a middle-aged man writing his first love poems.

But one painting, the one I call Half Dome Dreaming, hangs alone on the wall opposite my desk. I stare at it every day, and I wonder about my own life. My own unfulfilled dreams.

What transcendences am I searching for? What dreams still walk through the marrow of my bones, urging me to move?

Comments

Media Jean: Are all grown ups so confused?

Chip: What do you mean?

Media Jean: Your dad has so many dreams! He wants to live in the wild like Thoreau, walk across national parks with just a loaf of bread in his pocket like John Muir, write his great American novel—

Chip: He calls it his “small humble version of Moby Dick.”

Media Jean: Right. And that’s just for starters!

Chip: That’s true. He’s full of big dreams.

Media Jean: He wants to be an architect who designs low cost, zero-carbon-footprint houses.

Chip: He wants to be a folk singer, a little like Bob Dylan and a lot like Woody Guthrie.

Media Jean: Ha ha! Remember when we recorded him singing in the shower?

Chip: And it went viral, too. Good thing he doesn’t watch YouTube.

Media Jean: He wants to be an adventurer, the kind of guy who climbs Everest, visits rain forests, and follows in the steps of Darwin.

Chip: He still dreams about living a life of service. Helping Habitat for Humanity build houses, traveling with Doctors Without Borders.

Media Jean: Those are all great dreams. But shouldn’t he separate the reality dreams from the fantasy dreams.

Chip: What’s the difference?

Media Jean: For example, I dream of traveling to another planet. For now at least, that’s a fantasy dream. Unless bioengineering makes me immortal and we Star Trek beyond the speed of light, I’m not going anywhere. That’s a good dream, but it’s a fantasy dream.

Chip: Like my Jurassic Park dream of cloning a real T-Rex.

Media Jean: Right! You could spend your whole life longing for that dream, but it’s never going to happen in your lifetime. It’s a fantasy dream. On the other hand, my dream of becoming a digital artist, someone who uses pixels the way Van Gogh used paint, that’s a reality dream.

Chip: Like my dream of creating the first honest-to-goodness artificial intelligence. Not like Chat, but a real AI lifeform that’s different from us, not just more like us.

Media Jean: Exactly! That’s a reality dream. You could make that happen in your lifetime.

Chip: So ... you’re saying my dad has too many fantasy dreams?

Media Jean: I’m not saying he can’t fulfill any of his dreams. They’re all doable. But there’s no way he can fulfill them all, not with the time he has left. That means some of his dreams are fantasies.

Chip: I suppose that’s true. A folk-singing bio-architect-activist working on a small but still great American novel does seem kinda unlikely.

Media Jean: He has to pick one, two at most. He has to work within the time he has.

Chip: Or ... get more time.

Media Jean: What do you mean?

Chip: Remember when we took all the junk food out of the house?

Media Jean: I forgot about that! Increase your dad’s natural lifespan in the hopes that he’ll live long enough for science to step in!

Chip: Right! His generation may be the last to live less than 150 years. I feel pretty confident that you and I can expect at least 150 or more.

Media Jean: OK, so what’s the lifespan of the average American male today?

Chip: I just looked it up. Depending on the study, 76.5 years.

Media Jean: That puts his death around the year 2060.

Chip: Right. But if, through heathy eating and exercise, we can extend that to 105...

Media Jean: That puts him at 2090!

Chip: And if we extend his life to, say, 140?

Media Jean: He’ll be alive in the 22nd century!

Chip: That’s only one century short of Star Trek!

Media Jean: Anything can happen by then!

Chip: Nanobots resetting biological clocks!

Media Jean: Neural mapping to download your consciousness into cloned bodies!

Chip: Even simple DNA-repairing technologies could add a hundred years to my dad’s life!

Media Jean: So we’re back to where we started. We have to get your dad healthy, fast. He needs to live to at least 140!

Chip: Right! To the 23rd century and beyond!

Media Jean: Ha ha! All our problems seem solvable now, even Death.

Chip: Sure! In the future, everything will be possible.

Media Jean: I love tomorrow.

Chip: Me, too. There’s so much to look forward to.

Media Jean: Well, I better get to bed. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.

Chip: Me, too. See you in the future, Media Jean.

Media Jean: See you in the future, Chip.

Comic strip from the series "Earth Backup"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

If the only prayer you ever say ...

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Boy, have I been getting sidetracked!

My original plan was to tell my life story. To leave behind a record for Chip. But every time I start, I roll across some switch in the track and my train of thought gets diverted.

Yosemite. Menus. Screen-Free Week.

And now, today, another unexpected (but wonderful) detour: the kids left me a Gratitude Box.

They took a plain old shoebox, and with a few carefully trimmed sheets of construction paper, turned it into a life-affirming work of art. All around the edges, in big block letters, they wrote my favorite Meister Eckhart quote:

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

But they left off the last words, “it will be enough.” Instead, the words “thank you ...” end on top of the box, next to an open slot. They glued a pad of rainbow-colored Post-It notes to one side of the box, and Velcroed a 4-color ballpoint pen to the other.

I found the box on top of a library book of Ansel Adams’ black and white Yosemite photographs. Scanning the book, I came across this wonderful line:

“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.”

Opening the box, I found the kids had already added the first note: “Thanks for taking us to Yosemite.”

For a minute there, I got pretty choked up. We dads can be so emotional, especially when no one is around.

I spent the next hour filling the box with gratitude. All I can say is, we’re going to need a lot more Post-It notes.

