Man Day

I love that I was born in 1980. I love that I've never known a time apart from electricity. I have no grudge against technology, other than it might be heating up the planet a bit. I like that I can drink coffee without hours of back-breaking labor. I can't farm. I kill houseplants regularly and in record-time. I love my Mac and iTunes and my car and my air conn and ice cubes and medicine and a million other things peculiar to our time. I live on the other side of the world from most people I know. You know how long it took to get here? 30 hours. HOURS. Not years, not months, not days. I don't even know what scurvy is, let alone have a fear of it from being caged in a wooden boat for 4 months crossing the Pacific.

With that said, there's so much we can learn from the past. For one thing, we no longer have rites of passage. You know, like slappin' mud on a 13 year old, sending him off in the woods and not letting him come back til he's killed something large and edible. It sounds barbaric, but at least a kid knew what was expected of him when he reached manhood. Nowadays, childhood sorta lazily flows into adolescence, which may or may not morph into manhood around the late 20s.

That's why I appreciate what I was allowed to participate in this past weekend. K2 turned 13, so we had a "man day." No women. Just older men eating together, go-karting and sharing advice.

Here's the present I gave K2:

You can't bring a present with curly bows and wrapping paper to man day. A plastic bag and duct tape - that's all you need. And yes, I am driving a manual with my left hand.

When we got to the go-kart track, we drew straws to determine our order off the starting line. K2 got automatic pole position cause it was his birthday.


And I got the shortest straw...


...but like any real man, I sucked it up and moved from last to 3rd due to my mad kart skills and two people spinning out in front of me.

Waiting in the pits like manly men...


After racing we headed off to dinner. Here's K2 eating meat...


...from this...


That would be a fish head. Just a fish head. There's not much that's more manly than knowing how to eat a fish head.

During dinner we all shared our "manly" advice with K2. Papa D asked us to write out a letter to K2 sharing our "wisdom." Here's Papa D reading his...

Of course, all this seriousness led to noogies...

...cause men can only be serious and sentimental for so long.

After dinner we went for ice cream. Here's K2 tackling his double cone...


...and here's the last man group shot of the night...