Fly swatting was one of my earliest passions. Having mastered the basics at an early age, I knew all the techniques: fly swatter, rolled up newspaper, magazine, the bottom of a shoe, or with my own bare hands.

My father (who served as a fly-swatting mercenary during his younger years with a penny-per-body bounty) taught me the devastating impact of the clap-attack, where you anticipate the fly’s speed and movement by clapping your hands above his perch catching him mid-escape.

One of Mom’s favorite stories to tell about me involved a meal at Friendly’s when a fly kept buzzing around our table. I rolled up my kid’s menu/coloring sheet and lunged for the fly every time it landed within arm’s reach of our booth.

As an exhausted single mother of three boys, Mom knew she couldn’t coerce us into good behavior so settled for containing it.

We were permitted to hunt any fly who entered our air space but prohibited from getting out of the booth, which was not an easy compromise for me.

Mom realized the error of her deal when she caught me with my arm cocked and raised and with a look of pure determination on my face about to deliver a fatal blow to the fly perched on top of a bald man’s head in the booth behind us.

She stopped me at the last second and I’ve resented her ever since. That was the depth of my commitment to the art.

It was my fly-swatter pistol (called The Swat Shot), however, that really elevated me to fly swatting’s top tier.

My Swat Shot was a spring-loaded pistol with a red handle. It shot a hard-plastic circular spider web with enough velocity to either kill a fly or knock a stuffed animal off the back of a couch.

I got my Swat Shot from a roadside tourist trap in Cape Cod. It was the sort of store that had air-brushed tank tops next to discounted college sports sweatshirts, a mountain of salt-water taffy, and the words “Cape Cod” screen printed onto every product you can imagine.

In the back of these stores is always a shelf filled with whoopie cushions, Chinese finger traps, itching powder, and all the things that make life worth living. I could sense this aisle’s location immediately upon entering the store.

We stopped at the store while coming back from a family church camp we used to attend for bunker-style lodging close to the beach.

Even a week surrounded by holy people couldn’t convince me there was anything cooler than being able to shoot my own spider web.

Sure, Jesus walked on water, but Spiderman punched bad guys in the face. If Yester-Chris had to choose one, he’d go with Spiderman every time.

I imagined the Swat Shot pistol would give me super-precise fly-swatting powers. It actually complicated matters considerably because the web needed to hit at a perfectly level angle to avoid ricocheting off any corners or contours near where the fly was sitting.

Still, it excited me considerably and I reveled in every opportunity to use it.

In a house with three boys, screen windows, and claw-happy cats, the opportunities were plentiful.

The Swat Shot wasn’t my only red plastic fly-hunting accessory. I also had an eyepiece you could look through that would show you the world as a fly saw it, with everything fish-eyed and fractured into tiny little hexagons.

My technique, upon seeing a fly, was to go to use my “fly eye” to get his lay of the land. Then, set up near a likely perch with my Swat Shot as a warrior in waiting.

Despite all of this training, I was woefully unprepared to combat the housefly that terrorized my house this week.

Here’s what happened:

The fly got in on Sunday night while I was carrying in groceries. I shrugged it off because I thought, “houseflies die after 24 hours,” so I figured I had already won.

When I still saw him flying around on Monday, I admired his persistence.

On Tuesday, I realized that mayflies die within 24 hours, not house flies. Houseflies, says Google, can live up to 30 days.

So I got up from where I was playing with my daughter and swatted him with a board book relishing my one-swat victory. I even texted my wife to let her know our home was now secure.

Then, on Wednesday, the fly was back and my wife told me there had always been two of them.

I was horrified. One fly, I’m willing to live with, but two is an infestation. “How,” I wondered, “did I let this happen on my watch?”

This was the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt inferior to a frog. I resolved to make that fly pay for its transgressions.

I lunged at him wildly the first few times he passed, hoping for a first-round knockout, but he saw me coming.

I waited for him to find a perch and tried a clap attack but to no avail.

I grabbed an alumni magazine but cursed it for its stiff cover. The best fly-swatting magazines have soft covers like TIME.

But I don’t have any TIME Magazines because this is 2020 and I don’t live in a periodontist’s waiting room.

I silenced all devices in the house and tuned my ear to focus only on the frequency of his wings’ buzz. “Great,” I thought, “I’m living in the one episode of Breaking Bad that everyone hates.”

Though I made a few glancing blows, none were fatal.

I woke up Thursday morning with an overwhelming feeling of shame.

