Vacation filled with selective memories

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

June 10, 2010

Dateline: Florida panhandle, toes in sand.

I will turn this column around right now. Just a warning to you readers that if you can’t behave, if you’re raucous, inconsiderate or argumentative, I will turn around and take you all back home and we’ll just forget about this week’s column.

By the time you read this, I will be home from a family vacation to Inlet Beach, sandwiched serenely between Panama City and Rosemary Beach. Once again, we escaped from work, reality, school and the day in and day out of our every day. The stuff of real life.

Natural selection is a function of evolution. Selective memory is a function of parenthood. It’s what allows us to take these four kids, sprung from my wife, and pack them into a womb-like minivan for a nine- to 10-hour drive (I missed a turn in Alabama) to the gulf coast.

Selective memory is how Charles Darwin was able to take his family aboard the H.M.S. Beagle every summer to the Bluefoot Resort at Galapagos Beach (I will research this further when I’m off vacation) … (read more)