The Retro Dad

After my mom passed away recently, creativity shut off for a while. It felt like someone flipped a breaker in my brain. Lately, though, it’s coming back, through memories of sitting on the couch with my kids, watching their shows. For instance.. for years, I’d watch Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide with them and laugh harder than they did.  They’d ask, “Dad, why are you laughing at kids stuff?” I’d tell them: who do you think is writing your kids’ shows? People my age. And that was exactly why Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide worked for me. It followed Ned Bigby, Moze, and Cookie navigating the chaos of junior high. Awkward crushes, cliques, and teachers who were part comedy, part legend, everything exaggerated but completely relatable. Take 'Mr Monroe' the Home Ec teacher. Played by Jim J. Bullock basically a callback to his eighties sitcom days on Too Close for Comfort. My kids didn’t catch the reference, but I laughed every time hr made an appearance...

I woke up this morning one of the worst ways possible. Blurry eyed from sleep fresh out of bed getting ready to go to work, I turned on the TV and found out we are at war. It is unsettling. Even if this isn't the first time I have seen conflict break out in my lifetime, it never feels normal. You hear about tensions for years. You hear about missile programs and threats. Then one day it becomes real. My mind goes where a lot of minds go. Gas prices. Empty shelves. Parents with kids in the military wondering if they will be sent halfway across the world. The quiet anxiety that settles in the back of your brain and hums all day long.  The truth is there is nothing I can personally do to stop nations from clashing. There is no switch I can flip to calm the markets or steady the headlines. My dad was a Boy Scout early in life, and he always drilled one phrase into my head.. "Always be prepared“. Not panicked.. Not paranoid.. 'Prepared'. So that is what I will do.  I will k...

A few weeks ago, life hit hard. Some mornings, I found myself sitting up in bed with a cup of coffee, staring at the TV for hours.. not really thinking, just letting the noise fill the room. I didn’t try to pick a show. Choosing felt like too much effort. So, I jumped from app to app.. streaming service to streaming service. I got sick of it, so I just went to one of those live TV guide apps, pointed the remote and started scrolling  I was looking for anything familiar. Something old that didn’t demand attention. It reminded me of the days when cable TV ruled, when you could stumble across a show without deciding. Much to my surprise there were many channels that just looped old reruns from certain shows endlessly. Twighlight Zone, Gun Smoke, Alfred Hitchcock, etc. Over time, I noticed a pattern. Many of the shows I grew up loving had changed. Some started strong, raw, and exciting, but somewhere along the way, they lost the magic. Actors left, writers changed, networks polished th...

I thought 2024 was a heck of a year. 2025 didn’t let up, even this close to the new year. Today, on December 24, 2025, the woman who loved me more than any other woman in my life passed away. That woman was my mother. It was completely unexpected, and a shock to everyone. I know myself well enough to realize my creativity will be empty for a while. When something like this happens, I need to step back, take a minute. These things happen more often than we like to admit. I’ve known many people this year who lost parents, partners, loved ones. Heads go down, life keeps moving, somehow we carry on. In the end, it hurts, we sometimes wonder why we’re still here when they’re gone, but we keep living for them. That’s the plan at least. It’s just going to take a minute. I didn’t want to disappear without saying something. Over the years, TheRetroDad.com brought me good friends, acquaintances, and people I didn’t want to leave hanging. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for the support, past...

Some mornings start with everything going wrong. Today was one of those days. I bumped my head, dropped my keys, mixed up my schedule, my ankle was acting up. And This is just a short list of things that happened before I even left for work.  On these days, our brain jumps straight to worst-case scenarios, and the day feels doomed before it even starts. I needed gas, so I pulled into Wawa. After gassing up, I went inside, washed my hands and grabbed a coffee and Bacon Egg and Cheese Bagel. Normally I’d eat on the run, but today I had time. And let me tell you, downshifting and not eating on the go like usual, made all the difference in the world. One bite and everything shifted. The soft bagel, smoky bacon, perfectly cooked egg, mellow cheese.. it all came together like a little miracle.  Ten minutes later, I was calm, centered, and ready to handle the day. If you have a Wawa nearby, you know what I mean. Out east or up north, we’re fanatical about them. And if you...

I woke up today feeling completely off. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Nothing felt wrong, but nothing felt right either. As I drove to work, absolutely nothing sounded appealing. Not eating. Not drinking. Not talking. Not even listening to music. I ended up driving for a full 30 minutes in total silence because I didn’t want anything stimulating my brain.  I  just sat in the quiet and rolled with it. In fact, there were several points where I started telling myself.." OK.. that's enough! Time to start pulling out of this so I can get on with my day". And I knew that I could, but I chose not to. I chose to remain in that space A small part of me wondered if this was depression creeping in or if I was somehow spiraling. But deep down, I knew I wasn’t. I know myself well enough to recognize when something is seriously wrong versus when something just feels “off.” So I started analyzing the feeling. I paid attention to what it was and what it wasn’t. I did a little reading...

