So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

During a family trip to the Pacific Northwest, we went to the Oregon coast to see Haystack Rock. Located on Cannon Beach, Haystack Rock is the giant boulder from which the pirate ship emerges in the classic movie, The Goonies . It was a sight to see on its own, but I almost broke down in tears from nostalgia. I wanted to BE Sean Astin for about two years after seeing Goonies for the first time, and within that span I watched Goonies about 25 more times. As usual, the girls were unimpressed. For some reason, “Hey kids—look at that rock. It’s from a movie you’ve never seen” failed to wow them. This disappointment, combined with the heavy weight of nostalgia, formed a great decision inside of my brain: That’s it. We’re getting Goonies . The girls are watching Goonies . My wife was skeptical, mainly because the movie—she was a huge fan as well—was a little bit scary as a kid. I agreed, but argued that our oldest loves being scared —seriously, she is disappointed in movies that ...

Few things spark my internal moral struggle more than the beggar on the side of the road. When I was a young boy, my mom took us into NYC and gave us each $10 to spend. That was a crazy amount of money for a little kid to be working with, and my mind raced with the possibilities of what I should buy. A bootleg VHS of “Goonies?” Eh. The Yankees? Maybe. As the day progressed, nothing seemed to strike my fancy. It’s possible my expectations were simply too high; even as a kid I could recognize that everything being sold on the street was junk. As we walked along, we approached a table where a woman was collecting money for the homeless in an empty water container. Something just felt completely right about investing my money there, and my decision was immediately justified by the woman’s over-the-top reaction. My mom was proud. Since then, I’ve always had a soft spot for the person begging for cash. Although the empathy has remained, as I’ve grown older my naïveté has dwindled. God onl...