Field Trip

An article by Don Quixote

Dafyd’s class had a field trip today to the FWMA (aka the Fort Wayne Museum of Art) and he asked me to go along with him and I jumped at the chance. This of course involved reworking my normal schedule at the newspaper and the university but it was well worth it.

I picked up both of the boys in Grabill and took them to school (I had to head their anyway) and made my way down to Dafyd’s class. I had a chance to chat with his teacher Mrs. Ray a bit and help Dafyd straighten up his desk (he takes after me obviously).

The bus ride over wasn’t much to write home about, other than the fact that it was dreadful. I don’t know how kids do it. The noise level is insane, the shocks are terrible and the color green is enough to invoke vomiting. Thankfully Dafyd and I spent the ride over playing Arvale: The Journey of Illusion on the PPC. If I could just remind him how to heal his character, Dafyd could finish the game without any issue, but I digress.

The man exhibit that we went to see was original works by legendary photographer Margaret Bourke-White. For all the years that I’ve lived in Fort Wayne, I have never managed to make my way over to the museum, so even if the kids weren’t excited I was.

Margaret Bourke-White specialized in the beauty of industrial design and took a lot of photographs of machines and workers. It was beautiful stuff to look at. I think Dafyd liked it as well. If you live in the Fort you should make sure you stop by and take a look or just do a search online for her works. She actually took the photograph that was on the first cover of LIFE magazine.

We weren’t there very long and took another joy-filled bus ride back to Harlan Elementary. When we got there I had decided that I was going to kidnap Dafyd for the rest of the day and spend some Daddy and Dafyd time together. I’m a firm believer in the importance of school and your kids attending all the time. However, everyone needs a day off and I could tell he needed one. So I called Kara on the way home and discussed it with her and she agreed that it was okay to take him out.

We had a blast. Burger King for lunch, Christmas shopping at the mall and lots of laughs with a final stop at Toys-R-Us (we had to get a consolation prize for Jace since I didn’t take him out for a half day, but his time is coming). A great time was had by all. If you ever get a chance, make sure you take at least one field trip with your kid, you’ll more than you know.