HOLY SOLSTICE SCHEDULING

Dear Spike,

So ends the most epic summer ever.

You mastered the fine art of bicycle riding. You learned to swim like a mermaid. You learned to sew. You ate a raw oyster. You hiked Yosemite. You watched a lot of Phineas and Ferb.

OK, maybe that last part wasn’t so epic. (Although, I’ll be honest: That show — about all the amazing ways that two boy geniuses and their pet platypus while away the summer hours — is pretty much the best thing ever put on TV.)

Now, with just about 10 hours to go before you return to school, I’m feeling a bit jealous. I spent the better part of my summer finishing the book. It’s off to the publisher now, and I’m proud and happy about that (and, yes, about the check, too) but I feel like I missed a lot of really cool things this summer.

You and your mom were like the dynamic duo of afternoon activities. Bam! Off to the zoo. Wham-o! Into to the museum. Biff! Up the mountains for a hike.

Holy solstice scheduling, Batman!

In fairness: Our very privileged life gives me more opportunities to spend time with you than many dads have with their children. I’m a really fortunate guy in that way — so I’m not complaining.

But next summer, I think, I’m going to try to take it just a little bit easier. That doesn’t mean I’ll drop all my pursuits and projects (I don’t think I’d be very good company if I didn’t have a lot to do) but maybe we’ll take a vacation where I don’t bring my phone and computer along.

Summers are, I hear, one of the really great perks of being a teacher. I suppose I might as well try it out.

Love,

dad

ONTO THE FIELD

Dear Spike,

Today was my birthday, and I couldn't really imagine a better way to spend it than to take in a soccer game along with you and your mother. All the better, we were there together to see something historic.

Well, sort of.  

It actually took me a moment to realize what was happening as the announcer called out the name of the player who was sprinting onto the field in the 71st minute of a 1-1 game. And if too many other people noticed, they didn't make much of a fuss.

There were, as there always are, some boos. That's what soccer fans do when an opposing team's player comes in as a substitution. We boo. We whistle. We hiss. Sometimes we throw things. It really just depends on the situation.

But there was also a smattering of cheers (and not just from the small number of LA Galaxy fans who were seated in the upper deck.) And that's really not something that soccer fans do when an opposing team's player comes in as a substitution. No, we don't. We boo. We whistle. We hiss. Sometimes we throw small incendiary devices.

When I realized who had taken the pitch, though, I stood and cheered, too. And you looked up at me with a sort of do-you-know-what-you're-doing-right-now kind of bewilderment.

I did know.

I was cheering for an opposing team's player.

I was cheering for the first openly gay athlete in a men's professional team sport.

On May 26, Robbie Rogers played his first game since coming out of a short-lived retirement — during which he'd formally acknowledged his homosexuality. In the intervening two weeks, he's come in as a substitute in two more games.

This was his fourth game since coming out.

To put this in historical context, this was a bit like watching Jackie Robinson play in the spring of 1947, when "The Colored Comet" (no, really, that's what they called him when he was playing for the Montreal Royals of the also regretfully named "Negro Leagues") became the first African American player in the modern era of Major League Baseball.

Except, this wasn't like that at all.

You'll likely learn about Robinson in school — and if you don't, I'll teach you, because it's important. You'll learn about how hated he was. You'll learn about the death threats from fans. The booing and racist name-calling. How other players would spit at him and call him names as he rounded the bases. How the Brooklyn Dodgers had to deal with racist fans who threatened never to buy a ticket again.

Nothing like that happened to Rogers. In every game he's played since he has been back, he's been welcomed warmly onto the field, or at least as warmly as any opposing player ever is. There have been, so far, no publicized incidents of name calling or threats. No one has cancelled their season tickets.

Rogers's historic return to soccer has been, by and large, completely uneventful.

But that doesn't make it unimportant. Not even in comparison to Jackie Robinson's feat. Because, remember, Robinson didn't have a choice to be black. He just was. And when a rich, white club owner named Branch Rickey gave him a chance, he took it. He took it and he hit it out of the park. And we're all better for it.

But that was 66 very long years ago.

There have, of course, been plenty of gay men in professional sports since then. They have had partners and families. They have had lives that they likely would have preferred to have lived in the open, were it possible that they could do so in peace.

And they had a choice to remain hidden. And given the perceived consequences of making the choice to come out of the closet, they stayed inside. For 66 years after a black man bravely ventured onto a major league ball field, fear continued to keep openly gay men from following him.

Until Rogers.

There are those, no doubt, who will say that the relative lack of attention — and particularly the lack of backlash — Rogers has received relegates his action to something of a non-event. Clearly, it now seems obvious, it could have happened even sooner.

Yes, it should have happened sooner. But I would say the relative lack of attention makes it a great event. A historic event. An event that we all get to share, proudly — because our society is better than it was in 1947 and over the past few weeks we got to prove it. Together.

Rogers didn't make much of a difference in the game tonight. Shortly after he came onto the pitch, Real Salt Lake's Olmes Garcia scored the go-ahead goal. And just for good measure, Garcia put another one in a few minutes later. We sang and danced and cheered for the home team.