Comments

Media Jean: Your dad sure likes his Gratitude Box.

Chip: Yeah. He’s on his second block of Post-Its.

Media Jean: It’s funny how just having a box makes you want to fill it.

Chip: Maybe we should throw in a few notes.

Media Jean: Definitely. But I had something else in mind.

Chip: What?

Media Jean: Well, what if we made 20 or 30 Gratitude Boxes?

Chip: I doubt even my dad could fill that many, and he’s a gratitude guru.

Media Jean: Not for us. For the town. I was reading “The Guerrilla Art Kit” by Keri Smith. She talks about creating art and then putting it in unexpected places, you know, to surprise people.

Chip: So we scatter Gratitude Boxes all around town?

Media Jean: Exactly! We can make them different sizes, too. One of those small tissue boxes would be perfect for stores. Put it by the tip jar in the bagel shop. I bet tips go way up!

Chip: We could put one in the post office. There’s always a line of grumpy-looking people.

Media Jean: Exactly! Tie one to the chain link fence at school.

Chip: Sneak into every doctor’s office and leave one in every waiting room.

Media Jean: On the bus.

Chip: In the library.

Media Jean: The bowling alley.

Chip: We could make a waterproof one for the park.

Media Jean: And the pool!

Chip: This is a great idea!

Media Jean: Yeah. Too bad Johnny wasn’t here. He could probably figure out a way to turn all this new-agey stuff into a product.

Chip: Yeah. He’s good at that.

Media Jean: Oh, well. I guess that’s how it is with business. You got to be in the right place at the—

Johnny: OK, OK, I’m here already!

Media Jean: I knew it! Lured you out, lurker!

Johnny: Fine, I admit I was lurking this one time. What matters now is turning this ThankYou Box into a viral product.

Chip: It’s just a box, some decorations, Post-It notes, and a pencil.

Johnny: And Coca-Cola is just sugar and carbonated water! Have you learned nothing from your time with me?

Media Jean: More than I ever wanted to know, actually.

Johnny: Very funny. Look, the most common, everyday object properly branded becomes a must-have product. Don’t think of it as a shoebox and decorations. Think “The Guerilla Gratitude Box.”

Chip: The Guerilla Gratitude Box?

Media Jean: I hate to say it, but that has a nice ring to it.

Johnny: Just wait until the cash starts rolling in!

Chip: I don’t know. Does everything have to be turned into a product?

Johnny: Are you kidding?! Of course it does!

Chip: But this is a Gratitude Box. Maybe some things should be left on a personal level.

Johnny: Please. When you turn personal expression into a consumer product, you give everyone the opportunity to benefit.

Media Jean: You mean you give everyone the opportunity to pay.

Johnny: And what’s wrong with paying if you get something out of it?

Media Jean: I suppose that’s true. And let’s face it, everyone can use more gratitude in their lives.

Johnny: Exactly! The Guerilla Gratitude Box can help an individual appreciate his or her life, motivate a family to be thankful for each other, inspire a community to come together. “The Guerilla Gratitude Box: Because ‘Thank You’ are the most important words you’ll ever say.”

Chip: Wow. I’d buy one.

Media Jean: Me too.

Johnny: We’ll sell a million of these!

Media Jean: I have to hand it to you, Johnny. You could sell anything to anyone.

Johnny: Why, thank you, Media Jean. That’s nice of you to say. Now stop idling around and get to work on those boxes!

Comic strip from the series "The Gratitude Journal"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

Recovering from the Screen Epidemic.

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Last night, I had a vision:

Chip, Media Jean and Johnny giving up their screens, not just for two weeks but three. All I had to do was nudge our Yosemite trip back a few days to dovetail with National Screen-Free Week.

That’s when Alice has the kids and their families sign a Screen-Free pledge. That first screen-free week will become detox for the following two weeks in Yosemite!

To back me up, I asked Alice to help with some research. Using screens to build an argument against screens may seem hypocritical. But I’m not arguing for zero screen usage. I’m arguing that there’s a screen epidemic in America that's turning into an AI disease, and we must do something about it.

According to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:

Preschool children average between 2.2 and 4.6 hours of screen time every day.
Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend an average of 7 hours using screens every day.
Extended screen time has been linked to increased fast food consumption, hyperactivity, childhood obesity, sleep problems, and poor school performance.

According to a recent Nielsen report, the amount of time the average American spends in front of screens each month is staggering:

Television: 144 hours, 54 minutes.
Internet on a Computer: 28 hours, 29 minutes.
Online Video: 5 hours, 51 minutes.
Video on Mobile: 5 hours, 20 minutes.
Game Console: 6 hours, 26 minutes.
DVD/Blu-ray: 5 hours, 13 minutes.

That’s a full six days a month watching screens. Six 24-hour days.

And that's not counting the recent studies showing that AI usage is physically deteriorating cognitive areas en the brain, or that those creating the tech won't let their own kids use it.

Imagine what would happen if you gave 1 hour a day to screens and spent the other 4-5 hours creating or learning or training or exploring.

If you love music, 4-5 hours of daily practice can take you to the concert halls. If you love writing, 4-5 hours a day will not only refine your craft but finish that languishing novel.

Have more than one passion? Use those 4-5 hours to develop them all! Sink into your talents! Soak up your bliss! Invest in yourself and your future! Be a creator, not just a consumer!

I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual. The point for now is to give Chip, Media Jean and Johnny an opportunity to experience life screen-free for three full weeks.

And since two of those weeks will unfold in Yosemite, I’m hoping for a life-changing experience.

