Welcome back to school...sigh

I recently read a story about how to prepare your child for going back to school. It was full of all sorts of interesting and helpful suggestions, tips and advice for helping your child make the transition from the care-free days of summer to the regimented routine of a public school system.

When I was a child, the only thing we did to prepare for going back to school was go shopping for books, paper, pencils, erasers, (wine for mom and dad to celebrate our return to school) and even some new clothes – which, of course, you could not wear on the first day because it was not considered 'cool' to look your best.

Instead, you wore the same ratty jeans you had on at the last day of school from the previous year. Like a fine wine (the kind parents use to celebrate back to school) you had to let the new clothes sit and 'age' for a while.

At least a week, then you could wear a new shirt. A few days later you would venture out in your new jeans and then your new shoes. Eventually you would head out with all of the new clothing on at the same time, but by now school had been in session for at least a couple weeks so you were not branded a geek for wearing new clothes on the first day.

And if memory serves, there was a whole bunch of other reasons you were branded a geek. Or so I have been told anyway.

Anyway, the article recommended all sorts of things to help the youngsters get back into the school groove before school even starts.

They suggest you start preparing your children two weeks before the big day by doing things like establishing a routine, explain expectations, hold those expectations to a realistic level, talk to your child about school etc.

All good advice indeed. When I was a kid heading back to the seventh level of hell, er, I mean school, the only prep we had was seeing those horrid back-to-school commercials on TV.

They would start a couple weeks before the nine months of torture would resume and had the never-failing result of ruining the last vestiges of summer you had yet to enjoy.

Who could enjoy late August when you knew your care-free days were numbered? Not I.

As for my parent's role in preparing me for school, if I recall it went something like this: School starts next week.

The end.

That was about it. A quick reminder I was about to lose my freedom to the dungeon masters of the public education system for another year.

There was no advice on how to get used to going back to school, there were no pep talks, no cushioning the blow – just one day you are enjoying summer, the next you are chained to a desk learning that most evil form of math - algebra.

The first day of school we would find our name on a list taped to the side of the school that let us know what kind of a school year we were in for.

The list told us what our homeroom was and what courses we were taking and when. Groaning and gnashing of teeth was heard throughout the day as people saw their short-term future printed before them in black and white.

You would then run around to all your friends to see if you shared any classes with them which either led to rejoicing or more of that gnashing I was telling you about.

But it only took a few days to get back into the routine and in the back of my mind was always the reassurance that summer vacation was less than 300 days away.

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh    

Teenage crisis averted - for now anyway

It was a disaster of near biblical proportions.

A calamity so great it threatened to destroy the very fabric of existence: Teenage Daughter missed her bus.

Oh, the humanity. The horror, the...wait a minute, that's not such a big deal.

Well, it may not be a big deal to an old guy like me, but to Teenage Daughter it is a catastrophe of Red Cross levels.

You see, because she missed the bus she would not be able to meet up with her friends, and if she could not meet up with her friends then she could not hang out with her friends and if she could not hang out with her friends, her life would be over and what's the point of carrying on.

Hearing the devastating situation brave Teenage Daughter was facing, I jumped to action. I dropped everything I was doing, ran to my car, hit the gas and raced to where Teenage Daughter was so I could re-unite her with her long-lost friends, thus preventing the fabric of human existence from being shredded and life on the planet would not cease to exist.

You are welcome.

I suspect the non-parents out there don't appreciate just how close the human race came to complete annihilation.

Missing that one bus could have set in motion a series of devastating events akin to the Mayan 2012 predictions of global doom.

Or at least that's how things were playing out in the mind of Teenage Daughter.

While I have never been a teenage girl myself, I am the proud father of such a being.

Teenage Daughter is a bright, funny, beautiful young woman who has such raging emotions and hormones she can go from cheerful one second to her head spinning around and puking green stuff the next.

Such is how the teenage girl mind works.

I did not know any of this when she was born. The day she arrived on this earth I saw a perfect little human. After having two sons, I was thrilled to have a daughter.

I literally wanted to run up and down the hospital hallways shouting “It's a girl! It's a girl!”

