Had a nice night. Went to see a play with my son – he had a great time, we had some Quality Family Time. I was particularly happy we were able to schedule it because a work gig had me out of town for a lot of the last two weeks, and I missed hanging out with my family.

The best thing about the night wasn’t the play, though, or the fun power outage in the middle of Act One, or getting to hug and visit with friends I hadn’t seen in a while – although all of those things were fun.

The best thing was hanging out with my son, and having him enjoy hanging out with me, while he wore this jacket:

I’ve worn that jacket for years now. Especially in the Spring, the early Fall, and on some cool summer nights. It was my grandfather’s jacket. He wore it when he took me to Tiger games, and lots of other times too. I’ve written about him before – about 7 years ago, when this amazing thing happened.

So, tonight, it was a little chilly and rainy, and we were grabbing jackets out of the closet, and when I pulled it out I handed it to Max. He said “Cool, this’ll work” and I said “Hang on! If you wear that, you have to take care of it for me. That was my grandpa’s jacket.”

He stopped, one arm in a sleeve, “Wait – so this was my GREAT – Grandpa’s?”

“Yep. He wore it when I was your age. It’s what I have of his.”

Max went and stood in front of the mirror by the front door, admiring how he looked – “Wow. Cool. Can I push the sleeves up?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. I’ll take care of it. I won’t wear it to school.”

“Okay. It’s a loan, I get it back for ballgames.”

“Awesome. Thanks Dad!”

And then we were off. He wore it all night – our evening out was terrific. And on the way home in the car we were chatting, and he said “So my great grandpa wore this with you when you were my age?”

I looked over, and he was tracing the outline of the giant Olde English D with his finger.

“Yep!”

There was a thoughtful pause before he said…
“That’s awesome.”

And I couldn’t argue… because seeing my son wear it was pretty awesome too.