I asked my wife if she would prefer that I was a frog. She answered “no,” but she hesitated.

Seething with resentment, I turned on the house itself shaking my fists at the corners of each room asking, “Where are all the spiders!? Why am I forced to fight alone?”

By Saturday, he was gone. Where? I don’t know. Out the door perhaps or lying dead somewhere on a windowsill or in a corner on the floor.

As I searched for his corpse, I immediately regretted having once sung my daughter the story about the old lady who swallowed a fly.

I don’t know why my seventeen-month-old daughter would swallow a fly, but I know that she would. And if the song is right, we’ll need a lot more than just a Swat Shot to handle that mess.

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Toddlers have an amazing batting average in my family wiffle ball games.

No matter how hard or soft they hit the ball, everyone roars as they take off for first base.

Then, a series of unfortunate instances occur – maybe the ball gets dropped or the fielder falls down while going to get it – so even though he should’ve been thrown out, the kid just keeps on running.

While rounding second base, the fielder overthrows and sends the ball out into outfield.

Now, the toddler feels the thrill of momentum as they round third base, really stretching to turn a bunt-like hit into an inside-the-park homerun. Yet, oddly enough, the catcher drops it again.

We’ve done this countless times for each of my nephews at some point. Yet us adults have never once talked about it.

Frankly, we mostly just want to clear him off the field so we can get back to our own game. But we also do it because we love the kid and want him to feel good.

No matter how obvious it is that we weren’t actually trying to get him out, he still feels like he hit a home run, which technically he did, though nobody really believes it. He is the lucky recipient of spontaneous family doting.

Sometimes, in a family, we’re gracious to each other.

Other times, we’re not.

Last fall, I simultaneously played Mario Kart against both a five-year-old and a two-year-old nephew. I knew I was going to beat the two-year-old because his controller wasn’t connected.

I wasn’t so sure about the five-year-old. He had an unnerving confidence and the home field advantage.

If it had been any other game, I would’ve happily let the kid beat me. But Mario Kart was my game back in the 1990s.

I barely recognized this new version with new characters and entirely different controls. I’d never even seen a Nintendo Switch before, but suddenly my manhood was being tested by one.

Any experienced Karter will tell you that you’re not out of a Mario Kart race until the moment you cross the finish line.

The worse you’re doing in a race, the more the game helps you so that you can go from last place to first as fast as a speeding bullet (by literally turning into a speeding bullet and knocking everyone else out of the way).

So I savaged the kid.

I held nothing back, completely and utterly destroying him by at least a full lap. Fear drove me but I also did it out of pride.

It probably wasn’t nice, but it felt really good at the time.

Things very easily could have gone the other way and if someone had to be embarrassed, I didn’t want it to be me.

There’s no clear line in my family differentiating when a contest goes from innocent fun to cut-throat competition; it often goes back and forth a bunch of times throughout any given day.

This seems similar to where Democrats find themselves right now, smack in the middle of primary season with our doting impulses still running strong.

We’re debating whether to extend the spirit of graciousness trying to keep the party intact, or to push things a little farther to protect a prideful sense of our identities.

I deeply understand the impulses behind each one.

Neither answer is necessarily wrong and you’re not a bad person for choosing one, so just do whatever feels right and live with the consequences.

That’s the good thing about families. Whether we win or lose, there’s always another fight right around the corner. And sometimes a banana.

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I’ve heard that if you spent your whole life shuffling cards, you’d never deal the same deck twice. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know that the number of possible card combinations pales in comparison to the priceless bonds that playing cards help create.

Never trust a family that doesn’t own a well-worn deck of cards.

Card games reveal hidden aspects of our character. Whether it’s the sweet grandmother who suddenly shows no mercy and shouts Rummy with the intensity of a Drill Sergeant, the shy cousin who nearly pees herself with laughter at someone else’s misfortune, the silent sibling laying in wait like a crocodile ready to snatch the right card at an opportune moment, or the scatterbrained in-law who keeps interrupting for refreshers on the rules.

Everyone has a character quirk and card games expose most of them.

Playing cards have provided some of the most joyous moments in my family – on either parent’s side and with both in-laws and my step-family.

Card games test family dynamics like one-eyed Jacks watching the suicidal King come to terms that his world of order is beset by chaos.

It’s interesting to watch alliances form and pairs shift for different games. Pay careful attention when anyone refuses to sit next to a certain someone, or how different families shift towards pairing up by couples, generations, or sexes.

