Happy Birthday America!

Okay, so I pretty much slacked off on finishing up my travel scheduling this weekend. But to my defense, it was a holiday weekend, and there were home baseball games to be seen!

I was able to catch the Diamondbacks on Friday and Sunday, a home stand against those pesky in-division Los Angeles Dodgers. It was a lot of fun, and on Sunday, two of my good friends brought their wives and children.

This is when I get the best of both worlds. I spend every now and then with my best friends and their families, and I get my fill of what it’s like to have some of my own. The great thing (for me, anyway) is that when the event is over or the holiday has passed, I get to go on with my own life and not have to continue on the responsibilities of have a family of my own.

Some of my buddies (there wives to be exact) tell me that I’m going to regret not having a family of my own some day. Still not sure how that’s going to play out. Having seen both scenarios with my own relatives, I’m not sure that I have much to be worried about.

I’ve one aunt who never married, never had children, and while she’s now in her late 80’s (and spry as ever) she seems happy as a clam with her life, past, present, and not surprisingly her future.

Then there is a great uncle that I know who worked very hard in his life, made a lot of money and built quite the car wash empire. I watched (from afar) how his kids and grandkids fought for what they felt they deserved even before my uncle passed away.

His life, towards the end, just didn’t strike me as one that was all that happy go lucky. He even confided in me a number of times that he’d wished he had remained single and childless like I had. In my heart he was always a decent, hard working fellow that just got caught up with a family whose soul seemed to be more about the wealth and less about the man who’d worked so hard to earn it.

So as I sit here this morning working out all sorts of great deals on hotels (there’s tons more baseball this summer, you know!) I sometimes drift off to thoughts about family (and lack there of.) Fortunately I have a brother who had 2 kids with his first wife and a little sister with one child of her own. And that little girl is all grown up now, and we just found out she’ll be giving birth sometime toward the end of this year.

As the afterglow of America’s birthday passes I know that there will be enough extended family around me so I’ll not have to worry about either the pluses or the minuses of having had my own offspring. And I’m pretty okay with that!

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5. My Super Lucky Mother!

Tags: 4th of July, deals on hotels, family