We love children, but…….

If you figure I’m going to live to be 106, then I’m middle-aged. Let’s just say I’m getting old, but damn it I’m not old yet. I may look it and once in a while act it, but in my mind I’m still constantly active; though few other parts of my body can make the same claim honestly. Some days it seems as if I was on the torture rack when actually I was just bending over to pick up a dropped napkin or spoon or God forbid one of my wife’s collectable knick-knacks.

We love children. It’s very rewarding to help someone, first of all, who fully and almost always appreciates your help, as children do. It’s rewarding to watch and help them grow up and grow smart and perhaps even assist them to reach their goals in life. We just don’t want them around all the time.

I, like countless others my age or there-abouts have fed, bathed, changed or otherwise taken care of my parents children, my relatives children, my neighbors children, my own children, my wife’s children, my children’s children and my wife’s children’s children. People I didn’t even know were leaving their kids with me or at my place all the time, not to mention the number of adults around who needed watching lest they accidentally burn down the house or try to use the fine china for a juggling contest.

Quiet a few of us enjoyed having a houseful. Heck, I had to keep an eye on my own, one way or t’other, it was just as easy to keep after a dozen or so. In fact it was easier to watch many than one. The more the merrier I say. It may have cost me an extra case of pop and beer a week plus a few extra dogs and buns and burgers and wings and such; but these things were relatively cheap. This way I simply had to check on them every now and then, of course some more than others, as they were doing things in groups of 2 or 3 or more. I still had to make sure that one of them didn’t eat the Monopoly pieces or badly need changing, adults included.

Over the course of my life I have at one time or another been responsible for thousand’s of children, plenty of whom I didn’t even know. Not to mention at least the same number of adults who required constant or some kind of supervision.

Love children? Of course. I also like to read, play poker, go golfing, drink beer, watch football (Go Steelers!), talk to my wife, listen to music, search the web for interesting or funny stories and yes watch an occasional TV show.

We love children. However, I am officially retired from “watching people”. I’ve put my 50 years in and have the universally recognized “Gold Watch” wrinkle lines to show for it. Welcome one and all, mi casa et su casa; but watch your own. Some of us feel we have earned the break.

Dan Mc