I’ve played games with cards face up or down, held them and tossed them, picked them up and dropped them. I’ve spread them on the table and picked one from the deck. Hid them in my sleeve, caught them under someone else’s seat, lost ‘em, tossed ‘em, printed my picture on them and forgot them.

I’ve given certain cards special powers, incorrectly guessed the one you pulled and then found it in my pocket. I’ve drunk because I pulled one and drank again because I didn’t.

In college we bonded over games of cards, especially one called Ring of Fire where you spread all the deck into a series of rings and had to drink for as many seconds as the card you picked; with each successive ring, the drinking times increased. Ring of Fire is supposed to be a party game played among a dozen or so, but I’ve learned the hard way that it’s especially devastating when played among a party of two.

I’ve noticed tell-tale dogear marks on cards, ones with portions peeled off from being stuck together, and played my fair share of games without a full deck.

Cards tap into something deeply ingrained within our souls no matter where you play them.

I’ve sat at my parents’ dining room tables, a bed and breakfast in Sharon Springs, New York, dorm rooms, beachside cottages, a rural country farm, a Fort Lauderdale retirement home, shivering in a friend’s garage on a Wednesday at 2 am, and as a guest in countless people’s homes.

I once played a game of war on a plane with my brother that lasted from Pittsburgh out to Arizona. 2s beat Aces. Why? We’ll never know. Sometimes they just do.

The rules and personalities may change, but the socialization never does.

When my mother’s father started to really decline with Alzheimer’s, his aptitude for cards was one of the final pieces to go. I would sit with him in the middle of the night watching him slowly play solitaire rhythmically and mechanically.

A silent game for one was the last way I ever really communicated with my grandfather – pointing out missed opportunities while he stacked his way towards King.

You don’t really know a person until you’ve played cards with them. No matter how you play.

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There’s the time we went into triple overtime playing miniature golf, or “putt-putt” as she insists on calling it. And the “Shakespeare in the Park” production that turned out to actually take place in someone’s backyard next to a homeless man sleeping in a tree.

Also, the Airbnb rental where the hostess got high and forgot she was making grilled cheese until the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night.

Plus apple orchards, drinks during sunset at Calf Pasture beach, and the Connecticut Renaissance Faire where we competed shooting bows and arrows.

I also enjoy the seemingly unremarkable dates, like last Saturday when we laid around the house all day then got ice cream, went to Walmart, and spontaneously split a late-night quesadilla while watching people salsa dance.

This week marks ten years since I started dating my wife. More accurately, it marks ten years since I started dating the woman who would become my wife – she had a different last name then.

I could go on in great detail about all of the changes that have happened in our lives during the past ten years, and how we’ve both grown together. But all of that serious stuff came as we grew the relationship that became our marriage.

This week isn’t a celebration of our marriage, or even of our relationship, it’s a celebration of our dates – and frankly, we’ve done most of them.

From chain restaurants to fancy restaurants, matinees to late-night screenings, and backyard barbeques to black-tie balls.

We’ve gone a few times to watch professional wrestling, but the greatest smackdown we’ve ever witnessed together was at a Celtic Woman concert when a very enthusiastic fan took great exception to the woman talking loudly directly in front of us.

My favorite date was our wedding – or maybe the wiener dog races in Buda, Texas – it’s hard to say.

Together we’ve explored the world around us both on vacations and near our home. It’s comforting, sweet, and, ten years later, still an awful lot of fun.

I like using dates to explore new places or try new things, but sparingly, like for Valentine’s Day gift dates. Jenny and I are both creatures of habit so when we go out we generally just go to the same two or three places.

And we only diversified to two or three places after the Chili’s bartender started getting a little too familiar with us. But then he got bumped back down to waiter and stopped making eye contact with us, which suited him well.

I knew very early in our relationship that my single days were numbered when we went grocery shopping together and Jenny said she’d never before dated someone who made running errands fun.

At the time, I just rolled my eyes then slowly started veering the shopping cart to the side so Jenny almost walked into a display of avocados. But I knew she was right. Our relationship is special.

I thought about that moment last Saturday as we walked into the Walmart together and I asked her, “Out of all the Walmarts we’ve ever been to together, which one is your favorite?”

While most people would dismiss the question outright saying, “All Walmarts are the same,” I couldn’t help but smile as Jenny rattled each one off.

Looks like at least ten more years of smile-inducing dates lie ahead.

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Yard games (or lawn games as some people prefer) break out at all of my outdoor family gatherings whether spontaneous or planned.