But, considering she was born at 1:20 a.m., I do not think others on that ward would have appreciated my jubilant display of joy.

It was a moment I will remember as clear as day for the rest of my life, as I will the birth of my sons.

When my boys were going through the teen years I thought, “This isn't so bad.”

For about year, each boy went through a phase where they were angry all the time, always at odds with us and each other. But that passed and some very charming young men emerged.

I soon learned having a teen daughter was a little more um, how should we put this - involved.

With the runaway emotional freight train that is a teen girl, it took some getting used to the rapid mood swings and outbursts of tears and laughter in the same 60 seconds.

Everyone I talk to with daughters share similar stories of woe and strife.

Apparently that is just how the teen girl brain develops as they struggle through those emotional days of not quite being an adult and definitely not being a child anymore.

But in the midst of the teenage-generated disasters, there is a wonderful young woman emerging. One who is fun to hang around with, one who is witty and charming and has a real heart for helping others, especially children.

Yes, somewhere under that emotional hurricane is an amazing young woman.

I know the days of chaos and strife will pass and my daughter will break free from her teenage cocoon an incredible young lady.

With each passing moment I know that day is getting closer.

In the meantime, I will continue to do my best to keep the fabric of the universe from collapsing and killing us all.

Again, you're welcome.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

I'm a cold-water wimp and I don't care

Call me a wimp if you must, but I do not like cold water, or even coolish water for that matter.

I don't recall if cold water bothered me in my younger years, but I suspect it did not because kids and teens are not too bright and have a built in tolerance for such things as cold water and even cold weather.

I can remember running out to my car in -10C weather wearing a T-shirt and thinking there is no point in grabbing a jacket because my car will be warm in a few minutes and then I won't need a jacket so why should I waste 20 seconds of my life digging it out of the closet (where my mom kept putting it for some reason) only to have to take it off again.

With logic like that it's amazing I didn't die of pneumonia, or a case of the stupids or something.

Anyway, cold-weather follies aside, I don't ever recall worrying about how cold the swimming pool was or how cold the lake was on a hot summers day.

I just dove in, splashed around and had fun.

Now that I am much older and wiser – I grab a hoodie if it even looks cool outside – I have developed an aversion to cold water.

And I am not just talking about North-Atlantic-hit-an-iceberg cold, I am talking about local lakes kind of cold.

Some may not even notice the water temperature, but I have a tough time plunging into the frigid waters around me.

I am fine at first as I make my descent into the icy depths of an area pond, but then things change.

As the water goes above my knee I start to slow my forward advance, my breathing becomes a little sharper and I might even stutter a word or two.

A little farther out into the water I reach what I call the red zone: the area between mid-thigh and my man nipples.

This is the most temperature-sensitive area of my body. As my suit starts to get wet I slow down even more, my breath becomes noticeably sharper and I know at any second a certain part of my anatomy that does not do well in cold water is about to be dunked.

And once that milestone is passed, then I have to get my stomach wet. Now one would think based on the size of my stomach I would have enough insulation to fend off the Arctic-like assault on my senses, but nope – it is just plain cold.

But then things change again, and for some reason my chest and shoulder regions are immune to the borderline freezing temperatures that is a mountain lake – but first I have to get that far in.

I don't like cold water because it is cold – simple as that.

A hot tub, hot springs or pretty much any form of water with the pre-curser of 'hot' in it is more my speed.

I have never met a hot tub I didn't like, or a hot spring that couldn't entice me to enter its warm bosom of relaxation.

The problem is there are not a lot of hot tubs or hot springs at the local beaches, so I try to force myself to dip into the water and endure the deathly cold.

Sure there are kids and little old ladies floating around while I tenuously make my way from shore, but the shame of being a water wussy does not outweigh my distain for cold water.

So if you see a tall, middle-aged balding guy standing in water up to his knees shivering like he just fell off the Titanic, come over and say 'Hi.'

