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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!
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
Boy, it’s been a while since I sat down and wrote. Now I’m holding on to this typewriter like an anchor. A hatch popped open somewhere and the big Unknown keeps sucking all the air and warmth and gravity out of my little spaceship.
Hold on, Bob. It all started two months ago. Aunt Bosky called long distance to say she had been diagnosed with cancer. And BAM! Right then, right there holding the phone, I thought of the composer Charles Ives. In 1927, he came running downstairs with tears in his eyes and told his wife, “I can’t compose anymore! Nothing sounds right!” He never wrote another piece of music. I always wondered how his wife felt, hearing the Incomprehensible. How she reacted when the Impossible came tumbling down the familiar stairs of her everyday home. And exactly at that moment, with the phone pressed to my ear like an oracle’s shell, I knew. Hearing the Impossible was like playing Red Light/Green Light. Someone shouts, “Red light!” and you stop. Then you wait for “Green light.” You wait, your entire body poised. The only thing that matters is what comes next. That’s what “I have cancer” in Aunt Bosky’s voice did to me. It hit the Pause button in my soul, and I just can’t get around it. She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t get diagnosed with anything except Life and More Life. She’s that big. When I was a kid, she held up the sky. When a day was grand and blue, we said it was, “Bosky.” When mom’s apple pie put dad’s peach cobbler to shame, we didn’t say, “Mom’s apple pie is tastier.” We said, “Mom’s apple pie is Boskier.” Bosky was our blessing. She settled family disputes, took in wayward sons, marched in rallies, and practiced “social justice” back when it was called “manners.” How can cancer take root in a heart on fire? That’s like God getting sick. You have to get to the end of your innocence to accept that reality. Maybe that’s the last bit of growing up a man has to do. So here I am, knocked flat as a cartoon character. And you know what I keep thinking about? Ives’ wife, Harmony. Can’t get her out of my mind. Harmony standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the Impossible. Comments
Media Jean: When was the last time you saw your Aunt Bosky?
Chip: Couple years ago. She lives in New York and travels a lot.
Media Jean: How’s she doing?
Chip: She just started treatment. The doctor said she’ll probably lose her hair.
Media Jean: What color’s her hair?
Chip: Red.
Media Jean: That sounds like the right color for her.
Chip: It used to be bright red like crayons. Now it’s red like watercolor. It’s really pretty.
Media Jean: Wow.
Chip: But she’s not going to wait for her hair to fall out. She’s cutting it off herself and donating it to Locks of Love.
Media Jean: She’s not a sit-around-and-wait kind of person.
Chip: Nope. She takes everything head-on.
Media Jean: I’d love to meet her someday.
Chip: She’d really like you. She’d think you were totally Bosky.
Media Jean: Thanks. I think you’re pretty Bosky yourself.
Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
My son plays a lot of video games. If I’m honest about it, it bothers me. What a waste of time, right?
