American Chimpanzee

 as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine RaisingDad by Jim and Henry Duchene I Retired For This? “yeah, I thought so”    My wife and I were cleaning our oakwood floors downstairs.      Wood floors need a good, old fashioned cleaning and waxing several times a year to keep it rich looking, and all that cleaning and waxing takes an awful lot of elbow grease. With the grease usually coming from  MY  elbow. The whole affair takes too long to do all at once, so we break it up into sections.       Which reminds me of the following joke:         What did the broom say to the vacuum cleaner?      “I’m tired of people pushing us around.”        But I digress...      By we, I’m not including my father. He was sitting in his (my) favorite chair. I couldn't see him from where I was, but I knew he was there because I could...

 as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine RaisingDad by Jim and Henry Duchene Red Cheese Enchiladas "and, I’m begging you, no salad"   It's funny about the restaurant I used to buy my mother’s gourmet enchiladas from.      What am I talking about?      I'm talking about back when my beloved mother was still alive, I'd go over every Saturday morning for breakfast. When my schedule at work changed, so did the time I’d go over and visit. Breakfast became lunch, and the routine changed from her feeding me, to me feeding her. I always asked in advance what she would like, but her order never changed. It was always red cheese enchiladas, extra onions, and no salad.      "What about your father?" you might ask.      You sure do ask a lot of questions, my friend.      Well, my father preferred home-cooked meals, so my mother would grudgingly fix him something else to eat. ...

  as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine   RaisingDad by Jim and Henry Duchene Three’s A Crowd "I wish I hadn’t heard that"   ...one...   When kids ride in the backseat of a car with their friends, they forget a parent is sitting behind the wheel listening to everything they say.      Years ago, I was driving my youngest daughter and her friend to school when I overheard the friend say she had walked in on her parents in the middle of doing, well, um... you know. The thing that disgusted her the most was seeing her father wearing his CPAP mask.      “Gross!” she said. "It was like watching Darth Vader having sex.”   ...two…         My buddy Maloney recently asked if my father still offers me words of wisdom.      I had to think about that.      I came to the conclusion that any words of wisdom my father offers are usually in the...

  RaisingDad by Jim and Henry Duchene Two For The Show "the thing of it is"   …one…   The thing about getting older is that you find yourself going to the doctor more often,      Blood tests, mammograms if you're female, colonoscopies.      Since we live in the future, wasn’t all this medical nonsense supposed to be taken care of by now with the taking of a pill? And where are our flying cars?      One thing that annoys me are referrals. Whatever little complaint I might mention, my doctor is quick to refer me to ANOTHER doctor.      Heck, even I can do that. In fact , when I was deciding on a career I should have just legally changed my first name to "Doctor" and made a living referring sick people to REAL doctors.  You know, the ones who had the bad judgement to get in debt going to medical school.      Well, the good news is my health i...