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

I'm not going to be stumped by this challenge

I have a new nemesis.
It is not an evil villain type of nemsis or even a human nemesis: it is a tree stump nemesis.
When we bought our home 15 years ago it had five crab apple trees, which, in my opinion, are the most worthless trees in the world because you can't eat the fruit. I guess you an make jam out of it, but who wants to?
And those millions of tiny little apples mean the tree has to be sprayed as if it were a real fruit tree, which is a pain in the posterior.
It also pains me to spend good money on something as worthless as a crap, er, I mean crab tree.
So within the first year, three of the infernal wooded growths fell to the chainsaw, but the other two I left in.
I spent years pruning the one in the backyard to grow along our fence line so it will block out the school that is directly behind my house and I am happy to say I succeeded quite well.
It is still a stupid crab tree, but at least it serves a purpose.
Sitting in the front yard of my humble home was another crab apple tree. True, it looked beautiful when in full bloom, but that only last a couple weeks and then it is just a useless, growing lawn ornament.
I left it in for all these years because my kids and their friends liked to clumb on it and who am I to deny a youngster the age-old thrill of climbing a tree.
However, the kids are older now and have no interest in climbing the tree, so I finally had the chance to convert it into firewood.
That left a stump in the yard from what was once a 30-year-old apple tree.
No problem, I have pulled many stumps in the past. Growing up, my parents had two acres with lots of trees and I can remember spending the better part of a summer digging out five poplar trees that were at least 50 years old.
That meant they had massive roots, so I spent hours digging with a shovel and chopping with an axe. Digging, chopping, digging, chopping...
My dad always warned me to wear leather boots for such work, but one day (when he was not home) I decided running shoes would do just fine. I took a mighty swing with the axe only to have it bounce off the root and sink into my foot.
I froze and waited for the pain. I waited...and waited but no pain came. I pulled out the axe and realized the blade had gone perfectly between my toes and embedded into the sole of my shoe.
After that, I always wore my work boots.
Anyway, the stump I am dealing with now is just as evil, with roots the size of an elephants leg. Well, maybe not quite that big, but those are some very large roots.
Junior needed gas money (what teen doesn't) so I traded him some money for a bit of time hacking away at the stump.
He quickly learned digging out a stump sucks.
He worked hard on it for a couple of hours, but the stump would not even wobble let alone fall over.
It is good for a young lad to do some old-fashioned physical labour and it is even better for dad to let him do it.
Having earned his gas money, he vacated the job mumbling something about a chainsaw and couple sticks of dynamite, which meant it was once again my turn to tackle the  stump from hell.
A lot of hacking, digging and the occasional bad word has gone into removing this stump, but so far it refuses to release its grip on Mother Earth.
But I am stubborn and will not stop until the stump and its evil root system are vanquished.
It is me or the stump and the yard ain't big enough for both of us.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

How parenting has made me ready for the circus

Who would have thought being a parent would give me the skills needed to be in the circus.

There is a whole bunch of circus-related duties I could perform, all from the skills I picked up as I helped the Missus raise three adorable children.

They really are good kids. They are not perfect little angels (like their father was at that age), but they have good hearts, mostly stay out of trouble and have high morals and standards.

But like all young adults, the teen years brought moments of great challenge for their parental charges and it was during those tumultuous years I honed my many circus skills.

I could be a clown. Ask pretty much any teen what they think of their parents and they will agree mom and dad are qualified to wear a red nose, funny wig and outlandish make up.

All teens seem to go through a phase where mom and dad are an embarrassment, old fashioned and don't know anything. It is amazing the 'old people' can walk and talk at the same time they are so incompetent.

Of course, I never thought that of my parents. Just like I never copped an attitude, thought I knew everything or considered them an embarrassment. It was always, 'Yes, mother' and 'Yes, father,' 'What ever you say father.'

No, really, that is how I was as a teen, honest.

Anyway, circus clown is more of a title bestowed upon parents by their children than one they have to work for.

But there are other circus jobs parenting is a perfect training ground for.

Lion tamer. Who has not walked into the lions cage – a.k.a. a teenagers' room to 'discuss' something only to come face-to-face with a ferocious beast.

Sticking your head in a lion's mouth is kiddie play compared to dealing with a hostile teen.

But the good thing about a teen, especially a teen girl, is if you wait a few minutes, their mood will change and the danger will pass. However, as all parents know all you have to do is wait another minute and a new mood will emerge, and so on and so on.

