Monthly Archives: April 2013

Guess who isn’t buried in Lincoln’s Tomb

It turns out that my son is something of a conspiracy theorist. So far, he hasn’t been big on producing evidence for his theories, but when you are four, you just know things. If evidence were such an important thing, somebody probably would have explained to you what evidence is by now. But they haven’t, have they? Case and point.

We were driving past a cemetery the other day when the boy asked, “Daddy, is this the graveyard?”

“Yes. It’s a cemetery.”

“Is this where they buried all the zombies?” He’s big on zombies just now.

“There aren’t any zombies. They’re just people who died.”

“Why can’t we see the people who are buried there?”

“Because they are buried, underground.”

“I know they’re buried, but why do they have those big, square rocks on top of the graves?”

“Those are headstones. They tell you who’s buried there.”

“I think I know who’s buried in there.”

Holding tomb

Lincoln’s first tomb. It was sort of like a waiting area until his fancy tomb was ready.

“Oh, you do? Who?”

“Mr. Lincoln.” The boy has an unusual reverence for Abraham Lincoln. He might have gotten some of this from me, but we can’t be sure at this point.

“He is? Is Mr. Washington buried there too?”

“No. Mr. Washington is buried in a different graveyard, in a different town.”

“I should think he is.”

“You know who else is buried in there?”

“Who?”

Moving Lincoln's coffin

The last of many documented rearrangements of Lincoln’s coffin within his tomb. No pictures were taken when he was secretly moved to one of the cemeteries in our town.

“Mr. Lincoln’s mother.” Sorry, conspiracy buffs, he didn’t specify Nancy or Sarah.

“Really?”

“Yup. She is. You know who else isn’t buried in there?”

“Who?”

“John Booth.”

“I would hope not.”

“Nope. John Booth is buried in a graveyard in China.”

“China?”

Booth cemetery

Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery in 1848. John Wilkes Booth wasn’t buried there then and, according to my son, he’s not buried there now. (Image: Augustus Köllner/Laurent Deroy)

“Yeah, because that’s where he lives now.”

So, apparently, John Wilkes Booth did escape to Asia after all. I had always heard that he fled to India, but the updated story indicates it was China. What makes this new information even more startling is that, by all indications, he is still alive, although buried in a graveyard. That can’t be too comfortable for him, especially at his age.

Sounds like somebody has been watching the History Channel without Daddy again.

Lots of mammals would kill to have my thumbs

This summer I want to see if I can get the four-year-old interested in sports. We signed him up for an introductory sports class at the YMCA last fall. He enjoyed all the running around, but he was not great at the parts that required him to do something purposeful with any kind of ball.

dunking practice

Learning the one-armed slam dunk. Who needs fundamentals when you can power slam?

If he turns out not to like sports, that’s fine. But he probably should have the benefit of the exposure before he makes his final decision. That exposure should probably include more than seeing his dad watch sports on TV.

His favorite sport from his class was soccer. Of course it was. Let’s just say I don’t love soccer. Evolution gave me opposable thumbs for a reason, and I don’t think that reason was to award the opponent a free kick every time I try to use my special thumbs during a game – oh, sorry, I meant match, not game.

Oh well, if he wants to play soccer, we’ll play soccer. But we may also sneak some basketball in as well, so I can really shine the spotlight onto my awesome thumbs.

I love basketball, which is not to say I was ever great at it. I gave up playing organized basketball after 7th grade when it became clear that I would always be one of the guys who gets to play the last 30 seconds of a blowout.

Basketball is a game requiring self-confidence, and once you become the player at the end of the bench nearest the exit, it’s hard to imagine what self-confidence is, or to be able to pronounce it. That last half-minute of a lopsided game is ample time for you to dribble the ball off your foot and miss three layups. Even if you play competently in pick-up games, you will shoot the ball off the side of the backboard when the world is watching.

dribbling practice

Learning the double dribble technique that will earn him a comfy spot on the bench. He’s got all his daddy’s thumbs.

I did make a last-second shot in one game, though. I caught an inbound pass and hoisted a 15-footer that bounced around the rim before falling through at the buzzer. My teammates, all of them who weren’t already in the locker room, mobbed me. It was quite a celebration. We won that game by 27 points, but it would have been a measly 25 if not for my late heroics.

My wife ran track in high school. Her race was the 100 meters. This was the only distance she ran because she couldn’t figure out how to run and breathe at the same time and that was as far as she could go without air. I think she also tried out for the swim team, but her breathing techniques and water didn’t mix.

Neither of his parents are in any shape to coach the boy to stardom. But, he doesn’t need to be a superstar. He doesn’t even need to love sports. All he really needs to do is quit asking to watch Cartoon Network when I’m fully involved in a college basketball tournament game.

