Traditions

Took the kids to the beach yesterday. It's a nice, quiet one in Greenwich, that we used to frequent when we were renting in Connecticut. It's too expensive and there are too many hoops to jump through getting parking passes and such to go to all the time, but we still go once a year in the last week of Summer vacation. It's become a tradition. I probably write a blog about it every year at this time, too.

Traditions are important, I like to say, and I mean it. They are to me. I think they are to Jack and Kate, too, more so every year.

We bundle into the car with all of our beach stuff: pails and shovels, paddle ball games, boogie boards. Stop at Dunkin' Donuts for iced coffee and donuts. Jump through the hoops for beach passes (they moved the location of where you get them! Grr.). Same, same, same.

On the way along the shore to the beach, we drive by a private beach. Do you want to get out here, Jack? As I've asked for about 5-6 years now, I imagine. He says Yes. We laugh.

Walking out onto the beach, it's high tide, which is perfect. As the day goes on, we'll get more and more beach. So we start out walking out into the water, swimming a little. When we get deep, Kate clings to me. Then each one clings to one of my arms and I walk, them trailing along, floating on their backs beside me. We do this for a little while, then head back to the towels.

The water starts to recede. The beach gets bigger, and the water there is gets shallower. Jack and Kate walk through it together, holding their nets. They find rocks, shells, hermit crabs. They find these clear, squishy silver dollar type things. They feel weird and we have no idea what they are. Somebody suggests jellyfish, and we dismiss it, because they can be held. Jack theorizes they are Jigglyfish, which is something he invented at the Cape to fool or scare Kate. We ask a lifeguard. They ARE jellyfish, just a kind that doesn't sting. We name them Jigglyfish.

They play together in the water, tackling each other without causing damage. Sometimes this ends up with whining, fighting, or minor injury. Not today. Their laughs and smiles are big and real, and I wish I could photograph them forever, but I'm in the water and I've made that mistake with my phone in the past. I take pictures with my mind and hope I never forget them.

Jack and I play paddleball. We reach 20. He says we should try for 30. We eventually get there, and he sends the 30th soaring into the water in triumph. We take a 10-minute break and he says, let's beat 30. We reach 55 and are very proud.

Kate and I make a sandcastle. Jack works on building a dock and a boat off the edge of the moat. If I make a castle that doesn't meet Kate's demanding standards, she squishes it into oblivion. We make tower after tower until we get three that are acceptable. We decorate with seaweed and shells. We include a few hermit crabs, which we later liberate so they can scuttle back into the ocean.

We go buy lunch, dropping $30 on a burger, hotdog, chicken nuggets, and as always more french fries than any human being could possibly consume at a sitting. Jack insists on mozzarella sticks, I say no, and he reminds me that I always say no and he always says "But we always get them!" so we get them. So we get them. And they're pretty good. Food just tastes better at the beach.

After lunch, Jack and Kate play Giant in the water. I'm a little hazy on the rules of this game, but it involves taking big, slow-motion steps. The water is very shallow as the tide goes out so it works well. I take pictures from afar, wanting to show it but not wanting to get close enough to intrude.

Kate makes a friend, a little girl about her age, and they swim together and capture and release hermit crabs. When they were younger, it was usually Jack who made friends, some boy to play baseball with. Now the beach kids are younger, and my kids are older. He and I swim and play with a ball in the water.

Soon (too soon?) it's 5 p.m., and we're sun-cooked and water-logged. I actually think we could stay even longer, but it's time to go. We pack up and stumble out to the car to drive home. I don't turn and wave goodbye to the beach; I don't really want to say goodbye.

Just, See you next year.

Hall of Fame trip

Brett Favre was to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year. By coincidence, the weekend would coincide with my birthday, and the end of the Summer travel baseball season. So what better time to do a Father-son road trip out to Ohio for induction weekend and the annual preseason football game? We booked the trip, and hit the road last Friday morning.

FRIDAY

It's a 7.5 hour drive, so we got an early start. Jack had his Pokemon Go app open so he could catch Pokemon on the way. We turned around 5 minutes in because we had forgotten Little Brett Favre Headliner action figure. Neither one of us thought it silly to go back. An hour into the drive we hit Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. Two hours into the drive we played our first road sign alphabet game. Three hours in Jack tried to take his first nap. Four hours in, it occurred we were going to drive fairly close to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the site of the Little League Baseball World Series. So we made a side trip. "Next year we'll be playing here!" said Jack optimistically; his 12-year-old team would be competing for a spot. Uh, well hey, you never know.

We had lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. If all BWW's were this friendly, comfortable, and quick and attentive with service, not to mention the excellent food, we'd go there all the time. Sadly Port Chester's version has awful service no matter when you go, and the wings are usually hit or miss too. But it was a highlight of our first day.

We checked into our hotel after the 9-hour drive (including side trip) and immediately hit the pool. Funny: We saw a picture of the pool near the elevator that showed a huge basketball hoop at the side. Getting to the actual pool, there was a tiny floating hoop about a quarter of regulation size. "Hoop not shown to scale," I explained to Jack, and we laughed about that for the rest of the weekend. He caught a Pokemon which he named Not to Scale. That said we had a great time in the pool playing with that little basketball hoop.

