Not Grandpa Joe

For as long as I can remember, I had my grandfather model all figured out.

Me with Shep at six months (2023)

The moment one of my children handed me a grandchild, I would become Grandpa Joe, Roald Dahl's irrepressible, bedridden patriarch from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who springs to life at exactly the right magical moment. Pure delight. No discipline. No logistics. Just wonder and stories and the unearned credibility that grandfathers seem to accumulate simply by existing. I've been quietly rehearsing the role for decades.

Then it actually happened. Kailey and Matt gave me Shepherd in 2022. Then Sadie in November 2024. Then Faith and Will gave me Philip Joseph in January 2026. Kailey will bring a fourth grandchild into the world: baby Bo, due early in September. Four grandchildren in four years. The role has arrived.

There's just one problem. Grandpa Joe lives in the same house as Charlie Bucket. I live in Syracuse.

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Sadie at one year (2025)

Before I go any further, I should acknowledge what I glossed over in my romantic vision of Grandpa Joe: his actual track record isn't great. The man spent twenty years in bed while his family lived in grinding poverty. He shared a mattress with three other grandparents and apparently never once thought to get up and find work. Then the moment a golden ticket materialized, he was on his feet, tap-dancing around the bedroom, ready for adventure. By any reasonable standard, that's not a role model. That's a cautionary tale.

And yet. When Charlie needed someone to walk through those chocolate factory gates with him, Grandpa Joe showed up completely, with every ounce of joy and wonder he had. You forgive a lot in a grandfather who can do that.

I've always wanted to be the grandfather who shows up completely. The problem is that "showing up" has been my whole identity as a father, and it requires a geography that my children, sensibly and lovingly, declined to provide.

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I told them to do it, of course. I've now given four wedding toasts, which either speaks to my eloquence or my stamina. In each one, I told my children that nothing of any value or magnitude tops family. Build your home around the people you love. That's the whole instruction. Kailey and Matt built theirs in Nashville. Faith and Will have started theirs in Albuquerque. Teddy and Taylor, still early in the process, are down in NYC. These are good choices, and I am proud of them for making them.

I am also, let the record show, in Syracuse.

The distance has a particular texture when you're a grandfather. Shepherd, I know. I held him before his sister arrived, watched him develop opinions and preferences, and that specific toddler confidence that makes you wonder where on earth they get it. But Sadie has been on this earth since October 2024, and I haven't yet been in the same room with her. PJ arrived in January 2026, and same story. Some of my grandchildren don't yet know my face, the way I tell a story, or that I have very specific feelings about what they should be called.

Which brings me to the name situation.

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Kailey's family calls me Grandpa Boeke, or sometimes G'Pa. That's the name my own kids used for my father, Richard. I didn't plan it that way, but when it happened, something quietly settled in my chest. A name passed forward like a piece of furniture you didn't know you wanted until it appeared in exactly the right room.

Faith went her own direction. Faith always goes her own direction. It's a defining characteristic, well established over twenty-plus years of loving her, and I say it with complete admiration and only mild exasperation. She has decided I am Opa.

I want to be clear that I have expressed my feelings about this. I want to be equally clear that my feelings have not moved the needle whatsoever.

PJ at six months (2026)

Opa is a perfectly fine name for a grandfather. In Dutch tradition, it's warm and familiar and carries real history. My family does have Dutch roots, so Faith has done her homework. I understand all of that. I am still not thrilled. Partly because no one consulted me, and partly because the same daughter who named me Opa also decided to call her son (Philip Joseph)...Flip.

Flip.

I have a grandson named Philip Joseph Witherow. It's a good, strong name with real weight to it: Philip Joseph, which also happens to share a middle name with his grandfather, a fact I will not pretend I didn't lobby for... Faith sees this name and thinks: Flip. I see this name and think: PJ. We are currently at an impasse on two fronts. This is, I have come to understand, simply what it is to be Faith's father: you negotiate, you persist, and eventually you just call the boy PJ and wait.

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My own father was Grandpa Boeke. He taught me through presence, not lectures, not grand gestures, but the quiet accumulation of ordinary moments. The Cub Scout Jamboree at Moraine State Park. The patience he showed when I didn't recognize the lesson for decades. I wrote about him when we lost him in 2020, borrowing Kierkegaard's line: life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward. Looking back at Dad now, I see that he laid the foundation for everything I became as a father. The road trips. The scorecards at Ted's Little League games. The Thursday mornings I spent volunteering in Faith's computer lab, showing kindergartners that a mouse works better when it stays on the desk.

It all came from watching him show up. All of it assumed I would be close enough to show up the same way.

What nobody told me is that the children you raise to build their own lives will, with some regularity, build them somewhere else. You were right to encourage them. You meant every word of it. And now Kailey is in Nashville, and Faith is in Albuquerque, and I am in Syracuse, counting the days until a September due date and wondering when I can get on a plane.

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So I've been rethinking what it means to show up.

This blog started in 2008, when Kailey was in high school. I wrote then that she and Ted and Faith were the reason I write: that these pages were a record of where we'd been, what I'd learned, the laughter and heartbreak and hope we'd accumulated as a family. I meant it as a letter to them. What I'm realizing now is that it was also always a letter to whoever comes after.

Shepherd and Sadie and PJ and future Bo, and to those whose names we don't yet know, will grow up hearing stories about people they never met, places they'll have to imagine, a family history that stretches back through Dutch grandparents and Chicago Cubs loyalty and Christmas elf traditions and a man named Richard who showed up without making a speech about it. These posts are part of that record. They'll be here long after I'm gone, waiting for a grandchild, or a great-grandchild, who's finally old enough to be curious.

But lately I've been thinking about doing something more. I want to record some of our traditional Christmas stories, not just my own, but the ones we've read together for years. The Polar Express. A Christmas Tree in the White House. The classics that found their way into our family's rotation and never left. I want Shepherd and Sadie and PJ and Bo to hear them the way their parents heard them, with exactly the pauses I mean and the voices I can't help making. And yes, I also want to record the story about the year Santa couldn't find Flipper. That's the dolphin, not the grandson, and it belongs to our family in a way no published book ever could. Text on a screen is one kind of presence. A voice reading a beloved story to a child who isn't in the room yet is something else entirely. A voice can travel to Nashville and Albuquerque and wherever they end up building their own lives years from now, and it will still sound like G'Pa Boeke at Christmas.

