When disaster strikes someplace else, across a time zone or continent or sea, we can feel helpless. Sure, we can donate money for relief, and the company I work for matches contributions dollar for dollar. That's a great thing. But people ache to DO something, to roll up their sleeves.

This week, more than 100 Disney Cruise Line employees gathered in the lobby of our Celebration, Florida, offices to pack personal hygiene kits for delivery to hurricane evacuees from Grand Bahama and Abaco. "Giving money is critical, but participating in something like this is equally important and so helpful,” said one colleague, as she stuffed soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes and socks into plastic baggies. These items won't singlehandedly solve the Bahamian crisis, but they will absolutely make life more comfortable for the thousands who have been displaced from their homes and moved to shelters in Nassau.
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In total, and with the support of the nonprofit Clean the World, we packed 1,500 kits, each containing a handwritten note to the recipient. One of our ships, the Disney Dream, is delivering the kits as we speak. And in some makeshift shelter in Nassau, someone else will now take a little better care of themselves and feel just a little better about an otherwise dire situation.

​Our hearts hurt for everyone whose lives were upended by Hurricane Dorian – and we stand by them as their communities rebuild and recover.

​#bahamasSTRONG

​I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said, “They’re sooooo cute!”

This weekend we visited an alpaca farm for my wife’s birthday. She loved it, can you tell? We all did. These lamb-like creatures, indigenous to South America, saunter right up to you with their tall necks and big, smiling eyes. They let you feed them and rub their fluffy heads. Everybody who encounters them, from kids to grown men, ooh and aah.

In their native land, alpacas are raised for their hair, or fiber, and as a food source. “If you go to Peru, it’s on their menu,” says King Fowler, the local farm’s co-owner and a heck of a nice guy. In all, 37 alpacas and three llamas (they’re related) roam this farm in the quiet hills of Lake County, along with a smattering of chickens and ducks. Fowler is a breeder and competitor and just returned from an alpaca show in Kansas City. It’s mostly a business for him, though he says sitting around with your favorite drink and just watching these beautiful animals is “therapeutic for sure.”

What a fun family outing. Best of all, the birthday girl hasn’t stopped talking about her new friends. “They’re sooooo cute!”

​Cows and kudzu. Rolling hills and wide-open spaces, all lush and green and shimmery in the July heat. Nature seems to have reasserted itself along these stretches of I-75 and I-10, in the heart of north Florida, a place quite removed from the palmy beaches and sanitized amusement of so much of this strange state.

The kids are getting hungry. “We have two choices. We have Arby's or the gas station connected to the Arby's,” jokes my daughter as we eye the billboards, though she’s not laughing. 

We’re on a whirlwind two-day tour of colleges in Gainesville and Tallahassee, seeing if the boy can picture himself at one of these fine institutions. No doubt, getting accepted into either the University of Florida or Florida State University is a tall order. But we’re hopeful, and we’ve got some time to consider a range of options. 

This trip is as much about family time as anything, though my vision of bonding with my teenagers heads south as they give priority to making fun of their parents, in the car, walking, eating, pretty much everywhere. I hear stuff like, “Dad, why do you have to be so weird.” That’s fine.

I scoot out of the hotel by myself and hit up a few shops on Gaines Street in downtown Tallahassee, among them Retrofit Records. The dreadlocked dude at the counter is prickly when I pull out my phone to snap a picture (“no photos in the store, sir”) but he warms up once we start talking music. I leave with a used copy of Philip Aaberg’s piano solos for $4.

Wrapping up our morning tour of FSU, we’re sweaty and tired and running on empty. Whataburger, a fun-looking joint on a leafy side street of the state capital, calls to us. “This has got to be one of the best burgers I’ve ever had, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m so hungry or it really is this good,” says my son, perfectly content.

First of all, how are our kids old enough to be interested in college? And when did campuses start looking like this, all lakes and palm trees and resort-style dorms and perfect weather in the dead of February? “This isn’t like the places we went to school, is it?” asked another tired dad as we strolled a scenic path surrounded by kayakers and sunbathers.

Florida Gulf Coast University may or may not be where our son ends up going. But our college visit this weekend gave him some needed perspective, and his younger sister seemed to take the most interest, drawn to the dance team and chamber choir opportunities. With an enrollment of about 15,000, the school is well sized, and the students who hosted us for the Eagle Expo were smart, smiley and super impressive.
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“My mom’s really proud of me, and that’s all that matters in the end,” confided one of our tour guides, Tara.

