Time and Bacon

I've only got an hour to do this today.  I had two hours about four hours ago but now because I was adding a minute and that really got stretched out and...

I'll begin again.

A few weeks ago I put my guitars away in hopes that it would inspire me to do the many other things I needed to do - painting, fixing - stuff, you know.  My open guitar case usually sits on the workbench, by the tools and the paint and the rollers and saws and, guitars and tools are generally mutually exclusive.  So I closed 'em up for a while.

Just recently, actually when the were still put away, I got my old Alvarez out and couldn't play and sing but for about ten minutes, my fingers fatigued and my voice creaked.  So I decided to just add a minute every time I played and it's been a struggle.  I was up to fourteen today...  I played for an hour and a half, reconnecting to old Dylan songs and folk ballads and some of my own tunes.  Guy Clark lyrics and John Denver melodies made my fingers stronger and voice more able.

At first I was worried because I felt I didn't have the time, and then I decided I'd make the time, and then I forgot about the time altogether.

There are lessons we must teach our children.  Teaching them the value and management of time is important.  Teaching the relativity of time is awkward though, not e=mc² awkward, but the 'time sure flies...' stuff and the 'why is five minutes so long waiting for the doctor, and so short at the pool' awkward.  And the 'Didn't we just have sliders?   No, that was a week ago,' oddness of time is something we all must figure out.  "The days so slow; the years so fast."  That is a bittersweet lesson for all of us.

However, what do I tell them?  Hurry up we gotta be there and do this, time isn't gonna wait, boys, move it.   Slow down, smell the roses, think it through, I'll wait.  Those are, well, contradictory aren't they.

I guess the time management stuff is necessary, encouraged by society and groups and teachers and such.  But what of the opposite?  Who says, slow down, don't hurry, listen, taste, see, think?  I imagine a time when one of my boys might want to learn to play guitar or bass or drums and, honestly, I don't see how they'd have the time to do it.

Time has to shaped and cajoled and squeezed and seized and respected and...

Listen boys, you're going to have to figure it out on your own.


Marci and I recently decided the boys were getting a bit too much screen time (yeah, I hate that phrase too but, it's necessary).  Mind you, they play kid games on the computer and Wii console and the vast majority of TV they watch is PBS.  Their favorite show is Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, for God's sake.  But, I didn't like the look on their faces in front of the collective screens they see every day.

They complained a little.

I sharpened their pencils and got new Crayons and markers and fresh glue sticks and scissors in their "craft-boxes" and stocked their paper.

And the time flew by...

Zack imagined a bridge and drew this:

Nick made a nifty bookmark:

And the table ended up looking like this:

Seems to me like they're wasting their time... or does it?  I told a fellow library volunteer one day that I wrote a blog, a "daddy blog" I think I called it.  She asked if it was like an advice blog.  I laughed.  She didn't know why.  I am in no position to give advice.  I will say that  a well-stocked craft-box, no screens, a lot of imagination and some time can lead to happy kids.


What about the "bacon?"

Right, I did say bacon in the title, didn't I?  Well, I am short on time but, here's the short of it.

As I realized that I had played guitar and sung for well over an hour because I had given into it, let it happen, I thought that it seemed like an important lesson to impart to the fledgling humans we have in our care.  It is, but, like I said before, it's something you can have explained to you but, you just have to learn it on your own.

Sort of like me trying to tell them to never, ever, fry bacon nude.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"You could do that ... but then you'd be in jail.

*pause* 

And I'd be at Skyline."


Goodness, that is a slam...


(Well now, see there, just over an hour - uh, plus the hour and a half editing and adding pictures and taking pictures and finding out how to make the "squared" symbol and in general rewriting the whole damn thing.  But, I do think somehow, this day snuck in some bonus time for me, but that's a lesson for another day.)

Thanks for stopping by and sitting a spell, I appreciate it.


((Never.  Ever.))