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Grandpa Joe waited twenty years for his golden ticket. I'm not built for waiting. Anybody who has met me knows this. But I am learning what patience looks like when you don't have another option. And in the meantime, I'm writing, recording, planning visits, booking flights, and calling PJ by his proper name, knowing full well Faith may never stop calling him Flip.

The golden ticket, it turns out, comes in different shapes. Sometimes it's a visit to Nashville when Sadie is old enough to know my face. Sometimes it's a FaceTime call where Shepherd holds up a drawing and waits for my reaction. Sometimes it's a September due date circled on a calendar and a plane reservation I haven't made yet but absolutely will.

In 2008, I wrote that Kailey, Ted, and Faith were the reason I write. They still are. But now there are four more reasons, and counting. And whether they call me G'Pa, Grandpa Boeke, or, God help me, Opa, they are going to know exactly who I am.

I'm going to make absolutely sure.

Theodore and Taylor

The Bride & Groom

Tonight, we come together to celebrate a truly special occasion: the love and commitment of two remarkable people, my son Ted and his beautiful fiancée, Taylor. As we gather for this rehearsal dinner, I’m overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.

I’m deeply thankful to the Kewleys for raising such a wonderful daughter, and for the warmth and kindness with which they’ve welcomed Ted into their family as if he were their own. I’m also grateful to Ted’s mom, Amy, for helping raise a young man who has become not only compassionate and full of integrity, but someone capable of loving with his whole heart. And I’m thankful to all of you, family and friends, for being here to honor and support Ted and Taylor, not just tonight or tomorrow, but throughout the beautiful life they’ll build together.

From the moment Ted introduced Taylor to our family, it was clear she was someone special. Her warmth, grace, kindness, and unshakable patience have brightened our lives in ways we never imagined.

As a proud parent, I could tell you countless stories of watching Ted on the baseball field, from his first Little League hit (an RBI triple off Nate Rousey, I still remember Nate cried…), to his first home run the following season. Or about his no-hitter in high school, followed by a championship-clinching homer at Arcadia. Later, I watched him pitch the final innings of his college career at LMU during the WCC tournament, all moments that filled me with pride.

And there are stories off the field, too. Like the time Amy and I were summoned to the principal’s office in sixth grade. His teacher had accused him of plagiarism. I was indignant. I knew that he hadn’t plagiarized because I was the one who edited his paper. Unfortunately, I used a word that wasn’t yet in his vocabulary. Lesson learned—for both of us!

When Ted decided to move to the East Coast, we spent a memorable week driving across the country. We visited national parks, battlefields, museums, and caught a Cubs game. I’ll always treasure that time. However, what stood out to me most was how eager he was to get to the destination because Taylor was waiting.

Through all of life’s highs and lows, I was never concerned about Ted finding his way. But that didn’t stop me from worrying all the same. He came to New York without a job or a clear plan but with Taylor in his heart. That’s when I realized she wasn’t just his girlfriend; she was something more.

Later, when they visited me in California over Father’s Day weekend, I had the chance to really get to know Taylor. Ted, in his infinite wisdom, decided to take one of his groomsmen, Max, to the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines… on Father’s Day. He brought me back a button that read, “My son went to the U.S. Open on Father’s Day and all I got was this button…” But the truth is, he gave me something even better: time with Taylor. And in that time, I saw firsthand what a thoughtful, genuine, and extraordinary young woman she is, and how lucky Ted is to have found someone so special.

As I look at Ted and Taylor together, I’m reminded of love’s power to transform our lives. Their story is a testament to what it means to find not only a partner, but a soulmate, a confidante, a best friend.

Tomorrow, you’ll exchange vows and begin the incredible journey of marriage. As you do, remember to savor each moment, stand beside each other through life’s inevitable ups and downs, and never lose sight of the magic that brought you together. May your love deepen with each passing day, and may you always find comfort, strength, and joy in each other’s arms.

So tonight, let’s celebrate the love that Ted and Taylor share, and the light they bring to all of us. Let’s raise a glass to the beautiful journey ahead.

To Ted and Taylor, may your marriage be filled with laughter, joy, and endless adventure. May you build a life rich in love, understanding, and shared dreams.

Please join me in a toast:

Here’s to a lifetime of happiness, to love that never fades, and to the beginning of forever.

Cheers!

A Wedding Toast for Faith and Will

Dad and the Bride

Good evening. For those of you who haven’t met me yet, I am Joe, the bride’s father. You are each here because you touched Will and/or Faith in a very special way, and I would like to welcome you and thank you for coming.

Not everyone who wanted to be here could make it tonight. Most of my extended family is stuck on the East Coast after testing positive for COVID. So, for those watching or reading this afterward, we miss you, love you, and look forward to a time when we can be with you again.

This has certainly been a heck of a couple of years, and although this is my second pandemic wedding, being together still doesn’t feel completely normal…

Preamble aside, if you are enjoying yourself, I’d like you to know that I have had nothing to do with tonight (well, almost nothing).

Really, I want to thank and acknowledge Faith’s Mom, Amy, her husband, Kent, and Faith, who have done all the hard work to plan this wedding. Thank you for making this a special night for everyone.

While I was preparing tonight's toast, someone in my office told me a funny joke that I really wish I could take credit for, but even if I didn't write it, I have decided to use it…

Father of the bride toasts and raising children have a lot in common, both are a lot more fun to conceive than to deliver!

As the father of the bride, my job is threefold:

1. Stand up here and welcome the assembled friends and family.
2. Keep the agenda moving, and
3. Offer the bride and groom unsolicited advice.

Our Boeke Clan

#1, check. However, because #2 and #3 conflict with each other, and history tells me Faith won’t listen to my advice for at least a year—I’ll try to keep my pontificating to a minimum…

That said, I do have some stories to share, as well as advice for the newlyweds. Stories first, then the advice.

When a couple decides to start a family, they have many hopes for their children… Will they have all their fingers and toes…? Will they look like my partner or her parents? Later on, those hopes turn into: Will they ever move out of the house…?

