Flashback

When the boys were in their preteen and early teen years, Cory would take up their challenge to play “Around the World” at the basketball goal attached to our garage. Cory, a basketball player in his own right, played by the rules: you earned a win fair and square; no trophies for showing up here. Games involved wagers with imaginary money, and to this day, I think one of our sons owes Cory several million basketball bucks.

When our older son was a young teen, the inevitable happened. He beat his dad and documented the hard won victory with a celebratory lap around the outside of the house. During our last visit with our grandsons, Cory shared that story with our grandsons. Dillon, not yet a teen, and Parker, four years younger, had been playing “Around the World” with Pops in their driveway for several years, but now the stakes were higher. Pops had dangled a victory lap in front of them.

Shortly thereafter, that very same day, I heard a squeaky preadolescent boy’s voice as he made his first  victory lap around his house. Dillon had bested Pops and, in his best imitation of his own dad’s celebration thirty years earlier, was letting the world know that the baton had been passed.

Thirty years: the blink of an eye!

A Summoning Stone: the Second Generation

It seems appropriate that Book Two: Vision Caster of the Summoning Stone series would have a connection to generations. Indeed, fifty years after Danielle discovers the magic of the summoning stone, her grandchildren return to Hope via the transforming power of the same stone.

In creating the sequel to the first Summoning Stone book, Book One: the Prophecy, I began to see how people of all ages and stages discover the same timeless strategies for living a life that has meaning. In Book One: The Prophecy, Danielle and Kirk find the Tree of Truth and learn "...each person must choose his own destination and the paths that lead to it." In Book Two: Vision Caster, Gabrielle and Jeffrey begin the maturation process to adulthood when they learn to sacrifice their own personal interests to help others.

I believe whether you have spiked green hair, thinning gray hair, or perhaps no hair at all, you share a universal desire to live life in a meaningful way.

Campaign Songs for Everyone

The recent discussion about the 2008 presidential candidates' selections for campaign songs makes me wonder if each of us might benefit from selecting a campaign song, so to speak, for our own lives: a song that would reflect our vision and speak to our values. It would be interesting to see if song choices divide out by generations. Could I find a title from the 21st century, or would I stick to the classic oldies? Would my kids go back to the Beatles or find a better fit with a song from a current artist? This discussion has the makings for a good party game.

And what if, like some candidates, we changed songs as our life circumstances changed? Would we be considered fickle or shallow for giving up on the values by which we hoped to be defined? Or even more interesting, would we be considered fickle or shallow for selecting new songs that reflect what others want us to be?

2008 New Year's Resolution: No Changes, Please.

I resolve that a legacy of 37 years will endure and make its mark on 2008: no changes please! As I replaced my desktop image to the latest family picture today, I discovered a template which I am determined to use for my remaining New Year's Eve resolutions: a .jpg image of 3 generations of Shaffers.

My MAC can do amazing things, but its flat screen can't possibly do justice to what lies inside a loving father and husband of 37 years, two grown sons-successful in their careers and relationships, and two grandsons who will reap the rewards of this legacy, if we allow it to endure through their maturation.

Somethings cannot be changed for the better. I resolve to look back and linger in the best moments of parenting and marriage that will, I suspect, survive and transcend any misguided efforts at improvement.

Do They Really Want to Hear My Voice?

Whose voice is heard by middle grade readers in their choice of fiction? Again,the problem of colliding generations surfaces. As a classroom teacher, I was always on the lookout for fiction that would engage preteen readers immediately, but would offer opportunities for meaningful discussion: the kinds of literature that, when selected by young people for their own personal reading, would have an enduring message subtly forged by action and realistic dialogue.

So, how does an occasionally croaky-voiced grandmother write fiction like that? Personally, I have found a satisfactory solution by breaking one of the cardinal rules of writing; I ask my son to read the work and "today it up." It's interesting that the very contrast in lifestyles that polarized us during his teen years, now brings our worlds together. He teaches me words like blogosphere and legit. In return, I teach him that age has nothing at all to do with chasing dreams.