And now the treasured memory from summertime's past.

I remember several summers ago spending quality time with my dad.

He always made a point of doing father-son activities,

so it was just like him when he responded to a flyer advertising a three-legged race in the park.

Unfortunately, dad had left his reading glasses at home that day,

and we arrived to find not a three-legged race, but a three-legged racist.

Yes, there he was sitting on a stool because a chair with armrest would have cramped his third leg

beneath the old oak tree in the center of the park.

As we drew near the stream of racial epithets coming out of his mouth,

drove home faster than any thunderstorm could,

that we would not be enjoying a magical day of off-balance running,

but rather having a scarring and unpleasant day of scarring unpleasantness.

You may ask yourself,

why would a three-legged racist go through all the trouble of printing and distributing flyers?

Well, that's precisely the question my father asked.

And in between interjections about the dirtiness of Moroccans

and the beauty larson's size of the Portuguese,

he explained that perhaps lured by the promise of gawking at his third leg,

seeds of racial intolerance were replanted in the minds of the attending children.

Anyway, once we realized our mistake,

I urged my father to leave immediately,

but dad was very serious about our father's son time,

...