However, chief among those hopes is that she will find a soul mate, a family-oriented person with a dialed-in moral compass and high character and integrity. Faith has found that in Will. To Alan and Vicky, thank you for choosing to raise a son with these qualities.

Life is a series of choices; some are important, and others are trivial. Besides choosing to become a parent and devote your life to another human, there isn’t a more important choice than selecting your life partner.

No matter how seemingly consequential (at the time), other choices pale by comparison…

For instance, Faith announced to her mother and me (at age 14 or 15) that she didn’t need to go to college and was simply going to Hollywood to become an “actor…” Hours and hours of family counseling later, Faith decided college was a better idea. However, she insisted on majoring in Theater… (I hope you can imagine how worried her father was that she’d be able to make a living afterward).

When she graduated last month, she received a Bachelor of Arts in History, with a minor in Geospatial Information Systems… CHOICES…

When Faith called me and asked if she and Will could spend a week with me before she went to Sweden for her semester abroad last Summer, I said sure.  When she asked if her step-sister was going to be home, I said I don’t think so, but the guest room has a full bed and she and Will could stay there, she told me that they didn’t sleep in the same room… surprised by my shocked silence she went on to say, “we are good kids and saving ourselves for marriage… would you rather have it the ‘other’ way?” Well, not really, but… CHOICES

Will is polite and respectful. Faith is polite (in public), respectful, and… strong-willed. 

For example, over the first year of her life, Faith couldn’t be separated from her mom. My primary role as her parent was to wake up in the middle of the night, bring her into our bedroom, and let her mother feed her (stubbornly, Faith would not take a bottle of any kind…).  Inevitably, her mom had to be out of town one night. Faith cried, and cried, all night, in fact, and it wasn’t until her mom got home that she stopped (neither of us slept a wink).  After that night, though, she started letting me be her dad more and more, and even became a bit of a Daddy's girl.  Headstrong is putting it mildly… but again [say it with me] CHOICES… 

Saying their vows

Every choice, the small and the large, seemingly consequential or the not-so-consequential, adds up and leads you to the most important ones… choosing your soul mate isn’t only important, but a reflection of who you are.

I have benefited so much from seeing Faith mature and grow into adulthood; her choices have made me a better person. Similarly, Will’s qualities have made Faith a better person, and I believe that Faith’s qualities will also make Will a better person. As a couple, they are more than the sum of their parts and even better still. 

I have seen how Will looks at Faith. He is kind to her, cares for her, and is passionately and deeply in love with her, and there is nothing more important to a father than knowing his child has that kind of love. For that, Will, I can’t help but love you too and welcome you into our family.

Will & Faith, now that you have joined each other to begin a new chapter in your life, I do have some fatherly advice:

• In searching for meaningful purpose in life, don’t seek outside experiences—you will find it at home, where your family will be.
• Continue to communicate with one another.
• Continue to fight life’s battles together.
• Continue to love, and more importantly, grow your love and build your family.

Because nothing of any value or magnitude tops your family.

Now, if everyone will join me in raising their glasses…

To Faith and Will, Lieutenant and Mrs. Witherow… our collective wish is that you remember this day with these people as you build your wonderful life together.

Cheers!

Another Toast for Kailey and Matt

Kailey and Matt

First, I would like to welcome our extended families and friends. We are all so grateful to you for joining us for these happy festivities!  Thank you all for being a part of this special day and helping Matt and Kailey commemorate and celebrate their wedding and anniversary.  I’d like to say thank you to the Winklers.  Mike and Kathy, you have been so gracious and generous with our family, and the happy couple that thank you just doesn’t seem sufficient, nevertheless, thank you! 

A year ago, your immediate families gathered to wish the two of you the best for a long and happy life together.  Today, at long last, we all (your family and friends) gather to celebrate your re-commitment and the anniversary of that happy day.

At the risk of repeating myself, I told you then how you captured my heart on the day I met you (and joked about the fact that I am the person you are least likely to call to come bail you out of jail).  I told you how thankful I was to see you find this wonderful guy Matt and embark on your life’s journey together, and I welcomed Matt to our family.

I told you that the key to a great marriage requires just one ingredient: mutual respect.  Nothing I have seen in the last year has changed my mind about any of those things.  Seeing your relationship grow since last September has made this father’s heart sing...but don't worry, as long as I draw breath, I will always have more advice... 

Be always true to each other; share your joys and burdens; laugh and love much; be each other's best friend. Speak well of one another, even in private. And when things aren’t going well, remember to forgive as often as it is required. Married life is an adventure, and even though your adventure started a year ago, every day is a new chance for you both to connect and re-commit. A good marriage is a contest of generosity. 

So today, as your friends and family surround you, and every day going forward, remember your promises, keep them with all your heart, and you will have that sense of joy and wonder that exceeds all you have known. With all my heart, I offer you my congratulations and warmest wishes as you begin the latest adventure life has to offer.

Now if everyone will join me and raise your glasses to toast Kailey and Matt Winkler’s first anniversary and recommitment…

Cheers to the bride and groom!

Toasting Kailey & Matt's Wedding

Dad and the Happy Couple

We all join this evening to congratulate Kailey and Matt and wish them all the best for a long and happy life together.

Kailey, you captured my heart the day I met you, and despite the fact that I am the person you are least likely to call to come to bail you out of jail, that love has only grown deeper as the years have passed. As I look at you today, this grown woman, my daughter, I am in awe of who you have become.  But no matter what your age, and no matter what you accomplish, you are, and will always be, “my little girl,” the girl who gave herself “time-outs” when she was mean to her brother, the girl who got so mad when I prevented her from being run over by a car, the girl who became my Christmas elf, the girl who gave me butterfly kisses from her top bunk…

Today, as you marry this wonderful man, I see that my beautiful butterfly has broken free from her chrysalis, and my awe is replaced with pride and respect. You and Matt are about to embark on a breathtaking journey filled with twists and turns, ups and downs, happiness and heartbreak, and all of the love that can only come as husband and wife. 

Matt, I want to welcome you, and your family, to our clan.  I won’t pretend that I don’t have tons of advice for you about joining this motley crew or about being Kailey’s partner, but I know that you will find joy by discovering those things together with her (and Kailey made me promise to be brief…).

What I will tell you both, from my experience and from my heart, is that the recipe for a great marriage requires one key ingredient: mutual respect.

