“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

- Damon Runyon

When my oldest daughter was born, nigh on 20 years ago, they put that tiny little bundle in my arms — arms that had, just a few hours earlier, been lifting furniture and heavy equipment in the delivery room as I tried to vent my anxiety and frustration. The contrast between the weight of those items and her seven measly pounds belied the heavy but invisible mantle that had just been laid across my shoulders.

Our pastor knocked and came into the room about that time and I turned my daughter toward him and said, "Now Faith is" — as in "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). Our little miracle baby, Faith Christine, was amongst us and I had just taken up my first watch.

I thought of this the other day as Ben made his case for how much he admired Faith and, in exchange for my blessing, gave his personal promise to safeguard her heart and well-being, to support her physically, emotionally and spiritually, and to raise my grandchildren in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I know there are a few people — well, probably many — who question the need or propriety of a would-be husband these days asking his prospective father-in-law for the daughter's hand in marriage. "Women aren't chattel to be passed from one patriarch to another!", or "Doesn't she have a say in the matter?", or "What right does Dad have to get in-between young lovers?" Some of the more perceptive might even ask, "Why isn't he asking both the father and the mother?"

To me it's all part and parcel of a culture that has grown accustomed to demeaning and diminishing the role of parents, going back to the days when we started saying "Don't trust anyone over 30," the presentation of adults (especially dads) as dolts on "family" sit-coms and the cultural and educational conceit that young people are wiser and more informed about "how things really are" than those stick-in-the-mud old folks. As a result we miss, or become uncertain about, certain nuances.

Now, I enjoy playing the role of patriarch and benevolent dictator, but that is because I take it seriously and have not shirked the robe that comes with it. It fits. I have not viewed my daughters as my property to be maximized for the greatest return on investment, or as servants and dependents sent for my own amusement. My wife and I have always realized that we were not owners, but stewards, of what we were entrusted with and we structured our lives and our daughters' with an eye to providing the things that prepare them for long-term happiness (especially how they can get this themselves), even if it involved some not-so-happy decisions.

I have to say we are well-pleased with the results to date. Yes, Faith is well able to direct her own life, but every woman needs a man in her life who knows her value and is willing to sacrifice for her well-being. Before I cede that position to another I want to be darn sure he knows what is expected.

Ben may not be perfect (he's got some dents where the University of Hard Knocks has deposited wisdom), but the situation has been nearly ideal. They've known each other for almost three years and have progressed gradually from acquaintance to friendship to courtship and now engagement. While they have not been physical, they have been intimate, taking the opportunity to really know each other and weigh their respective characters. Similarly, our family has had the same amount of time (actually, longer) to get to know Ben and make our own evaluation. This isn't some shaggy freak Faith has drug home from a concert and asked if she can keep him.

So, while my stewardship is not yet finished, its days are clearly numbered. The promised land my daughter and I have been preparing for for so many years is at last on the horizon though, like Moses, I will not cross with her. She will always be my daughter, but then I will have something even better. A friend.

Two, actually.

Breaking (actually, "bonding") news over at Hammerswing for all you romantics, or the just plain curious.

I happened to come across a reference the other day to Connor Prairie Farm, an historic farm and village near Indianapolis that recreates life circa the 1800s. The setting is authentic, as is the clothing of the staff who each must stay "in character" as they interact with visitors. Seeing the place mentioned again brought back memories, especially one in particular.

When I was a kid growing up in Indianapolis it seemed as if we had a school field trip out to Connor Prarie every other year. About 10 years ago my family was back visiting in the area and we decided to take the young Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly out to the site for a visit. Tiger Lilly would have been five then, and this was the summer between kindergarten and first grade (she started kindergarten when she was four).

Her red hair and precociousness have always garnered her a lot of attention, and when we visited the Tailor's shop she was soon in a conversation with the tailor, an older gentleman with long, white hair, wireframe glasses, dressed in breeches and a waistcoat and stitching on some project. After they had talked a bit, TL asked the tailor why he said "thee" and "thou" so much.

"Because," he said, with a twinkle, "I am a Quaker. Does thou know what a Quaker is?"

"Oh, yes," was the reply. "Last year in school we read a book about Benjamin West and his cat Grimalkin!" TL went on to talk about how Benjamin West was a Quaker and wanted to be a painter, but the Quakers didn't think painting was proper but he did it anyway and became America's first great painter.

The tailor was quite taken by this unexpected discourse and smiled and said, "Does that tell you how important it is to listen to that small voice inside you?"

Tiger Lilly cocked her head and gave him a puzzled look for a moment. "You mean GOD?"

The tailor couldn't hide the surprise and amusement in his face, and shook his head, chuckling. "Thou art a caution!" he said.

Indeed!

My chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...my two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency. My three weapons are fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency....and coming out of the sun with a squirt bottle full of cold water. Make that my four weapons...oh, never mind. The point is Ben and the Diva weren't expecting it, but they should have been!

I saw the news today that American Girl is opening a store in the Mall of America, to complement their flagship stores in New York, Chicago and LA and smaller stores in Atlanta and Dallas (the MOA store will be about half the retail space of the flagships). It reminded me of a post I wrote three years ago about a trip to New York my wife and I made with Tiger Lilly. From the "Gotham Blogs" series:

After the museum we're out on the street looking for our next destination. Suddenly my wife grabs my arm and Tiger Lilly gasps audibly and freezes. What? Did some threat get past my radar? My wife directs my attention to the opposite corner of the intersection and I see that we may indeed be in line for a mugging. It's American Girl Place.

A year ago I had no idea of the marketing volcano that was about to erupt under our feet. Then some black-hearted scoundrel slipped Daughter Two an American Girl catalog - the first one's free, kid - and her life changed. American Girl dolls are a vertically integrated economic powerhouse. The dolls themselves go for nearly $100 a pop, but that’s just the threshold - the dolls represent different eras and ethnicities in American history and most are the stars of one or more books put out by the company and has full line of accessories, not to mention the magazine (catalog) that appears regularly at our house. My daughter and her friends now can recite model numbers, back stories and accessory details with each other the way my friends and I once were able to argue the finer points of a '63 Impala or '67 GTO.

When Tiger Lilly picked her favorite from the catalog - an American Indian called Kaya - we said that if it was that important to her she would have to earn the money herself. A born entrepreneur she quickly grasped the profit and loss mechanics of a lemon-aid stand and the economic rewards of an untapped market - extra chores - to build liquidity. With a seed loan from Mom she bought lemons and sugar, and with marketing advice from me ("put 'Fresh Squeezed' in big letters on your sign"), along with her natural charm and location, location, location she quickly covered her start-up costs and had money to plow back into her business as well as show a profit. This was repeated a couple of more times, and along with the household moonlighting she soon had the necessary discretionary income to buy her doll.

And now we were unwittingly across the street from Mordor, I mean, American Girl Place. It was like setting out for Oz and finding Mecca along the way. I looked around and saw a definite flow of young girls, many with dolls in arms and all with parents bobbing in tow, converging on the store from all directions. We were swept up in the current - as if we ever had a choice - and into the store. The store is impressive in both detail and scope, with three floors of merchandise and a restaurant where you can have lunch with your American Girl doll for just $22 per person. If I’m going to spend that much for lunch with a doll, I want to see the doll cook the meal and then serve it and then give me a quote on painting my garage. Nevertheless the store is jammed on every floor and countless cashiers and floor associates are - like everyone else in New York - working hard. Fortunately there were no meltdowns to be observed such as those we'd witnessed at Toys R Us in Times Square the night before, but I did notice a lot of earnest young faces making a case point by point. After Tiger Lilly parted with more of her profits she'd been saving for this trip we went elsewhere for lunch (Kaya would just die if she knew we’d eaten at American Girl Place without her) and then, since it had stopped raining, we went over to the Central Park Zoo.

We arrive just in time for the Polar Bear feeding and to see another New York career option - bear feeder. At this zoo they feed the Polar Bears by first luring them out of the habitat enclosure and into their dens where they can presumably be locked up. Once that is accomplished a zookeeper enters the habitat and hides buckets of food - fish, apples and some veggies frozen in a block and smeared with peanut butter - in the enclosure. While we’re watching this preparation we speculate that there’s probably some initiation for rookie keepers where, once they’re in the middle of the enclosure with bear chow and an open jar of peanut butter, someone plays a loud recording of a Polar Bear huffing and roaring.

Perhaps TL will grace us with a post of her own with her thoughts on the new store.

The other day I stopped at Cold Stone Creamery and bought a small container of their Ghiradelli chocolate ice cream to share in a little private quality time with my wife.

Unfortunately, when I got home — and before any such quality time could materialize — I tucked it into the freezer of our kitchen refrigerator. This is an environment generally overstuffed with items that would enthrall an arctic archaeologist analyzing the lifestyle of my family. Hiding a small, innocuous container in there should have been relatively safe. Except. Except that I live in a house with three women and their chocolate-senses started jangling as soon as they all returned and entered the kitchen together.

Later I went into the freezer and saw that the container and been disturbed. And decimated. There was also a post-it note stuck to it, with large letters in Tiger Lilly's hand-printing: "FOUND YOU!"

There was only one thing I could do.

I took the post-it note and in red ink struck a line through the word "found" and replaced it with my own "I WILL FIND" and stuck the note on the freezer door.

Let me know if you see any of them.