Comments

Media Jean: Three weeks screen-free?!

Chip: I've never gone that long without screens.

Media Jean: Who in their right mind has?! The last time Miss Stillwater made us participate in Screen-Free Week, I went bonkers!

Chip: Ha ha! I remember! You dressed up like Little House on the Prairie and refused to use any technology.

Media Jean: Yeah, but Miss Stillwater called my bluff. She made Screen-Free Week into Little House on the Prairie Week.

Chip: That was a long week. My dad made me wash clothes by hand.

Media Jean: My parents wouldn't let me use the vacuum cleaner. I had to sweep the rug! You ever try to sweep a rug?!

Chip: Still, those stats are pretty amazing. And since my dad found them in a magazine at the doctor's office, those stats are a few years old. I'm sure it's way more now.

Media Jean: But they don't represent us! We don't spend hundreds of hours a month watching TV and streaming movies! Why should we be punished for someone else's viewing habits?!

Chip: We probably spend almost that much time online and on our phones.

Media Jean: That's different! That's interactive!

Chip: Well, that's sort of true.

Media Jean: We're Googling and social networking and creating, not just watching!

Chip: Last night, my dad told me about FOMO.

Media Jean: FOMO? That sounds R-rated.

Chip: FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. It's a new anxiety disorder that's sweeping the world. People are so afraid they'll miss something on their social networks that they check their phones over 100 times a day. Some even sleep with their phones on the pillow so when they wake up in the middle of the night they can check for messages.

Media Jean: Ha ha! A cell phone instead of a teddy bear!

Chip: You have to admit, my dad makes a pretty good argument about spending more time doing what you love.

Media Jean: I suppose. Instead of 5 hours a day online, I could spend an hour drawing. I love art.

Chip: I could spend an hour a day writing stories. I used to make up stories all the time.

Media Jean: I loved those stories. You should write more.

Chip: What about your origami? Remember when you wanted to be an origami master?

Media Jean: I was getting pretty good too.

Chip: I could spend an hour a day on languages. I love computer languages, but I always wanted to learn more people languages, especially Japanese.

Media Jean: This is starting to sound fun! Let's take a pledge. For one year, I'll spend an hour a day drawing and an hour a day on origami. You'll spend an hour a day writing and an hour a day learning Japanese.

Chip: Counting weekends?

Media Jean: Let's not get carried away.

Chip: So just weekdays. That's about 260 days a year. 260 hours works out to over thirty 8-hour work days a year.

Media Jean: Wow! That's like a month full time on art and origami.

Chip: When you crunch the numbers, it's kind of amazing.

Media Jean: So it's a pledge?

Chip: It's a pledge!

Media Jean: On our honor?

Chip: On our honor!

Media Jean: One other thing: we tell no one — especially your dad or Miss Stillwater. Agreed?

Chip: Agreed!

Media Jean: The last thing we need is a smug adult smiling at us all year.

Comic strip from the series "Screen-Free Week!
(Kid, Inc. Volume 1: Look Out, Tomorrow, Here We Come!)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

Trading All Roads for Just One.

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 07:00:00 GMT

I checked with Johnny’s dad and Media Jean’s parents. They’re excited and surprised that their kids want to go to Yosemite. Neither has shown much interest in camping. We’re all going to meet in a couple weeks to talk about the trip.
After my first visit to Yosemite, mom suggested we return each May. But dad wanted much more. He had only two weeks off all year, and he yearned to see all the great national parks “before I move on to that big wilderness in the sky.”

"What about Sequoia and Yellowstone?" he argued. "How can we miss the Grand Canyon and the Smoky Mountains, the Rockies and the Tetons?"
So the next May, when I was eight, we visited Sequoia National Park. We delved into Crystal Cave, hiked through the Giant Forest, and stood in awe before General Sherman, the largest tree in the world. It was beautiful. It was breathtaking.

But it wasn’t Yosemite.

After three days, dad reluctantly pointed the Ranchero west down Highway 198, took 99 north, branched off on 41 ... and in just a few hours, we were back in Yosemite Valley.

Mom wrote in her journal, “There is something here that Bobby finds nowhere else. Yosemite is Pascal’s missing piece for him; Yosemite fills the God-size hole nothing else can fill. If I could, I would move our family here, just for him.”

After that, we spent dad’s precious two weeks every year in Yosemite.

I thought Yosemite was the one place we all loved most. But after dad passed so much sooner than any of us expected, mom shared her journal entries from that time.

“He wouldn’t let me tell you,” she said. “But I thought you should know.”

I was only thirteen when I read those entries, and they made me cry in a way I hadn’t cried before.

I learned that each year, my dad secretly planned trips to Zion in Utah, Acadia in Maine, or his dream of dreams, Denali National Park in Alaska.

And each year, thinking about his son’s mysterious connection to Yosemite, dad put his own maps and books aside and steered our family back to the one place he felt I needed to go.

After he passed, I spent days in his office. I found an old gas station map with a hand-drawn checkbox by each national park he hoped to see. But only two boxes were checked: Sequoia and Yosemite. The Yosemite box had been checked so many times, the map had torn through, leaving a hole that seemed to grow bigger the longer I stared at it.

My dad died without having seen Bryce or Haleakala, Mt. Rainier or Arches, Joshua Tree or Glacier, Everglades or Death Valley, or even the Badlands where T-Rexes once roamed.

And he died without hearing his son say, “Thanks, dad.”

Not once. Not for that.

