Ode to a good son

If you're lucky, your child grows up to be a happy, productive, competent person. My son Charlie is all of these things, and more. In addition, he supports my quirky ideas with minimal flack. Case in point is this last week, when he came over for a couple of days to prep my living room so that Frank Rao can paint a wetlands mural on the floor (this will be so cool). In addition to moving furniture and removing and disposing of carpet, he put in a new shower head, installed a lattice barrier along the balcony railing so the cat and dog won't jump through, cleaned the gutters, detected a backed-up overflow drain in my garage A/C and fixed that, cleaned the refrigerator coils, rescreened the screen door and put in a "butt panel", and installed a screen over my neighbor's A/C grate because she was worried about the leaves getting in the unit. Whenever we go through these "honey do" events, I continue to be impressed and delighted with the wide variety of things Charlie does well and his calm, practical approach to solving problems. The photo is a couple of years old, but a favorite of mine - shows Charlie and his wife Melea, with their rescue greyhound, Cheyenne. I got lucky with Melea, too - she and Charlie have been married for nearly 20 years. She's charming and intelligent and the perfect daughter-in-law. She's training to walk 60 miles in the Susan B. Koman 3-Day Walk for the Cure in October (20 miles a day). We'll talk more about that later, but anybody willing to train outside in August in Florida has my admiration!

Amongst their many skills and interests, Charlie and Melea are long-time volunteer puppy raisers for Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), and a few weeks ago they received a new CCI puppy they have nicknamed Tank. For those of you unfamiliar with CCI, it is an organization that provides highly-trained assistance dogs for children and adults with disabilities. Charlie and Melea will care for, train, and socialize Tank for 18 months, after which time he will go off to "college" to work with his permanent owner.

A week from now, my living room floor will be a thing of beauty, and there will be pictures, of course. Meanwhile, here's to good kids everywhere!