Five Ways to Tell if You Were Born in the 70s (#1)

You can't fool me.

You think you're old school, but you're not really old school, and I can prove it.If you can remember four of these five things, I might let you slide.

• Burger Chef - This was the burger joint of my youth. Nicer than McDonald's, not as good as Red Barn (mentioned here), but Red Barn served a wider variety of food. Burger Chef and his sidekick Jeff also gave away kick-ass toys with their fun meals.

• The Green Machine - Made a Big Wheel look like a Baby Bjorn with wheels. The Green Machine was hardcore. Two levers to steer the back wheels. Transportation to the emergency room sold separately.

• ABC Saturday nights - Spend all day playing with your friends, and get in by 9 to watch the Love Boat, followed up by Fantasy Island. The Plane! The Plane! (I mean, Tatoo must have worked at that resort for several years, yet he was always excited when the plane showed up - like he'd never seen a plane before)

• Wearing your shoes out of the shoe store - I don't think people do this any more. I remember my mom buying me a pair of Puma Clydes. Without hesitation, I put my old pro-keds in the Puma box and wore those new joints home.

• Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, "Live at Union Square" - Clearly a hip-hop touchstone. It's eerie to listen to a 17-year old Will Smith warm up the crowd. He couldn't have had any idea how large he'd become.

How'd you do?

Wrap it Up

Crying, inconsolable children. The clear sign that a dynamite vacation has come to an end.

Maya and Kevin were both extremely bummed that our Fenwick Island trip ended on Saturday. It took an emergency trip to the Candy Kitchen in Bethany to keep the wheels on the bus, so to speak.

If you've ever been on the Delmarva Peninsula, you know that the Kitchen always has the medicine. They're sprinkled all up and down Coastal Highway. (There are three in Bethany, including two on the same block).

We got the kids calmed down, but my day was just beginning. I thought I'd take a stroll to the Apple store to see what was cooking (heard they were launching some sort of 'communication device' this weekend.

Five hours later, I walked out with my phone, and all I had to do was buy my daughter a fart machine and a trick card deck from Spencer Gifts to reward her patience. Sounds like a deal to me.

Enjoy the video. The Prince song I used is one of my favorites. (I feel a 'purple post' coming on this week...)

B-Day

My son is 6. He is wreaking havoc with the r/c 4x4 he got for his
birthday. (yes I was the one who bought it, but that's not the point).

Out weather luck ran out as the clouds rolled in, but I managed to get
a little time in the 62-degree water (no, not a typo) to work on my
bodysurfing.

Most impressive? We went to Five Guys in Bethany and only split a
regular order of fries. This is no small feat.

Wish You Were Here...

...then I could split the cost of the beach house with you.

Where funnelcaking happens...

Yes. It's a sport.

Here Comes the Sun

...for a little while, at least. The water is "refreshingly cool," and we were treated to a surfing exhibition by the local boogie-boarders. And (amazingly), the kids slowed down enough to hold still for some Papa time. Also, Kevin dug up a ghost crab (no pic, unfortunately), and yelled "crab! crab!" at the top of his lungs as the poor fellow made his way (sideways of course) back into the ocean.

In it up to our....

We're here, and so are the clouds! After an uneventul drive down, we're in Fenwick Island, Del. for our annual family vacation. (It's actually the vacation before the vacation, since Meaghan's folks get a place down here in three weeks that makes our place look like a very well-appointed cardboard box). The place is really nice and half a block from the water, and we were able to get down to the beach for a little while before a thunderstorm rolled in. The rest of the family is due down in waves over the next couple of days, so hopefully we'll bear the brunt of Mother Nature's wrath before everyone else gets here.

And fortunately, the Peanut Butter Milkshakes taste great no matter what's going on in the sky.

Hoop Dreams Redux

Season's over, time for a retrospective. Nothing like a little Kurtis Blow in the background as you chart your hoops progress.

Oh Beautiful....

Happy 4th everyone. Independence day in Hockessin means a couple of things:

First, the Hockessin Neighborhood Relays. Each development puts together a team of kids, 6-14, and competes in three events: Softball Toss, Relay Races and Broad Jump. Our neighborhood doesn't have a lot of kids, so we generally don't do very well, but the kids have a great time.

Then there's a trip to Perkins for lunch, which is oddly packed on July 4th. The parade is in the afternoon down Old Lancaster Avenue, and the fireworks at Dusk. Because we live a the top of the hill, we can see the fireworks in both Swift Park (at the bottom of the hill) and in Kennett Square, Pa. (at the golf course) without leaving our front yard.

Whatever your tradition, enjoy the day, and take it easy on the hot dogs (have you ever seen how those things get made? I'm just sayin'...) UPDATE: I've been informed that the Deerfield community won 6TH PLACE in the broad jump! This is a big deal for a neighborhood with a total of like seven kids in it. Sappy video with Ray Charles music coming in a couple of hours.... UPDATE #2 - As promised...

Throwback of the Week - Chi-Town

One of my favorites. I got this 1968 >Luis Aparicio jersey last summer at the M&N store in Philadelphia. The color is >dead-on, right down to the buttons, and the small script >player name and year in the lower right hand corner is a throwback to the way baseball jerseys used to be labeled by the clubhouse equipment folks. I even love the Illinois Sesquicentennial >patch (that's 150 years, if you're wondering).