More people need to watch the shows I grew up on. Or the shows my parents grew up on....The shows I shared with my grandpa in the years prior to his death..... We need to get back to watching Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, Welcome Back Kotter, Dukes of Hazzard, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunker/All in the Family, Eight Is Enough, Diff'rent Strokes, A-Team, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Cheers, Magnum P.I., Knight Rider, Three's Company, Perfect Strangers, Punky Brewster, Andy Griffith Show, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Laughin, Brady Bunch, M*A*S*H, The Love Boat, WKRP in Cincinnati, Fantasy Island, Dallas, One Day at a Time, Charlie's Angels, Trapper John M.D., Bonanza, Benson, Mork & Mindy, and who can forget Saturday Morning Cartoons? There are a ton of shows I watched that I haven't listed here. There are probably a ton I didn't watch or maybe never knew existed back in the day.

 

But we need to get back to that..... Those were family times. We gathered as a family to watch the M*A*S*H finale.... and wept as one. We gathered to watch the Dynasty cliffhanger and we asked that age old question as a nation.... WHO shot J.R.? (Lost a bet to my sister on that one btw.)

 

You really wanna know why this country is erupting into chaos? We don't do family time anymore. Not as a nation. We don't Universally gather to watch the Walton's Thanksgiving Special or a Dukes Of Hazzard Christmas. We don't gather, in our homes, in a universal "Yes". We don't gather with our kids and our parents and just spend that time NOT absorbed in the politics, religion and he said, she said of the world. I know some of you do. When I was with my second wife, I insisted on family time. I believed then (and I believe now) it was important for us to spend time together and time apart. It was important that my wife and I have time AWAY from my son, to just be us for a little bit AND I believed then (as I believe now) it was important to be at every practice and every game and every scout meeting my son participated in. I believed in He and I having father-son moments with ice cream, homework and The Wiggles or whatever show he was into at the time and I believed it was a great thing when his mother took him on her walks in the evenings. But we had our time. Not a day went by without my son going to bed KNOWING he was richly and deeply loved by both his mother and by me.

 

He graduated with honors. He is now a United States Marine. Even though my ex and I split when he was 12, and she forbid me to see him after that, I can say unequivocally that I contributed greatly to his current life. I loved him. I guided him, I educated him, I supported him, I disciplined him and I encouraged him. His mom and I had many differences, and she did not like it when I wanted to spend time "away from him". She saw it as more a slam against him than needing to get to know her and experience her and bond with her as something other than his parents. So, we argued about that. But I will never say, in my life, that she didn't love him. That's not in question. She loved him different than I did and it took me a while to figure that out, acclimate to it. But she loved him. And so did I. And no matter how much SHE and I fought, my SON never doubted our love for him. He did ask me once if we were arguing because of him. He even apologized for getting in trouble that day. I told him flat out that no matter what his mom and I didn't agree on, we both agreed that we loved him. On the day that his mother took him away for what turned out to be the last time I would see my boy, I held him as he cried, not wanting to go. And I told him no matter how much time passed, no matter what was said or done. No matter where he was or where I was, I was going to love him until the day I died. And I also told him that I was his dad until he told me otherwise. It took a couple years, but I realized I lied to him that day, unintentionally of course. But I lied just the same. When I told him I was his dad until he told me differently, it was a lie. I am his dad because my heart tells me I am. Even if, at 19 now, he were to tell me he was a man and didn't need me to "play daddy" or whatever, he's my son. And will be till I die.

 

And I will always have the memories of the family time we shared, just as my parents shared it with me as a child and their parents did likewise with them.

 

We've lost that. Can we please get it back? Please?

Till THAT time, this blog continues to be brought to you by the letters W, E and H and by the number 2.