My only issue is the titling of the “boys” and “girls” books. That’s absurd to me, and although I’ve read both books, I can’t see myself supporting European-style sexism that my people never had. It’s wrong.

They don’t need a father, they need a dog collar.

Winners have been notified by email. If you didn’t win one, you can still pick it up at any major bookstore or you can also order it online.

The cat was very relieved (for a while at least).

Take a film canister (yeah, before this digital stuff there was this plastic stuff called film), you need the clear plastic kind where the lid fits INSIDE the cannister. The gray kind that overlaps the top will not work. Get some dissolving antacid tablets (you know, plop plop, fizz fizz…not tums) and some warm water. Put 1/4 of a tablet in the cannister. Add some water. Quickly put on the lid. The cannister will POP way up in the air. You can leave it right side up or turn it over, it works both ways. My two boys will do this until we run out of tablets. This is an OUTSIDE activity.

Making goop: Take white glue and mix it with liquid laundry starch. The ratio is 2:1. That is, 1/2 cup glue to 1/4 cup starch. Or 1 cup glue to 1/2 cup starch, etc. Add some food coloring if you want. Mix in a bowl. If it is too liquid, add a bit more starch. My two boys, 8 and 10, spent over an hour playing with this stuff the other day. Add some army men or action figures for more fun. Will keep in a plastic zip bag in the frig for a few days. Do not eat.

it’s a shame. i’d have bought it, if not for that.

Even better, there’s a creek that runs through the back of the property. So there’ll be frogspawn to catch, weird waterbugs to study, sticks to float downstream, elaborate mud sculptures to build, rocks to collect and polish…. The kid’s only three, and I can hardly wait.

What I *don’t* find neat, however, is that this posted item just also happens to be something the website has up for an add.

I really like this web page. Please guys don’t let it turn into ‘Add-o-rama’.

Generally, after the services, we would remain there for quite a while and do some extra Bible reading with the priest, a good friend of the family. On a particular Sunday in April, however, the priest was ill.

This was nothing new, as the priest, an old man well into his 70s, was ill quite a considerable amount. On such occasions, my father and I would remain at the church even longer, praying and studying much more than usual in hopes that our supplications and devotedness to God would help the Father heal faster.

On this bright April Sunday, however, it came as quite a shock when immediately after the services (led by a substitute priest), my father beckoned me to the car. I inquired as to where we were going, and as to why we were leaving church earlier than usual.

“You’ll see,” said my dad with a smile.

We drove for hours, well into the next state.

“Get out of the car,” my father cheerfully said as we stopped in a clearing near a lake.

I did as I was told, and he pulled out two fishing poles from the trunk.

“But, Dad, isn’t it the Sabbath?…” I protested.

Ignoring my comments, he thrust the pole in my hand.

“Let’s fish,” he warmly invited me.

Confused as to his seemingly dissipated piety, but happy nonetheless, I grabbed the pole and sat down next to my father on the riverbank. We fished for hours, laughing, talking, and making jokes; we did not discuss religion once. I could not believe that this was my father I was fishing with. I was having a great time, and on a Sunday, nonetheless, the day of the week I dreaded most!

Long after the sun had set, we packed up the fishing poles, as well the fish we had caught, and began to drive home.

During the long ride, I asked my father why he had chosen to do such a special thing with me. I could not help but wonder why he had seemingly gone against his religion to merely have a good time with his son.

He pulled over the car to the side of the road, looked me straight in the eye and said something to me that I will never get.

“Son,” he said, “the most important thing of religion, of this religion, of any religion, is to love one’s neighbor. You may not choose to be religious in later life, but remember this: be kind to other people. All people, even strangers. If someone is obligated to be friendly and inviting to strangers, how much more so to own son. I love you.”

We attended many more services in the future, never going on another outing like that again. Although the priest’s sermons, the musky Latin texts, and my father in his suit receiving the Holy Communion are all but a faint blur in my memory, I will still always remember that one particular Sunday in April, and the profound words of wisdom my father imparted to me on that day.

We loved Baseball. We loved the woods. We loved chasing various things and being chased. Thus the sport of Beesball was formed.

At first it was merely throwing a baseball (usually a wiffle ball as it had more action and didn’t destroy the nest for “doubleheaders”) at a bees nest in the woods and running. But, as all games and little boys minds do, it evolved into a test of accuracy, smarts and courage. The kid who could hit the bees nest, and actually be the last to run was the winner. As the summer wore on you could devise any type “armor” you wanted to assist you. We spent countless days and nights searching in sheds and the dump, everywhere we went always keeping an eye out for that one material that would give you the edge in beesball.

