Hail, Hail, Lutherwood!

This week, both Rachel and Josiah will be at Lutherwood church camp, about 25 miles northwest of Eugene, for 5 days and 4 nights. It will be the first extended over-niter without parents or close family members for Rachel, and the first one ever for Josiah. It is a significant milestone for the kids and us, their parents.

Monday, their first full day at camp, Jane and I spent a blissful, unfettered, unstructured day in Portland. I was able to catch the early showing of the latest Batman movie without first needing to go through complicated negotiations with her about childcare duties.

The next day I woke up with a disquieting feeling. One would think that a week of reprieve from being a parent would be cause for celebration. But, being a dad is such a big part of my daily routine that being cut off from any direct contact with the kids, I felt rudderless without any clear sense of purpose. It wasn't clear to me at first why I felt so melancholy. I think it was because for the first time in their lives, they will be making decisions on how to spend their time and who to spend it with. They will be eating, sleeping, and interacting day and night with unfamiliar peers, trying to belong, but being unclear on how best to make that happen.

When I was their age, and even into adulthood, thrown into similar situations, I would usually withdraw inward and count the days until the end of the ordeal. My worst fears are that one or both of them would be feeling the same as I had, experiencing difficulties bonding and connecting with the other campers, feeling that they don't really belong, and eventually finding themselves on the outside looking in.

Fortunately, later in the day, the camp staff posted pictures of campers on their Facebook page. I felt a great wave of relief washed over me when I saw pictures of Rachel and Josiah smiling, engaging, and very much immersing themselves into the whole Camp Lutherwood experience.

I Hate Rats

I don't have a lot of phobias, anxieties aplenty, but phobias I have a bonafide one. I am terrified of rats. Like many things, my fear of rats probably stems from childhood. In 1965, my family immigrated to the U.S. when I was eight years old. We stayed with my uncle Phillip's family, who had sponsored us, at his home in rural Springfield for most of that first year, and then moved into a rental house in the center of town at 305 "E" Street. The house was small, no more than 800 square feet, dilapidated, and next to a busy street and railroad tracks. It was home to our family of 8 for the next 3 years (Our youngest sister, Ling, wasn't born when we first moved to the house).

In the "E" street house, my parents and baby John slept in one bedroom, my 3 sisters in the only other bedroom, and my brother Fai and I slept in an alcove next to the kitchen. The house was so run down, and with so many kids, it was impossible to keep clean. It was always dank and musty. At night, the rats would get active and you could hear them scratching and scampering inside the walls. In the morning, fresh black droppings could be seen scattered along where the walls meet the floor. My father would bait these huge spring loaded rat traps and set them out at night. The next day, more often than not, we would find a stiff, large, mangy, black rat bisected just below its arms or the neck in one of these traps. If you got close enough, you could make out their buggy lifeless eyes,  razor sharp front upper teeth, and many times, bloody spittle out of the corners of their mouths, which maintained their death grins.

One memorable night, while asleep, I felt a quick sharp pain shooting up from my left foot. I thought I was dreaming. But, in the morning, I noticed that the big toe was covered in wet crimson. Horrified, I concluded a rat's bite was the unthinkable cause of the previous night's pain and the following morning's blood letting. That singular event cemented my lifelong hatred and disgust of rats. To this day, I live by the axiom, "The only good rat is a dead rat".

Josiah

My nine year old son, Josiah, is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, encased in an energetic body, guided by an inquisitive mind, infused with an indomitable spirit, strengthened with self determination, gifted with a talent for music, filled with the joys of life's simple pleasures, blessed with a loving soul, cherished by his family, and embraced by God.

(Josiah painted this portrait of me for Father's Day. I must say, it is a remarkable likeness)

Death, Taxes, and Beef Jerky

We are told that there are only two guarantees in life, death and taxes. But, at least for me, for the past four years beef jerky for Father's Day is the third life guarantee. Every June, I am asked what I want for Father's Day, each and every time I would answer "beef jerky" and could count on getting it on that sacred day of all days. And just as certain, two days, at most three days after Father's Day, all the jerky would be gone because my kids had devoured it by the fistfuls to the very last smoky sinew.

This past Father's Day, inside a brightly colored gift bag, delicately wrapped in snowy white tissue paper was my long anticipated 3/4 pound of untouched "old fashioned" beef jerky from Freddie's. The Epicurean delight itself was vacuumed sealed in a hefty protective plastic bag equipped with the ever brilliant "FreshLock" zip lock (an ingenious invention to keep the freshness in after the bag's been opened).

Predictably, the next day the shameless vultures cornered me and demanded their jerky. I confess here and now that I outright lied to them. I told them that I had lost the entire bag in transit coming home from our family beach vacation at Cannon Beach. The truth of it is, the precious cache is hidden in my underwear drawer, where I know they will never look. The last two weeks I have been slowly savoring these "smoke flavor added" tasty treats made from "solid strips of beef".

Hey, when it comes to desiccated bovine, it is the survival of the fittest, baby!