You have chosen each other, so as you move forward in life together, respect each other, value your differences, appreciate your similarities, fight fair (when necessary), make up often, and honor each other. Then, and only then, will a long life of love follow.

I know this is supposed to be a toast and not another episode of “Dad’s life lessons,” so… since we are in my native land (Chicago) and since that always brings out the Irish in me, I’ll share with you the traditional Irish family blessing:

May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings,
Slow to make enemies,
Quick to make friends,
But rich or poor, quick or slow,
May you know nothing but
Happiness from this day forward.

Now if everyone will join me for one last Irish tradition, please raise your glasses and toast the bride and the groom…

Merry met, and merry part,
I drink to thee with all my heart!

Happy happy! Joy joy!!

Richard Fredrick Boeke, October 19, 1932 - May 23, 2020

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

                                                    ~ Søren Kierkegaard

It’s only now, looking back, that I begin to truly understand the depth and meaning behind the moments we shared, Dad. When I was younger, they felt simple, like when you took our Cub Scout den to the 1977 BSA Jamboree at Moraine State Park. At the time, it just seemed like a fun adventure, making rope with David and our friends, learning new skills, and laughing as we discovered a few "new" words you might not have planned on teaching us that day. As we grew older, the moments became more challenging. But now, with time and distance, I see them all differently. That particular memory wasn’t just a fun outing; it was a lesson in patience, leadership, resilience, and love, the kind of lessons that you taught not through lectures, but through living example.

Kierkegaard was right. We move forward through life, not always knowing the value of each experience, not always understanding the meaning behind the choices we make or the words we speak. But when I look back now, so much becomes clearer. I see how the way you led, the way you showed up, the way you handled both joy and difficulty, each of them shaped who I am today.

I am so grateful for every lesson you tried to teach me, both the ones I took to heart and the ones I only came to understand later. I know I didn’t always recognize your wisdom in the moment, but looking back, it’s everywhere. Your presence, your guidance, your values, they’re in the way I try to raise my own children, in the way I try to treat people, in the way I live.

I hope you saw that in me. I hope you recognized that the kind of father I strive to be is, in large part, because of the kind of father you were. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, whose is? But your love was always there, steady and strong, and mine never wavered either.

Thank you for everything, Dad. For the memories, the lessons, and the love. I am so thankful I got to spend those last hours with you to simply be near you, to say goodbye, and to let you know how deeply I care.

I promise I will keep living forward with the understanding I carry from looking back. I will continue to strive to be the best person I can be, because that’s what you taught me, and that’s how I will honor you.

Love you forever.

To Dream Impossible Dreams

In my sophomore year of high school, I saw two musicals. The first was A Chorus Line, on a double date with friends. The second was Man of La Mancha.

Man of La Mancha is the one that stuck.

I came by my love of the form honestly. My mom was a theater kid in high school and in college, and she made sure my brother, sisters, and I were exposed to the art form whether we asked for it or not. My dad was considerably less enthusiastic about the genre, which meant taking us to see shows fell almost entirely to my mom. I never wanted to be on stage myself (despite a turn as Otto Frank in an eighth-grade production of The Diary of Anne Frank), but in high school I worked crew — sets, lights, props. Our school put on Godspell my junior year, and I spent more evenings than I can count in that theater without ever saying a word from the stage. I didn't mind. Something about being in the building when a show comes together suits me better than the spotlight.

In college, I took a history of musical theater course to fulfill a humanities breadth requirement. The kind of course you sign up for because you need the credit and stay for because it turns out to be the best class of the semester. It connected my love of history to something I'd always enjoyed without being able to say why. Musicals, at their best, are documents. They tell you what a culture was worried about, what it needed to believe, what it wanted to hear sung back to it.

I never lost that thread. Man of La Mancha has been with me since my sophomore year. My mom put me in that theater. I don't know if she understood what she was handing me — probably she just loved musicals and wanted her son to love them too. But something about Don Quixote settled into me at fifteen and shaped how I've looked at things ever since. The willingness to see what you choose to see. The refusal to stop before you're finished.

Which is why, forty-some years later, I took Faith to Pasadena on a Saturday afternoon. And why I wrote the check for her summer theater program. You can't give a kid what a single experience gave you. You can only open the door and hope the right thing is waiting on the other side.

A Noise Within, on Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena, was running a production. It's a serious theater, a repertory company that takes classic texts seriously and draws audiences who come to be moved. Faith had been on stage in church Christmas pageants, high school productions, and at summer acting camps before, but this was different. This was the two of us and a story I'd carried for forty years.

She loved it. That didn't surprise me.

Faith is a theater kid the way my mom was a theater kid — the way some people just are, from the beginning, without needing to be talked into it. She's done every school production available to her and has made no secret of her desire to pursue acting professionally. As a freshman, she told her mother and me that college was probably unnecessary, since she planned to move to Hollywood and become an actor. We had many conversations (and therapy sessions) about that. She came around about college. She has not come around about acting.

What Man of La Mancha did that afternoon was confirm something she already knew about herself. I watched her watch the stage. I recognized the look.

A few weeks later, we signed her up for Summer With Shakespeare, A Noise Within's youth acting program. Six weeks of real work: movement, language, stagecraft, the business of what professional actors actually do. Not a drama club. Not a school showcase. She came home from each session exhausted and talking faster than usual.

Following the program, the theater held auditions for its fall season. One of the productions was A Tale of Two Cities. Faith auditioned. She got cast.

She plays a member of the mob. It's not a large role. But it is a professional one, in a real production at a theater that gets reviewed. The show runs through November. Her first professional credit.

A Noise Within ran a short interview with her on their website. She told them, "This is my first time in a professional production. I want to be an actress, and having the experience of working with Julia and Geoff [Elliott] and also with all the other super talented actors on stage is the very best part." She also said something I keep returning to: "If I had not participated in the education programs at ANW, I would never have had the chance to audition."

That sentence is the whole argument, as far as I'm concerned. You can't hand a kid a dream. What you can do is put them somewhere the dream becomes possible. You take them to see the show. You pay for the summer program. You drive them to auditions. Then you get out of the way while they figure out whether this is who they are.