Crying was allowed by the little brothers, and numerous home renedies were tried and tested such as honey and mud etc.

The game died down as we couldn’t find the nests but to this day, when my brother and I see a bees nest, it isn’t long before that familiar buzzing and excitement fills the air like only a nice curveball can create in beesball.

Looking back, with all the allergies that have seem to spring up it’s a wonder that nobody got hurt.

A tip for the curious: You can find a TON of free old downloadable PDF books (scans of originals, not plain text!) for boys (and lots more) on Google Books. Just go to http://www.books.google.com, enter “Boys” in the search window and (important!) make sure the radio button “Full View books” is checked (otherwise, you get a lot of promotional excerpts from modern books offered for sale as well). Select what you want and take a lookie. On the right of the page, there is a “download” button to save the file as a *.pdf.

I have gobs of old arcane out-of-copywrite books I’ve downloaded this way. Lots of old technical/engineering books, and many pertaining to peculiar social topics of the day like ettiquette, eugenics, the “crisis” of white slavery, the temperance & abolitionist movements, then-contemporary politics, etc. — all stuff that will never be reproduced but offers a remarkable 1st source viewpoint on history of the day. Have fun!

Quick story. Summer, 1969-70ish. A group of USAF brats whose dads were stationed at RAF Lakenheath in UK. When parachutes got old or used (cool!) they were retired/destroyed. Somehow a few harnesses (minus silk and nylon cord) found their way to our house. My older brother and I got some rope, some friends, a very tall oak tree and a not quite deep enough pile of leaves and shrubby stuff. A few tests and sore ankles/crotches later, we remembered the obvious: “mattresses!” A very fun day followed by 2 very boring weeks of being grounded. The day sticks with us both. Haven’t a clue what we did the rest of the summer.

I found him playing on his own in our backyard. I asked him what he was doing, and he replied, “Spraying bugs with Off, want to help?”

Yeesh.

John Robison

However, there was one other option that my Dad and I took advantage of – and it is my memorable experience.

We were able to pick up broadcasts of the Cincinnati Reds (our favorite team) on AM radio in our hometown in SW Virginia. The only problem was we could only pick it up in our 1971 VW Beetle (fortunately equipped with the optional AM Radio) and only if we drove around in the country.

The game we were listening to while running to the store happened to be Tom Seaver’s perfect game. We realized this was a historic moment and decided to keep driving to keep the good karma alive. As we bobbed and weaved through the hills and dales of the countryside we soon learned that when we went down a large hill, we would lose the signal. I started yelling for my Dad to gun it so we could be able to get back up to catch every tantalizing pitch.

Soon we were careening around – cheering for our team – praying for each and every out – and hoping the game did not go on too long, because Mom had no idea where we were (pre-cellphone era!).

When the final out was recorded we screamed our approval, we had just listened to history – and the memory of that moment is indelibly etched in my memory!

One weekend not long after, he called me down to the basement and asked if I wanted to do some chemistry experiements. We were, he informed me, going to make Hydrogen. To a flask he added a strong solution of hydrogen peroxide and a dollop of iron filings; he covered the flask with a balloon, and while it inflated he recited his favorite chemistry-related knee slapper, a rhyme with an important lesson: “Johnny was a scientist, but Johnny is no more; what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.” You see, sulfuric acid… never mind.

As the balloon inflated, he pointed out the violent reaction between the two substances. The iron was bonding with the oxygen atoms in the peroxide to form iron oxide, allowing the pure hydrogen to escape. He lectured me about the properties of hydrogen: colorless, odorless, lighter than air and highly flammable. He removed the fully inflated baloon, clipped it off and let it hover unassisted, then proceeded to demonstrate the other properties, perhaps too quickly in sequence. He let some escape to show it had no color or odor, and then pulled out his trusty Zippo lighter to produce a flame.

Of course, the hydrogen was way ahead of him, and with a WHOOOMP I can still hear 40 years later, a flash of light and heat engulfed us and disappeared in a millisecond. The sound of our surprised shreiks and the scent of singed ceiling tiles rose to the first floor, eliciting only mild interest. “Nothing” is what we both replied when asked what we were doing, bringing on the realization that I hadn’t invented the answer to questions that could get me in trouble.

Dad and I both wore the same surprised expression for a couple of weeks, and spoke no more of the experiment, not even to acknowlege whether it was, in the end, a success or a failure. But around our house, we had an expression: “Scientists don’t need eyebrows.”

