house of windsor

Mmmmm: Root Beer ...written 13 days ago by Jeff

So today’s NYTimes has a great article about tasting root beers. Suddenly, I’m seized with a desire to sit down with a few bottles (or rather, a few frosted mugs) and have myself a root beer tasting. Actually, I want a cold bottle of IBC in my grubby paw right now, and then a tasting later.

A few years ago we did a chocolate milk tasting, comparing some pre-made grocery store chocolate milks. While only available on the campus of BYU, the chocolate milk from the BYU Creamery is good enough to justify future employment there (should the opportunity arise). There are few things nicer than wandering over to a vending machine and buying some really good chocolate milk.

(The true purpose of this post is only half to get you to read the link. The other half, you real-world friends of the Windsors, is to get you started thinking about having a root beer tasting the next time we’re in the same physical location. So start thinking.)

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William's song ...written 14 days ago by Jeff

William is four and cannot read nor write, but he can type his name. He can type his name because that is the password to get onto his account on the computer. He’s a persistent one. We had to give him his own account so he wouldn’t mess up any of the other kids’ stuff.

The other day he was sitting at the computer, messing around with iTunes. Kate was watching him as she was working at her desk, when William hollered, “I just made my song!”

Kate jumped over to the computer to see what damage he had done. By clicking around he was able to select the name of one song and made it editable and had typed in his name. Now he had a song called “William.”

Kate had to figure out what the song’s name really was and wanted to change it back. So she played the song. You guessed it: “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” So apt.

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Happy Father's Day ...written 23 days ago by Jeff

This is my favorite poem about fathers; it is one I, as a father, think about a lot myself.

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

For their final exam two weeks ago, I asked my students to comment on this poem in relation to Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” in which a drunken father “dances” with his child; Roethke’s poem is pretty ambiguous about whether the child is enjoying the dance or terrified of the abuse. I expected my students to easily point out that Hayden’s poem was unambiguously positive: a father who quietly sacrifices for his child’s comfort.

But they didn’t. My students got hung up on line 9 about the “chronic angers” of the house. I can see their point, somewhat, but only a little. And I think they’re wrong, generally.

The point isn’t the chronic angers, but the father’s sacrifice. So long as we don’t create some backstory beyond what’s written, the father does love his child, and he is a model father. The father rises early and stokes the fire so as to make it better for his child. Despite his child’s indifference, the father persists. The father has no sense of entitlement; on the contrary, this is in addition to his week-long labor. The father takes the same route as Cliff Klingenhagen¹, and partakes of the same mystery.

It is a mystery that I strive to enjoy, too. And happy father’s day, Pop.

——

¹ by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Look it up.

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Like William, like... ...written 29 days ago by Jeff

You remember the stories about William and the maple syrup or the honey or the chocolate frosting or the mustard? This time it was Peter, following in his big brother’s footsteps. Peter…

...and glue.

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Henry lost his second tooth ...written 53 days ago by Jeff

He’s one brave boy. When he got home from school yesterday, I asked if I might be able to give a yank on his tooth. He agreed and I pulled, but was able to really give it a good yank. I could feel the still-connected skin ripping away as it came out and it bled for a long time. But he didn’t whine, complain, or moan. And this morning he was very, very happy to see that the tooth fairy brought him a new book.

In our house, as it was in the house wherein I grew up, the tooth fairy never brought money and instead delivered books. Happily, the tooth fairy has wonderful taste in books, and seems to spend a lot of care trying to choose a book that matches the child’s ability and interests. And spends a heckuva lot more than he/she would have done had she/he just given money. The moral superiority that comes along with the books-not-money fairy-ing is worth every penny.

And, yes, the kids like it too. At least they pretend to, and that’s good enough.

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