Somehow, I only thanked my mom for Yosemite. In one of those stunningly self-centered blind spots of childhood, I didn’t see what my dad had given up. I didn’t understand that he had traded away every road in America for just one.

I’ve been checking national parks off his map ever since. I’m about a third of the way through. If I don’t make it, I’ll leave the map for Chip and hope he finishes the adventure for us all.

Thank you, dad.

Comments

Media Jean: Now I'm crying.

Chip: Me too.

Johnny: Why does your dad always tell such sad stories?

Chip: Sometimes sad stories are the happiest ones.

Media Jean: I think I'll go and say thank you to my parents right now.

Chip: What for?

Media Jean: Anything. Everything. I don't know. Just THANK YOU.

Johnny: Now that I think about it, I thank my dad all the time. But I never thank my mom. My dad and I act like we're running the world, but mom runs our world.

Media Jean: That goes double for me. For both my parents.

Chip: And it's not just our parents.

Media Jean: What do you mean?

Chip: Well, shouldn't we be thankful for our friends, too?

Media Jean: Does that mean I have to thank Johnny for being Johnny?

Johnny: You should thank me. Hanging around me is like going to business school—for free.

Chip: Media Jean, thanks for being my friend. Thanks for always being there for me. Thanks for making me laugh. Thanks for being braver than I am, for doing things I'm afraid to do, and letting me share in that. You're my best friend.

Media Jean: Wow. Thank you, Chip, for being my best friend. Thanks for helping me see the other guy's point of view, especially when I get carried away. Thanks for showing me that kindness is maybe the most important thing of all. You make the world a better place.

Chip: Johnny, thanks for always being yourself, no matter how much we tease you. Thanks for pushing us to get things done, because otherwise we might spend all our time playing. I'm glad I know someone as different as you.

Media Jean: Same, here, Johnny. Thanks for all of that.

Johnny: Oh, man. I hate this mushy stuff.

Chip: It feels great. Try it.

Johnny: I'd rather not.

Media Jean: Just think of it as practice.

Johnny: Practice?

Media Jean: Sure! When you're a CEO, you'll need to motivate the minions, right?

Johnny: That's true! Great job, I really appreciate you, we couldn't do it without you, yada yada!

Media Jean: Exactly! Why not practice on us?

Johnny: OK. Let's see. Media Jean, the way you think outside the box challenges me to think outside my boxes. Our company needs leaders with independent minds like you. I don't always agree with you, but I want you to know I respect you.

Media Jean: Thank you, Johnny.

Johnny: I'm a natural at this! Chip, you're a geek genius with a heart of gold. That's a rare combination in today's dog-eat-dog world. Thanks to your innovation, our company is more profitable than ever before. We wouldn't be where we are today if not for you.

Chip: Thanks, Johnny. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.

Johnny: Did I seem sincere? Did you buy it?

Media Jean: Hook, line and stinker, I mean, sinker.

Johnny: This is going to be easier than I thought! And the best part is, I don't feel a thing! I can say whatever I need to say to drive the lemmings to the sea, and not feel a twang of real emotion. You can't buy this kind of experience. Thanks, guys, really!

Media Jean: Was that last part a real thanks or a CEO thanks?

Johnny: Wow, that really hurt my feelings, Media Jean. Couldn't you tell I was being sincere?

Chip: I could.

Johnny: Then you're a sucker! Ha ha! I'm the Master of Platitudes!

Media Jean: That was rude, even for you!

Johnny: You're right. Sorry. You know how I get carried away sometimes. Sorry, Chip. I really do appreciate you.

Chip: Thanks, Johnny.

Johnny: Pow! The CEO of Cliches strikes again! Ha ha! So long, suckers!

Chip: He just logged off the network.

Media Jean: I didn't want to encourage him, but Master of Platitudes was pretty good.

Chip: Ha ha! CEO of Cliches!

Media Jean: Ha ha! He got us, twice!

Chip: I guess if you're going to really be thankful for someone like Johnny, you have to have a good sense of humor.

Media Jean: You can say that again!

Comic strip from the series "Employee Handbook"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 1: Look Out, Tomorrow, Here We Come!)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

The Golden Age of Frozen Food.

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:00:00 GMT

This morning I began prepping our Yosemite menu.

Oh, I love cooking outdoors! Nothing wakes you up like bacon sizzling on a Coleman stove. Throw on a few eggs, a thin slice of ham, toast a couple of English muffins in the grease, place a stick of butter just close enough to soften without melting—the memories were so vivid I had to close my eyes.

That’s when I heard a small “um” at my elbow. I looked and found Chip leaning on the kitchen table.

“Can’t you just taste it?” I asked, knowing the answer. Chip loved camp food as much as I did.

But he had something different on his mind. “When we’re in Yosemite, I think we should eat the kinds of food that John Muir ate.”

Uh oh. Was Chip getting carried away by Muir’s ecstatic prose? I knew how he felt, but he was messing with my camp menu!

“What’d you have in mind?” I asked.

“Well,” Chip said, counting off on his fingers, “I was thinking fruits, vegetables, nuts, bread and ...” He searched a moment, then held up his thumb, “grains, like rice and pasta. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, son—”

“But, Dad, don’t you want us to be like John Muir?”

Oh, boy.

So, of course I agreed to think about it, to find common ground between my All American menu and Muir’s All Wilderness fare.

Later that day, I thought back on my own childhood diet. I grew up in the Golden Age of Frozen Food.

Our freezer was stacked with Swanson’s TV Dinners. Pre-heat the oven, pop in the foil-covered tray, and in 35 minutes you were eating.

