“Peace and quiet” was the totality of my father’s birthday list when he was my age. As a kid, I viewed his curt response as awfully grumpy but, now that I’m as old as the Rolling Stones’ hit single “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” I see his...

“Where is this place anyway?” Lala asked as I maneuvered the minivan down a muddy incline west of town. In a sense, my wife and I were traveling back in time. My father had shipped me most of the remaining vinyl records from my youth, and now I had to...

Maybe it’s guy thing, but I’m not good at treating myself, especially during the holidays. However, when I saw that a friend of a friend was offering “pay what you wish” Thai massages, my lust for a good bargain outweighed my faux-selflessness, so I phoned...

“Gonna be sick,” London called from the hallway, so I rose from the couch where I had just sat down with my wife Lala. She had been home with our son for two days, so the least this dad could do was tend to our infirm child. London and I rushed to the...

My wife Lala and I have a game we like to play. When we hear songs from our childhoods on the radio, we list the bands we’d brave the crowds to go see today. Her tastes lean toward a screaming Ted Nugent, mine in the more hummable direction of Bad Company. Growing up...

Santa Fe has some very cramped parking lots, one of which I navigate every Thursday with a minivan full of teenagers. We grab coffee and chai at Downtown Subscription—the best place in town to handle a gaggle like us—as a treat after visiting Wood Gormley Elementary,...

“Think I should ask someone for a ride?” my wife Lala asked. Our car had broken down on our way to the airport, and we were panicking on pueblo land. The woman at the gas station said the closest taxis were idling 40 miles south in Albuquerque. My daughter...

“Dad, can we go to Forks?” my daughter Poppy asked. I knew she meant business because she added “please,” a word she’s just about eliminated from her teenage lexicon. “No way.” We were still safe in our home in New Mexico, poring...

When I was in college, my friends and I would spend hours (some of them sober) poring over lyrics in songs, trying to decipher what Michael Stipe was mumbling on Radio Free Europe. For some reason, REM spoke to us like the Holy Spirit, and the best decoding happened...

The academic year is dying a slow death and the final book on my syllabus is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For those who don’t roll with the academic gangstas, Twain’s novel is one of the most controversial in American Literature, topping the banned book list....