Papa's Day Off

This weekend I had a dream about Dad, my oldest took the day off today and I'm writing on a lap desk Dad made for us, so I thought I'd share a little thing my Dad used to do.


Every now and then he would call us out of school and take us for a walk in the woods. He called it Family Time, though my Mom never came with us.

I never knew if it was because he had had a particularly harrowing experience, or he just wanted to spend time with his boys.

We would go to La Baugh Woods or the Forest Preserve off Milwaukee and Elston, near Superdawg.

I loved those days. We called them hikes, but they were probably just a short walk in the woods. We were young and he captured the time. Sometimes he could be very wise.

Life moves pretty fast and we stopped to look around once in a while, so we never missed it.