Mitch Garver Responds!
Last summer I wrote a blog post called An Open Letter to Mitch Garver of the Minnesota Twins. It’s about Silas, my 7-year-old son, and his obsession with the major league baseball player.
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Life Stories
Reflections on my upbringing, fatherhood, and trying to be a better person.
A Peewee, a Plymouth, and a Tired Pops
I was 12, a Peewee hockey player on the A team. Honestly, though, I sat the bench a lot that year. I was one of the younger kids. We didn’t have enough players for a B team, otherwise I would have been on it. It’s not that I was a terrible player. It’s just that
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The Day I Carved My First Turkey
I used to watch my dad carve the turkey. He had one of those electric knives that looks like a mini hedge trimmer. I can’t wait to do that someday, I thought to myself.
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Halloween,1987
I asked my mom to dig up this photo. I wanted to show it to you because I remember this particular Halloween more than any other. That’s me in the middle—my sister Erica on the left, Ingrid on the right. It’s 1987, the year my sister Greta was born. I remember this Halloween because there
My First-Ever Performance
Sunday morning church service. I am 15 and it’s my performance debut. Pastor Joe prays before the offering is received. Upon “amen” I’m supposed to start a picking pattern on my acoustic guitar that will accompany my sisters singing.
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First Responder
I am the first responder to a deceased cat. Hit and run. It is unrecognizably flattened, but I’m pretty sure it belongs to Cindy, my next-door neighbor. The difficult part is I don’t know for sure, so I need to ask her to come out and, you know, identify the body.
Paper Route or Dairy Cow?
I like to tell people I used to be in the newspaper business. It sounds respectable and it’s true. Yes, ok, fine, it’s also true that I only delivered the paper, but still…I technically was in the biz.
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Part 2: Why I Don’t Tour (Very Much)
In last week’s blog post Why I Don’t Tour (Very Much), I gave a long explanation that basically boiled down to, I don’t tour because I don’t like to. But some of you responded and asked if I’d give a more in-depth answer on the “why” part. Here it is.
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Why I Don’t Tour (Very Much)
Imagine you wanted to be a pilot. The idea of flying, seeing the world like a bird — you couldn’t get it out of your mind. So you went to college, you studied flying, you learned everything. Got your million hours or whatever. People knew you as a pilot. They’d look at you with those
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Don’t Finish a Race Like This
In junior high I ran cross-country. It’s that sport where you run on golf courses, all the while wishing you were golfing. I remember this one race. Park Rapids, Minnesota. Hills everywhere. I was running a pretty decent race. My lap times were good, and I felt strong. But with less than 50 yards to
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