But if I’m honest with myself, I got to admit: I played a lot of video games, too. Back then, they were called “pinball machines.” Was playing pinball a waste of my own fleeting childhood? I’m going to have to think about that... Summer. Around 1975. I was ten years old. Mom and dad worked, so I was on my own from breakfast to dinner. Some of those days, I swear, Mark Twain could have followed us around and learned a thing or two about being boys. Me and my best friend, James, we’d just go. Remember that? When kids could just go? We climbed telephone poles and sat in the crow’s nest, our legs dangling over the edges, debating the big issues of our day (who would win in a fight, Hulk or Thor, New Avengers or Old Avengers, and don’t get us started on who is faster, Superman or Flash?). The wires just inches above our heads, humming. God, we felt plugged into something. We raced everywhere. I mean, we’d just be walking along when suddenly one of us yelled, “Race to the post office!” or “Race to the old oak!” No ready, set, go. No plan. Just a shout and bang! you were running, that wild, rubber boned running, James hooting the whole way, whooping like Woody Woodpecker because he knew it drove me crazy. We unrolled sleeping bags in backyards and on front porches and even up on rooftops. It took a long time to fall asleep, face to face with the Milky Way. In those days, when you looked up, you saw heaven. Stars round the rim of the world. That summer we pitched our first tent in the woods. In the wilderness! Was that a squirrel on a dry branch or the footstep of a stranger? Were those pine needles rubbing their hands in the breeze or bears sniffing at the flap? Can crickets really make that much noise? Can moonlight really shine that bright? What was that shadow on the tent wall? We jangled up our nerves until we ripped out of there, running with true terror and pure joy choking our hearts, leaving tent, sleeping bags, comic books and food behind until morning. How many times that summer did we sit in the cool dark of the Pacific Theater? How many matinees? Boy oh boy, I remember watching Jaws, screaming and laughing and spilling our Cokes, then running through the woods, down to Silver Lake, sitting in our trunks on the diving rock, afraid for the first time in our lives to jump in. I can still hear James shouting, “This is so stupid!” The echoes of our laughter came back over the lake, sounding hollow like the men we would become if we weren’t careful. I can see it like looking through a window: we just sat there, staring down at the dark water until the sun gave up on us and went looking for braver kids on the other side of the world. We walked home in the dusk, not saying a word. Happy. Just plain ol’ happy. And on top of all that, we played pinball. Every chance we got. Back then, Star Bowling Lanes was on Santa Monica Ave. I can still see it: lanes glowing in the dark, shelves notched with bowling balls, long tables crowded with high stools, ceiling lamps so dim their circles on the red carpet never touched, the shoe wall filled with row after row of numbered heels facing out (those big funky numbers, 3 to 15—who wore size 15?) And over and under and through everything, those long, low rumbles, fading away from you, then suddenly breaking into claps of thunder. To this day, I love the sound of a bowling ball rolling to its fate. The arcade wasn’t much. Just two pinball machines (Space Time and Monte Carlo), a claw machine and a gumball rack. Of course, we had a ritual. Kids always do. First, we hesitated a few seconds, standing respectfully in front of Space Time. We tried to stare it down, tell it telepathically that we were here to PLAY. The machine stared right back, the Time Traveler dressed in green, smiling over his shoulder as he tumbled into the vortex of past, present and future. Next, the quarter. We always came with just one quarter, and we were lucky to get that. One precious chance. In other words, we brought everything we had into that bowling alley. That’s sacred stuff, whether in prayer or pinball. I rubbed the quarter between my fingers, then handed it to James. He spun the coin as it fell into the slot, putting his whole body into the action. We acted as if the quarter itself was magical, as if the contest began long before the game started. And why not? When everything is at stake, everything matters. The entire day was on the line. We could turn that one quarter into a replay, maybe two, maybe a run. We could win the afternoon for ourselves. Heat and boredom vanquished outside! That’s big stuff. I remember my heart beating faster and faster as our score climbed. I remember hoping, really hoping, for just one more game. I remember the high fives when we won, James taunting the machine with every name he picked up on the playground. And I remember the canyon when we lost, James cursing the machine with every insult he could improvise. Shakespeare would have been impressed. Maybe I’m reading too much into all this, but I think we actually learned about life. From a pinball machine. Right there in Star Lanes. On days when we won too easily, we learned how happiness could turn to boredom. On days we lost too quickly, we learned how to leave; hanging around sadness was like standing in quicksand. What else? Friendship. We learned about friendship. Sometimes, when the game was on the line, when everything was on the line, 5,000 points for a replay, down to our 5th and last ball, I would turn to James and say, “Want to take this one?” He’d look at me and nod with a shrug as if it didn’t matter to him. Sometimes he’d have that 5th ball balanced on a flipper, ready to hit the flashing 3D tunnel for a replay, and he’d say, “You want to do it?” And I’d nod with a shrug as if I could take it or leave it. Now that’s friendship. When you’re willing to step back and let your friend save the day, you know all you need to know. So was pinball a waste of my childhood hours? No, I don’t think so. Maybe it’s not what you play, but how you play and who you play with. I guess that’s my problem with Chip’s video games. Half the time, it’s just him and the computer or him and the phone. He doesn’t have to become more human because he’s playing a machine. It’s just not the same. Is that a fair assessment? I honestly don’t know. But that’s how I honestly feel. Being a dad is hard work. Comments
Media Jean: Wow, pinball meant a lot more to your dad than video games mean to me.