That brought Real to 8-5-3 for the seasons — and 5-1-1 in the past seven games. If they keep this up, they'll make the playoffs with no problem. The Galaxy, at 6-6-2, have a little more work ahead of them, but they're perpetual contenders. They'll likely be there, too.

And when that game is played at The RioT, we'll be there.

And when Rogers comes onto the field, we're gonna boo.

We're gonna whistle. We're gonna hiss. We might even throw something.

Not because of who he is, but because of who we are.

We're soccer fans. And when we hate people, it's for absolutely no reason at all.

Love,
dad

YOU ARE SIX

 Dear Spike:

By the time A.A. Milne got around to dedicating his book of poems called "Now We Are Six," the girl to whom it was dedicated, a childhood friend of Christopher Robin named Anne Darlington, was seven.

So it goes. Now you are six. Soon you will be seven. And, Insha'Allah, you'll one day be eight and nine and ten. I worry already about 16. About 18. And, dear God, 21! But this is silly. The world spins and we are on it. And now you are six, and this is a such a wonderful age.

It is, as Milne recognized, a wonderful age to recite poetry, which is a thing we seldom do these days; I'm not sure why. Maybe, I think, we are scared of the monsters that trip our tongues and tussle our thoughts. These monsters get bigger as we get older -- and this is something I will write to you about, in greater depth, very soon. For now, though, it suffices to say that your monsters are very small and fairly tame, and so six is a good time to practice being brave.

Happy birthday, my little one. Now you are six. And this is a very good age, indeed.

Love,
dad

GET BACK UP

Dear Spike,

You sort of wobbled a bit, legs akimbo, and then you just fell over sideways. I'm not sure how you ultimately managed to and on your face, but that is what you did.

Your sharp little chin hit the big rough asphalt with rather predictable consequences. It wasn't bad – a little road rash, a little blood — but it was enough to send you crying into my arms.

And there you remained for all of 10 seconds.

Then you bounced up, grabbed your handle bars, took a couple of confused moments to figure out that they were spun around backward, and hefted yourself onto the seat.

"OK," you said. "Let's go back."

You're a tough little cookie, and you always have been. I hope that never changes. The world is, of course, a tough place. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we take it on the chin.

But get back up. Get back up. Get back up.

Love,
dad

INDEBTED TO HER

Dear Spike:

Your grandmother, Diane, died today. You didn't know her very well, but she was important in your life.

Many years ago, when I accompanied my roommate to his new girlfriend's home, I could not have known that I would be meeting my future family.

But when I left that day, I would later be told, your grandmother turned to your mother and said, "well, I like the roommate better."

I'm glad I made a good first impression on my future mother-in-law and, if in any small way her words contributed to your mother's decision to spend time with me after she and my roommate broke up, I am deeply indebted to her.

Because a few years later, I married your mother. And a few years after that, I got you.

Love,
dad



 

"OK, LET GO"

Dear Spike:

It took me a few times up and down the length of our street before I realized that it was a lot easier to hold your shoulders than the back of the bicycle seat. Even still, running behind a wobbly five year old on a tiny bicycle is no simply thing. I rolled my ankle and strained my back something awful.

But I won't remember any of that. All I'll remember is you saying, "OK, OK, let go," and me reluctantly doing so, and you taking off down the street all by yourself.

I realize, of course, that billions of other people have learned how to do what you learned how to do today. But I don't care. Today I was just so impressed, just so proud.

And just a little terrified.

Not that you would fall, (because you will eventually fall, and I cannot do anything about that) but because learning to ride a bicycle is an important milestone on the journey to independence.

Relish it.

Love,
dad

BECAUSE WE BELIEVE

Dear Spike:

Long waits at the polls, last November, may have prompted 200,000 people in Florida to give up, rather than casting a vote.

Some of them might have concluded that it didn't really matter. True, the margin separating Gov. Mitt Romney's votes and President Obama's was a scant 74,000 votes, but it would have taken a statistical anomaly of unfathomable proportions to change the overall results of the election. One researcher estimated that, if the disenfranchised voters had been able to cast ballots, it actually would have increased President Obama's lead in Florida.

So fine. Maybe it doesn't matter in the math. Maybe it's true that one vote, one hundred votes, even one hundred thousand votes don't really matter. After all, if statistician Nate Silver can build a mathematical model that accurately predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, then what does it matter if my single, paltry vote is cast?

That, of course, is not withstanding the fact that Floridians are privileged in the fact that their votes could — maybe, sort of, almost — matter, in one of a small number of so-called "swing states" where the outcome of the election isn't a foregone conclusion until soon before Election Day. Mr. Silver didn't officially "call" Florida for President Obama until a few days before the election. By contrast, he could have called our home state of Utah for the Republican nominee even before Mr. Romney was nominated by his party.

But I vote anyway. And I hope you will, too.

Because sometimes, you know, we don't do things because they make mathematical sense. We don't do things because they are statistically significant. We don't do things because the world will spin differently for us having done them.

We do things because we believe.

In goodness. In equality. In democracy.

In something.

