I'm seeing life from a different perspective these days.
On Saturday, my 25-year-old granddaughter called from Amarillo.
"Guess what I'm looking at?"
Since we often discuss the glaring differences between Bay City and Texas High Plains weather, I correctly guessed snow.
Six inches to be exact, she said.
"And it's 28 degrees outside!"
We were at low 50s something, but the gale-force wind did its usual magical number and turned that temperature into something that felt like Amarillo to us.
I see a lot of myself in my granddaughter – the eldest of my four grandchildren.
Bailey chose to live by herself in the great beyond out there.
I did that too – at middle age – when I went to Odessa by myself.
Same basic climate for sure, although Amarillo has the nearby Palo Duro Canyon, which I have long admired.
Odessa was in driving distance of Ruidosa, but driving distance out there is a relative term.
The next day, Sunday, Bailey's father called.
Michael is a lot like me – he looks like me, for starters.
But Bailey's similarities with me and Michael's are not the same.
That's part of the reason I noticed the different angles life – the Lord – present me.
I try to encourage both of them in different ways.
We all do different things in life, but that makes the conversations better I think.
Besides, they've both heard my endless newspaper tales of yore.
I've shared my newspaper experiences with both generations.
My Dad died when I was 18 and he had already retired from the hot press days by several years.
I hadn't really decided what I wanted to be when he was gone.
Years later, when I was a reporter, then an editor, then a publisher, I wished I had him to talk with – about journalism and life in general.
You know, perspectives.
I try to engage all four of my grandchildren and my sons, who are both well into their 40s.
As I write this, I think of what I could have asked my Dad and what I need to ask of my sons and grandchildren.
I'm on that path now.
I went to the wedding of my oldest of three grandsons about a month back.
That could bring yet another undiscovered perspective for me, that of a great-grandfather.
I can't imagine that child will have any idea of what a newspaper was.
I can pass that on some day.
