Afriend of mine has no children. She hears about it all the time."Why not?" they ask."How could you not want them?""Is there something wrong between you and your husband?"Another friend has three children. She also hears about it all the time."Don't you want a career?" they ask."Are you really taking those kids into that restaurant?"Once upon a time, having children was a given. Those who didn't couldn't. They were to be pitied.
You've seen these bumper stickers. "My kid made the honor roll at blankety-blank school."I used to think they were harmless. A declaration of parental pride. Now, I'm not so sure. Parental pride, it seems, can get you killed.Earlier this month, in a Boston suburb, two fathers took their kids to hockey practice. One father never came home.
Well, I lost them. All 60 songs. I don't know where I put them. They could be under a sock. They could be behind a credit card in my wallet.Sixty songs. Gone like that. That's what I get for living in the era of shrinking music.See, kids, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far, away -- the 20th Century -- music came on big discs called 78s. They were heavy, solid things. You could bang a nail with them or throw them like a Frisbee. Odd Job could flick one and take someone's head off.Who is Odd Job, you ask?That is why you're kids.
THERE GOES the franchise player, out the door, headed for Space Mountain. What began with great fanfare six years ago -- a press conference, smiles for the cameras, a new uniform, a promise of a long-term future -- ended with one late-night phone call Thursday from Grant Hill, a phone call that should have come days earlier, a phone call that, truth be told, should not have been a call at all, but an in-person meeting, if only out of respect.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
