Commentary by Chris Smith, editor-in-chief of Clarksville Now.

Just a few weeks ago, my youngest kid gave us goodbye hugs and hopped in the car, loaded down with spare furniture and Red Bull, to make the long drive back to college.

We’re getting used to these goodbyes – they happen seasonally now – but this one was particularly hard because things are really good right now with The Kid, and we were so sad to see him drive off. (It’s much easier when they’re being a pain in the pants.)

Who’s The Kid?

Oh yeah, let me catch you up.

The last time we talked, almost 17 years ago in October 2006, I was ending the five-year run of Daddy On Board, a weekly column I wrote for the Clarksville newspaper about life as a young dad. I ended the column because the children were getting old enough that they knew what I was up to, and who really wants the entire city to read about that time you went through puberty? Also, I was running out of things to say about diapers and “serd” fights.

So, how have you been?

We’ve been fine.

The children are now what I call GAA: “grown-axe adults” or similar wording – something I have to remind myself and The Wife whenever we’re tempted to solve their problems for them, or give them too much advice, or quiz them about whether they’re eating enough fiber. (And they really should eat more fiber.)

For those who don’t remember the column, there’s three children: The Boy, The Girl and The Baby.

The Boy just finished a master’s degree in psychology (go figure), and started his first career full-time job. He also moved to a new city, and he moved there with his fiancée – yes, he just got engaged. She’s also a newly graduated psychologist, and The Wife and I absolutely adore her. Couldn’t ask for a more perfect bride for my oldest son, especially since, as trained psychologists, they know the keys to crushing the soul of any who would oppose them. I think I’ll call her The Beloved DIL, or maybe DIL2B, or DIL pending governmental and possibly religious paperwork approval.

The Girl is away at college going into her senior year in biology. She’s working part-time in a lab running experiments on sexual selection in animals, and yes, as a dad that weirds me out a little bit. But then I ask myself: What does Elberta the walrus really see in Chad? Is it his whiskers? Is it his long-term prospects to become alpha walrus on the southeast corner of the beach? And they say it’s not the size of the tusks but how you use them. Well, Chad? Elberta? My daughter demands an explanation.

The Baby isn’t much of a baby anymore, and rather than call him The Boy Season 2, or maybe The Punk, I think The Kid will work just fine. He’s also away at college, studying theater, and is working as an assistant stage manager at a community playhouse, proving that yes, there are actual jobs out there for us liberal arts majors!

The Wife, after 16 years of putting her career on hold to be a homeschooling stay-at-home mom, jumped back into the game, and she’s now working at the Tennessee State Library and Archives as the youth services and special projects coordinator. One of her main jobs is to roll out the summer reading program to libraries across the state, which means she gets to travel to places like Obion County, and I get to have fun mispronouncing it “Obee-on.”

As for me, I left the newspaper in July 2020, a couple of months into the COVID shutdown, to take this gig as editor-in-chief at Clarksville Now, where I can focus on leading a team to provide Clarksville-focused news without giving people ink stains or paper cuts.

Of course, our family has had troubles all along the way. There have been tears and yelling and gnashing of teeth just like any family. Well, maybe not gnashing of teeth so much as flossing of teeth, but you get the idea.

These days, with all three children gone, being a dad is a different sort of thing. The kids are (mostly) GAA, and I don’t get to spend part of every day reading them stories, having them hold my flashlight during chores, driving them to soccer, watching Disney movies together, playing gin rummy. So, this isn’t really Daddy On Board anymore. It’s more like Daddy Overboard.

Luckily, The Wife is with me on this life raft, and there’s plenty of room for both of us. We had five years alone together before the kids came along, and it’s like heaven having her all to myself again.

There’s also room for The Dog. (The jury’s still out on these cats.)