Anyway, I think I’ll only get this book if I have only sons, because I wouldn’t want my daughters to feel that they can’t fool around and just be kids, or that they shouldn’t be interested in fishing or starting a camp fire. I would like them to be daring, ready to explore and resourceful. I encourage fathers out there to not treat their daughters like they are only interested in dolls and clothing. Growing up, I disliked getting new clothing every birthday while watching my male cousins get remote controlled cars, tanks and airplanes which they then remodeled. And even though I know how much my dad loves me, it always disheartened me a little and hurt me in some ways when he just assumed I wouldn’t be interested in things like electronics…

In winter we would collect pinecones while standing on the running boards of Dad’s Model A truck. Dad would get me to drive the Nissan while he feed the sheep hay from the back of the truck. At school we would build massive snow forts and the lower school would take on the upper (who we out numbered).

When we moved to town, the best thing to do on a hot day was to have massive street-wide waterfight. There were guy on roofs with buckets, people running around with hoses (at least until they reached the end of them) and all the while our parents were yelling “take the fight outside!”

Naturally, the car didn’t run and was in fairly awful condition, but this didn’t stop him from climbing in and pretending to drive it for the entire time it was being haggled for, paid for, and loaded onto the trailer.

Of course, from his vantage point he could observe the men walking around the trailer and tightening the tie-downs. When he was dropped off at his home again, he dutifully stamped off to each corner of the trailer, slapped the levers, and grunted stiffly.

He still makes a bee-line for that car whenever we visit the grandparents…

On Saturday morning, Shawn and I would pack our backpacks with all kinds of things: a lunch and thermos of course, plus knives, axes, maybe a BB gun if we could sneak one past my stepfather, our Army Surplus hammocks, dry socks. (I wish now that I’d been interested in photography back then!)

We’d head out, no direction in mind, and go wander around the mountains all day. We never knew what we’d find. Maybe we’d flush a wild turkey; maybe we’d see a bear (and run for our lives); maybe we’d make fishing poles and see what we could catch in one of the little streams; maybe we’d find the tallest tree at the top of a mountain and climb it, just to see what we could see; or maybe we’d just keep walking all day. We had no plan, no map, and no timetable other than “Come back before dark.”

That’s my advice to anyone looking for a good Sunday afternoon: Don’t plan anything, just go out to the country somewhere and start hiking. Keep your eyes and ears open and you’ll be amazed at how much there is to see and do.

Yes! Just sign that card with invisible urine! Chicks totally dig that.

Shortly after we heard a knock at the door. It was 2 police officers asking to come in as there were reports of a disturbance. But it wasnt just those 2 officers. As the neighbours thought there were gunshots, the police cordoned off the street and had officers sneaking around the back of the garden, waiting to storm in. The Local news station weren’t impressed at the lack of a story either (they had intercepted the radio reports by the police), but we were very impressed!

Anyway, I guess my capacity for long-term recollection was just starting to take form at five years old because my memories from around that time are hazy and in most cases are merely impressions of sounds, smells or moments of pain (like when I opened up my foot on a piece of wire). But I have a very strong recollection of the small plane Dad used to own; a single engine Mooney design (with the signature forward-slanting tail), which was white with brown striping and a tan interior with spider webs of cracks in the leather seats. I’ve never seen pictures of the plane and Dad sold it right around the time of the divorce. I think the only reason I remember it so well is because one of the outstanding moments of my entire life occurred inside of it.

Dad took me up in that plane just once before he sold it. I sat in the co-pilot’s seat, barely able to see above the instrument panel. I remember wearing a headset that even cinched to its smallest size was still way too big for me – the actual earpieces may have been hanging down around my lower jaw. The second yoke was in front of me, an immense thing, and the many dials and displays were entirely beyond my understanding. The propeller chok-chok-choked and roared to life, the engine thrummed, and Dad flicked switches with authority and spoke arcane and incomprehensible words into his headset mike. My stomach shot into my throat as we left the ground and, in that moment, Dad became something much more than the man I had known up to that point.

As we flew, I was in a sort of ecstasy even before Dad told me to take hold of the yoke in front of me. I have no idea how high we were, as I was not big enough to be able to look down out of the window and could only see the ceiling of clouds not far above. I stretched my arms nearly as far as they would reach and grasped the yoke. In it I could feel powerful forces; the pull of the engine and the wind. The yoke had a life of its own, with sharp little movements left and right, in and out. More than a little awestruck, I looked at my dad, who was smiling broadly at me. “Son,” he said, “you are flying.” That was when I realized that dad’s hands were in his lap and the plane (it seemed) was entirely in my control.

I don’t remember how much time went by before my dad put his hands back on the controls, not long, I suspect, but I will never forget that moment. As remarkable as the physical experience of flying was, it was the sense for the first time that my father really trusted me and had faith that I could handle such a momentous undertaking (however briefly) that etched the memory so sharply in my consciousness.

