All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.

"That's the store that we need to go to and open the door and put our money in." (At age 3. While driving by the new Toys 'R' Us.)

'I'm not beautiful, I'm pretty!' (Angrily at age 2 and a half. After getting into his sister's toy makeup case and being called beautiful...)

The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

'Daddy, how many whoppers are there in those tall trees?' After waking up in the car while driving through Calaveras Big Trees and hearing daddy say, 'Wow, that's a whopper of a tree.'