Daddy & Daughter Road Trip

Last week my one week shy of 20 year old daughter and I made a father/daughter trip of a lifetime. I got a call Saturday before last from Steve Saint asking if there was any way I could come up to New York City and do some video documentation of Mincaye in the Big Apple. The two of them were up there doing promotional work for the opening of the “End of the Spear” movie. I decided I should take one of my students with me and got to thinking that I really should take someone who could do some good still photography. Then I thought about my own daughter and thought this is really going to be fun! We had a blast together the whole time. I realized that this was the first time we would be working together on a real media project. She did a great job getting some great images.

Steve and Ginny Saint are absolutely delightful people to be with. And Mincaye, well he’s just amazing to be around. People fall in love with the guy almost instantly. We saw hard core network news people just fall under his spell. He only knows about eight English words, but can charm the socks off anybody. He just smiles and exudes this wonderful spirit and you can’t help but love him. I was watching him and thought that I couldn’t imagine him having a bad thought about anybody ever. And this man was once a ferocious murderer. It’s the most amazing flesh and blood example of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit one can ever imagine.

The trip came up so suddenly and the preparation was so hurried that we really didn’t have any time to make plans to take advantage of where we would be on the trip. With zero planning we still ended up spending some time in D.C. on the way up seeing some of the monuments and spending a few hours in the Air and Space museum. We also got to walk around Ground Zero and see the Hershey factory in PA after we were done shooting. Crazy fun stuff! And we spent some time with my sister and her family in their “new” house they’ve lived in for years but we’d never seen.

We listened to lots of music in the car. I don’t think I’ll ever forget cruising down the road with my daughter that I’m crazy in love with, singing Beach Boys and James Taylor songs together. She even put in one of my King’s X CD’s and we belted out “Dog Man” at the top of our lungs. It was heaven.

I heard some great things from my girl that I’d never heard before. Some were about things she was thinking at various times growing up. She made one comment about music that really surprised me. The context was talking about all the music spanning a wide spectrum of styles that we have constantly had playing in our house as she grew up. As a result, her taste is wildly eclectic and she amazes her friends with all the kinds of music she likes. She said one of her friends had told her, “Your parents listen to great oldies. My parents listen to really crummy old music.” That was all interesting, but the thing that surprised me was this: She said that she thought that years from now, the music of her current generation would just sound silly. She said she likes a lot of it, but she recognized that a lot of the guitar strumming probably wouldn’t stand the test of time.

Well, I’ve been wanting to write about this especially after all the thinking and stressing over the “End of the Spear” controversies and the attacks on Steve. Nice to have something so wonderful and bursting with love to write about.