2025

On Friday, we had a niece and a cousin graduate from high school (Go Lions!), and I couldn't help but think that in seventeen short years Dylan will be doing the same. Regina and I will be on our hover-walkers, because we'll be too old to stand, and Dylan will be listening to (or giving) a cliched valedictorian's speech on the same football field where I, as a 140 pound offensive lineman, cheered on the mighty Lions from next to the Gatorade cooler.

It'll be the year 2025 (hence the hover-walker), so the theme will be "A Quarter-Century of Memories," and the key-note speaker will be someone who both understands the new technologies (x-ray vision goggles and rocket shoes!), but will remind the graduates that, cool as it is to fly around and see through clothes, they should never forget the friends they've made and always believe in their drea ... blahblahblah.

One of my more unusual habits (according to me) always percolates this time of year. Every May, while I'm out irrigating, I compose a graduation speech. It's usually very clever and meaningful and is one that will be remembered for years to come. It'll be much like 1991's commencement speaker, who wore a purple suit and sang, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" over and over, but without singing or crazy clothes.

Each evening, as I move swing-pipes around risers and roll wheellines sixty feet, I add a little more to my speech. In a week or two I have a full five minute presentation, complete with music and lasers. By the following week, usually a day or two before graduation, I've completely forgotten the inspiring wisdom I'd intended to impart.

Although a psychologist would probably argue otherwise, I absolutely do NOT want to give a speech at graduation. Ever. I do NOT have fantasies about replacing a laryngitis-struck speaker because graduation cannot proceed without an awesome speech from a pillar of the community. I make up speeches out of boredom and for the same reasons I think I can learn to play the harmonica or why I spend more time thinking about palindromes (my favorite: a slut nixes sex in Tulsa) than hay prices.

Whoever speaks at Dylan's graduation had better start thinking of an original and great speech now, and he or she better do a good job, because I'll be there, in my shiny silver space outfit, wearing x-ray goggles, hanging on every word.

Ivan the Entertaining

We're at a funny stage right now with Dylan (usually funny-weird, sometimes funny ha-ha). She's walking, true, but changes in terrain, footwear, or climate drastically effect her mobility. On laminate flooring with bare feet, she's a whirling dervish. Sometimes she even breaks into a run. But throw some sandals on her or put out a throw rug and she becomes, literally, physical comedy.

Dylan is also expanding her vocabulary. That's not entirely true; she hasn't picked up any new words lately, but she makes some nice stabs at repeating what we say. It always comes out as gibberish, and she sounds remarkably like the Swedish Chef, which is really funny. She's also learned that loud grunts and squeals are a great way to give direction. If we turn the pages to Go, Dog, Go too slowly (e.g. in time to read every page), she'll let us know by grunting. If we skip pages or breeze through the book too quickly, she'll scream.

Aside from trying to mimic what we say, she also tries to copy what we do. I put up a swing for her and she immediately learned to climb to the first step on our foot stool. She loves grabbing the wheel if we're taking a short trip in the truck (no farther than Medford), and running the blinkers ... and the wiper fluid, and the wipers, and the radio .... She's also getting good at using a fork. By "good," I mean she holds a fork with one hand and feeds herself with the other.

This walking, babbling, curious stage reminds Regina and me of one thing: drunk people. Or, more precisely, living with Dylan is like having and old, Russian, drunk for a roommate. Cute and cuddly one minute (like all drunk Russians), belligerent and ornery the next. Dylan stumbles around, demands things by pointing and screaming (food, toys, books), and makes us guess what she wants, falls into joyful dance when we get it right, then farts and passes out in blissful slumber.

I guess the fun part is that her behavior reminds us of our college days, except when Dylan falls asleep, we don't write "smelly" across her forehead. Yet.

Baby Bonds

When a nurse hands you a prescription for your baby's croup, and offhandedly mentions that, "The steroids might make her a little moody," take that to heart.

To be fair, it might not have entirely been the steroids that turned Dylan from a wild thing to an uber-wild thing. First, she is often outrageous in public settings. Attention in from strangers is her caffeine. Attention from waitresses in Thai restaurants is her Red Bull. Second, she may have been rejoicing the fact that she received a clean bill of health (minus the croup) for her ear infection. Or, third, she may have been a little giddy, having just been in her first automobile accident. Yeah, some dillweed pulled out in front of Regina and turned his Toyota pickup into a hood ornament for the Pilot. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the crash may have left Dylan feeling invincible.

