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Archive for the 'smiles' Category

My little man snores

Published 28.October.2008 family , fatherhood , good things , gson , smiles , steadylife 0 Comments

Suday afternoon Greyson was playing near the TV cabinet and predictably he hit his head. There is always a moment of silence as the event registers with him, then wailing. So I picked him up and got him a binky. He settled down relatively quickly and I sat down on the couch with him in the crook of my arm. Taffy was sitting on the couch as well and she was watching something about the Queen of England and the rest of the royal family on PBS.

After a few minutes, Taffy said, “he’s snoring.” Indeed, Greyson was snooring, having fallen dead asleep with his head on my belly. He’s only 10 months old, but the little dude almost never falls asleep on me anymore. It was great. Taffy got up and I switched the TV a football game, laid back and let the little dude sleep on my chest.

I’m gonna miss it when he stops falling asleep at random on me.

To all those who said Joe Paterno should retire

Published 25.October.2008 football , good things , karma , penn state , smiles , steadylife 0 Comments

You will live to eat your words. Joe rocks. End of Story. 9 and 0 baby, 9 and 0.

Small World

Published 23.October.2008 giving back , good things , karma , penn state , smiles , steadylife 0 Comments

I’ve donated to my alma mater every year since I graduated. I think that’s why they keep calling me. The conversation usually goes something like this:

“Hi mister DeVille, this is Jennifer and I’m a Penn State Student…” I’m always friendly, because well, I like Penn State and when you do get a talkative student, sometimes you hear something interesting about the university.

Last night it was Courtney on the phone. She was cheerful and I was feeling like I could make a donation to the libraries fund. So she’s confirming my address and she asks, “is that near DC?” I said, “yes it is, I work in Silver Spring.” She says that she’d like to move to the city after school and that she grew up in a small town in PA. I ask her which town. Gettysburg.

Well, I grew up 7 miles south of Gettysburg in Maryland, so I told her that, and here’s where it got interesting.

She says, “I went to Mother Seton in Emmitsburg”

“So did I,” I say, “and then I went on to Delone.”

“No way, so did I, and so did my father, he graduated from Delone in 1986.”

“I started at Delone in 1986, I missed going to High School with your father by a year”…

We laughed about it and talked briefly about some big families in the area and it was kind of cool. So the werid thing is that Penn State has roughly 40,000 undergrads. Delone graduates about 150 kids a year. Statistically speaking, I’m thinking its really unlikely that one of the Delone grads would call me. Mother Seton had about 30 kids per class, so it becomes even more unlikely that a Delone/MSS grad would call me from Penn State.

It really is a small world out there.

Old friends, old memories

Published 20.October.2008 family , fatherhood , good things , gson , karma , nostalgia , smiles , steadylife 0 Comments

Twenty two years ago, I “graduated” from 8th grade at Mother Seton School. We all dressed like Miami Vice for Graduation. We were 13. Several of my class mates went on to the same High School as I did, but there were some who didn’t. Largely I lost track of those folks.

Recently, my Mom discovered that a friend of mine from grade school lives in a townhouse on the next block behind her. We got together yesterday for the first time since we were 16. It was really great to see Carrington and his brother Jimmy.

We got together at Matt’s house and had a bunch of good food, some beer and caught up as much as you can in 4 hours when you’ve not seen each other in 20 years. I’m looking forward to catching up more and perhaps rekindling an old friendship.

As I drove home, Greyson slept in the back seat, and Nick Drake sang softly through the car stereo. I was remembering a lot of old times. I came across the memory of falling down the well at Carrington’s house when I was about 10 years old and was struck that I’m damn lucky to be alive.

I fell about 25 feet into the well, and luckily there was water in it. I remember at the time thinking that I might be able to climb out of the well, it had stone walls, but that wasn’t happening. Luckilly Carrington’s mom and Grandma were there and with the help of a neighbor (and by neighbor I mean someone who lived a mile away - this was the country) they pulled me out after being in there for about a half hour. It was November - snow was falling.

Only later in life did I realize how close I was to dying that day. Sometimes I relive it and think that it really is a miracle that I survived. The hole I fell thorugh was only about 1 square foot, and it was rocks all the way down. If I’d hit my head, it would have been over.

So, there I was driving down the road with my boy in the backseat and wondering, what the hell is Greyson going to do to scare the crap out of me when he’s 10. I’m hoping he doesn’t fall down any wells, but if he does, I hope he’s got some good friends around to pull him out.

PORKTOBERFEST

Published 18.October.2008 good things , smiles , steadylife 0 Comments

2 hours, seven minutes until Porktoberfest (a strange marriage of octoberfest and a menu that includes pork in almost every dish) begins.

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