The popular games of the moment have a funny way of coming in and out of fashion. Wiffle Ball was by far the most prevalent throughout my childhood, but as our teens turned to twenties and then thirties, it became decidedly less popular.

In recent years my family’s been more into KanJam – a frisbee targeting game where the biggest physical exertion is a simple flick of the wrist. I shudder to think what sort of games we’ll be playing in our fifties – probably something involving lots of blinking.

Our staple is bocce. As it’s just rolling balls toward a slightly smaller ball, it allows everyone to participate. I’ve seen toddlers topple seniors and seniors topple over, but everyone gets along.

Jenny’s family is big into oversized yard games. Her Aunt sent us a giant Yahtzee set that’s pretty fun, but by the time I fill out the whole card I’m exhausted. Picking up that many dice after three rolls each turn is just way too much effort for me.

I don’t even bend over to pick up sticks unless they’re big enough to damage the lawn mower. Next time I play, the rule is that you can only roll the dice into my waist-high John Deere yard cart and the loser has to spend five minutes picking up sticks.

I like playing ladder ball because the higher up you hit your target, the less far you have to bend over before your next turn. That’s the kind of risk/reward dynamic that keeps me playing all day.

Simplicity is key to a good yard game. Complicated games were the suburban rage in the late 1980s as volleyball nets and croquet courts started popping up in every yard. They were a hassle to set up and way too much work just to give myself volleyball-sized welts on my arms.

The best outdoor games I played as a kid didn’t have any equipment at all, like tag or Mother May I. Academics say these sort of games are good for building social skills, but the only purpose of Mother May I seemed to be for my older cousin to make us boys leap like ballerinas.

Those sort of games never embarrassed me because ridiculousness was built into the rules. I could roll with it. Simon Says, however, caused me extreme anxiety because you just kept playing until publicly demonstrating an inability to remember one simple rule. It was so humbling.

Then there are the games that just require one piece of equipment, usually a ball.

My brothers used to play a game called Bye Bye Baby where they would each hold a giant inflated ball and run into each other at full speed. Why was it called Bye Bye Baby? Because that’s what Lois Lane says before jumping into Niagara Falls in Superman II. Kids don’t always make sense.

I played a lot of games of butt ball during my pre-teen years. Butt ball is sort of like handball except that the winner of each round gets to throw a ball as hard as he can at the loser’s butt. There was nothing funnier to twelve-year-old Chris.

And that’s what really matters. The best thing about yard games is that you can’t play them alone. The enjoyment comes not from the game itself but from the interactions. Whether you’re swatting a badminton birdie or leaping through the air like a ballerina to make your cousin laugh, it’s the communal aspect that really brings the game to life.

Yard games prove that you can mix the ingredients of competition and camaraderie into a recipe of fun where everybody wins.

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I like graduations. Not the ceremonies themselves, but the atmosphere surrounding them. It is an atmosphere of unabashed pride where conventions titled towards modesty give way to the pageantry of praise.

In general, we don’t spend enough time telling other people that we’re proud of them. Covering them with robes and tassles and sitting next to a crying grandmother somehow makes it easier.

I blame the utterly confusing intersection of pride, arrogance, and humility – each of which are considered admirable in some lights but detestable in others. I don’t know when that line started blurring in my life, but it clearly increases with age.

Nobody claimed I was arrogant during my preschool graduation recitation of ‘The Wheels on the Bus,’ even though I nailed it.

The driver on the bus says “move on back, move on back, move on back!”

In fact, the prouder I was of myself, the more love that was returned to me.

The same cannot be said of a clip my brother took after my law school graduation several decades later. There was definitely pride and love, but it was tempered by a compulsion to keep me humble.

After admitting she’d been crying earlier and was very proud of me, Mom is also quick to cut me down with a reference to some line a speaker had made at the ceremony.

My father, when asked if he has anything to say to me on my graduation, responds, “Get a job.”

Neither comment was said with malice, but it’s worth noting that preschool Chris would’ve never been subjected to such sleights. Everybody loved that guy.

The rudest graduation moment I ever experienced came during my graduation from Ithaca College in 2003 when our commencement speakers hijacked the ceremony to rail against nuclear proliferation. At least I think that’s what they were saying, it was hard to hear over all the boos.

While it was important to have my college sacrifices recognized – my friends and I spent years pouring over our books and drinking in all that college had to offer; we left no resource untapped during our time on campus – my graduation was made more meaningful by the people who shared in the pride of my accomplishment.