But I think it was the 'roids.

I'm not trying to give steroids a bad rap. They're great for lots of things: hitting the long ball, sprinting faster than Big Brown, creating a mass between your head and shoulders that does not resemble a neck, or, shrinking those pesky giant testicles. And, they're also great for getting rid of the croup.

Dylan laughed and giggled and made her presence known to everyone at Ali's Thai Kitchen. At one point, I looked up from our chicken curry and asked, "Where's Dylan?" Then we heard the shrieks of delight from the kitchen and figured everything was okay. "Pass the Tom Yum," Regina said.

We only had to give three doses of the "juice," and, by the following day, Baby Godzilla had calmed down (relatively) and now is just a boogery, wild, ex-steroid user. Like Jose Canseco or Barry Bonds, but with less whining.

Hodeo Dodeo

Did you know that the name of the rodeo grounds in Etna is the "Pleasure Park"? It's an unusual name, for sure, and I like to think that when the old rodeo arena drifted away in the big flood, the Board of Directors opened up the naming of the new facility to the local schools. And, after tallying up the votes, "Pleasure Park" narrowly beat out "Dirt Field," and "Rodeo Rotunda."

Kids always come up with the best names. When I was a director on the rodeo board, we'd hold an annual contest at the local elementary schools to name the rodeo parade's theme. My favorites: "Hodeo Dodeo, Let's Have A Rodeo," and, "Strawberry Dirt." I voted for them both, and they lost by a margin of 8:1.

This is just a long way of telling you that this last weekend was full of rodeos for the Eastside Gang. Lacy was in her final high school rodeo and the May Rodeo was on Sunday. We took Dylan to both. Remember, Dylan is no rodeo rookie; in fact, she spent a majority of her weekends last summer snuggled inside a Baby Bjorn, watching bucking bulls and fast horses. That did little to prepare us for the '08 rodeo season.

Now that Dylan is both mobile and in love with animals, the rodeo grounds were like a giant amusement park for her. We had to pry her tiny, but unusually strong, fingers from the fencing around the bucking horses. I think if we walked away, gone to the Lion's Club booth for a Lion Burger and a Coors, she still would have been clinging to the top rail of the fence, saying, "Hor-seee," when we returned. The bull pen was a little more problematic because once she saw the bulls -- "Mooooo," -- she wanted to crawl in there with them. Luckily, Donny, the bullfighter, brought his dog and that gave her something else to maul.

Between bulls, horses, dogs, a shiny crown on the queen, daycare buddies, and lots of dropped food to nibble on, Dylan was in Seventh Heaven at the Pleasure Park. She went to bed early on Sunday night and was asleep as soon as her head hit the crib, immediately dreaming of eight second rides and strawberry dirt.

Keeping Up With the Hannas

Tonight, as I write this, Dylan is in her crib, wearily mumbling, "Hiiii Ah-ki," (translation: Hi, horse) too exhausted to sleep. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for our baby, starting with her first steps, followed by, but not related to, her first black eye, then her first birthday (and party), visits from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and finally, today, her baptism (and party).

Needless to say, the Eastside gang are all a little rummy. In the past few days, I've tentatively stepped into Corrigan's for the first time in a year, stayed up past my bedtime on three consecutive nights, neglected my work on the ranch, been sunburned, learned that Bruce Jenner is the dad on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," and have stuffed myself with Brazilian food and light beer.

While her parents are a little frayed around the edges, Dylan has handled it all with grace. She actually smiled when the baptism water hit her head (and stuck out her tongue to catch a falling drop). She then waved to the congregation like a prom queen. She buttered up her grandparents with over the top cuteness, and opened all her gifts with just the right amounts of glee, appreciation, and surprise. And she still found the time to prepare for the 4 Meter Walk in Beijing this summer.

