planning to plan.

My father is a big planner. He wouldn't know what to do, if he didn't have the ability to make a plan. Not just one plan either, my father plans, and then he plans three or four back-up plans in case the first doesn't work out. This is a good skill, but as a kid the kind of extent planning he would have liked us all to do.. regarding things such as leisure-time activities, seemed ridiculous. He needed plans more urgently when we were younger. I used to think it was because he didn't spend much time with us, and he didn't know what to do when he was in charge of us, so a plan was like his security blanket... an instruction manual for kids.

A few weeks ago I was visiting my father in Pennsylvania. When I woke up he had a big smile on his face and said, "This is going to be so much fun," rubbing his hands together like a cartoon cat about to eat a bird, "what do you want to do today? I thought we could take the train into Philladelphia, see the Liberty Bell and all of that, and when we got back we could go see a movie, or there's a place not too far that you can ride go carts....! Wanna ride go carts!?" When I say I had just awoke, I mean I had sat up in bed and opened the curtain which separated my bed from the rest of the 16 ft. trailer we were in. I looked at him, and said I thought maybe we'd do something a little less maintenence a little more off the cuff... say an aimless walk in the forest. Then I informed him of my plans, " I don't know dad. This is what I know: I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Then I am going to shower and brush my teeth, and when I'm finished with that... I'm gonna eat breakfast." He laughed and said, "I always forget how you kids were all pretty content and laid back, enjoying nature and all of that... I wasn't the same way. I always needed to be doing something exciting." Then I realized, he wasn't only trying to make a plan to satisfy me.. he was really just a little kid in a grown mans body waiting for an excuse to do things he wouldn't allow himself to spend money on alone.

"Yes, lets take the train to Philladelphia."