The same can be said for every graduation I’ve had the honor to attend. One of the most special I’ve witnessed was my mother-in-law’s graduation from college. After taking a single course every semester for over a decade, her graduation (with a 4.0 GPA) was a time of true thankfulness and celebration.

It was a very special moment that Jenny and I will always remember.

Graduations are fine events by themselves, but it is the memories’ longevity that makes them truly remarkable.

Humor and humility were a big part of my law school graduation.

The video clip from my law school graduation has become one of my most treasured videos because it features my two step-grandparents and mother, all of whom are now deceased. On that day we took the time to come together, share in each other’s joy, and raise a glass to new beginnings. It doesn’t get any better than that.

This coming week will be filled with special moments to celebrate Jenny. And we’re doubling down with another celebration around Memorial Day to join together with Jenny’s side of the family in Michigan.

I’m excited, not just to honor my wife’s accomplishment, but to celebrate our values and share best wishes with the people who mean the most to us.

Congratulations to everyone celebrating someone this graduation season. May your futures all be bright.

And a special congratulations to my wife, my life, my Lady: you did it, dear! I’m very proud of you and look forward to many more celebrations standing by your side.

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I have no idea what that actually means, but most people agree with me when I say it, so it makes me feel smart.

Last summer, Jenny and I took a trip to Norwalk, CT, where we used to live, to celebrate her graduating with an MBA. We were looking for something pleasant and close to home, so a beachside town that we knew with the certainty of locals was a great choice.

It was nice to see things we were accustomed to, but from a slightly different perspective. We drove by the house we used to rent and both took great pleasure in commenting how they still had the same rickety old mailbox. Some things never change!

We walked past some of our old hangouts, wondering if the staff would still remember us and taking joy in the fact that we remembered them, even if they no longer existed. We didn’t dare go inside to ruin the fun.

If vacations are about enjoying the moment, this one was supercharged with an appreciation not only for the current moment, but for all past moments we’d shared along our path. The backyard where we hosted a family barbecue and got engaged, the softball field where Jenny won a championship, the picnic area at Calf Pasture Beach where we watched a man chase a seagull with barbecue tongs after it stole his hot dog from the grill.

Repeat vacation destinations are also great for family vacations because you know where you can hide or at least get away from everyone else simply by avoiding their likely and favorite spots. However, repeat vacations are also stressful because once family members start arriving, there is a mad rush to be the first who notices and comments on a change. Doing so constitutes a badge of honor for the vacation’s duration(s).

Every fall, my father hosts about twenty family members at a timeshare he co-co-owns on Cape Cod. Each year, there is intense competition to be the first to notice and mention that something has changed.

Who among us can forget the year the hot tubs got replaced, or that time they upgraded the window shades to honeycomb blinds? Each of these changes were noticed and discussed at length. Many times throughout the year, someone is sure to mention Cape Cod and say, “I wonder what will be different this year?”

There’s also a lot to be said about exploring new spots with a vacation. The most romantic trips I’ve ever taken were to new destinations like Newport on Valentine’s Day and the Bahamas for my honeymoon.

But the truth is, once you’re married, you’ve still got the same amount of vacation time but twice the number of people to spend it with, so most of my trips are spent visiting in-laws in either Michigan or Tennessee.

Visiting family is fine, but rarely provides opportunities to see something new or exciting, unless you count nieces or nephews, which I don’t.

Jenny’s trying to change that for me. On my last trip to Michigan, we went to the tourist town of Frankenmuth, where I was served a traditional German dinner by mid-westerners in lederhosen and shopped at the world’s largest Christmas store.

It was a welcome diversion from the routines associated with a multi-day family visit. And, driving back to her uncle’s house through the acres and acres of uninhabited cornfields, I even got to have a roadside chat with an authentic Michigan police officer.

Maybe the secret to having a good vacation isn’t whether you go somewhere new or somewhere old, but who you choose to be with while you’re there.

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Today’s date, December third, 12/3, remains etched into my soul, even now that Mom has passed. It is a good birthdate, tucked safely between Thanksgiving and Christmas and exactly one month after mine.

Throughout Mom’s life, we celebrated many birthdays together – not always on this date, but close enough.

Like 1986, when it was just me, my brothers and her having dinner at Abdow’s Big Boy restaurant. I was so excited for her that I ran down the aisle telling every table that, today, Mom turned thirty-nine.

She was mortified, but at six years old, I was still cute enough to pull it off.

