Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: Time Out for Dad Time
Submitted by admin on Mon, 06/14/2021 - 10:31am
If the first six months of the pandemic made us stir-crazy, the next nine months made us just plain nuts. Fourth graders are acting out, airline passengers are getting into mid-flight brawls, sports fans are tossing water bottles, and Dad’s blood is rising from a slow simmer to a roiling boil. Whoa! Dad is in need of a time out.
So let us call a worldwide time out for Dads during the entire month of August to temper our emotions and calm our anxieties. We can simply call it, “Time Out for Dad Time.”
Here’s how it works: when you start to feel anxious or angry, and ready to lash out, just say out loud, “Time Out for Dad Time!” Take a deep breath and relax. Likewise, when you are privy to a dad about to blow his stack, implore in a controlled voice, “Time Out for Dad Time.” This entreaty will be ignored at first, but as it gains traction it will carry more and more persuasive power, until by the end of August everybody will be wearing the mantle of civility on their sleeves and their caps, “Time Out for Dad Time.”
Following our American Civil War we had a social movement we called, “reconciliation.” So why not have reconciliation before a civil war? We could kick off “Time Out for Dad Month” at Appomattox. No surrender this time around, just a transition to a peaceful reunification. I shall be there myself to represent left-handed dads, while you select a delegate to represent right-handed dads, and should your delegate happen to be a woman, well, that’s good too. Many mothers become dads in their various tours of duty, just as many dads become moms.
On August 1, at Appomattox, we will sign an agreement to a ceasefire, an armistice, a truce, a pledge to stop fighting, and a reconciliation. We shall then repair to the nearest thirst parlor for a restorative to sweeten the bilgewaters a little, and to consummate the pact. I shall make the first toast myself. “Of all the loves in the world, stronger even than the love of a son for his mother, is the love of one timed out dad for another.” If that doesn't bring us together I don’t know my home of 78 years, the United States of America.
And when the rest of the world sees what we are able to do with our resolution, well, we will become a shining star for worldwide reconciliation, and our singular world will be a safer place. Guns will stop flying off the shelves, arms sales will dwindle to a trickle, and people will take to dancing in the streets of Syria and Somalia.
So in honor of Dad’s Day please join me in initiating, “Time Out for Dad Month” on August first, and let us head off another possible American Civil War with a lofty act, a pledge of accord at Appomattox. I shall make my reservations first thing in the morning…
— For more than 30 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American."
