Lincoln Logs

This is the time of year when small town newspaper editors all over this great land of ours begin to wax poetic about the candidate of their choice.

Some will sing the praises of Obama.

Others will go on and on about what a great president Hillary would make.

And others will speak out in favor of electing John McCain.

I guess it has come down to those three.

Hm.

Well, I won’t bore you with a column about that.

I imagine you are hearing enough about those candidates from other media sources.

Instead, I’m going to talk to you about something seriously important:

Lincoln Logs.

That’s right.

Lincoln Logs.

This all came about as a result of some sibling rivalry that recently developed within our family.

When I went to pick up our kids at my parents’ house the other day, my daughter Molly grabbed me by the hand and said, "Dad! Dad! You have to come see this!"

She took me into the living room to show me her masterpiece – a true work of art made completely from Mega Bloks, which are these kind of "jumbo-sized" building blocks.

About five seconds later, her little brother smashed it all to pieces and exclaimed, "Ha, ha, ha!"

Of course, he was punished.

He gets punished a lot.

But, Molly was crushed and she burst into tears.

I tried to help her rebuild, but it was no use.

She explained to me that what she had created was something that was truly original and unique, and could never, ever, ever be re-created.

She was so sad.

So very sad.

I thought that perhaps I could cheer her up if I spent some time with her building blocks together.

The fact is, I really like building with blocks.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m 42 and I like playing with blocks.

But the problem I have with our blocks is that once I start a building project, I want to keep building, but I always run out of blocks!

So, I thought that since we were going to the store, I could buy some "extra" blocks to reinforce our home collection.

Unfortunately, when we got to the store, they didn’t have the kind of blocks that matched the kind we have at home, but Molly was already expecting for us to get something that we could play with together.

Together the two of us picked out some kind of super duper magnetic blocks gizmo collection that looked really cool, judging by the label on the box.

My wife’s keen eye, however, noticed that this toy was for ages 8 and up, due largely to the fact that it contained numerous shiny small magnetic balls, which she referred to as "choking hazards" – reminding me that we have a one-year-old and a two-year-old that live with us.

She suggested we get the Lincoln Logs instead, noting that it is recommended for children ages 3 and up.

I’ll be honest with you. I was a little disappointed.

That shiny magnetic ball thingy looked pretty cool.

But you know, she really made the right call.

When we got home and we started building our "fort" with the Lincoln Logs, it all came back to me – I suddenly remembered all the fun that I had through the years spent as a youngster building different things with these simple, wooden Lincoln Logs.

I really had forgotten how much fun Lincoln Logs could be.

Since we acquired this set of Lincoln Logs, all the kids in our family (myself included) have had a great time together building different things.

Until…

Yesterday, as I was halfway through building this super cool log cabin with elevated look-out post…

Well, "you-know-who" comes running in and – you guessed it – smashes my one-of-a-kind creation all to pieces and punctuates his cruel action with an all-too-familiar, "Ha, ha, ha!" – Just to add insult to injury.

This time, it wasn’t the five-year-old sitting cross-legged on the floor with a big frown on her face.

I guess someone needs to take me to the store.