If you grow up to be a Christian, you'll come to believe that God grants salvation to those who ask for it. Not those who go to church. Not those who partake in communion. Not those who sing hymns or wear their nicest clothes on Sunday.

But you might do those things anyway. Because those things might remind you of the promise of salvation. They might make you appreciate it a little more.

If you grow up to be an American patriot of a certain type, you might raise your hand to your heart whenever our flag is raised. You might recite the Pledge of Allegiance as fervently and sincerely as you did in your kindergarten class this morning. Not because you have to – indeed, you do not have to do these things to be a patriot.

But you might do those things anyway. Because those things might remind you how good it feels to be a citizen of a nation that seeks (even as it struggles and so often fails) to be a beacon for freedom and democracy around the world. And maybe those things help you remember how fortunate we are.

If you grow up to be a sports fan, you might sing your favorite team's anthem, over and over and over again. You might wear its colors on game day. You might sit with arms, legs and fingers crossed, when it is behind on the scoreboard and when the last seconds of the game are floating away with a championship trophy. Not because you believe that any of those things matter.

But because it is just plain fun to be a sports fan. And it is more fun when we convince ourselves that we have a stake in the game and a say in the results.

   

There is nothing wrong with belief. There is nothing wrong with ritual. What does not harm others does not harm our souls.

So I hope you'll grow up to vote. Not because it matters, in any sort of statistical way. Not because you  think your vote is going to change the world.

But because, one day in the fall of 2012, a woman named Desiline Victor arrived at her polling station in Miami-Dade County to find a line of people hundreds deep and hours long.

And she waited. And waited. And waited.

At 102 years old, she could have been forgiven for giving up. She could have concluded that it didn't matter.

But she waited. And waited. And waited.

Not because she believed her vote would make a mathematical difference. But because the Hatian-born farm worker, who became a U.S. citizen just eight years ago, refused to be denied the opportunity to participate in a process that fundamentally reflects who we are and what we believe.

And then, you know what? Something a little funny happened. A statistical anomaly of unfathomable proportions. Out of 122 million people who cast votes in the election, Ms. Victor was asked to attend President Obama's Inaugural Address, last night — to stand in (even if she could not stand up) for every voter in the nation and serve as a symbol for the need for ballot reform in our nation.

Her vote mattered. Make yours matter, too.

Love,

dad 

NEEDED A BLANKIE

Dear Spike:

Today you made me a blankie. And today I sort of needed a blankie.

So thank you. That was nice.

Love,
dad
  

THAT TERRIBLE NIGHT

Dear Spike:

Nearly six years ago, in the wake of a mass shooting at Trolley Square, I stood outside that historic building, just three blocks from our home, and watched the coroner’s trucks line up to take the bodies away.

I wondered then, and for a long time afterward, if I would ever be able to pass that place and not think of the terrible things that had happened there.

And for a long time, I couldn’t.

But I have passed there nearly every day since, and we have been there together on many occasions, and time has done its work. I rarely think of that terrible night.

I did tonight, though. Of course I did. How could I not?

I did a few months ago, too, when a troubled young man walked into a crowded theater in Colorado and opened fire, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others.

And I did tonight, when yet another troubled young man walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and killed at least 26 people, most of them children.

How can I explain such madness to you? How can I explain such hate, such evil?

I cannot.

But at some point — some time soon, I suppose — I’ll have to try.

There was a great man who passed from this earth not quite a decade ago, who said that a parent’s job, in the face of tough questions, is to find “the simplest truthful answers.”

Tonight seems as good a time to try to do that as any.

Sometimes people hurt. And sometimes they hurt so bad, that they feel the only thing to do is to hurt other people. That doesn’t ever work, though, and in fact it only creates more pain — pain that goes on for years and years and sometimes never subsides.

Time does not heal all wounds. But nor are we forever stuck on days like today. Find the simplest truthful answers for yourself and for others, and then do what you can to move on, while offering love, sympathy and compassion for those who cannot.

Love,

dad

OF TERRIBLE WARFARE

Dear Spike,

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Palestine has come to a temporary halt. And on this Thanksgiving Day, that's something for which we can all be thankful.

How long will this ceasefire last? I cannot say.

There was a time, about a decade ago, in which I would have told you that a lasting peace was on its way. Slowly, to be sure. But sure nonetheless. There would be peace in the Holy Land.

Now I am not sure.

Today, both sides are claiming victory. For neither is it so. Innocent people, including children, have been killed on both sides. A new humanitarian crisis reigns in Gaza. And Israel is as far estranged from the international community as it has ever been.

It's easy to say that war is not the answer to anything. It's harder to make the case in a world of violence, revenge, patriotism and extremism — not to mention the endless industries, big and small, that profit every time a rocket in launched from Gaza or a bomb is dropped from an Israeli jet.

And it's easy, of course, to say that these are values our family does not share. But it's harder to truly separate ourselves, as tax-paying Americans, from complicity in all manner of terrible warfare.

For this minute, at least, I am thankful for peace in the Holy Land. And if that peace holds for another minute, another hour, another day, I will be thankful for that, too.
 
Love,
dad