FGCU got our attention with its notable program in engineering, a field that intrigues our left-brained boy, and naturally with its excellent basketball team. A half-hour presentation by an engineering PhD was inspiring if a touch fear-inducing for setting an expectation of long hours of study. “Engineering is not an easy career choice but it’s a beneficial career choice,” she explained. A quick trip upstairs to the virtual reality lab brightened things up. “I could do this all day,” said our goggled son, getting lost in a roomful of wiry gear and gadgetry.
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In the end he seemed engaged, though noncommittal. More school visits lie ahead, including trips to the big ones, University of Florida and Florida State University. But this place by the sea does have a good software engineering program, he pointed out, “and the scenery’s cool.”

Even though I’ve been writing for a living the past 30 years, apparently I can't get enough of it. I’m constantly jotting down notes and ideas and the funny things people say.

Some of you may have noticed I can be text-heavy on this site and other social media, posting longish pieces about my family, travel, music, basketball, bikes, beer, etc. I've been sharing these stories for years and now, gathered in one place, they fill a 216-page collection I’m calling Hold On, Let Me Write That Down.

I self-published this book mostly as a gift for my 85-year-old mom, who knows darn well there's an internet but chooses to consume information only via print and TV. That means she's missed pretty much everything I've written since I gave her my last book, a decade's worth of newspaper stories, some 15 years ago. Today my gift is on its way to her house. I figure if anyone will care for this, it’s my mom.

For anyone else who’s interested, below is the intro to the book.

                                             *****

Maybe it’s a carryover from my days as a newspaper reporter, but I constantly find myself reaching for a notebook. Many of my jottings are mundane details that simply connect the dots in my life: lists, reminders, things I did, things I need to do.

Other times my notes are more inspired, more a reflection of what I find important and remarkable. Someone will say something clever or poetic and I'll scribble it down. A perfect sentence, phrase or quote will jump off the page of a book or magazine, and I'll capture it for some future use. I'll hear a cool song and make note of its title, with plans to figure out how to play it on guitar. Or an idea for a story will pop into my head and I'll sketch out a beginning, middle and end – and soon, after transferring the notes to my computer or phone and wrestling them into shape, I have a new slice of life, a new reason to be excited.

Travel writer Bruce Chatwin viewed taking notes as a means to better understanding one's world and ultimately oneself. He considered his notebooks invaluable extensions of his experience, his spirit. "Losing my passport was the least of my worries; losing a notebook was a catastrophe," he said. Not sure I'm that serious about it. But I do often find myself wondering why other people aren't writing stuff down.

In your hands is a collection of my stories, notes and musings drawn almost entirely from my posts on Facebook, Instagram and my website, Guitar Dad. Many of the pieces were inspired by everyday experiences I had with my family, especially when my kids did or said something totally wacky. All of them started, of course, with the words I jotted in my notebooks and the ideas that rattled around in my head. The pieces date from 2008 and, as of this publication, bump up against the end of 2018. They are arranged by category and mixed up chronologically. They are a decade’s worth of moments I carry in my heart and that define the absolutely amazing life I’ve been given.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Hampton Inns of the world. Big-brand hotels are comfortable and consistent, and I’m happy to rack up more Hilton Honors points.
 
But I'm also a big fan of oddball places to stay, the ones you simply stumble onto and which make you forever grateful you did. The Driftwood Resort in Vero Beach, Florida, is just such a place. It’s really more a collection of found objects than a hotel.
 
“It’s kind of weird but other than that, it’s OK,” says my teenage daughter. That’s actually a resounding endorsement.
 
The Driftwood emerged piece by piece from the imagination of Waldo Sexton, a quirky, wild-eyed agriculture student from Indiana who traveled to Florida’s Treasure Coast in 1914 and never turned back. Today he gets credit for singlehandedly creating the citrus, cattle and tourism industries in Indian River County. He also gallivanted the globe gathering ironwork, wooden artifacts, tiles, bells and other peculiar finds for the Driftwood.
 
“He was quite industrious should we say,” explains Lynn at the front desk. “He brought back interesting things from all over the world, whatever made him happy.”
 
Waldo, who died in 1967 three days after Christmas, is still very much present at the Driftwood and everywhere else in Vero. I saw no fewer than four historical plaques bearing his name. “My only regret,” he once said, “is that I had not come to Vero Beach sooner.”

I am always a little wistful for North Carolina, especially when it snows back home. As I tuned in to the wintry images on the Weather Channel and followed accumulation reports from Winston-Salem, some subconscious part of me was transported there, to my memories as a kid playing in the snow, to the thrill and strange freedom of being shut in by such an opulent act of God. There were moments when I had to remind myself where I actually was, palms rustling in the backyard and temps in the low 70s. “Oh Paul, it’s the prettiest snow we’ve ever had,” my mom told me over the phone. “I just wish you could see it.”