Sure, the chicken legs and Salisbury steaks were a little chewy, the green beans a little mushy, the sweet corn squishy instead of crispy, the mashed potatoes (with that pat of still unmelted butter on top) wasn’t quite mashed, and the tiny dessert tray filled with Apple Pie was really just a dollop of pie filling in a half-baked crust.

But it all tasted delicious to us.

Why? Because we weren’t just tasting food. We were tasting an idea. We were told the food was healthy (so our bodies were being served) and we were told the food was fast, creating the leisure time we all needed (so our souls were being served as well!)

We believed it all, just like our parents’ generation believed the doctors who said cigarettes were good for you.

It would appear I have a long history with bad food.

Maybe I can use this Yosemite trip to rethink the way I eat. Because let’s face it: I now eat more like Ronald McDonald than John Muir. I’m acting in opposition to my own values, and that’s not the way I want to be remembered by my son.

Comments

Media Jean: That’s great, Chip. Your dad is thinking about healthy food!

Chip: Yeah. I’m curious to see where he ends up on all that.

Johnny: I’m happy your dad’s going to lose a few pounds, but what about me?

Media Jean: The Capitalist’s Mantra: What About Me?

Johnny: I’m serious! Doesn’t that sizzling bacon sound good to you?!

Media Jean: My parents are vegan, remember? I don’t eat meat.

Johnny: For a vegan, you sure eat a lot of junk.

Media Jean: That’s because I’m a junk food vegan. I say no to meat and dairy, but I say yes to salt and sugar.

Chip: And fried food.

Media Jean: And processed soy products.

Johnny: All right, already! How about you, Chip? The sizzle and smell of bacon! Butter melting on grease-grilled muffins!

Chip: Sigh. Yeah, I’ll miss all of that. But I really need to get my dad to eat healthier. I think Yosemite and John Muir can help.

Johnny: So we’re going to go all the way to Yosemite to eat, what, berries and nuts?! It’s un-American!

Media Jean: What’re you talking about?

Johnny: Unhealthy, processed, packaged foods were invented and perfected in America! They may be bad for your personal health, but they’re great for our economic health!

Media Jean: You just want your bacon.

Johnny: It’s bigger than that! Billions of dollars are generated every year to manufacture, package, distribute, market and sell bad food!

Media Jean: I think you’re finally cracking up, Johnny.

Johnny: I’m just getting started! We haven’t even discussed the middle and end of the product cycle!

Chip: Middle and end?

Johnny: Bad food creates bad health, which in turn creates a middle-market for supplements, vitamins, diets—you name it! We’re talking Billions with a capital B!

Media Jean: I’m afraid to ask about the end of the product cycle.

Johnny: It’s not pretty, but facts are facts. Bad food creates a massive and perpetual customer base for the healthcare industry.

Media Jean: I still say you just want your bacon.

Johnny: Not just bacon! Bacon in Yosemite! Bacon on a Coleman stove! Waking to bacon and birdsong!

Chip: Ha ha! Bacon and birdsong, that’s funny.

Media Jean: Ha ha! Bacon and Birdsong, a poem by Johnny Green!

“When bacon sizzles on the Coleman stove
birds sing in the shady grove.”

Chip: Ha ha!

“I wake as if from a coma
to Yosemite’s greasy aroma.”

Media Jean: You add a verse, Johnny.

Chip: Yeah. It was your idea.

Media Jean: Show us the poetry of capitalism.

Johnny: “John Muir feels sad and forsaken
but I don’t care, I got my bacon!”

Chip: Haha!

Media Jean: That’s hilarious!

Chip: This is going to be a great trip!

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

Following John Muir Out of the Digital World.

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Chip asked if he could bring Media Jean and Johnny on our Yosemite trip. After a selfish moment that any dad will understand, I happily agreed.

The next day I found the three kids reading aloud from my dog-eared copy of The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir’s Greatest Adventures by Lee Stetson.

I sometimes feel so superfluous as a dad in the digital age. When Chip wants to learn how to do something, his mentor is YouTube. When he wants answers, his go-to guy is Google. When he has something to say, he sends a text. When he wants to talk, he chats. He shares his day on Instagram and forgets to update his own dad.

Now Chip and his friends are reading about John Muir. They’re asking to experience Yosemite in person rather than read about it on Wikipedia.

Maybe I’m having a positive impact on them after all.

I can’t wait. On the first day, we’ll drive through Montana and drop into Idaho. We’ll spend the night, get up early to ride the historic Thunder Mountain train, and spend a couple of hours at Craters of the Moon National Park.

Then we’ll push on through to California (with a rest stop in Reno), take Highway 120 into Yosemite Valley, and arrive in time to watch the day’s last golden light lift off of Half Dome.

We’ll set up at Housekeeping Camp, make dinner over my trusty Coleman stove, roll out four sleeping bags on two bunk beds, and fall asleep to the melody of quiet campfire conversations in the big hush of the valley.

Then we’ll wake with the sun and set out to explore heaven on earth.

No computers. No laptops. No tablets. No wi-fi. I’ll carry a cell phone for emergencies, but that’s it.

Ten days of face-to-face life and no Facebook. Ten days of birds singing and no tweeting. Ten days of direct experience without a YouTuber to tell you how to feel about it.

I’m doing something important for these kids. Maybe I’m not so superfluous after all.

Comments

Media Jean: Whoa whoa whoa. We can’t bring our laptops, tablets, and phones?

Chip: I thought you knew that.