And now, finally, we've turned out the lights and the party's over. If I stay up another fifteen minutes, it'll make four late nights in a row (unheard of since my college days). Dylan is quiet in her bed now, getting her beauty rest and, most likely, fully expecting another huge family gathering in her honor by tomorrow afternoon. We'll keep working on pronouncing "horse," and will keep practicing walking. And if Bruce Jenner wants to leave trash-TV and make an Olympic comeback, Dylan will be there, in China, ready to beat his ass.

Portland Tour Guide

Last weekend, the Eastside Gang packed up and took a trip to Portland. How nice, you might be thinking, Portland's lovely this time of year. And you'd be right: it is. But this weren't no Forced Family Fun -- this was business. Okay, Regina was in a bachelorette party, but that's business, right?

It was Daddy-n-me time for Dylan and we did it right. Sort of. I took her to the zoo and Dylan got a nice look at the parking lot as we passed the hoards of people lined into the street. So we skipped the zoo and went downtown. I figured, I love Powell's Bookstore, Dylan might too. At least she could have fun pulling books from the shelves. So we parked behind the store and I waited while Dylan napped. And I waited, and waited, until finally I just felt like a bookstore stalker and left. So I decided to take Dylan swimming ... one of Bean's favorite activities. The sign read, "Pool Closed," but I didn't really believe it. We played on the the top step until we were informed that, yes, the pool really was closed because it had been shocked with a massive dose of chlorine. We left and took a nice clean water bath as I checked Dylan for chemical burns.

What does a good father do when everything he's tried has failed? I'll be sure to ask one when I meet him; instead, I took my daughter to Hooters.

I'll tell you this: bringing a baby to Hooters draws more attention than a puppy at the park. And the place was hopping -- hula hoops, loud music, wall to wall televisions, balloons, and maybe even a waitress or two. Dylan was in sensory heaven. The waitresses ogled over Dylan and passed me more napkins as I gorged myself on hot wings and Guiness. "She's a cutie," one hot-pantsed waitress exclaimed, "Where's her mommy?" Sensing an opportunity for some free hot wings, I wiped the bleu cheese from my chin and choked out, "There was a terrible fire ..."

Okay, I didn't say it, and the only thing any waitress said to me, aside from,"Here's another napkin," was, "Maybe she'll be a Hooters' girl someday." I looked at the sheer joy on Dylan's face as she tried to eat her balloon. Yes, girl who wrote her name on my napkin for no apparent reason, maybe she will.

Bo and Che

Sometime during my fifth or sixth year of high school, I took a course called "CHE II." To this day, I have no idea what "CHE" means. Maybe I was in my revolutionary phase and mistakingly thought it was a course on Che Guevara, or maybe I thought the school secretary misspelled PE II, but for whatever reason, I took it. Obviously I'd passed CHE I and felt I needed a little more CHE-ing.

The two assignments I remember from the semester both reflect poorly on my parenting skills. The first was "Baby Egg." Modern high school students pack around realistic looking infants which can be programmed to be anything from colicky to constipated. In the late 80s, baby technology was still in its infancy and, for our parenting unit, we were supposed to care for a raw egg as if it were our own baby. I put mine in my jacket pocket and immediately broke it.

The second assignment was a letter to our first child, and mom kept this until the birth of Dylan. The outside of the coffee-stained envelope reads: "To my first child -- Bo Rowdy Hanna." It was written at the time when Bo Jackson was kicking-ass as a Raider, so I thought the name to be perfect. Obviously, I was expecting a boy.

I have the letter in front of me now and I'll share some pearls of wisdom from a seventeen year old. First, under no circumstances would I be strict. I decided that letting "you make your decisions on your own" would be wise and that I'd be around, somewhere, for support if little Bo needed it. Secondly, I wrote that I wouldn't set any expectations for Bo Rowdy. Even as a high school senior with a mushy brain, I saw the flaw in this thinking, so I changed it to, "I'm not going to set many expectations," because, I didn't want to "interfere a lot."

I think I'd envisioned fatherhood much like raising a kitten. Set out a little food, a dish of water, and a litter box, and next thing you know, little Bo is graduating from high school and we're all so proud. I ended the masterpiece with, "I better jam. See ya in a few years."

Fortunately, a few years turned into eighteen. Barely enough time to correct some of my flaws in fathering logic, but my ideas about a hands-off approach seem pretty stupid now. Although, I do still like the name "Bo-Rowdy."

Well, I'd better jam.