Better than Valentine's Day

I am sooooooo glad my wife does not go in for Valentine's Day foolishness. Even if she did, she would likely forget about it because of something else in her life that happened on Feb. 14: the birth of her first son.

She and her first son have always shared a bond, the way boys and their mothers tend to do around here. I remember sitting in a dorm room at college. There were maybe five of us there -- four Ohioans and a guy from Long Island. The New York guy made a joke about the mother of the other guy. The other guy just glared at the New Yorker. The New Yorker didn't understand what was wrong. I explained to him that in Ohio, you don't make a joke about a guy's mother. That is strictly off limits.

Anyway, my son Joe turned 13 this morning. He didn't want to turn 13. He said he had so much fun as a kid, he didn't want to be a teenager. Join the club, kid.

The photo below shows Joe sitting on a big rock along the Ohio River. I think it's the same rock his great-grandfather was photographed sitting on about 80 or 100 years ago.