Maybe she becomes an actress. Maybe she doesn't. What I know is that this fall she's standing on a professional stage for the first time, working alongside trained actors, learning what the work actually requires. She got there because a door opened, and she'd been given the tools to walk through it.

Don Quixote spends the whole play insisting the world is not what the world insists it is. The play doesn't ask you to agree with him. It asks what it costs to stop.

For today, I'm not going to be the one to tell her the windmill is a windmill.

You can read the interview A Noise Within did with Faith on their website. A Tale of Two Cities runs through November 19th. Go see it.

Editor's Note: In a more recent post, I wrote about how my mom's love of musical theater, my time on stage crew, and those years sharing shows with Faith all came together around a very different kind of theatrical tradition. You can read it here: Liberty in Three Acts.

Searching for Mom's Meatloaf

There's a certain kind of recipe that lives only in memory, formless, undocumented, yet stubbornly persistent in taste and feeling. For me, it's Mom's meatloaf. The one she made when we were kids, back when Tuesday nights meant the smell of onions browning in her old cast-iron skillet would drift upstairs to where we were supposed to be doing homework. The one that would somehow taste even better the next day, straight from the fridge, nuked in the microwave until the edges got those perfect crispy bits, and served with some mixed vegetables and a helping of Del Monte canned pears (yes, with the heavy syrup because Mom believed dessert didn't always have to come last).

I can still see her in that kitchen, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She'd hum along to whatever was playing on the little radio on the countertop, sometimes Debbie Boone, sometimes the local news, sometimes just static that she'd forgotten to tune out. Her hands moved with the confidence of someone who'd made this meal a hundred times before, never measuring, never second-guessing. A pinch of this, a splash of that, all while keeping one ear tuned to our chatter from the next room.

I've asked her about it a few times over the years. She always gives that same good-natured shrug, the one that says "Oh, honey" and points to her old recipe box, which is really more of a time capsule. Index cards soft with age, yellowed newspaper clippings held together with scotch tape gone brown at the edges, and the occasional note scribbled in my grandmother's careful shorthand that only Mom can decode. But no meatloaf. Whatever magic formula she used back then is either lost to time or never existed outside her muscle memory and instinct, the kind of cooking that came from feeding a family on a budget and making it feel like abundance.

Cooking was one of my mom's love languages, though she never would have called it that. She was from a generation that showed love through action, not words. But you could feel it in the way she made holiday meals feel like grand occasions, even when money was tight. In the homemade birthday cakes that somehow always turned out perfect despite our ancient oven's uneven heating. In the way she'd quietly orchestrate dinner for six while juggling homework questions and referee disputes, never once making it seem like a burden. That meatloaf was part of that rhythm, part of that daily offering. It wasn't fancy, we weren't a fancy family, but it was made with intention, with the kind of love that asks for nothing in return.

I didn't inherit the creative cooking gene; let's be honest about that. Where Mom can look at leftovers and see possibilities, I see only confusion. But she did teach me something just as important: how to read a recipe with patience, how to follow steps without cutting corners, and how even a simple meal, made with care, could carry a little of that same love forward into the next generation. So I try. Even now, all these years later and eight states away from that kitchen, I find myself chasing that feeling. Recreating it, however imperfectly, in my own smaller kitchen with its different sounds and different light.

Sometimes I'll catch myself humming while I cook, usually something I heard her humming years ago, and for just a moment, I'm eight years old again, setting the table with our mismatched plates and waiting for Dad to come home from work.

So recently, I decided to try my own version. Call it meatloaf archaeology, digging through layers of memory, trying to unearth something that might never have been written down in the first place. A little educated guessing, a little wishful thinking, a little trial and error. And this time, miracle of miracles, it came out close. Maybe not exactly Mom's I suspect that particular magic is locked in with her recipe box secrets but close enough that my younger self might've mistaken it for the real thing if I'd come home from school, backpack slung over one shoulder, baseball cap askew, looking for something to tide me over before "F Troop" came on and the world got quiet for thirty minutes.

Here's what I came up with: part memory, part hope, part love letter to Tuesday nights that felt like home:

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My Almost-Mom’s Meatloaf (Baked Alaska Style)

Ingredients:

For the Meatloaf:

    • 1½ pounds ground beef
    • 1 cup quick-cooking oats
    • 1 packet au jus mix
    • 1 egg
    • ½ cup milk
    • 1 small onion, finely chopped
    • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
    • ¼ tsp black pepper
    • ½ tsp minced garlic
    • 1 tbsp mustard
    • ¼ cup ketchup

For the Mashed Potato Topping:

    • 4 servings mashed potatoes (homemade or instant—no judgment)
    • Optional: more ketchup

Instructions:

Preheat the Oven: Set to 350°F and lightly grease a loaf pan.

Mix the Loaf: Combine all meatloaf ingredients in a large bowl. Don’t be shy, use your hands. That’s the only way to get it right.

Shape and Bake: Press the mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 45–55 minutes, or until the center hits 160°F.

Make Your Potatoes: Whip up your mashed potatoes while the meatloaf cooks. Feel free to add chives, cheese, or a little garlic if that’s your thing.

Top and Broil: When the meatloaf is done, spread the mashed potatoes over the top. Want to go full retro? Add a thin layer of ketchup on top of that. Then broil for 3–5 minutes to get a little color and texture.

Rest and Serve: Let it rest for a few minutes before slicing.

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Is it exactly like Mom's? No. The honest truth is, nothing ever will be. But it feels like it is, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the secret ingredient was never something you could measure or write down; maybe it was just the love that went into it, the hands that made it, the home that held it.

I'll keep tweaking it here and there, chasing the flavor that lives in my head and my heart. But in the meantime, this one's earned a spot in my recipe box right between "Mom's Overnight French Toast" and “Christmas Kolachky,” in the place where memory meets hope.

And who knows? Maybe someday, twenty years from now, one of my grandkids will come home hungry and remember this version just the same way I remember hers. Maybe they'll chase their own perfect meatloaf, adding their own touches, their own love, their own memories to the mix. Maybe that's how the best recipes survive not on paper, but in the hearts of people who understand that some things are worth remembering, worth recreating, worth passing on.

That's what Mom would have wanted, I think. Not perfection, but connection. Not the exact recipe, but the feeling it gave us the sense that we were loved, we were fed, we were home.

