• October 2007
• September 2007

I write the following fully aware that I could very well be pummeled with hate mail and might even find myself sleeping on the couch again. It's a long-standing joke in my household that trailering, specifically hooking one up, requires a certain chromosome, or maybe a lost gene. Well-known philosophers have claimed that a husband and wife simply can't partake in such practices together, especially after having children. Some sort of weird mojo, I guess. Backing up a truck to a trailer hitch is a simple feat, so long as you have a person directing you. My wife and I have attempted this on thousands of occasions but every time I've leapt out of the truck after she said "okay," we've found the silver ball about 8 inches to the left of where it should be. I would then jump up and down in frustration like some hairy character in the Planet of the Apes, which in turn caused my wife to look at me funny and then walk away, leaving the silly monkey to his own devices. With no other choice, I'd get back into the truck and smash the rear bumper into the trailer a few times before getting it to hitch, then go apologize to Patty for being a banana-eating simian. Days later, (sometimes months) we'd joke about the "hitch" and why it always goes so bad. She'd claim that I didn't follow her directives. I'd say it's a chromosome thing. She would get mad at my sexist remarks and we would no longer be talking again. This cold-wash cycle could repeat itself all year long. That was until… Until one day last fall when no one was around to help hitch except my 10 year-old son Danny, who had never done this before. Knowing that he had witnessed the unsuccessful attempts of his mother and father, I suspected he might be confused. Danny stood on the trailer and listened carefully while I gave him a few words of advice. He nodded and seemed pretty confident. As I backed the Chevy towards him, he barked directions and waved his hands, then simply said, "stop!" Leaning out of the driver's window, I asked if we had to try again. He replied that it was okay. I rolled my eyes as I got out of the truck, expecting to see the ball in another zip code, but instead my eyes welled in tears. Right before me was a hitch, magically floating over a shiny silver sphere. It was nothing less than the Space Shuttle docking with the International Space Station! Danny stood there proud, smiling, but unable to grasp the profoundness of the moment, how the torch had been passed from father to son. He may have gotten his mother's brains and good looks, but he also got that all important "Y trailer hitch chromosome" that every father wants to live on for generations. Patty got home minutes later, to the sight of us jumping around in joy. We couldn't wait to tell her all about our proud male moment. She smiled while listening and even deflecting a sexist jab that I "let slip," but was clearly unimpressed. How could this be, I wondered? Was this not momentous? She then walked into the house and gave Danny and I that look, the one that only a loving mother and wife could deliver. No words were needed, the message was clear; she was the zookeeper and we were the baboons!

Dan Gould
President