I was born in 1975. The era of folk songs was wrapping up. The Vietnam war was over, the youngest hippies were starting to grow up and become adults. The age of the Baby Boomer was accelerating at a rapid pace. Modern folk music was born out of political rebellion of the 1960s. It included artist such as Bob Dylan, The Beetles, Peter, Paul and Mary and many, many others.

It was melodically slower, much different than be-bop and the Elvis inspired Rock and Roll of the 1950s. It contained hard hitting messages about politics and culture of the time. Just because I missed it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t aware, it was all around me. My parents radio station was perennially tuned to what I would have called ‘soft rock’ of the era. We were not allowed to touch it without consequences.

I have heard this song a million times on the radio. In fact, when I was in grade school our music teacher even made us learn the lyrics during music class. It’s funny, you can know something and pay no attention at the same time. It wasn’t until much later that I actually realized that this was actually a song about my life.

I was in my second professional posting. I was actually working at the same company and building as my Dad. Even so, it could be weeks in-between seeing each other. I remember talking with my uncle one time and he was saying how nice it was that we could have lunch. I played it off by saying something like “yeah’ however I was kind embarrassed inside. We never had lunch together, let alone barely see each other.

My Dad invited me to join his elk hunting party and I made some excuse about how I didn’t have the time off accumulated. The group was primarily all people that worked in that office. That was the one and only time I got invited. The truth is, I thought that I would get invited again in the future since we were all peers of sorts. It was only this year that was the problem.

I moved on to another job the following year and got even more involved in my career. Now, I didn’t just not have time to go elk hunting but it seemed like I was barely home. Not only was I not spending time with my parents but I was also too busy working for my own wife and kids.

I didn’t just come across being a work first, father by accident. I had a good example. He was travelling for work a lot when we were kids. Occasionally, when he was home my brother and I would ask him to play catch with us. I remember how special I felt that he would actually do it. It was so rare that he would stop doing things that he was doing and just spend time with us.

The other day, my parents came by and helped us take a load to the beach. Really, they wanted to see this place that we were about to purchase. But, that is OK. He left a tarp behind by accident and I made a plan to drop it off with other errands that I needed to run. I really had a full day of packing planned but I ended up sitting down for almost two hours talking about computer problems and other things because Mom was gone.

The song Cat’s in the Cradle played in my head as I was sitting on the couch. I don’t know what it is with my drive to do things but it is very difficult for me to stop or postpone what I had planned to spend time with other people. It is not just my Dad but my Wife and kids and anyone else for that matter.

My wife is very fond of saying that I will never say on my death bed that I wished I had spent some more of my life working. That is probably true. In the same turn, I am not sure that I am going to say that I regret doing what I thought was the right thing to do. It has provided the life that we live and giving my family an opportunity to be who they want to be, not stuck in limited options. That being said, I do recognize that I need to be a more attentive and flexible.

One of my days off my wife insisted that I make a dinner date with my grandmother. This is another one of those times where I have been stressed about packing and the move. It turned out to be a really nice visit. I am pretty sure that there are not going to be too many more of those, especially when I don’t make the time. No promises but I am going to work on that.

End Your Programming Routine: