Mark Eitzel

Almost-9-year-old stepson Connor got back froma week;s vacation with his dad, Jeff, today. They went to Mackinac Island and now we have fudge, some shirts for the little ones, new toy guns and away we go to another week of summer camp, piano lessons and next Monday, football. Then, fourth grade.

I know there are horror stories about these custodial relationships, but any rough periods we had seem to be behind us, and everyone benefits when tension is low. Jeff spoils the small Bushes, and they love him, too. Anytime one more adult cares about your kids you have to be grateful.

I think Con-man can be a QB, and I'll tell you why. He's going to be tall, already is--last season, his first in Rams, he was the youngest on his team because it's by weight class. I imagine that will continue. He has a great arm, and is starting to hit me in stride, with spirals.

The nice thing about youth ball is, they don't throw much, so he's got time to play something else while we work on throwing. Decision-making is probably the toughest part of that position, and I'm not sure he's physically or aggressively ready to be a running/option QB.

Excited to see what his second year will be like; I think any hesitation he had last year will be gone. I told him 1,000 times last season to think of himself as an Exploding Frog when coming out of his d-line stance. Seemed to be the best way to put it to a 7-year-old. Lord knows how I would have been as a football player at his age.

Like most guys my age, I didn't play organized football until freshman year in high school. When I was 7, we played in the street in San Francisco--Clinton Park Blvd., with a Look candy bar factory across the street. I remember a Corvette Stingray with retractable headlights, my 49ers helmet, wearing wristbands, sayin the F-word for the first time and having to write it 500 times when Mom found out, and watching my first dog get hit by a car going double the speed limit.

Carrie and I took a vacation to S.F. in 2004 or so, and it was beyond wild going back to that street and my old school, Mission Dolores. We even got to go inside and roam the school because teachers were getting their rooms ready and it was open. Mission Dolores is one of the most beautiful of the old missions, and I was lucky enough to attend first and second grade there, as well as Mass. First communion, the host stuck to the roof of my mouth and I recall sticking a mittened hand up there to scrape it off. That was a harbinger of things to come, as I have been indifferent to religion since at least middle school.

I'm fascinated by it, but have trouble overcoming scientific explanations. I was a freak, though, and can remember thinking that if I even thought of the Devil, I'd be sinning, and worrying about Communist invasions complete with re-education programs that included Viet Cong-style chopsticks in the ears for what I had heard in Catholic school. And how would I handle any possible Judas moments, when the evil foreigners asked me point-blank if I believed in God?

From that bundle of neuroses, I've emerged to now own a shirt from T-Shirt Hell that shows a praying mantis with its arms folded over the word Atheist. Now, I like it because of its humor and only that, but did I feel like neon when I wore it to the Morton Arboretum last spring.

The Bushes in full force tend to stand out anyway, and there's no mistaking a person reading your shirt instead of looking at your face. I have to admit it, it sounds silly, but I was very self-conscious. I have worn it again, to a family-friendly cookout in Wheaton, Billy Graham's backyard. Once again, I looked good in black.

So, circling back to our trip to S.F., we had a great great time. We sat and drank for a couple hours in a bar on the corner of Market and Castro, watching a crowd celebrating a California ruling just that day to further same-sex rights. Talked to a couple old queens, then had dinner at a Peruvian place. Ceviche, ceviche, ooh, aah.

We had a terrifying experience sea-kayaking at sunset, stirred up some neon plankton or algae, and almost capsized doing so, then fell way behind and had to self-therapy ourselves back to safety with 1-2-3 chanting and rowing. Got some stellar and sentimental pictures as you can imagine....then lost nearly all of them to a PC crash.

Trying to think of a better way to end this, but I've already gone on too long on a day I swore I would not post. Thanks for reading.

(Alternate ending) Thank you for reading.