Life Lessons - from Dad and Uncle Bern

 By: Dad AKA Matt      I was a young boy, about 11 or 12, when my dad gifted me the Bird Clock, in all its glory.  I don't remember what I was hoping for that Christmas, but it definitely was not the ugliest, most annoying clock ever created.  Looking back, I should have known something was up.  My dad seemed particularly interested when I was opening that gift.  He had the biggest smile on his face, in contrast to my look of confusion. Every hour, on the hour, this clock promised to produce a different bird call at max volume.  This was a promise that it delivered upon all day, every day.  My dad immediately volunteered to hang it in my bedroom.  It lasted about a day and a half before I removed it and hid it somewhere in the house.  About 3 days later, my dad found it and hung it back up. It found a new and improved hiding spot immediately.  This pattern continued until I finished my senior year of high school and packed up to leave for college.  I made sure to leave the Bird Clo

By: Matt AKA Dad To my boys and future nephews/nieces - you can’t put a price on loyalty. The willingness to devote yourself to someone or something no matter what is an unselfish ability that can’t be overstated.  True loyalty will invoke a series of other virtues: toughness, resilience, empathy, love. Uncle Bernie and I were lucky enough to witness true loyalty everyday in the form of a Springer Spaniel named Butch.  For those of you that didn’t know him, I hope you still enjoy a sampling of the stories that he provided. He was so tough, he didn’t just cheat death a few times, he literally had 9 lives. We brought Butch home when I was about 5 years old, so my earliest memories of him are hazy and fleeting. His first daring act was done early in his life, so I’m relying on second-hand accounts in order to tell it. Apparently my dad had decided to bake a fresh loaf of bread and put the pan of dough on top of our coal stove to start rising. The problem with that was, our coal stove