Such it the life of a parent.

When the kids are younger, parents develop skills as a juggler. My wife pretty much mastered the skill of holding one child and chasing another while carrying an armload of groceries.

If a professional juggler really wants to impress me – do all that fancy stuff they do while looking after an ankle biter or two, now that raises the difficulty level to extreme.

Another circus skill is tightrope walking. I am currently in the learning process of this one as I deal with a very emotional teenage daughter.

When it comes to dealing with a young lass who is being assaulted by a hurricane of hormones as she makes the transition from child to woman, walking a tightrope is a must-have skill.

I am quickly learning you have to achieve just the right balance between discipline and freedom.

If the discipline is too heavy handed, you aggravate the situation and said daughter throws up a wall of teenaged anger and defiance and things escalate from there (see lions den.)

Too much freedom and they could get into trouble, but not enough freedom and they feel repressed, spawning that anger and defiance I was talking about.

So it is a fine line, a high-wire balancing act of majestic proportions to find just the right amount of parenting and the right amount of letting them make their own mistakes and figure things out themselves without getting into too much trouble.

So being a parent has developed many skills that are applicable to becoming a carnival performer, and believe me, more than once I have thought about running away and joining the circus.

Copyright 2014 Darren Handschuh

Hooked on the electronic opiate

It was slow, subtle and devious in its seductive luring.
You don't even realize it at first, but every day the need grows more and more. Every day it gets embedded deeper into your brain until you can not possibly live without it.
The thought of not having it for even a day is more than one can stand.
I didn't start out to become an addict – does anyone? I did not mean for it to become so important in my life, but alas I have joined the masses who are hopelessly addicted to their stupid cell phones.
I resisted a long time before getting one of the infernal contraptions, but with the kids getting older it was just an easy and efficient way to communicate and keep in touch.
A quick text, a short phone call no matter where they are and you know where they are.
It took a while, but eventually, I caved and became one of the millions carrying a small transmitter in my pocket. 
My first phone was very simple (like me) and very basic (like me) but after a while it was very old (not like me, I am a young pup of 49.)
My phone was at least five years old. In phone years, that is an ancient piece of equipment.
My kids all had fancy smart phones, while I had the phone technology I had was equal to that of a petrified dinosaur turd.
My wife even got rid of her old phone – that was almost seven years old – and picked up an iPhone.
Now, everyone in the family had one but me, so I decided to take a quantum leap forward in technology and get one of the latest and greatest.
This thing has more gizmos and gadgets to it than the Apollo spaceships.
I still haven't figured out everything it can do, but I am working on it.
At first, I was kind of coy with it. I could take it or leave it – much like my old phone. I only used it when I really needed it and would leave it in my coat pocket the rest of the time, but then the electronic opiate began to get its hooks into my psyche.
It is much more than just a phone: it is a small, portable computer that could access the Internet, texts, emails, games, take pictures, record video, act as a GPS and even make a phone call if you needed to.
Soon, I was like one of those mindless techno-zombies you see staring down at the little gizmo in their hands, oblivious to all that is happening around them.
OK, I may not be quite that bad – not as bad as my kids anyway – but I do spend a lot more time with this phone than the last one.
The old one I would often leave sitting on the counter when I milled about the house, but this new one has put some sort of voodoo spell on me where I have to carry it with me everywhere I go.
And not just for the communication aspect of it, but my phone has all sorts of cool games on it, and that is a significant draw for my attention.
Waiting in a doctors office? Dig out the phone and play a game or two. Who cares how long I have to wait, that will just give me more time to get Scooter to level seven.
Passenger in a vehicle? Get the phone and play a game. You will have plenty of time to talk to the driver when you get where you are going. Besides, you would not want to distract them with all your mindless chatter.
Remember kids, safety first.
It took several years, but I have finally given in to the electronic mistress known as a smart phone.
I believe it was Albert Einstein who said he pities a world where people spend more time interacting with a machine than each other.
Welcome to the 2000s, Al.

