Playing on pirate ships at parks

Pirate ship at the Maritime Museum
in San Diego.

A few days ago I was in Cumberland, Wis., to give a book reading, and while driving past the park there, saw a cool looking pirate ship among the playground equipment. That immediately made me think of you!

Pirate ships often were a staple of our playgrounds. There was one at the City Park in Lancaster, Calif., though the one in Cumberland looked cooler as it looked more like an actual ship.

Often when we played on the regular playground equipment, we'd pretend it was a pirate ship. One memory that really comes to mind is us doing that at Cottonwood Creek Park in Encinitas.

And of course there was the pirate ship inside a sailing ship at the Maritime Museum in San Diego! That had a helm and a pulley to lift cargo on and off the ship.

Remember your X-wing fighter?

Another one of your favorite toys when a preschooler was the Star Wars X-wing fighter - it was the rebel ship that Luke Skywalker and his companions flew when trying to destory the Death Star. It came with an action figure pilot (not Luke, though) and an R2D2.

The ship often came in for a landing at the rebel base that we'd "make" on the living room endtable by using the Batcave as a command center and some other Star Wars action figure accessories like computers and communication tables. We always had action figures and robots performing maintenance on the ship!

Other times we'd take it and the Star Trek shuttlecraft on flights through space as they explored new planets. Inevitably, those planets included Pillow and Blanket monsters that tried to caputre our heroes and destory their spacecraft!

When we were at City Park in Lancaster, in the areas with steering wheels we'd sometimes pretend to instead be flying the X-wing fighter as we attacked the Death Star!

My email to you for March 30, 2013

Your Easter basket, 2012

Here is my email to you sent on March 30, 2012, in case you don’t receive it.

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing? I love and miss you very much. I am not certain why our visit planned for yesterday was cancelled, but I want you to know that I had nothing to do with it. I wanted to spend time with you because you are the most important person in the world to me. You always have been and always will be. Hopefully our cancelled visit soon will be rescheduled.

Tomorrow is Easter, so I thought I would share a few memories I have of the holiday with you.

Our very first Easter was in 2007! You received a small basket with a tiny stuffie bunny rabbit and a little book about Peter Cottontail. We lived in Crescent City, Calif., at the time, and though the weather there usually was rainy, that Easter was nicely sunny. We went out to eat for Easter dinner, and you sat in your child carrier on the table and you slept through the whole meal! A lot of people stopped by to look at you because you were so darn cute!

In 2010, when you were three years old, you didn’t get an Easter basket. You got an Easter bucket! It was a Star Wars sandbox pail that we filled with all kinds of goodies. One of the items was a chocolate bunny rabbit. You ate the bunny rabbit’s ears first!

In 2011, when you were four years old, you and I made Easter sugar cookies together! You helped me roll out the dough, stamp the shapes, and frost the cookies! One of the cookies that you really liked was of a baby duck, which we frosted yellow (except for the bill, which we frosted orange) and gave a dollop of black for its eye. We also went to the Easter Egg hunt at Lancaster, Calif., City Park.

Last year, when you were five years old, we were living in the condo in Palmdale, Calif., and we had spent all day Saturday together. When you woke up Sunday morning, I mentioned that the Easter Bunny had left something for you at the front door! The Easter basket was a good mix of toys, candies and clothes I had picked up for you just the week before on our drive from Wisconsin to California.

After a little breakfast, we went to the Easter Egg hunt and festivities at City Park in Lancaster. At the end of the egg hunt, one child had just a couple of Easter eggs in his basket and was afraid that he wouldn't receive a reward for turning in the eggs (All the children received some candy and a little toy for turning in the eggs.), so all on your own you offered to share some of your eggs with him! I was so very proud of you for being so kind and generous.

I will miss you tomorrow during Easter. I hope you have a good day, though, and that the Easter Beagle brings you everything you wish for! We are next scheduled to get together on April 26, but hopefully we will see one another once before that date as well.

Love,

Dad