Chip: Yeah. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was making all that up.
Media Jean: I’m kinda jealous. Maybe we should try pinball.
Chip: I’ll download a pinball app to my phone. Here’s one called Old Time Pinball.
Media Jean: Got it! Look, we can play together online, just like your dad and James. Ready?
Chip: First ball. These flippers are cool.
Media Jean: I like the bumpers. Look at that ball go!
Chip: Oops, down the gutter. Second ball.
Media Jean: See that popup? We need a million points for a replay!
Chip: Watch out! Left gutter, left gutter!
Media Jean: Let me try. Here we go—whoa! That was fast! Down the right gutter!
Chip: Try another one.
Media Jean: OK, here we—rats! Right down the middle! What’s so great about this?
Chip: We still need 698,000 for a replay.
Media Jean: Ha! Peanuts. Look, Extra Ball is lit! Get it! Watch out—rats! Down the middle again!
Chip: Game over. Want to play again? We could turn on Easy Mode.
Media Jean: That’s okay. Pinball is kind of boring.
Chip: Yeah. I’m not sure what my dad saw in it.
Media Jean: Grown ups. They think everything that happened to them means more than anything that happens to us.
Chip: Well, at least we gave it an honest try.
Media Jean: That’s true! One thing about us, we always keep an open mind. What’s your dad doing now?
Chip: He’s writing in his gratitude journal.
Media Jean: I’ll come over and show him a better way to do that.
Chip: See you in a minute! 
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 [email protected]
When you get older, you get these nostalgic impulses.
A glimpse of color, couple notes of music, the way someone says a word, the breeze across your face when the screen door closes. Things you don’t even notice. But somewhere down in the basement, a domino falls, and tap tap tap, up comes the past until, hours later, you got this little ache in your chest. That’s how I ended up in an arcade with my son, Chip. After twenty years, I suddenly missed pinball. Why now? What does this mean? I have no idea. When I asked Chip if he’d like to visit an arcade, he looked at me like I was joking. This is a kid with an arcade on his phone. But like Linus said to Charlie Brown, a son is a built-in best friend, and Chip is usually game for anything. That kid saves me, I swear. We walked through an arcade the size of the Goodyear Blimp hangar. Wall-to-wall video madness. Kids blasting zombies, hunting T-Rexes, slashing ninjas. One game encouraged kids to heft a sniper rifle and blow a criminal’s brains out the back of his 3D skull. Chunks flew and stuck to the screen (I’m not kidding). At the end of the game, the FBI logo popped up with the words, “Winners don’t do drugs.” But I guess they do splatter brains against brick walls. This is entertainment? I grabbed Chip and headed for the door. And that’s where I saw it. One (just one) beat up, worn out pinball machine. But not just any pinball machine. Bally’s Space Time. Space Time! I just stood there, kind of crying, to tell you the truth. I felt so stupid. Heck, I’m kind of crying now. What’s wrong with me? It’s a pinball machine! But I know better than that. It’s never just the final thing. I think we all have domino souls. I don’t know what sensation makes the first tap, don’t understand the random or determined path they follow, clacking up up up, fanning out like those Guinness Book domino extravaganzas, spilling through my subconscious, streams of memories and emotions and archetypes all falling in different directions, then somehow coming back to one purposeful line, tap tap tap, until that final brick falls flat on my heart and I feel absolutely certain that something just happened, but have absolutely no idea what. I wish I came with a User’s Manual. I’ll have to finish this journal entry later. I’m too worked up to write. I need to go to Sears and sit on the riding mower. Comments
Media Jean: I’m worried about your dad.
Chip: Yeah, me too.
Media Jean: He takes everything so personally.
Chip: I know.
Media Jean: Maybe he should see someone.
Chip: Like a doctor?
Media Jean: Or a dance instructor.
Chip: What?!
Media Jean: I don’t know, something! He needs to do something that’s just fun! Something that doesn’t make him think about everything!
