QUALITY FATHER-SON TIME

It was with a certain amount of jealousy that I read the Yakimaniac’s post about going skiing in August with his son. I thought to myself, “Now there is a man who knows how important it is to have quality father-son time! That’s a good thing!”

My best father-son time with Aaron and Caleb came when they were younger; before college. I coached both of them in baseball and football. We spent a lot of time together in sports activities. Back in those days we used to take at least one really good vacation together every summer. When I was pastoring in the Baptist General Conference we tied our family vacations to the denominational annual meetings and got to see a great deal of the United States. They were really good days.

But with Aaron living in Lake Tahoe and Caleb at university up in Sault Ste. Marie, we haven’t had a lot of good father-son time in recent years. True, Caleb and I spent a lot of time together this summer working on the basement. He was a huge help when it came to hanging the drywall. And he practically put up all the trim himself. We probably spent more time together this summer than we have in quite awhile.

Still, I kept wishing we had more fun things we could do together. So, last week we went nuts and had some really good, quality, father-son time. You need a little background information.

I got really involved in doing Moorhead genealogy a number of years ago. Before my paternal grandmother died, I sat with her and asked her all the questions I could think of and then wrote down her answers. One time when I was in Scotland I had a great break and found a Moorhead who had done a huge amount of work on the genealogy. In fact, he had traced us back into the 900’s. To all appearances, we were a lowland family that had settled in the Strathclyde district southeast of Glasgow. Most Scots-Americans want to find out which highlands clan they are related to so they can find a coat of arms and a clan tartan. It seemed there would be none of that for us. We were a lowland family with no connections to any clan.

Then last year I found a website run by Clan Muirhead (Scots spelling of our name). I began to look into it and discovered that the Muirheads really were a clan; a lowlands clan! There are a number of interesting technicalities about being a lowlands clan which I don’t need to go into here. The point is, there is a petition before the Scots Parliament to recognize the Muirheads as an official clan of Scotland. A coat of arms and a clan tartan have been discovered after much research.

Well this information filled the Moorhead men with a great deal of Scots pride. We were together in California for Christmas and we were all talking about it. We wanted to express our Scots pride in some way. What to do?

Well, last Wednesday Caleb and I took the first step and spent some really quality father-son time together. We took the artwork (pictured above) for the Clan Muirhead badge up to the tattoo parlor in Grand Rapids and had it tattooed on our shoulder/biceps. We made quite a hit at Mos Eisley’s (the tattoo parlor). They were very impressed that a father and son came in together to get family tattoos. They were even more impressed when they found out I was a pastor! The artist (his name is Aaron!) kept saying he’d never worked on a pastor before!

Mos Eisley’s is a very reputable place, nothing like I expected. The smell of disinfectant was everywhere! They had nice private booths that looked more like doctors’ examination rooms than anything else. I was happily impressed that it wasn’t some back alley joint with a bunch of bikers hanging out there.

I had heard there is some pain involved in getting a tattoo. I went first. The outlining part was a breeze! In fact, I almost fell asleep! But when he got down to doing the details and the shading I woke up right away! The skin had already been stressed out where he was working and the needle was moving much slower with the lettering and the shading. I thought the guy was trying to drill a hole in my shoulder! I tried to keep the smile on my face while I talked to Caleb. You know, good old father-son time; but it was hard to do!

So I’m now tattooed! My Scots pride is flowing out everywhere. Elizabeth, daughter #1, thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world and keeps coming up and pulling up my sleeve just to gawk at it. At church this morning she kept bringing her friends around to see it. I was a little embarrassed and a little proud at the same time.

By the way, the motto on the badge says, “By the help of God.” Good motto!