Teachers: Kids. Student: Dad

Last Sunday I decided to take my two girls to see Toy Story 3. It was a last minute choice and because of that we found ourselves rushing – the last thing I wanted to do after having been out the night before and running on little sleep.

So I had to hurry them to get ready, through lunch and into the car. Not an easy task for a couple of giggly girls whose attention span borders on a Red Bull addict with ADD. Needless to say, I was starting to get grumpy.

I hit the accelerator – as much as you can hit a minivan accelerator – and we took off, my grumpiness growing at every red light and slow driver.

To top it all off, it started to sprinkle on the way. Of course by the time we pulled into the parking lot, it started to pour. Really pour. Hard.

And since we were late, we had to park a good football field away from the entrance.

Great – not only would the chances of finding three seats together be impossible, we’d be sitting in a puddle of soaking wet clothes.

Grumpy hit the roof.

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie and sharing it with my kids. Now I wanted to go home and go back to bed.

“OK, girls,” I gritted through my teeth. “On three – one, two three!”

We bolted out the doors, into the downpour and started running.

And that’s just when my 8-year-old started laughing. Not just laughing. She was really howling. And then her 10-year-old sister joined in.

And within an instant, so did I.

So as we ran through the warm summer rain, splashing in puddles, dodging cars, laughing our heads off – my kids reminded me of another valuable life lesson – don’t sweat the small stuff. Sometimes life rains on you – you might not have an umbrella, but you do have six strong legs to run through it and three sets of healthy lungs to inhale sweet stuff and exhale the worries. So live it up. Laugh hard and laugh often.

And it turns out we did find three seats together. And we sat in our wet clothes, and we laughed and cried and hugged during another homerun from Pixar.

Thanks, kids. Thanks for teaching your ol’ dad. I love ya.

Me - 6. Birds - 0.

I don’t know whether to admire them or be pissed. I’ve torn down that nest at least five times and the birds keep coming back. I gotta give it to them. They sure don’t give up easy. Or they can’t take a hint. Does that make them tenacious or just stupid?

Anyways, I’m almost to the point where they’ve worn me down and I feel like just letting them have it. Is that what they’ve been counting on? That I’ll give in, get lazy, or that one day I’ll find it rebuilt, occupied with eggs or babies and have no choice but to let my soft side take over and let them stay?

Nope. They have to go. I’ll teach them a lesson in tenacity. I’ll teach them who pays the mortgage on this house. Me. (For now anyways.)

I can’t have the mess, the poop, the scaring of the people who are going to be coming to my front door to deliver my oversized check when I win some sweepstakes. (People still do do that, don't they? Say yes. Please, say yes.)

I’m off to evict once again.

My name is Nate. And I'm a homewrecker.

Ok – I have to get this off my chest. The guilt is eating me up.

Today I stepped out onto my porch to find it covered in little twigs and scraps of this and that. Being the clever fellow that I am, I immediately knew to turn to my right where our porch light was – and yes, there I discovered an in-progress bird’s nest.

Now don’t get me wrong – especially from a previous rant about birds – I love the little guys…and gal birds. I enjoy their songs, their lovely colors, their flitting about. I just don’t like when they poop on my property. Especially garage doors and front porches.

So, the nest had to go.

And if birds could swear, I know I would have gotten an earful. They perched right close by in a tree and shot me evil little bird eyes and chirped angrily away while I tore down the home they’ve been building together for their soon-to-be little bird family.

I apologized as I swept off the porch. Out loud. As if they could understand me.

Then I pointed to what has to be a stand of over 500 trees of varying sizes behind our back yard.

“Check it.” I said, “There are plenty of spots just right for the two of you, with much better views than my front porch. Now quit looking at me like that. And enough with the profanity! Do you throw up in your kids’ beaks with that mouth?”

There. I feel better now.

Because you never know.

I heard this phrase today and it made me recall a time when it never proved more true.

It was the summer of ’84, and my dad was packing up the car in the pre dawn hours for what would be about a three week trip out west through the Bad Lands, Mount Rushmore, Wyoming and Montana National Parks.

The last item to go into the trunk was an ax. Yep. An ax.

Dad – we’re not planning on building our own shelters, are we? I mean, we’re staying in hotels, right? Because my Walkman shouldn’t get wet.

Right.

And you’re not planning on killing and skinning a raccoon are ya? I’m sure there are plenty of places out there where we can buy ourselves an authentic-esque Davy Crockett coonskin cap, right?

Right.

And you’re not planning on taking us out into the deep woods and hacking us into little pieces, right. (Actually, I really didn’t say that one.)

So then what’s up with the ax?