Johnny: How am I supposed to keep up with the financial world?

Chip: You’re not. That’s the whole point. To get away.

Johnny: Are you crazy?! I can’t “get away” from my stocks! I have to stay on top of that stuff!

Chip: I think my dad would say this trip is about taking stock of your soul.

Media Jean: How am I supposed to experience Yosemite without my photo app and my journal app. I even downloaded a bunch of Yosemite apps!

Chip: My dad has a camera, and he picked up a notebook for each of us.

Media Jean: But what if I want to learn more about Half Dome or Yosemite Falls or a raven or something? How can I Google anything?

Chip: I tried that argument on my dad. He wants us to experience Half Dome and the Falls and the wildlife. To feel our response to it. To think and wonder about it. He calls it your inner Google.

Johnny: You and your dad’s inner stuff! Inner North Star! Inner Google! I’m a businessman! I live in the outer world!

Chip: Every year my dad and I see more and more people with GameBoys and smartphones. They walk through Yosemite Valley looking down instead of looking up. Do we want to be like that?

Johnny: Well, when you put it that way.

Media Jean: John Muir would be ashamed of us.

Chip: No, he wouldn’t. He’d just encourage us to be bold. Here, I’ll send you the quotes I copied from dad’s book.

Media Jean: Got it. Wow, these are amazing.

Chip: Here’s one of my favorites. “Keep close to Nature’s heart ... and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

Media Jean: Johnny’s spirit can definitely use a bath.

Johnny: Very funny. This quote sounds like he’s talking to me personally. “I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.” Ouch.

Chip: “Most people are on the world, not in it.”

Media Jean: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

Johnny: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

Chip: “Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.”

Media Jean: “In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.”

Johnny: “One touch of nature makes all the world kin.”

Chip: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

Media Jean: Wow. I want to feel that.

Johnny: Me too.

Chip: Me, too. So are we with John Muir? He said, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” Do we hear the mountains calling?

Media Jean: Yes!

Chip: Are we going to leave our devices and go?

Johnny: Yes!

Media Jean: The mountains are calling!

Johnny: And we must go!

Chip: That’s the spirit!

Comic strip from the series "Screen-Free Week"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

A Burning Bush in Yosemite National Park.

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:00:00 GMT

When I was seven, we lived in a little town called Rialto.

I went to Ramona Elementary. I was an average student. Mom worked part-time at Sages Grocery Store. Dad was an auto mechanic.

Both my parents loved the outdoors, and pitching a tent fit our budget pretty good, so we spent a lot of time camping. Mom, dad and I drove the blue Ranchero all across Montana, visiting every state park within a weekend’s reach.

Then dad got two weeks off at the end of May and we headed west. I thought we were aiming for Yellowstone, but mom and dad had something grander in mind.

Yosemite!

I was only seven, so I wasn’t thinking in spiritual metaphors (at least, not that I’m aware of). But looking back, I can say now it was a Burning Bush experience. Yosemite was holy ground, and I ran across it with a joy my parents had never seen in me before.

My mom wrote about that first visit in her journal. I still have her slim little books. “After two weeks, he refuses to leave,” she wrote. “Says he’s going to build a house in the valley. I wish now we hadn’t taken him to that John Muir exhibit.”

John Muir! Riding an avalanche off the rim of the Valley! Spending a storm-tossed night yahooing in the top of a pine tree! Setting off for the wild with just two loaves of bread in his coat pockets!

Other kids wanted to be astronauts or superheroes. Me, the moment I stepped out of that exhibit and back into the Valley, I wanted to be John Muir.

The last morning, when it was time to pack, I was nowhere to be found. Dad was frantic. He knew how easy it was to get lost in those endless woods. He ran for the Rescue Rangers while Mom waited at the tent, in case I came back.

As she waited, eyes raised in that instinctive and prayerful way we all seem to carry, she saw the sun ignite the spray atop Upper Yosemite Falls. A rainbow faded in and out with the breeze, like Nature’s holy ghost. Later she wrote, “Suddenly, I knew where Bobby was.”

She found me on the bridge below the Falls. “He looked so happy, so right, that I couldn’t take him away.”

Mom told dad we were staying.

Dad was furious, but when mom made a decision of heart and mind, that was that. So dad drove east to work while mom and I stayed another week in Yosemite. We would take a bus home.

Looking over what I’ve typed, I’m not sure how to end, or what to draw from all this. I just want Chip to know how deep Nature runs in me. I want him to understand why his dad takes him to Yosemite every year. I want him to realize, deep down in his heart, that Yosemite is holy to me.

When I stand in the mist of those mighty falls, I am baptized. I believe in God, I hope in heaven, but I know Yosemite.

I guess I just want my son to remember that.

Comments

Media Jean: Wow. I don’t think I feel like that about anything.

Chip: Maybe you can come with us to Yosemite. You’ve seen my dad in Nature, but he’s 10x that in Yosemite.

Media Jean: That’s funny. I can’t imagine your dad being any more Thoreau than he already is.

Chip: He’s like Thoreau with the annoying parts left out. He walks and hikes and smiles, writes poems and skips rocks. No sermons. He’s just there.

Media Jean: Thoreau without the annoying parts, that’s hard to imagine.

Chip: Media Jean, do you think we’re missing something?

Media Jean: What do you mean?

Chip: The way my dad feels about Nature. I wish I felt that way about something.

Media Jean: I know what you mean. I love technology, but it’s just a tool. It’s something I use. With Nature, it’s itself. And your dad is part of it.

