You'd better get used to it...

                I believe it was the comedian Gallagher who said during a stand up routine that he had to pay his children every time one of them did something funny. He’d work the event into his next comedy bit and he paid the kids for their contributions.

            Gallagher probably got a tax write-off somehow.

            Our kids know I’m too cheap to pay them for this blog but they have contributed greatly to my list of stories to tell. I have a small collection here.

            You need to understand that our house was filled with humor and sarcastic wit. My wife Amy has a terrific sense of humor. Our kids grew up with the idea that sarcastic smack was and is an acceptable form of communication. Be respectful, we told them, but speak your mind. Be polite, our kids were taught, and understand the situation. But kids learn from watching and I’d be a hypocrite if I had told them that a little sarcasm is a bad thing.

            Or a lot of sarcasm.

             So it really didn’t come as a big shocker when Sean came home from school one day with a story. He’d been stuck with on-campus detention and was unimpressed with his fellow detainees. When one of the other kids complained about the food they were brought for lunch, Sean gave ‘em a sensational comeback.

            “You’d better get used to it,” my son opined. “That’s the same stuff they’re going to serve you in prison.”

            Oh baby.

            Then there was the time some idiot was irritating Sean during a junior high gym class. Bored with the verbal noise directed his way, Sean sat on the floor beneath the rope and climbed to the ceiling, hand over hand in the pike position. Touching the top of the rope, he peered down at his spellbound audience and asked, “How do you like it?” before descending to the floor. The noise continued the next day, so Sean picked the other kid up and asked the instructor, “I have a piece of trash here. What do you want me to do with it?”

            The instructor didn’t seem to have an idea, so Sean threw the kid in a convenient trash can.

            Maybe I should mention here that Sean was a state gymnastics champ while in high school. Thin, yes. But he was and is very strong. The LA Times wrote a story about him, I kid you not.

            Regan’s sarcasm is a little less demonstrative, but it stings none-the-less. I know because much of hers is directed at me. Every time she hears about me making a mistake, and she hears about that a lot, she’ll say, “Excellent,” or, “Good job, Dad.”

            And when the kids get together, well, it is something to behold. Throw in Amy’s love of laughter and you have the makings for a great deal of fun. Give that bunch a target and things just naturally begin to happen.

            As you may have read in an earlier blog, I visited the Chickamauga National Battlefield Park last year. While photographing a historically important area of the battlefield, I wandered off on the wrong trail and got lost. I went about five miles in order to cover the 400-yard distance I had intended to walk.

            “Good job,” Regan enthused.

            So, when we gathered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for my birthday a few months later, the kids presented me with a compass. It’s a nice one with various navigational aids and a mirror for signaling the search aircraft the next time I get lost.

            Excellent.

            Thanks for reading.