The picture speaks for itself.

The Reverend Doctor Vinoski Sweetness is six. I’ve known for a while that he has a knack for geography.  So out of the blue on Saturday I asked him where the temple of Angkor Wat is. RDVS:  “Japan?  China?  Malaysia?  Russia?  Kenya?” Me:  “Hold on, you were going good there — stick to Asia.” RDVS:  […]

I just saw a commercial for “Top Chef,” I think it was, where one of the judges says, “That was the best meal I’ve ever had.” No matter how many years and meals I have left to me, I’m pretty sure no meal will ever compare with Mom’s chili after a long day of cutting […]

Back when I didn’t have kids, I’d hear those who did say, “They grow up so fast,” and think it was just one of those mindless things people say to hear themselves talk. And it may well have been. But now I know it’s also one of the truest things ever said. I had two […]

Despite a very busy last weekend for the Reverend Doctor’s birthday, the Sweet Miss ViVi still had piles and piles of dirty clothes separated on our bedroom floor for staging before laundering.  And then on Monday morning, voila!  Clean slacks and t-shirts and undies and such! And she does this week after week, month after […]

Yesterday was the sixth birthday of my older son, the Reverend Doctor Vinoski Sweetness.  (His Uncle Steve gave him that rapper name when he was born.) Yes, it’s hard to believe six years have slipped by.  One thing you learn when you have kids is that the parents around you who constantly say they can’t […]

My mother-in-law Peggy closed the sale of her old house today, a former farmhouse dating in part from the late 1800s that she and my father- and brother-in-law brought back from the dead back in the 1980s. The house holds so very many memories for the whole family.  But it just didn’t make any sense for Peggy […]

Note:  I wrote this almost a year ago, for a newsletter I used to publish.  It seems a good time to revisit it. CHARLES ALBERT WELCH, JULY 4, 1943 — OCTOBER 10, 2009 Your Extreme Editor Says Goodbye To His Father-in-Law I won’t try to tell you all that much about Charles Welch.  He loved […]

Check out the motorcycle he built from the ground up — he welded his own frame and did the paint himself, among many other feats of gearhead supermanhood.

Thanks to my sister-in-law Theresa, I have a few pictures to share from my big day. The first is at the starting line with my niece and nephew, Lauren and Nate, who ran a two-man relay.  The last is once again with those two after we’d all finished, joined by Bug and The Reverend Doctor Vinoski Sweetness.