Chip: Everything makes him think about everything.
Media Jean: Maybe he should go to Clown College.
Chip: Ha ha! Clown College?
Media Jean: Yeah! I read about stressed out grown-ups going to Clown College. They learn to juggle, walk a tight rope, get hit with cream pies, the whole clown thing.
Chip: I don’t know...
Media Jean: We can sign him up online. We have his digital signature, credit card numbers, email password.
Chip: Yeah, but he thinks we deleted all that after we bought those stem cells.
Media Jean: Oh, yeah. But this time it’s for him, not us. We can sign you both up. Father and son, clowning around together!
Chip: Actually, I think I’d like Clown College.
Media Jean: Who wouldn’t? Maybe we can sign Johnny up, too.
Chip: Don’t you think that’s going a little too far?
Media Jean: Ha ha! We can say it’s a new employee benefit!
Johnny: I’m not an employee! I’m an officer of this company. I wrote the Employee Handbook. Clown College is NOT a benefit!
Media Jean: Too late! I just signed you up!
Johnny: You can’t sign me up for anything!
Media Jean: Hmmm. On your registration page, they’re asking for a Clown alias. You know, like Bozo or Hobo Kelly.
Johnny: You better be kidding about all this!
Media Jean: How about Nickels? Or Greenbacks?
Johnny: That’s not funny!
Media Jean: Greenbacks the Clown. I like it! It’s YOU!
Johnny: Oooh, you make me so mad!
Chip: She’s kidding, Johnny. But you do stress out kind of easy. Maybe a week at Clown College would be good for you.
Johnny: AARRGHHH!! 
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 [email protected]
When I was a kid, I got my hair cut at Carl’s Barbershop, down on Snelling Ave. In those days, there were only two places for a guy to his hair cut: mom’s kitchen table or Carl’s barber chair.
Carl Schulz was a third generation barber. His grandpa opened the shop in 1925 and cut hair through the Great Depression and the War to End All Wars. Carl’s dad took over in 1938 and cut through the Good War and on into the Baby Boom. Then Carl stepped up in 1968 and cut his way through Vietnam and Woodstock, Disco and the personal computer, and all the way to the digital frontier. Carl only had one rule: no reading in his shop. No magazines, no newspapers, no books. hen I pulled out a slug of Bazooka Gum, I knew I had better pop it in my mouth quick and stuff the comic strip wrapper back in my pocket. If Carl caught you reading a Bazooka Joe gum wrapper, he’d hold out his hand and everyone would look right at you until you handed it over. I thought Carl was the smartest guy in town. I’d sit in those big red chairs, waiting my turn, and just listen. He’d talk Wall Street with the bankers, books with the teachers, taxes with the accountants, girls with the guys and kids with the dads. Sometimes, a bunch of us would try and stump Carl. We’d meet at the library, a crowd of 10-year-old knuckleheads, hunched over a Britannica that was three feet square when opened flat. We learned a lot of new stuff trying to stump Carl. Carl had a stroke a few years back and closed shop for six weeks. I finally broke down and made a reservation at a salon. People sat in their own little worlds, reading hair magazines and swiping who knows what on their phones. Half a dozen people got their hair cut at the same time, talking to stylists they didn’t really know, sitting next to strangers they didn’t know at all. Hair dryers blaring, rock music piped in from the ceiling. I went home and let my hair grow down to my shoulders. When Carl came back, we threw a heck of a party right there in the barbershop. You never saw so many shaggy-looking men. Carl cried. I did, too. Heck, I’m almost crying now. Getting your hair cut used to be a community event. No one read at Carl’s because it was rude to read in front of your neighbors. Get to know somebody, for goodness’ sakes. That’s what it was about. Talking and listening, laughing and thinking, waiting your turn, getting your hair cut with a few squirts from a water bottle, letting it air dry, then sticking around after you were done because you really couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d rather be. Comments
Media Jean: Your dad cries a lot, doesn’t he?
Chip: He’s kinda soft-hearted that way.
Media Jean: I bet I walked by that little barbershop a million times, but I never thought twice about it. It looks so… old.