Copyright 2014 Darren Handschuh

Junior is done with high school, now the expensive part begins

Junior graduated from high school last week and I couldn't be prouder.
It took a lot of hard work to get the amazing grades he pulled down. He made the principal's list every single semester of high school.
I made the principal's list only once, and I still maintain my innocence noting there was not enough evidence to convict me or they would have...um, er, ah anyway, back to Junior.
He made the list in a good way and he deserved it.
Of course his mom and I helped out a lot, well, his mom helped a lot.
Don't get me wrong, I did my part: I turned the TV down so they could concentrate better on that trigon-whatcha-callit stuff.
Math is not my specialty and when you throw a few letters in there, I am more lost than a certain Senator trying to remember where he lives.
I did help where I could, which I must admit was not in very many areas.
I took a quick look at one of his math text books and knew I made the right decision to pursue a career that used words and not numbers.
One of the questions in the book was something like X + Y x K = ? I'll tell you what it equals – a headache and a feeling of intellectual inadequacy.
However, Junior is like his mom and just understands how numbers work so trigonometry (I can spell it, I just can't do it), algebra and other forms of numeric torture were right up his alley.
The only pie I can figure out is apple and lemon meringue (I knew how to spell that too, sort of).
The last few years of school, Junior was grooming his courses to help him become a civil engineer and now all he has to do is four years of university and he is there.
Unless he keeps going with his long-term goal to become an architect, then he is looking at a total of seven years. I don't know how much all that education is going to cost, but I am pretty sure I will have to sell a kidney to help cover the bills.
It was not easy for Junior to get such good grades and many was the evening he would be hunched over a stack of books while his friends were working on a stack of empties. I am sure he would much rather have been with his buddies, but he is focussed and driven and that is something you just can't teach someone.
Some of his buddies are going to northern Alberta to make their fortune aiding in the destruction of the environment, a.k.a. working in the oilsands.
But not Junior, he is an eye-on-the-prize kinda guy and at the age of 18 he already knows that while his friends will be making big money immediately, in a few years he will be an engineer making even more money without having to live in a work camp half the time.
Like I said, he is a smart kid; definitely gets that from his mother.
I had no such foresight when I was in high school. School was such a horrendous experience for me, all I could think about was getting out.
I nearly quit a few times, but toughed it out and graduated with a solid C average. I showed them the meaning of the word mediocre.
It was not exactly a glowing report card, but it was enough to get me out of high school, which is all I wanted to do.
When I finally did get around to a post secondary education, I had a B+ average – who knew.
I can not help but brag a little about how big Junior's brain is and about how focussed he is on his long-term goals.
As a dad, that's part of my job. The other part is to help him pay for university. Anyone want to buy a kidney?

Copywrite 2014 Darren Handschuh

A 'bubble' TV is just fine with me

It drives Junior crazy.
'It' is the ancient TV I have in the living room. It is one of those old 'bubble' TVs and Junior was horrified when we brought it home.
We had a flat screen, but it died so when I spotted an even bigger TV for free in a classified ad, I jumped on it.
Sure, it is at least 10-15 years old, but it does have one very important quality that won me over the second I saw it: it works.
And it was free, so I guess that is two things that won me over.
I am not a high-definition kind of guy I guess. It is just not that important to me, but it is to Junior and he has a high-def TV hooked up to the Xbox and is always ranting about the quality of the image.
Did I mention the bubble TV was free and lets me watch TV programs?
But being a teen, he is smitten by the latest and greatest. His older brother would settle for something that simply does the job.
When I was Junior's age, I wanted the best sound system money could buy for my car, but I had to settle for the best sound system my money could buy, which was pretty far from top of the line.
My first car's 'sound system' was a single-speaker boom box that sat in between the two front seats and ran on batteries. It was just slightly louder than a flea fart.
I eventually purchased a tape deck – yes, I said tape deck – with a built in 40-watt booster and my listening pleasure increased dramatically.
But it was still not good enough, or should I say loud enough. However, having a car to pay for, clothes to buy and bills to pay I had to get creative in building a sound system that could be heard from outer space.
I bought a tape deck from a friend of mine who upgraded to a state-of-the-art model, and hooked up a second-hand 80-watt booster to it.
It was loud, but for an 18 year old, it was not loud enough.
That is when my best friend stepped in with a solution: house speakers.
Not just any old set of house speakers, but house speakers with 14-inch woofers, tweeters and midrange that you could literally hear several blocks away.
Now that was a loud car stereo.
For those of you shaking your head and saying “Dumb kid, you could hurt your hearing” you will have to speak up because I was a dumb kid who hurt his hearing.
Of course at the time, we never thought about hearing loss due to excessive music volume, we just wanted excessive music volume (and excessive it was.)
I can honestly say I had one of the loudest sound systems in the city, and the whole thing cost me less than 200 bucks.
And it was not just loud, it was clear and we loved cruising through town blasting AC/DC at a volume typically reserved for landing jumbo jets.
It rivaled systems that ran into the thousands of dollars.
It did what I wanted it to do and I did not have to break the bank to do it. Which brings me back to the bubble TV.
The main goal of having a sound system was to crank rock and roll at a volume loud enough to wake the dead. The main goal of my TV is to watch programs, which the 'bubble' TV does.
It does not need to have the clearest picture in the world, it just has to show the picture. Besides, my eyesight is not that good these days anyway.
Someday I may upgrade to a LCD or plasma TV, but in the meantime I am enjoying driving Junior crazy with the bubble TV, and did I mention it was free?