From Little Girl to Leading Lady

Watching My Oldest Graduate and Reflecting on the Journey

Kailey, yesterday, I had the honor of watching you walk across the stage at Bucknell University to receive your Bachelor's degree with honors. As I sat in those uncomfortable folding chairs that seem to be standard issue at graduation ceremonies everywhere, I found myself doing what parents do at these moments: thinking about how impossibly fast twenty-two years can pass.

But mostly, I was remembering.

Full Circle at Bucknell

There's something almost poetic about the fact that you graduated from the same university where we really started our family journey twenty years ago. I can still picture that July day in 1995 when we first stepped onto Bucknell's campus together. While I was nervously navigating my first week in a new job, the two-year-old you was fearlessly conquering the jungle gym at Sunflower (the campus daycare) and treating the whole university like your personal playground.

Even then, you had this remarkable ability to make any space your own. Whether you were climbing to the top of that jungle gym or, just a few months later, getting ready to go trick-or-treating with your little brother in your Tigger costume, you approached everything with a combination of determination and joy that has become your signature.

Always the Performer, Always the Healer

Looking back through photos and memories, I can see now how your love of performing was always paired with something deeper, a genuine desire to care for others and make them feel better. When we lived in Mechanicsburg, you loved being a munchkin in the high school's production of The Wizard of Oz, and you threw yourself into the chorus and the school district's Songfest with the same enthusiasm you brought to everything else.

But even during our family Thanksgiving "Boeke Bowls," those wonderfully chaotic family gatherings where everyone was expected to contribute some form of entertainment, your performances often had a nurturing quality to them. You weren't just performing for applause; you performed to bring the family together, to make us smile, to heal whatever small rifts or stresses the year might have created.

That same spirit carried you through high school, where I saw you channel your love of performance into cheerleading. But even then, when I'd watch you on the sidelines, encouraging the team and energizing the crowd, I could see that what you really loved wasn't the spotlight, it was that your energy could lift other people up.

Daddy's Little Girl (Who Always Knew Her Own Mind)

The photos from those early years tell a story I sometimes forgot in the midst of living it. There's you at one year old, covered in chocolate/marshmallow Easter Bunny, grinning like you'd just discovered the secret to happiness. There you are at Disneyland, intently steering one of those spinning teacups with Faith and Teddy, already showing the focus and determination that carried you through organic chemistry and someday the MCAT.

And yes, there are all those "Daddy's Little Girl" moments, the Cubs games where you wore your Cubs hat with such pride, the quiet times when you'd let me read to you or help with homework. Those moments were precious not because you were compliant or easy (though often you were), but because even as a little girl, you chose to share them with me. Kailey, you were never the kind of child who needed to be coaxed into affection; she gave it freely, genuinely, and with her whole heart.

Through the Messy Years and Beyond

I won't pretend your teenage years were always smooth sailing. Like most parents, I occasionally found myself wondering if the sweet little girl who used to curl up with me for bedtime stories was still in there somewhere, buried under homework stress and the perfectly normal process of figuring out who you wanted to become (newsflash, you were still there).

Those years taught me one of the hardest lessons of parenting: the art of quiet, patient watching. Standing back while your child makes mistakes you could have helped them avoid. Biting your tongue when you see them choosing the difficult path instead of the easier one you could have shown them. Watching them stumble when a simple word of caution might have kept them upright. Often, I wasn't good at any of those things, but I never stopped loving or caring about you. Yes, I wish I could have those days, weeks, and months back, but please know that I am grateful for seeing you become the person that you are - no matter the temporary heartaches.

But I did learn something important during the times when I had to step back and just watch: I could still be your trampoline. When you fell and you did fall, as all young people must, I was always there to give you the spring you needed to bounce back up and take another crack at whatever challenge had knocked you down. I would have loved to solve the problem for you, but I hope settling for helping you find the resilience to solve things yourself will serve you well.

Here's what I learned during those years: You never stopped being exactly who you'd always been. That determination I saw on the jungle gym? It carried her through honors classes and college applications. That nurturing spirit from our family gatherings? It translated into genuine friendships and a growing certainty that you wanted to spend her life helping people heal.

By the time you became one of my "Santa's Elves," trusted with the family Christmas magic and the responsibility of keeping wonder alive for her younger siblings, I realized that you'd successfully navigated the transition from being a child who believed in magic to being a young adult who could create it for others.

The Doctor She Always Wanted to Be

When people ask me if I'm surprised that you chose medicine, I have to laugh. From the time you were little, whenever anyone asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, the answer always seemed to be the same: "A doctor." Not because it sounded impressive or important, but because you genuinely wanted to help people feel better.

What does surprise me, in retrospect, is how perfectly your path prepared you for that goal. All those years of performing taught you how to be present with people, how to project confidence when others needed to feel safe, how to read an audience or in this case, a patient. Your cheerleading experience showed you how to be part of a team while also taking individual responsibility for a role. Even those chaotic family Thanksgiving performances taught her how to bring calm and joy to stressful situations.

The Graduate

Watching you walk across that stage in your cap and gown this week, I wasn't seeing the end of your childhood or even the end of your college career. I was seeing the beginning of the next chapter in a story that's been remarkably consistent from the very beginning: a young woman who wants to use her considerable talents to make other people's lives better.

Kailey, I know you're going to be heading to medical school in a year or so, and while I know it will be challenging in ways that even your demanding undergraduate coursework wasn't, I'm not worried. I've had twenty-three years to watch you tackle new challenges, and you've never failed to rise to the occasion.

What Comes Next

As I write this, I realize that one of the greatest gifts of being your father has been watching you grow into exactly who you were always meant to be. The little girl who climbed fearlessly to the top of the jungle gym has become a young woman who isn't afraid to tackle the mountain of medical school. The child who performed with such joy for our family has learned to bring that same warmth and authenticity to everything she does.

I have no idea what specific challenges medical school will bring, but I expect that you'll meet them with the same combination of determination, compassion, and grace you have shown throughout your life. Please still call me when you need encouragement, and know that I'll probably still worry about you more than I should. But mostly, I'll continue to do what I've been doing for the last twenty-two years: watching with pride and amazement as you become more yourself with each passing day.

So congratulations, Kailey. You've earned every bit of recognition you received this week, and you've earned something even more valuable: the confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are and what you want to accomplish.