Chip: Carl is great. He’s like Yoda. He knows everything.
Media Jean: Would he cut a girl’s hair?
Chip: Hair is hair, I guess.
Media Jean: Maybe I’ll go to Carl’s Barbershop next time. I’m curious. I’ll bring my dad.
Chip: Just so you know, you can’t use your iPhone in Carl’s.
Media Jean: What?! I’ll do it on the sly, he’ll never know.
Chip: Carl’s way ahead of you. He has a signal blocker in his shop. Cell phones don’t work.
Media Jean: Ha ha! Sounds like something I would do! I like him already!
Chip: He has an old soda machine. You can get a bottle of ice cold root beer for a quarter.
Media Jean: Heck, why wait?! Let’s get a haircut right now!
Chip: I’ll meet you there!
Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
On our way out of Sears, I see one of those old-fashioned photo booths. Sure, it’s got a computer screen now, but the idea is the same: a space so small you’re forced to squeeze together.
A curtain, one seat, four poses, and a film strip in three minutes. I ask the kids if they want to take a picture. They pull out their phones. Of course, they have a photo booth app. They can make as many film strips as they want. “No, no, no!” I say. “That’s not the same thing!” I rustle them into the booth. “See, there was a time when you couldn’t undo and redo everything. A time when you couldn’t carry everything in your pocket.” I insert $5 (inflation!) The monitor comes to life. The kids stare at their faces. “In my day, the photo booth was a magical, romantic, dangerous place. That cheap red curtain blocked out the whole world. It was just you in there. And when the camera flashed, it froze four moments in time. “I remember when I was 16, sitting in here with my first girlfriend. Looking at our reflections. Trying to pose without looking like we were posing. Waiting for that first flash. Waiting. Waiting. “Then FLASH! Caught by surprise, staring straight ahead. "FLASH! Smiling, glancing at each other. "FLASH! Leaning against each other, laughing. "FLASH! Turning in for an awkward kiss. I still have that photo somewhere—” That’s when I notice the kids are laughing. I always get romantic at the wrong time. I know that laugh. They’re going to mimic me now. Adults mock. Kids mimic. The first one hurts, the second one breaks down all your defenses. Pretty soon, you’re laughing, too. Media Jean hits the Start button. They try to recreate my story, starting with that deer-in-headlights look my girlfriend and I had in our first photo. But they can’t keep straight faces. “Smooch booth!” shouts Media Jean. “This is a smooch booth!” Chip laughs so hard, he almost falls over. I was laughing too. Kids find romance hilarious. If we grown-ups could hold on to that, there’d be a lot less heartbreak in this world. Anyway, I got a good laugh and a great photo out of it. What more can you ask of life? Comments
Media Jean: Did your dad keep that old photo?
Chip: Yeah. I found it in one of his scrapbooks. He has a lot of scrapbooks. Wait a sec. I’ll take a pic and post it to his blog.
Media Jean: Got it. Wow, your dad is so young! Is that your mom?
Chip: No. He met my mom a couple years later, at city college.
Media Jean: You must miss her.
Chip: I was pretty little when she left. I don’t remember much.
Media Jean: Sounds like you really miss her.
Chip: Yeah.
Media Jean: Think your dad still misses her?
Chip: He has a lot of scrapbooks.
Media Jean: Yeah.
Johnny: Hey, it’s me. I wasn’t lurking. I, uh, my mom’s making dinner. She’s on a low-fat craze, so I can’t promise anything. But I thought maybe you’d, you know, want to come over.
Chip: Really?
Johnny: Yeah. And it’s Yahtzee night. My mom loves Yahtzee. We play for hours.
Chip: That sounds like fun, Johnny. Thanks.
Johnny: We start at 7.
Media Jean: For a lurker, you’re OK.
Johnny: I wasn’t lurking!
Chip: See you at 7, Johnny. 
Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
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AuthorHey, I'm Bob, and I hate technology. So why am I blogging? Because I love my son. He upgraded my typewriter to wirelessly post every keystroke online. It makes him happy, so here I am. Archives
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