Copywrite 2014 Darren Handschuh

My little girl is not so little anymore and I don't like it

I guess there is a double standard.
When my boys were younger, I had no problem with them growing up. Older sons meant more help for me around the yard (well, that was the theory anyway.)
It meant they could take on more responsibility, be more independent and with each passing day they were one more step closer to striking out on their own and forging their personal path through the world.
It is inevitable that they become masters of their own domain. It is repeated constantly throughout not only the human kingdom, but the animal world as well.
In certain animal clans, sons are eventually considered a threat to the papa and he 'encourages' them to leave the pack. Some animals take it to an extreme level.
If a papa bear finds another male in their territory, woe be to the invader. He will go after the other male with all the ferocity he can muster, no matter the age of the other bear and even if it is his own offspring. Momma bear will step in and defend baby bear. And papa bear better watch out because hell hath no fury like an angry mom.
We humans tend to be far less aggressive in encouraging our young ones to venture out on their own, but when they come home and find all their stuff in boxes, that is usually a pretty good sign it is time to go.
I have not done that (yet anyway) because I want to support my kids through post secondary schooling and other challenges, but rest assured there will come a day when I will go papa bear on them if they decide living in the parental den is easier than creating their own.
I may be human, but humans are mammals and mammals are animals and animals eventually kick their offspring out into the unsuspecting world.
So I had no problem with my sons soaring through their teen years. I had no problem with my boys becoming men. I looked forward to it on many occasions.
So what does this have to do with a double standard? I also have a daughter and for some reason there is a whole different outlook for 'daddy's little girl.'
I don't want her to grow up and become a teen and act like she is all grown up. I certainly don't want her to look like she is all grown up.
Some of what I am feeling may be because she is the baby of the family and it is hard to watch your youngest grow up, but a lot of it is she is my little girl.
It struck me like a freight train the other morning when she was heading off to school that my little girl is not so little anymore.
What was that stuff on her face? Make-up! What! She is not old enough for make up. She is barely in high school.
And what do you mean you and your friend want to meet a couple boys at Timmies? Boys are icky, remember? Boys are gross.
At one time, her room had pictures of fairy tale princesses on the walls, then it was teen heart throbs (such as what's-his-name, you know, that Beaver kid.)
Then one day she took down all the posters and asked if we had any spray paint. Um, OK, feel free to express yourself, it's your room. She invited me to look at her 'new' room and it was the bedroom of a full-blown teenager.
Posters had been replaced by groovy spray-painted drawings, there was not a dolly in sight and her music has gone from Veggie Tales to the latest pop songs.
I know my little girl is not a little girl anymore, but that does not mean I have to like it.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to put on my martial arts uniform and sharpen my collection of knives – one of those icky boys is stopping by.

copyright 2014, Darren Handschuh