I’ll never forget her sixtieth, which was a surprise party that also celebrated her nearing a year as cancer-free after a grueling fight with her first occurrence of pancreatic cancer.

This picture is from Mom’s last birthday, in 2012, at my apartment in Austin, Texas, where I lived with Jenny. It was the only time Mom was ever a guest under my roof. The circle of nurturing was complete.

I wanted to share something special for Mom’s seventieth birthday, so I modified a speech I first gave two years ago into a video titled “Choosing Hospice.”

Each time I’ve given this speech, it has helped someone who has gone (or is going) through a similar situation.

After I showed this video to my brothers, Mike put it best remarking that there is no more fitting tribute to Mom than of “still helping people, even in death.”

Jenny says I should add a trigger warning (typical millennial) that this is sad and may make you cry, but I was there and I find it inspirational.

Choosing Hospice

Next Week: Nothing Beats Watching Bad TV

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That box TV has served my wife Jenny and I well for many years and survived two cross-country moves without being any worse for the wear, although it does need to be muted occasionally to stop its persistent hum.

We’ll be happy to replace it if it ever gives out, but for now, it seems to be doing its job rather well and neither Jenny or I have any shame in letting it dominate our living room’s decor.

A visiting friend once refused to watch the World Series on my TV, but it worked out fine; we simply went to a sports bar, where it’s better to watch sports anyways.

Perhaps it doesn’t bother me because, growing up, we always had outdated TVs. My brothers and I had an Atari as kids that we played for hours with no complaints on a black and white TV. It wasn’t until years later that we even learned Atari was meant to be played in color. Shortly after that, Sonic the Hedgehog blew my nine-year-old mind.

Antennas were a part of our lives for years after cable top boxes became commonplace and I’ve continued the tradition by recently watching an entire season of a hit Netflix show on DVDs borrowed from my local library. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

Sometimes, having outdated viewing technology is actually a blessing. For example, my favorite television show is Meet the Press, and it probably wouldn’t be if I had to watch it in high definition.

I was staying overnight at a friend’s house in Marietta, Georgia, the first time I ever saw Meet the Press in high definition – it’s no mistake that I haven’t been back to Georgia since. There’s nothing more haunting than waking up on a couch to the high-definition sight of David Axelrod’s jowls.

And while yes, it would be nice to have high definition available for the shows I watch with fancy special effects, like 60 Minutes, my old picture tube box set is still getting the job done (even if most graphics get cut off on the sides of my screens).

Accordingly, it is a little out of character for me to have one of the nicest introductory DSLR cameras on the market, which my wife Jenny recently got me as a thank you gift for being so supportive while she got her MBA. While I was glad that we both recognized me as the true hero in my wife’s attaining a higher education degree, the quality of the camera is unlike anything I would ever buy for myself.

I get self-conscious when walking around with the camera, as if I’m announcing to everyone that whatever I see that day is inherently worthy of preservation, either just because I’ve seen it, or because I have such an amazing eye for detail that all should treat me with great reverence.

Putting the camera strap around my neck can feel as pretentious as flipping the end of a scarf to best accentuate the tilt of one’s fedora.

Displays of privilege make me so anxious that I once deposited a $100 bill into an ATM just to immediately withdraw five twenties because I thought the clerk would think I was putting on airs.

As I feared, the first person we showed the camera to immediately asked how much it cost. Feeling embarrassed, I answered only, “much less than an MBA,” ironically shaming my wife with the gift she gave me for supporting her pursuit of that very degree. Perhaps her next degree should be in psychology.

But, I’m glad we have this camera because of the quality of value it will bring further down the road.

I’ve thought a lot about the quality of our family photos and videos ever since I became the keeper of our family records after Mom passed away. I rarely look at them, but when I do, I wish that she and earlier generations had invested a little more in the quality of what eventually got passed down.

We mostly used wind-up disposable film cameras or took Polaroid snapshots that struggled under most conditions. Most of our family records are blurry, shaky or barely noticeable behind the wandering finger obscuring part of the camera’s lens.

Every picture from my college graduation has our heads cut off because Dad loaded the film at an off-center angle. Time blurs our memories enough, the camera needn’t help it.

I don’t know what kind of screens my future descendants will use to access whatever family records survive the handing down of generations, but I’m more concerned about their future viewing quality than in my being able to read all the different graphics on tonight’s CBS Evening News. That may change as soon as we’ve got the mortgage paid off, but for now, it suits us both just fine.

Next week: Newspaper Love Affair

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