I’ll trade you my virus for your bacterial infection

My son is finishing up his two-week spring break from preschool. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why preschoolers needed a two-week spring break. Is preschool so stressful that it takes two weeks to recover from the wear and tear of the 10 weeks gone by since the month-long winter break? Do the children need two weeks to recruit their strength for that last big push toward preschool final exams?

I think I may have finally figured it out.

I think it will take a good two weeks to air out the building and rid it of kiddie germs after the winter of plague we’ve had.

This winter has been the most disease-infested season I can recall. I’ve worn dried baby snot on my shoulder since November. In that time, my family has contributed our quota of snot for the next five years. Fortunately, the baby was the only one who regularly decorated my shirts with it.

I used to be a pretty healthy guy. But that was back when I used to get enough sleep, have time for hobbies, and earn enough money to make ends meet. In other words, that was before I had little people painting snot art on my shirts.

Back then I only had to deal with adult germs. Adult germs are child’s play. Adult germs visit for a day, give you an excuse to call in sick, then pack up their sniffles and move along. Kids’ germs gang up on you. They drag you down, bind and gag you, and use your head and a frying pan as cymbals. Kids’ germs can be cruel.

And preschool is a veritable stock exchange of kids’ germs. My boy must be a pretty good trader, because he was always bringing home a new and exciting strain of something, purchased at only the cost of an old, used-up bug that we had already wrung dry of puke and mucus. We’re so proud of him.

attack on marine hospital

Even in the olden days, people just could not get enough of those addictive walk-in clinic fumes. Here, crowds jockey for position to get a whiff of some coveted quarantine effluvium.

At the worst of the epidemic, we could not get in to see our family doctor. We had to go to the walk-in clinic, which is the perfect place to go if you want to sample any of the diseases your family doesn’t already have. If you ever have a burning desire to wallow in the midst of contagion, spend a few hours in this waiting room. You’ll know what germ-laden miasma tastes like.

We waited out in the hall. The air was cold there, but at least we couldn’t see it.

For months, all we heard about was what a bad flu season it was. I don’t know anything about that. I do know that it was a bad season for pharyngitis, ear infections, strep throat, strep tongue, strep teeth, a mystery virus that probably wasn’t mononucleosis after all, and a host of other anonymous bugs. The one illness we did not contract, in the midst of this epic flu season, was the flu. I guess we’re just lucky like that.

Easter enjoyed by all, despite egg infestation

Easter was never a big Holiday to me when I was growing up. I was at the tail end of a large brood of children, so by the time I came along, the festivities associated with eggs and baskets had pretty much worn thin around my house.

That’s why I was so happy that I remembered to run to the store and get some things to make a basket for the kids on Saturday night. It wasn’t a lot of stuff, just enough to make it a bit more special than your average Sunday.

On Easter morning, I called the four-year-old over to where I had stashed the basket. “Look what I found!” I shouted to him. “Somebody must have left this for you and your brother during the night.”

boy with chocolate bunnies

Proving that you are what you eat, the boy’s head morphs into ebony and ivory bunnies. We are big on diversity in the animal-shaped confections we devour.

He came over and examined the contents carefully. He was pleased at the discovery.

“Oh my goodness,” I said. “This must mean it’s Easter. Who would have left this candy for you?”

“Did you see anybody around here?” he asked.

“I just saw a big, round, fluffy, cotton tail running through the bushes outside.”

He nodded as my description fell in line with the profile he was concocting in his head.  His eyes narrowed as the pieces fell into place. “The Easter Bunny,” he announced, in the same tone that Batman uses to identify The Joker as the culprit.

We hadn’t planned anything else, but at the last moment, my wife decided to hide some eggs. Aspiring hoarder that she is, she just happened to have some plastic eggs hanging around waiting to justify their existence. She rounded up some stickers and restaurant mints, but mostly she filled the eggs with pennies and nickels.

A minute later, my son came running to me. “Eggs!” he exclaimed. And then, as if eggs were as shocking a discovery as scorpions, he clarified the gravity of the situation, “In this house!”

His mother told him she wanted to see what the Easter Bunny had put inside the eggs, so he opened one up. When a couple of coins fell out, his eyes grew wide. “Money!” he cheered. “I didn’t see that coming!”

There were 14 eggs to find, and when he’d found about 11, he asked for my help. This was not so much fun for me, because I hadn’t seen where my wife hid them, and I already spend enough time looking for things around my house.

When we had finally found all the eggs, he pulled out the coins from his collection of loot and fed them to his piggy bank. The stickers and hard candy were soon forgotten. He’ll probably see the same ones again next year. Altogether, he probably raked in upwards of a dollar in cash. That, plus the fresh chocolate rabbits in his basket, made it an excellent Easter.

As for his little brother, he had some milk in his belly and a warm, soft mommy to cuddle up with. When you are barely one year old, that makes for just about the perfect Holiday.