Chip: Yeah. I wish I had that.

Media Jean: I never thought about it before, but I wish I had that, too.

Chip: I love computers and coding and and AI and YouTube and all that.

Media Jean: But they’re just tools and toys and stuff.

Chip: I think I’ll ask my dad to take us camping.

Media Jean: Yeah! Maybe it’s not too late for us!

Chip: Maybe we can learn to be part of nature, the way he does. Connect with what my dad calls his inner North Star.

Media Jean: My inner North Star. Wow. I love that.

Johnny: OK, before you say it, yes, I was lurking. Get over it.

Media Jean: What do you want now, Johnny?

Johnny: Nothing. I was just thinking.

Chip: Do you want to go camping with us?

Johnny: Really?

Media Jean: Really?

Chip: That’s what you wanted to ask, isn’t it? You feel the same way we do. You want that inner North Star feeling.

Johnny: All right, all right, I admit it! I want to go!

Media Jean: Wow. I thought money was your inner North Star.

Johnny: Capitalists are human, too, you know!

Chip: I’ll go ask my dad right now.

Media Jean: School’s out in a few months. Maybe he could take us to Yosemite.

Johnny: I’ve never been to Yosemite.

Media Jean: Me either.

Chip: Hold on. I’ll be right back!

Media Jean: I gotta say, Johnny, you surprise me sometimes. It’s like the Johnny-I-think-I-know just went away.

Johnny: Will your folks let you go all the way to California?

Media Jean: They’d let me go to the moon if Chip’s dad was the tour guide. How about you?

Johnny: My dad will see it as a great character building experience. He’ll say this trip will give me a story to tell when I’m a CEO. You know, something to dupe the worker bees into thinking I’m relatable.

Media Jean: And just like that, the Johnny-I-think-know is back.

Chip: He said yes!

Media Jean: We’re going to Yosemite!

Chip: He had already reserved a spot for our annual two week trip. It’s in Housekeeping Camp, so there’s plenty of room. He’s going to call your parents tonight.

Media Jean: I’m going to give my folks a heads-up.

Johnny: Me, too. This will be great!

Chip: Let’s get together tomorrow and read John Muir stories!

Media Jean: It’s a date!

Comic strip from the series "Chip's Upgrades"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

Something is Happening, and I’m Mr. Jones.

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Sitting here trying to decide which stories to tell. Stories I haven’t told Chip before. Stories to leave behind when I move on.

Sometimes a little snack helps me get started. But there’s not a bag of chips to be found. No tater tots or pizzas in the freezer. No tubes of Pillsbury biscuits, no tubs of butter, no shrink-wrapped cold cuts, and no mayo in the trusty fridge.

The pantry is usually dependable. There’s always something forgotten in the back, behind the cans of pinto beans and creamed corn.

But not today.

No crinkly bag of Newman’s O’s. No long matinee boxes of Red Vines. Where’s my backup stash of Ginger Ale? Where are my Slim Jims and vacuum-sealed pouches of jerky?

Top shelf, right side. My stack of Jell-O boxes are gone. Not one box of my beloved cook-and-stir chocolate pudding!

Even the cookie jar is empty.

When I ask Chip and Media Jean where all the snacks have gone, Chip shrugs and says, “That stuff isn’t good for you anyway.”

Media Jean gives me one of her all-knowing looks and adds, “You’re entering the Drop Dead Zone, Mr. MacMurray.”

“Drop Dead Zone?”

“She means risk factors,” Chip smiles.

He always tries to soften Media Jean’s straight talk.

Before I could ask another question, they flew out the door. Something’s going on, and as usual, I don’t know what it is.

Comments

Media Jean: He’s going to figure out that we threw out all his unhealthy food.

Chip: Then he’ll just go to the store and buy more artery-clogging food.

Media Jean: Maybe we need to take a stand.

Chip: Uh oh. When you say “take a stand” we usually get in trouble.

Media Jean: This time will be different.

Chip: That’s what you say every time.

Media Jean: And I’m right. Every time is different.

Chip: That’s true. We get into a different kind of trouble every time.

Media Jean: Ha ha! I’ll give you that one. But not this time. I think we should just tell your dad the truth. Hit him with statistics on heart disease, POW! Prostate cancer, BAM! Osteo-what-cha-ma-call-it, SLAM!

Chip: Osteoporosis.

Media Jean: Right! This is serious, Chip! It really is life and death. So let’s step right up and say, “We love you, and we want you to live a long, long time. So shape up!”

Chip: But what if he wants to compromise?

Media Jean: I’m not much of a compromiser. I say we declare a health war.

Chip: Ha ha! A health war?!

Media Jean: He brings a bag of Doritos in the house, we take it out. He sneaks in a box of Twinkies, we sneak it out.

Chip: He could hide food where we’ll never find it.

Media Jean: Not if we install hidden Nanny-cams with night vision to catch those midnight munchies.

Chip: I see only one flaw with this plan.

Media Jean: Impossible! It’s foolproof!

Chip: If there are no snacks in the house, what will we eat?

Media Jean: Uh oh. I hadn’t thought of that.

Chip: Tomorrow is our Ray Harryhausen Film Festival. We’ll have to eat carrots and celery during Clash of the Titans.

Media Jean: We can have the Harryhausen Film Fest at my house.

Chip: I don’t know. If we start this war, I bet my dad calls your dad.

Media Jean: Yikes, I hadn’t thought of that!

Chip: Your mom is always trying to get you to eat healthier.

