Robert, me and Morgan at the Big Run overlook
My son and his family re-located to Japan. It is profoundly sad to have them so far away from me. But rather than be all weepy and mopey, I’m focusing on the positive.
For one thing, I’m really proud I have a son who’s smart enough to land a high-powered international job and courageous enough to take it.
My son lifting with the new Deadlift rig
For another, my son and I had an incredible couple of months. Due to COVID-related visa snags, my daughter-in-law and two oldest grandsons were allowed in first. They went over in June to get the boys in school on time. My son wasn’t allowed in until earlier this week. This gave us more one-on-one time than most thirty-something sons and almost-sixty-year-old dads can manage.
In no particular order, here’s a rundown of what we accomplished together followed by a photo collage.
- Trained martial arts together many times
- Hiked Cold and Pleasant Mountains with my daughter Morgan and crew
- Installed a new dishwasher
- Went shooting
- Vistited Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown
- Watched the entire Firefly TV series
- Sculpted the Petrænigma and wrote the secret codes and ciphers
- Built a Deadlift machine
- Lifted weights together — with his help and insight I broke my plateaus and set PRs in every lift!
- Hiked Big Run Gap with Morgan (it was hot Hell’s front porch and I nearly croaked)
- Cleaned out the spare bedroom and created my new office
- Built a shelf to hold my cargo boxes
- Played RPGS a half-dozen times — got Mo and Jack to play for the first time! — and planned improvements to the Spaz Zone vehicle maneuver rules too
- Replaced the backdoor threshold on the rental house
- Put the TV in my wife’s crafting area onto a swinging mount
And by the way, the subject of this post is a play on a movie title. Did you get it?
Robert Mitchell Jr. 
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