I'd like to take a moments to share a story that will tell you why I aspire to be the kind of father my BIL is.

Now, keep in mind, there are thousands of these stories and this is but one, but it's one that tells a lot about the man.

Thursday afternoon we were relaxing in the driveway in our semi-circle of camp chairs when young Jack ambled up and asked to go on a walk or play tennis or (insert activity here). It was around dinnertime and the BIL said "Sure. After dinner," and we went our seperate ways.

About an hour later, I walked outside to a DRIVING rainstorm, and our front gutter (over the garage) was pouring water over the rail by the bucket. So I got out my shitty semi-ladder to see if I could tell what the blockage was. Now keep in mind, it'd been raining since about the time we started eating.

Anyway, while I'm standing there on my shitty ladder under an umbrella (what a chick I can be), here come Jack and UnkTodd riding home on their bikes. So I holler over to them:

"How far'd you get before it started raining?"

UnkTodd replied "Oh, it was raining when we left."

I was flummoxed. I said "Why on earth would you start your ride in that kind of rainstorm?"

UnkTodd said "I don't know. It just seemed like it would be fun and when I asked Jack, he was 100% on board, so we did it."

I know that doesn't sound like much and it didn't cost anything, but that boy will be telling his grandkids about the time his daddy took him for a bike ride in a rainstorm that was so bad you couldn't see 200 feet in front of you, and it was AWESOME!

Sometimes it really is the little things that make the difference. Now if you'll excuse me, 1Doh and I are going to go do some white trash sledding down my neighbor's front yard in an Amazon box.