Media Jean: A Parent Team-Up! That’s the Dr. Doom and Magneto of Childhood!

Johnny: You can have the Harryhausen Film Festival at my house.

Media Jean: The lurker surfaces like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

Johnny: I wasn’t lurking! I just logged on to see what you idiots were talking about. And why wasn’t I invited to this Harryhausen thing?

Media Jean: Do you know who Ray Harryhausen was?

Johnny: No.

Media Jean: That’s why.

Chip: My dad will call your dad, too, Johnny.

Johnny: So? You think your dad can out-negotiate my dad? Give me a break!

Media Jean: Really? What about Screen-Free Week? Remember how Chip’s dad talked your dad into banning all screens in your house? No TVs. No tablets. No phones. You cried.

Johnny: I didn’t cry! That was stress. But you have a point. Chip’s dad might be an economic failure, but when it comes to the moral high ground, he’s tough to beat.

Media Jean: By the time he’s through, you’ll be eating rice cakes!

Johnny: All right, you made your point!

Media Jean: Your dad will start investing in broccoli stock!

Johnny: I said all right!

Chip: We have to call off the war.

Media Jean: I think you’re right.

Chip: If we tell our parents the “right” thing to do, but then don’t do it ourselves, aren’t we doing what we always criticize them for doing?

Media Jean: Hmm, a “we have become the enemy” kind of thing.

Chip: Right. Either we all do the right thing, or we live and let live.

Media Jean: Rats. OK, call off the health war. We’ll have to find another way to get your dad healthy.

Johnny: So... does that mean the Harryhausen Film Festival is still on?

Hello?

I have the biggest flat screen TV in town.

Hello ...?

Did you idiots log off already?!

Come on! I have Surround Sound!

Hey! You did, didn’t you? You logged out!

Arrgh!

Media Jean: Just kidding! Yeah, the festival is still on. Your house, tomorrow after school.

Johnny: One of these days I’m going to buy this company and fire you.

Media Jean: Yeah, yeah. Just don’t forget the snacks, Mr. Surround Sound.

Comic strip from the series "Johnny Green's Avatar"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com

Spelunking on Mortality, Hoping on Heaven.

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Just flipped back and read my last journal entry. All those memories. All that time passed.

Now here I am again, awake at 3 in the morning, sitting with my mortality and a cup of hot cocoa. We all take turns at the wall; we all have dark nights of the soul.

Soon, too soon, all my atoms will be recycled into cosmic potting soil and that’ll be the end of me.

Or, soon, still too soon, my soul, my essence, my Me, will continue on to the grand, mysterious Whatever Comes Next.

Is there a heaven? What form will it take? Is reincarnation the way it works? If so, I’ll be like Albert Brooks in Defending Your Life, trying to prove myself fearless enough to continue onward rather than being shipped back to remedial earth.

Or will heaven be scriptural, and if so, which scriptures apply? Will heaven be purely metaphysical, consciousness without form, and if so, what the heck does that even mean?

Or will heaven simply be another place? Just as we go from the womb to the world, will we go from the world to some wider place?

I could keep spelunking on mortality until these typewriter keys are hammered flat. Instead, I’ve decided to do something immortal here and now: I’m going to tell my life story for my son.

Not the whole story. I’ll try to leave out the boring parts. I just want to leave enough information for my son to know me and remember me after I’ve traveled on. I want to leave him a typewritten time machine through which he can meet his father as a child, as a teen, as a young man.

I can secure that small immortality for him and for myself, here and now.

As for the Big Forever, I’ll just have to wait and see.

Comments

Media Jean: Have you seen Defending Your Life? It’s hilarious!

Chip: I like “The Pavilion of Past Lives.”

Media Jean: You know, your dad overlooked one kind of possible heaven: man-made heaven!

Chip: You mean bioengineering?

Media Jean: Bioengineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, cloning, resetting biological clocks. There’s a lot happening on the frontiers of mortality.

Chip: I don’t think any of that will be ready in time for my dad.

Media Jean: Actually, it probably won’t be ready in time for us, either.

Chip: Yeah. If it was ready, right now, would you use it?

Media Jean: Heck yeah! Wouldn’t you?

Chip: Definitely! But I don’t think my dad would. He’d probably say it was unnatural.

Media Jean: You know, technology usually leaps ahead faster than we think.

Chip: Yeah! Maybe a longevity treatment will be ready in time for my dad!

Media Jean: Exactly! We just need to make sure he lives long enough to take advantage of it.

Chip: How are we going to do that?

Media Jean: First, he goes on a low calorie diet! I read that reducing your caloric intake by 30% can increase your lifespan by 30%.

Chip: Really?

Media Jean: In lab rats, anyway. But I’m betting the science holds up for humans.

Chip: I don’t know. My dad loves food.

Media Jean: He’ll need to start exercising, too.

Chip: He hates exercise, unless you mean hiking?

Media Jean: Hiking, jogging, walking, aerobics, pilates, weight lifting—all of it. He needs to hit the gym!

Chip: He doesn’t belong to a gym.

Media Jean: We’ll sign him up online. We have to extend your dad’s lifespan a little until science can extend it a lot.

Chip: You’re right! I’ll go through our kitchen and toss all the high fat stuff.

Media Jean: Great! I’ll come over and help. I bet we can boost your dad’s lifespan to 100, maybe 110!

Chip: Which should give technology enough time to develop a more permanent solution!

Media Jean: Right! Immortality, here we come!

Comic strip from the series "Johnny Green's Avatar"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at bob@roamandramble.com