The rest of that main refrain for all country music fans is recited like the pledge of allegiance in chorus – “and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”  Credits to Thomas Rhett and his hit single.

This anthem resonates with me.  The track was released 2 years before COVID but subsequently became a pandemic battle cry.

Today was a day that had me in lock step with Thomas…

After my son got home way too late from work, so much so I was drafting his 2 week notice letter while he was driving home, I told him to get to bed and he could deliver said notice when he woke up (the time stamp on that exchange was around 12:30 this morning).  He did just that and then we were off to a professional golf tournament with a dear family friend.

We walked around for a bit and my son said this could have been you – maybe on my best day – if I managed to string together many, many best days for a remarkable period of time.  Between the three of us, you had one stand out college football player, one walk on college golf player, and one tennis player who had opportunities to keep going. I have not swung a club in over three years because life changes and I mostly wouldn’t change it for the world.  If I did take a swing, it would only be with a PING (inside golf talk).  At any rate, we had a crew standing next to us on one green and they were hustling a wager amongst themselves.  The golden ticket centered on one of the pros making a long putt.  My son’s looking at me during this jaw fest so I finally said “fellas none of them [pros] are going to make their putts because they aren’t going to chase it when they don’t have to.”  I would have won if I wagered.

After the tournament, I checked in with some other dear friends of ours.  I was mostly interested in seeing the brand new car they had purchased!  The scary part was they needed to purchase a new ride after an accident so I was thankful I was only talking new cars with them. 

I love autos and I’m just now realizing my son drives the newest vehicle in our family?!  Wow life does change…

In one week my oldest will effectively drive the newest vehicle we own off into the sunset.  Well that’s not entirely true since I made him quit his job and gas isn’t free!  One of my buddies as it turns out now leads an innovative branch where my son will soon attend so I’ve still got eyes on him! Life is changing and for the most part I agree with Thomas Rhett.  Through tragedy and triumph and all the in between where most of us spend our time, the daily adjustments are just that.

And then I pause on these lyrics…

I remember the day I told my Daddy and Mama

You’re gonna have a grandkid, yep

From Uganda, that’s right, we’re adopting

And she is the cutest little girl that you’ve ever seen

Well I was wrapping my head around being a dad

A big wrench got thrown in the plans we thought we had

Now Lauren’s showing, got one on the way

Yeah that’s two under two, hey, what can I say?

Life changes and I mostly wouldn’t change it for the world.

As full disclosure, I am primarily a Calibri guy when it comes to note applications like Word and Docs but lean more towards Arial when using Excel or Sheets. And I’m partial to 11 as my font size.

According to Shaun Wallace, a doctoral candidate in computer science at Brown University, my font style and size are likely the reasons this blog has not gone viral :-).  For the majority of my older readers, that is, those over 35, my typeface apparently is why you read so slowly.  Here is the link to the research study, aptly titled “Towards Individuated Reading Experiences.”  The basic metric for the study was words per minutes, or WPM, and each study participant was measured on 5 different fonts.  In all, 16 different fonts were used, with appropriate experimental controls for things like order effects.  The variance in WPM was huge, observing some 35% faster reading speed in a participant’s fastest font (314 WPM) compared to that same person’s slowest font (232 WPM, on average).  Here are the 16 typefaces measured in the study:

The findings were conclusively inconclusive – there is no BEST font and reading habits and preferences are fairly personalized – font optimization was not demonstrated.

There is a new push in public education for what is called the Science of Reading.  In the state of Texas, all kindergarten through third grade teachers are expected to complete required training related to this new initiative.  My wife and I attended an awards ceremony on Thursday night for seniors who stood out for curricular and/or extracurricular accomplishments and each honoree was invited to share remarks on an inspirational teacher.  A prevailing theme from these testimonials was the belief that, for these talented high schoolers, their teachers taught them as students yet talked to them as thought partners.  It was a great evening, and quite honestly, the antithesis of what easily could have defaulted to a hubristic ho hum affair.  The recognized teachers were prideful for sure but it was obvious this was a cup-filling event for them.  Many have said you can’t pour from an empty cup and this night was special in witnessing the fill up.     

Tonight is prom night for my oldest and my wife and I are taking turns waking each other up.  I suspect this senior dance is practice for what lies ahead for us with our college bound first-born.  I’m thankful for all the teachers that have influenced his path as well as so many others.  I’m thankful for all these same teachers that “talked” to him because more often my speeches fell on deaf ears I suspect.  And most importantly, now that I know a bit more about the science of reading and typeface impact, I need to get my younger son to crack the code so I can text with various font!  My first note in Garamond will be “It’s time to get home son!”

Happy Mother’s Day to all you matriarchs and caregivers!