Because you never know when you might need one.

Ahhh-huh. With that, I rolled my eyes like a punk teen would, climbed in the backseat and slapped in Pink Floyd’s The Wall cassette.

Cut to about two weeks later up in the mountain roads of Glacier National Park and a long line of braked cars. What could it be?

Well low and behold, a storm had just passed through these yonder parts and a tree done fell across the road.

And who came to the rescue of these tourists in distress? My Paul Bunyan Dad and his ax. He chopped away, moved the tree, and traffic proceeded to flow like the melting snow atop the surrounding Rocky Mountains.

You never know indeed.

The Flyboys

This is a piece I wrote on my dear friends that was part of the collectible program for a film I helped produce called, Detroit: Our Greatest Generation.


THE FLYBOYS: AN INFORMAL BROTHERHOOD OF WWII BOMBER CREWMAN

They gather the second and fourth Thursday of every month, easily recognizable in their blue ball caps with “WWII Flyboys” emblazoned in gold thread. A band of combat tested bomber crewmen, they fill every B17 and B24 position from nose to tail: Pilots and copilots, bombardiers and navigators, waist gunners and tail gunners. Their missions took them over Normandy on D-Day, through deadly excursions deep into Germany, and island hopping in the South Pacific. Some flew three missions, others endured over thirty. A couple survived months and months of POW camps. Others lived to tell about crash landings.

And although not a single one of these Flyboys served with each other during the Second World War, the shared experiences over six decades ago has forged strong bonds today. Bonds that have helped grow an informal “group” of only two to nearly twenty. So informal, in fact, they’ve even welcomed a couple infantrymen into the fold.

They are a community in and of themselves. One in which, if you haven’t faced a volley of machine gun bullets from enemy fighters or lived through a flak-filled sky – you don’t belong. Not that you’re not welcome. They genuinely appreciate younger generations showing an interest. In fact – some are amazed that what they did over 60 years ago means anything to anyone other than to those who were there.

But they know that you, on the outside, can’t really relate. So they turn back to their own and find comfort and support and an unspoken knowing. It doesn’t matter if the guy sitting next to them shared a cockpit or simply shared the experience of wearing a uniform – they have a special connection, a unique language and an understanding found only among the WWII veteran. They laugh. They cry. They brag. They confess. They reopen, and in turn, heal old wounds. And they become boys again - youthful and indestructible.

And when they leave and return to the communities that you and I belong to, the communities they sacrificed for, they are able to walk tall again, with pride and honor and a sense of relief or closure, until they return to sit by their comrades and commune in brotherhood, and together, take to the skies once again.

Milkawhaaa?

Sometimes it’s the little inside things we do as a family that I cherish so much. Recent example is based on one of those E-Trade spots with the babies. This particular one is features an awkward conversation between a little guy and a little gal after he forgot to show up or call the previous night. At the end she suspiciously asks, “And that milkaholic, Lindsey wasn’t over?” There’s a perfect beat of silence, right after which he responds with an innocent, “Lindsey?” Then suddenly another girl pops into frame, overhearing the accusation, and says, “Milkawhat?”

Man, we just all crack up.

And as for the aforementioned inside joke: Whenever someone says something that demands a dumfounded “huh?” or a “what are you talking about?” we all simply say – “Milkawhaaa?”

Funny stuff. To us anyways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEXZ2hfD3bU

I’ll take Kismet for $1200

Last week I sat down to tune into the evening coverage of the Olympics and was a little early so I caught the end of Jeopardy – which proved to be quite timely on my part.

It was a celebrity episode with Charles Shaughnessy, an actor from Mad Men, David Duchovny, from X-Files and recently, Californication, and Chris Matthews. One of the categories in Double Jeopardy was Ad Men. Huh, I thought. I just might know some of these answers. It turns out I was more than familiar with one of them.

Duchovny: I’ll take Ad Men for $1200

Trebek: In a 2004 ad, Stephen Colbert was looking for Mr. This, GM's fictitious mechanic

Duchovny: Who is Mr. Goodwrench?

Holy crap! That’s our campaign! My partner Jeff and I (again if you’re hiring: www.nateandjeff.com) came up with this while working at Leo Burnett Detroit, and needless to say, it’s been the highlight of our career so far. Colbert was a genius to work with, and of course, hilarious. The campaign lasted for two years, we did a ton of great spots, had a blast working on it and it proved to be extremely successful. And then the client, in their infinite wisdom, pulled the plug. Just before Colbert really hit it big. Brilliant.

Oh, well. At least I can brag about becoming a Jeopardy question…pretty cool. And the fact that I just happened to have caught it that evening. Kismet.