Aloha Spirit Means Heart-ful Fathering

Our planned 6-day family vacation in paradise turned into a week and a half of emergency room visits and hospital stays. Hawaii never looked so lovely I'm sure, I just wish we'd seen more of it through a windshield and less of it from room 410 of the North Hawaii Community Hospital http://www.northhawaiicommunityhospital.org/

As I watched the nurses and doctors, the paramedics and even the staff of our hotel react to our health issues, I was struck by how much sincere caring everyone displayed. Both of our sons were sick with salmonella, and two stressed-out parents are not the easiest people in the world to deal with. The health professionals always had a smile, timely information and words of assurance when we needed them. Our hotel staff (the Hilton at Waikoloa) extended our room indefintly and slashed the room rate to one-third of what we'd booked at. Friends from United Airlines were proactive in re-booking our flights several times, and made sure we were seated right next to the lavatories (critical!) on the seven-hour trip home.

All this has me thinking about what I would refer to as "Aloha Fatherhood". As parents, we can choose to lead with our brain or our heart. If I had to choose between the two, I'd hope that my heart would provide the guidance and wisdom necessary to bring up children with good brains.

Kids and Ethics

Each day's headlines bring news of leaders in the church, community and business who have made moral missteps. I do believe that all of us can trip into the ethical abyss from time to time. It's what you do once you're there, and how you recover, that is the measure of the man and father.

A football player from Cleveland was recently arrested at an airport security gate. Shaun Rogers was trying to bring a carry-on bag with a loaded and cocked gun, into a secure area and onto a plane. He says now that he didn't know the gun was in his possession. Sorry, this falls into categories of both supreme stupidity and casual arrogance.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5058703&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Professional athletes may not be role models, as basketball player Charles Barkley once said, but they are public figures. When an athlete complains about the scrutiny they're under, I wish they'd remember that they could have easily been police officers, accountants or Subway sandwich shop managers. Athletes choose their line of work, as do we all. Some in the media point out with a bit of validity that the "regular" people like us aren't hauled before kleig lights and cameras every time we commit an offense. I can't help think that us "regular" people also can't afford high priced attorneys, nor can we schedule our jail time around spring training or the NFL season.

I wish just once (Tiger, Shaun, Alex, Roger, anyone?) someone in the spotlight would 'fess up to their misdeeds before they're caught. Now that would be news!