The little girl who wanted to be a doctor has grown into a young woman with the knowledge, skills, and character to make that dream a reality. You've always been Daddy's Little Girl, but more importantly, you've become your own person, someone I'm incredibly proud to know, and incredibly excited to watch as you embark on this next great adventure.

Break a leg, kiddo. But then again, you always do.

It's a Wonderful Life

Every year, without fail, I tear up at the end of It's a Wonderful Life.

Sometimes it's just a lump in my throat that sends me out of the room for a "drink of water." Other times I just openly cry, no single dignified tear about it. I think the kids have noticed, and they've learned to look away right around the part where Harry Bailey raises his glass, maybe so I won't feel embarrassed. But I never do.

For some reason, this year I am thinking about why this movie, and this scene in particular, gets to me every time. I think I finally understand it. But I'll come back to that.

I am sure that I saw the film for the first time as a kid, on our huge console television set. I don't remember crying then. I just filed it away. But years later, in college and working at Brentano's Books, one of the first things I did with my first paycheck was special order a VHS copy of this movie. Naturally, using my employee discount. Not a textbook. Not a concert ticket. A 1946 film about a man standing on a bridge, ordered on purpose and waited for. I don't think I could have explained why then.

That first VHS was a poorly colorized version of the movie, which was less than ideal, but when the tape eventually faded, I replaced it with a better (B&W) DVD version, and when iTunes started streaming movies, I bought it there too. Some things you just keep.

More Than a Christmas Movie

The easy reading of It's a Wonderful Life is that it's a feel-good holiday picture about family and friends. That's not wrong. It's just thin.

What Capra is actually doing is building a moral argument about what makes a life worth living. George Bailey is not a hero in any conventional sense. He doesn't fight wars, discover cures, or build anything that bears his name. What he does, over and over again, is show up.

He shows up for his brother Harry when Harry falls through the ice as a boy, losing hearing in one ear in the process. He shows up for Mr. Gower the druggist, who accidentally poisons a prescription, saving the man's livelihood and probably his freedom. He shows up for Mary, for his family, for the working people of Bedford Falls who need someone to fight Potter on their behalf, year after year, at the cost of his own dreams.

None of it looks heroic in the moment. It just looks like life.

The film's real genius is what Capra does with the alternate universe. Pottersville isn't just darker and meaner than Bedford Falls. It's a place where no one ever had someone show up for them at the right moment. George's presence was invisible and unheroic. Every small decision to stay, to help, to absorb the cost held the whole community together. Remove him and the web collapses.

Jimmy Stewart and the Weight of 1946

Stewart was never more perfectly cast, and not simply because he was a veteran. He spent nearly two years fighting to get overseas, his superiors reluctant to send a famous actor into danger. He finally got his way and arrived in England in late 1943 as the operations officer, and later the commanding officer, of the 703rd Bomb Squadron, flying B-24 Liberators over Nazi-occupied Europe. At a time when air crews were expected to be killed between eight and twelve missions, Stewart flew twenty. Near-death experiences and the loss of men under his command aged him visibly.

On February 24, 1944, during what airmen called Big Week, Stewart's own squadron was sent to bomb an aircraft plant at Gotha, deep inside Germany. Only one plane of the 703rd made it home that day. Stewart sat through the surviving crew's debriefing, listening to what they had seen. Partway through, he broke down and left the room.

In the final months of the war, he was grounded for what we now call PTSD. He returned home in August 1945, went almost directly into production on the movie, and never spoke publicly about his wartime experiences for the rest of his life.

All of that is on screen, whether Capra planned it or not. Actors and crew on set reportedly realized that in the scenes where George Bailey unravels in front of his family, Stewart wasn't entirely acting. The hollowness behind his eyes in certain moments, the way his voice cracks before it steadies, those aren't performance choices. They're a man carrying something real into a role that needed exactly that weight.

The rough edges in the performance are features of the same thing. The broad early scenes, the outbursts at Mary and the teacher on the phone, reflect what postwar audiences were actually carrying. They hadn't yet arrived at the tidy domesticity of the 1950s. "Leave It to Beaver" was still a decade away. Life in 1946 was messier and rawer, and a perfectly composed hero would have felt false. George's flaws are what make his redemption land. A man who never snapped, never came unraveled, never stood on a bridge and meant it, doesn't need redemption. The arc works only because we've watched someone genuinely come apart.

Barrymore's Potter works precisely because he's a cartoon. The film is a morality play, and morality plays require moral clarity. A more ambiguous Potter, some conflicted figure with understandable grievances, would have complicated George's choices in ways the story can't afford. Every time George refuses what Potter is selling, that refusal needs to read as virtue, not mere stubbornness. The cartoonishness keeps the moral architecture clean. George isn't wrestling with a complicated man. He's choosing, over and over again, not to become one.

Donna Reed's Mary is sometimes called underwritten, and that criticism misreads the role. Mary isn't the dramatic center. She's the fixed point. She's what Pottersville doesn't have. Her constancy isn't a limitation; it's the whole point of the character. She knows what George is worth before he does, and she holds that knowledge steady through everything. It's a supporting role by design, the story belonging to George and, in its way, to Clarence, and Reed plays it with exactly the right quiet precision.

Why I Cry

I don't tear up when George is saved. It almost always happens when Harry stands before George and raises his glass to "the richest man in town."

It gets me because George never knew. He spent his entire life pouring himself out and genuinely believed, standing on that bridge, that none of it had mattered. He'd measured himself against the life he'd given up and decided the ledger came up short. And he was so wrong that it's almost unbearable.

There is a particular kind of work in life that doesn't announce itself. It shows up without being asked. It keeps its word because keeping your word matters. It stays in the room when leaving would be easier. It doesn't generate recognition. It just quietly makes the town worth living in.

I've said before that this film inspires me to be more and do better. Most people describe it as comforting, and I understand that. The ending earns its warmth. But for me, it has always felt more like a charge. A reminder that the work isn't finished. That showing up tomorrow matters as much as having shown up yesterday.