Went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse, Jack's first time there. Since steak is his favorite meal, by far, it was a treat. And the steaks were fantastic. Since it was my actual birthday and we were both starving and very happy with the food, it was about the best birthday dinner I could have asked for. Free ice cream for dessert!

SATURDAY

We woke up, had breakfast at the hotel, and headed into Canton. Some rigamarole associated with being able to park (had to park at nearby fairground and catch shuttle to Hall of Fame, which was fine). A lot of cool exhibits, including booths honoring various players (Peyton Manning, to Jack's excitement, plus all the Hall of Fame inductees), a tour of the history of the NFL (earliest footballs, leather helmets, gear, uniforms, etc.), and interactive exhibits where you could pretend you were getting playcalls in your helmets or reviewing an instant replay play and the like. Things where you get a sense of how huge players are (Jack is basically the size of Jerome Bettis' leg) and compare your hand to a quarterback's massive mitt. We did this for several hours until our feet were ready to fall off.

Went to the Fan Fest outside the stadium. Here, you could get free football cards, power drinks, and other cheesy memorabilia (including cheeseheads!) and throw a football through a target and so forth. It was about 90 degrees so we spent plenty of money on water and whatnot. Went through various giftshops buying T-shirts, Broncos footballs, etc. Watched a movie in a theatre that rotated, focusing on Super Bowl 50. A highlight for Broncos fan Jack. Eventually it was time to enter the stadium for the induction ceremony, so we guzzled our free caffeine drinks (Yowza!) and filed in.

Through some fortunate accident/security oversight, we were able to get down on the field itself. There was a stage set up for NFL Network and we saw some past Hall of Fame inductees being interviewed. Suddenly another star showed up: Peyton Manning! Jack was thrilled. We got pretty close to him, but he wasn't signing autographs or anything. Jack waved his Broncos hat at him and considered throwing it to him. I advised against it.

We met former Packers running back Ahman Green and I got a picture of Jack with him. I told him that he and Favre were a great fantasy football combo. He smiled politely and edged sideways to get away from me.

The induction ceremony lasted well past 11 p.m., and naturally the one most of us were there for -- Favre -- spoke last. But really great, emotional speeches. Jack got a little tired/had to go to the bathroom near the end but stuck it out. Then it was a mob scene getting out of there, and it was after 12:30 when we finally got back to the hotel. Tired but happy.

SUNDAY

Since we'd done the Hall of Fame the previous day, we didn't have to rush. Slept in, went back to the hotel pool for more basketball, had lunch at Denny's. At the faigrounds parking, there was a gift shop set up with Hall of Fame merchandise. Jack had some cash and sent me away; I knew he wanted to buy me a birthday present. His taste runs to the colorful/garrish/over the top, so I didn't know what to expect. He came up a few minutes later with his hands behind his back. Took my hat off my head, put another one on. It was a FAVRE hat that said Canton, Ohio and had his number and the Hall of Fame logo. Not bad at all and a birthday present I will forever cherish.

Back at the Hall in the afternoon, we went through the exhibits again. And saw the Super Bowl 50 video. Sat at a table and had a Gatorade (Jack) and beer (me) at the Fan Fest area.

We saw people lined up in a red carpet area where players were being interviewed. Jack being small was able to squeeze through crowds and, to his excitement, touch Jerry Rice's gold jacket as he walked by. Later, Brett Favre walked through the crowd. I tried to get up high to catch a glimpse and get a photo, without success. Jack weaved through the crowd and returned a minute later. Did you get a picture, I asked, not expecting much. He showed me what he got; it looked like he was about 10 feet away from the new Hall of Famer. Incredible!

It was finally time to enter the stadium, so we did, excited to see an NFL game. But as we sat in our seats, a rumor started rippling through the crowd/texts/Twitter that the game had been cancelled. The paint used on the field had created an unsafe playing surface. It was so tough to believe a screwup like that could happen that we didn't believe it at first. But we had Internet access and soon it was official.

I was bummed, naturally, not only for me but for Jack. He was kind of dumbfounded and sad. "It's not fair," was a common refrain. We sat there with our memorabilia for a game that wasn't going to happen and were kind of in shock.

As challenging parenting moments go, it was one of them. We'd spent the weekend enjoying ourselves but also really looking forward to the game. They brought the players and teams out, interviewed the Hall of Fame inductees including Favre at midfield, fired T-shirts into the stands, had cheerleaders do little routines, yada yada. We hung out for a while, then left.

But on the way back to the hotel I said to Jack, you know, OK. It's disappointing. We wanted to see a football game, and we're not going to. But we've had a great weekend together, and this was just 2 hours of it that didn't go the way we wanted. Let's talk about the fun stuff we did.

So we talked about the Hall of Fame and all the different exhibits. The stuff we saw and experienced, players we got close to. The speeches, the meals, the memorabilia. Swimming in the pool together. Tossing his newly bought Broncos football around the parking lot of the Fairgrounds. All the Favre jerseys. Outback Steakhouse. The Little League World Series field. Jack plugging his phone into the car audio system so he could play his current favorite song, "Sail," every hour on the hour. The drive. The trip.

At the end we were smiling again. We drove back to the hotel, stopping for food from Wendy's. Went to sleep weary, happy.

And drove back home with stories and memories from a great Father-Son trip.