I have a son of my own now, not yet two years old. I only hope that I can give him memories as wonderful and enduring as those my dad gave me.

The dog had puppies and he helped my brother and I build a home for them so that they would be safe. The cat had kittens. The fish layed eggs. Some of the pets had to be put down. Dad wanted to protect us but taught us a lot about love and caring for others (be they furry or human others).

I was lucky enough to live near a huge piece of land (several sq. miles big) owned by the local utility company. The grass was high and the trees were plentiful and there were living things all through it. My dad used to head up expeditions into the field to see what we could find.

The first trip yielded tadpoles. Thousands swimming along in a little pond that was just far enough from the drainage ditch that it retained about 12″ of water for a good portion of the spring. My brother and I came back to the pond every day after school to check on them.

Another expedition resulted in finding a huge bunch of garter snakes. We picked some up, amazed at them. Truly amazed. Of course my brother and I came back to “see” them. We brought a bucket with us. Empty on the way in, full on the way out. We loved those snakes so much we HAD to have them.

Dad simply shook his head with a grin on his face. We were allowed to let a few loose in our garden but the rest had to go back (we must have had 50 of them). Dad brought a few pieces of sheet metal to make a home for them. We walked quite a way into the field out of sight of any houses and dad used rocks and fallen trees to slightly prop and weight the sheet metal to give them a cool place to hide and a warm place to sun.

We were allowed to visit the snakes and to bring friends to see them as long as we promised to let them stay there in their home.

As much as I love my cuddly pets, it seems to be the ones that I can’t hold but just sit and watch for hours are my favorites. They remind me of dad.

I grew up on 11 1/2 acres in what was once a rural stretch of Texas Hill Country, surrounded by wonderfully wild countryside and seasonal creeks full of tadpoles. Some of my fondest memories are of spending the day from sunup to sundown tromping all across the property with a backpack full of field guides and sketching supplies. Few things brought me greater joy than to watch a jar full of frog eggs hatch. And I taught myself anatomy by wiring sun-bleached animal skeletons together. The highlight of my summer evenings was to watch distant thunderheads grow and flicker and fade away as I sat on the road leading up to the family’s hillside home, serenaded by chuck-wills-widows and screech owls.

Now my greatest joy is teaching my son all the things that I learned as a barefooted country girl. I only hope that, in this day of instant gratification and electronic delights, he will have the same deep appreciation for more rustic entertainment as I did.

–TwoDragons

Dad grabbed himself a toilet paper tube, closed one end with electrical tape, and proceeded to fill the cylinder with black powder, along with a few other unnamed ingredients that he claimed would ‘sparkle’.

After closing the other end, he attached a fuse, and we took a walk into the woods.

Dad lit the fuse on a grassy hill next to a creek, and ran back beside me. “Watch this!” he declared, his face exultant.

Did I mention we’d had no rain for at least a week? That this was midsummer, and it was _very_ hot, and _very_ dry?

The toilet paper did not explode as advertised. It instead ejected a six foot tongue of flame that immediately lit the surrounding dry grass and twigs with gusto.

I will never, so long as I live, forget the site of my father, knee deep in the creek, slapping water out at what looked to be a football field afire, telling me to ‘go get a bucket.’

I instead got the fire department, and Dad got a fine.

Luckily, no one was hurt in the making of this memory.

Naturally, there aren’t many good stories about a group of young boys that start with a discovery of Pine Sol and paper towels, but this was not just a bag of groceries; this was a cache, a mini mart, a supply drop of bottles, tubes, boxes, crates, plastic and cardboard, stacked bottles, packs of 12, a veritable circus of assorted materials. Boys that we were, we made the most of our find: Rather than using the goods for their intended purpose, we improvised, creating a massive G.I. Joe fort out of the tubs and boxes. Integrating the surrounding woods, we spent all day constructing an elaborate battle ground, up and down trees, inside shallow ditches full of bugs and dead foliage, over and under overgrown root systems.

We must have gotten completely immersed in our large-scale toy war, because it was dark before we knew it (and this was back before 10 year olds carried cellphones). By the time we realized how long we’d been playing, we all ran back to our homes – leaving our toys in mid-attack. My mother must have given me quite the talking to, because I still remember it. My dad, if I recall correctly, didn’t seem much to mind: ‘Boys will be boys’ sounds like something he would have said. But my mom wasn’t so easy; she grounded me for a whole week for not checking in on time.

But when that week was up, we all returned, this time having informed our parents. I remember spending the rest of that summer behind that lake, constructing ever-more elaborate constructions to conquer with our plastic action figures.