Becoming friends with your grown-up children: What a concept!

If you're a young parent, the thought of actually becoming your child's “friend” may seem like a weird, far-off concept.
But I'm here to tell you it can happen.
As they usually do on Sunday evenings, my oldest son and his wife came to our house for dinner yesterday. They've done so almost weekly for nine months now. It has become a comfortable tradition, something we all seem to enjoy.
Why is this such a big deal? Well, for starters my son and I went through a fairly tumultuous period from the time he was 14 or 15 until he left home at 19 to serve a mission for our church. As parents and teenagers often do, we shouted at each other on a regular basis.
Harsh words were said; feelings were hurt; tears were shed.

Of fathers and sons and golfing for life

Some people play golf for a living.
Some play it for life.
Count me as part of the latter. As I've already noted here, I took up the game when I was 14; now I'm 47 (hold on, let me get a calculator ...)  that's 33 years I've been chasing that little white ball around big, green pastures. And, oh, has it been fun.
It's funny, though. For years I felt golf was a great escape for me. Even though I wasn't that good (and I'm still not) I'd get out on the course and the cares of the world would drift away like a hard slice off the 1st tee (if you've played with me, you know what I mean). For the next few hours, even if I wasn't playing well, life was pretty good because even bad golf beats a good honey-do list on a Saturday afternoon.