Part of what moves me is something I've only recently been able to name: the chain dimension of what George does. He saves Harry from the ice, and Harry grows up to save a transport full of troops during the war, and those men go home to their families and their towns. George never sees any of that. He just pulled a kid out of frozen water because his brother needed pulling out. The ripples go where they go, long after the moment is gone. That's not a comforting thought, exactly. It's a clarifying one. The things we do for the people in front of us travel farther than we can see, in directions we'll never know.

This year drove that home more than most. I lost Maddie, our big yellow Lab, in February, and she took a piece of the house with her. Ted came home from school to sit with her near the end, which told me something about the kind of person he's becoming; maybe the years of showing up helped to make him that way. In June, Kailey walked across a graduation stage, and I stood there calculating all the years that led to that afternoon. The teachers, coaches, quiet presences that never get named in a commencement program. The chain of people who showed up.

I think about Bill Peters, who spent four decades at Crescenta Valley Little League keeping the Rally Tally and answering questions nobody else could, mostly because he couldn't stop caring about the kids. I did a lot of his work this past spring. His name doesn't appear anywhere in those results. The kids who ran to check if their names were in print didn't know, and don't know, what it cost him to put it together every week. But it shaped them. It shaped me. I think about Yoko, too, whose quiet, steadying presence made me better at my job for nearly a decade, and who was gone without warning in the spring of 2013. Her name doesn't appear anywhere in the work she made possible either.

George Bailey finds out, at the last possible moment, that all of it mattered. Most people never get that scene. They just keep showing up and trusting that the chain holds.

The Verdict

It's a Wonderful Life
Directed by Frank Capra

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Most people reach for It's a Wonderful Life in December because it comforts them. I reach for it because it reminds me of something I don't want to forget.

The script is as good as anything Capra ever wrote, and the casting... Stewart, Reed, Barrymore, and the incomparable Henry Travers as Clarence hold up against anything from the era. What the film understood, and what most holiday pictures don't, is that sentimentality only works if it's earned. Every warm moment in the final act lands because the preceding two hours made it cost something. That's craft.

A version of this story gets made in almost every decade: the ordinary person who discovers their life mattered more than they knew. Most of those films are forgotten. This one keeps finding people every December because it got the thing right that the others usually get wrong. It doesn't let George off easy, and it doesn't let the audience off easy either. The ending isn't a reward. It's a challenge wearing the costume of a reward.

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It's a Wonderful Life runs every December on NBC, and it's easy to find. Watch it to the end. Don't turn it off at the bridge. That's where the whole thing is.

Campus, Community, and a Career That Stuck

Editor's note: This June, I received the California Advancement Research Association's (CARA) Service Award for outstanding leadership, exceptional commitment, and dedication to CARA and my fellow colleagues.

Thank you. I’m deeply honored to receive this award, though I must admit, it feels a bit surreal. When I began my Advancement career at the University of California, Irvine, I never imagined standing here today.

At UCI, I found myself immersed in the nascent field of advancement research. Back then, our roles were still being defined, and resources were scarce. Recognizing the need for a collaborative platform, I created PRSPCT-L, one of the first listservs dedicated to the advancement profession. My vision was to create a community-driven resource, a space where peers could share insights, ask questions, and support one another. This initiative was never about personal recognition; it was about fostering collective growth.

The first SoCARA board, circa 1993 (left to right)
front row: Marsha Kraus, Laura Raymond, Cathy Terrones
back row: me, Napoleon Hendrix, Patty Tolliver

I owe immense gratitude to mentors and colleagues like Napoleon Hendrix, Cathy Terrones, Marsha Kraus, Laura Raymond, and Patty Tolliver. Their encouragement and collaboration were instrumental in bringing PRSPCT-L to life. Additionally, individuals like Karen Greene, Alan Hejnal, Michael Seymour, Shirley Gottschalk, Peter Wasemiller, and many others contributed significantly to my professional development and our community's growth.

Beyond PRSPCT-L, I was privileged to be a founding board member of the Southern California Advancement Research Association (SoCARA), the precursor to CARA. Our early meetings, often accompanied by modest refreshments and spirited discussions, laid the foundation for the robust organization we celebrate today.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about my first network, my family.

My father, for years, would ask me: “Have you gotten a real job yet?” He wasn’t being dismissive; he just couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea that I never really left the university. From his perspective, I graduated and just kept hanging around the campus. I think he suspected I was running some sort of elaborate scam that involved free parking and campus discounts. The truth is, I didn’t expect this to become a career either. It started as just a job, a way to pay the bills while I looked for the job that I really wanted to do. But somewhere between the spreadsheets, the research rabbit holes, and the incredible people I met, it stopped being just a job. It stuck. Campus became community, and community became a calling. And before I knew it, I was in the middle of a career I never planned but wouldn’t trade for anything.

But during his retirement ceremony, he relayed a sentiment that has stayed with me. He said that careers aren’t just about balancing work and family, but about understanding how those things interact and overlap. At the time, I nodded politely, like a good son does. I was too early in my own career to have that kind of foresight. But now, looking back, I realize how right he was.

Parenting, partnering, and working aren’t separate lanes; they blur together. I’ve brought work stress home, and I’ve brought home perspective into the office. I’ve missed meetings because of school plays, and I’ve written prospect memos at the kitchen table while dinner simmered or backpacks were packed for the next day. And let me be honest, my kids have paid a price for my ambition. There were phone calls taken in parking lots instead of playing catch, donor visits scheduled over weekend soccer games, and the occasional grumble of “Are you working again?” when I pulled out my laptop on vacation.

To my children: thank you. Thank you for your patience, your rolled eyes, your hugs at the end of long days, and for being far more understanding than I often deserved. You’ve been unwitting co-authors in my career, and I hope, through it all, you’ve seen that building something meaningful, something lasting takes love, sacrifice, and a little bit of humor. Just like raising a family.

I’ve also learned that our colleagues become a kind of second family. We celebrate milestones, we share inside jokes, we vent in the break room, and we build things together like PRSPCT-L, like CARA, like careers we’re proud of. And no one, no one, receives an award like this without the strong support of both families: the one that shares your name and the one that shares your office, your values, and your mission.

So to my mentors, my colleagues, my family, both official and honorary, thank you. Thank you for making this work feel not only worthwhile but deeply human. Thank you for every brainstorm, every pep talk, every laugh, and every shared spreadsheet.

And to my dad, don’t worry. I finally got a real job. And it’s been a good one.