Category Archives: dad

Let Me Tell You About My Mom

dad, family, mom, personal, politics, rhetoric 2011.07.29 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Two days ago my mother turned 66 years old. I wish I could devote this blog merely to that fact, but present circumstances prevent me from doing so, and require me to focus on some of the less pleasant aspects of her current living situation. Mom, although certainly a strong and independent woman, always wished to be a homemaker. After my sister was born in 1966, Mom gave herself over entirely to parenting and homemaking. In my younger years Mom kept a small garden in…

Spyder T. Pussycat, 1996.11.??-2011.05.04

dad, family, personal 2011.05.04 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

On a cold, snowy December evening in 1996, my parents and sister and I were about to head out to do some shopping. When I opened the main door, which swung inward, I thought I might have seen something next to the screen door, but I didn’t think much of it. When I tried to swing that door outward, though, I realized I’d hit something, namely a tiny month-old kitten who was huddled next to the door, shivering her little tail off. We brought the…

Bad Timing

dad, family, personal, Uncategorized 2009.10.24 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

The medical issues this family has had over the past two years have been troublesome. I was hoping that at some point I would be able to write in detail here about Dad’s death last year, but there are some outside considerations that are preventing me from saying much about what happened to him. For now, I drive past the hospital where he died (and where I was born so long ago) every time I go to and from work, and every time I see…

Fire Them All

dad, family, politics, Uncategorized 2009.03.29 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

GM CEO Wagoner to step down at White House Request (AP via Yahoo! news) I have the vaguest of recollections of Ronald Reagan firing the air traffic controllers in 1981; I remember it happening, but I had no idea what it all meant. (I was five years old at the time.) I do remember that Dad was deeply upset by it, and it was one of the many things Reagan did that eventually drove Dad to avoid politics and become bitterly cynical about them. I…

It’s Always Something

dad, family, personal, Uncategorized 2009.03.22 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Although I’m not the strongest believer in numerology and related sciences, I do think that they deserve paying attention to, and that made this past week and a half so odd for me. It started with the second Friday the 13th in as many months a couple of weeks ago, then moved straight on to Pi Day (remember, I was always much better at maths than English growing up, so I still note Pi Day and Mole Day and all of those things), and then…