Family Front Lines

Dear Mom.  I’m writing this letter from the family front lines.  You always said, “Just wait, someday you’ll be one.” Well, now I am.  A parent.  And ma, it’s rough out here.  Family restaurants are different these days.  They’ve got electronic games.  Singing gorillas.  And dancing rats.  Last Saturday, I stood in line so long to get food, I could have eaten the last member of an endangered species. Parents survive on what their kids don’t eat.  They wouldn’t care much for your carrot salad. A food critic from Dallas joined us for dinner the other night.  He reviews the kind of food most of us eat. Fast food.   “You know the difference between swill and slop?'” George Toomer asked me.  ”No.”  “Three days.”