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I have a picture in my office of my wife Maggie and me with our grandson Corwin. It's in a frame that a friend gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago that says "PRIORITIES," followed by a quote: We must make time
for good memories"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in or the car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."
The only time I ever see my Dad in me is when I look at that picture. I see him at the wheel of the truck he drove when I was a child. He hauled switchboards for General Electric up and down the Southern California coast from San Diego to Vandenberg Air Force Base and often took me along with him.
It was some of the best time we ever spent together, with nothing to do on the long drives but talk about life, love, baseball and everything in between.
We'd stop for great food along the way -- pea soup from Andersen's, frosty freezes from Santa Claus Village, pizza from Two Guys from Italy.
Once in a while he'd have to make a delivery inland and we'd take a side trip to the lower Sierras for a little trout fishing. We'd occasionally pass Dodger Stadium at the end of a run and stop to catch a game. In the summer, there was always time for a quick dip at the beach near San Clemente.
While the sights, adventures and food stops were memorable, the thing that stuck with me the most was that my Dad cared enough to take me to work with him and spend some real time with me.
I tried to make it a family tradition. When my daughter was little, I'd often take her with me as I made my rounds covering the Big Island for the Star-Bulletin.
She would show up in the newspaper now and again as the anonymous figure in my pictures as we reported on everything from a volcanic eruption at Mauna Ulu to a tsunami in Kau to an unusually heavy snowfall atop Mauna Loa to the Bicentennial celebration at Honaunau.
By the time my son was born, our family had moved to Washington, D.C., and I spent most of my working time on airplanes, in the office or scurrying about the mazes underneath the U.S. Capitol. There wasn't much opportunity to take him to work with me.
I tried to make up for it by taking him on trips up and down the Washington-Philadelphia corridor to watch the Orioles, Phillies, Bullets, 76ers and Colts.
After we returned to Hawaii, we made a summer trip to the West Coast to try to see every major league team in California. He ran out of steam on me before we made it to San Diego to see Nolan Ryan and the Astros take on the Padres. I gave him a day off to spend with his grandmother in Los Angeles.
The most precious thing we risk losing in these busy times is the joy of spending true time with our children. My Dad and I went on to have some rough times when relations between us were quite strained, but in the end it's the trips in the truck -- not the arguments -- that I remember most.
I hope my kids will be able to say the same about me.
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
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