When I was a kid, I remember my parents watching the old Pink Panther movies featuring the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. My parents, aunts and uncles would be laughing their heads off while they sat around the TV. I could kind of see the humor, but the movies were a little too dry for me back then. What I did love were the Pink Panther cartoons. I watched those regularly. I always knew the cartoon and the movies had to be connected somehow. I just never understood the details and honestly, as a kid, I didn't care. The big pink cat was enough for me. I always gravitated towards cartoon characters that were optimists, chill, and even keeled.. even if it was to their detriment at times. The Pink panther was all of these and I was a really big fan. I learned how to draw him at an early age and over the years worked his likeness into many and art project at school, that always ended up earning me easy A's. Heck.. on occasion, I still doodle and sketch him out to this very...

Remembering The Fat Boys — 2025 Edition This is an updated version of a post I originally wrote in 2021 It’s 2025, and every time I press play on an old Fat Boys tape (or vinyl, or digital rip) I’m reminded why the trio of Prince Markie Dee, Kool Rock Ski, and Buff Love (The Human Beat Box) weren’t just a  novelty act. They changed how a lot of us heard rap, and how a lot of rap heard itself. I simply blows my mind that its been 41 years since I first witnessed their rap prowess. They weren’t trying to be cool in the narrow sense. They were just being themselves. Big personalities. Big appetites. Humor as loud as their beats. To a lot of us, especially the guys who didn’t fit the lean image, they offered something important: pride, fun, and confidence without needing to look like anyone else. Origins: From 'The Disco' 3 to Hip Hop Pioneers Before they were The Fat Boys, they were The Disco 3. Three friends from Brooklyn trying to make something happen. Kool Rock and Markie...

I graduated to digital watches around 1980, right when my Mickey Mouse watch started feeling a little too “kidsy” for me. My uncle gave me a Hewlett Packard digital watch with bright red LED display that flashed on with the push of a button. That thing felt like future tech strapped to my wrist. When it eventually died, my old man picked up a Pulsar digital watch for me, and I wore that one out just as fast. Looking back, those early digital watches were straight up tech marvels . For the time, nothing felt more advanced. They were the closest thing we had to a smartwatch. As a kid, wearing a watch loaded with functions made you feel like James Bond or a time traveler. Over the years I went through all kinds of digital watches. I loved the stopwatch functions and timed everything — how long I could hold my breath.. to how long my old man hogged the bathroom. Totally unrelated, but both were important metrics. And the backlights? I used them constantly, even when I didn’t need to. Cas...

I woke up this morning with a weird feeling. Not bad. Not great. Just off. Out of sorts. The kind of feeling where you know something is different, but it takes a minute to figure out what it is. I used to have a routine on Thanksgiving morning. It was automatic. I would get up early, put on a hoodie, and head over to the convenience store to grab the two biggest newspapers in the area. Not for the news. For the Black Friday ads. That was the real prize. I would grab a coffee, maybe some donuts, and then head home. Once I got back, it was time for the annual mega breakfast. Biscuits and gravy. Bacon. Eggs. Sausage. Hash browns. Pancakes, maybe some grits. It was a once a year kind of breakfast and it always felt like the perfect way to start the day. Then I would spread out the newspapers and start digging through the ads while the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade played in the background. That was my morning. It felt right. It felt like Thanksgiving. Now I look around and no...

When I was a kid back in the '80s.. ShowBiz Pizza Place was a kid’s paradise. Pizza, games, and the Rock-afire Explosion band putting on a flawless mechanical show. For me, it was like my own little Disneyland way out west in 1980s Northern Colorado. The smells, the laughter, the arcade lights, it was pure magic. You can read why it was so important to me here  in an old post from 2018. During the day, everything seemed perfectly normal. The animatronics danced, sang, and entertained without a hitch. Kids laughed. Parents relaxed. And employees went about their jobs without a second thought. But for the night shift, things were a little different. My brother had a friend named Rob who worked there and swore the animatronics “changed” after the doors were locked. “They would jerk or move suddenly. One night, someone was cleaning the stage when Mitzi, the cheerleading mouse, flailed her arm and knocked him off his feet. Sent him flying about four feet across the floor stage” I...

Growing up, I saw plenty of cereals trying to pass themselves off as “healthy,” but one always made me stop aghast in the cereal aisle. It didn’t look fun, it didn’t look kid friendly, it looked like something you would scoop into a bowl on the floor. When it first hit the market in 1977 , nothing else looked quite like it. That unforgettable champion was Cracklin’ Oat Bran . In fact, it actually stopped me in my tracks once again today in the supermarket some 48 years later.  I remember when this stuff showed up and how shocked I was that it was meant for actual human consumption. To my kid brain, it looked exactly like cat food. Same color, same shape, same energy. And it’s not like my mom fed us sugary junk. I grew up on Buckwheats and Wheaties, the classic “be good, eat this” cereals. But nothing in our pantry ever looked as aggressively adult as the Raisin Bran, Total, and Special K lineup. Those were the cereals that felt like they came with tax advice. Fast forward to toda...

It's inevitable.  This time of year I end up watching Home Alone about a hundred and fifty times.  Home Alone had some incredible product placement throughout the movie, and.. every time I see those products, it gets me missing them.   Here they are.. 1.)  Crunch Tators In the scene when Kevin is eating junk and watching rubbish i.e.; 'Angels With Filthy Souls' , you can see a bag of 'Crunch Tators' sitting on the end table next to him.  Made by Frito-Lay and sold during the late 80s and early 90s, these chips were incredible!  I absolutely loved these super crispy potato chips!  While I was actually more partial to the jalapeno flavored version, the Mesquite flavor was good as well.  They had an incredible crunch and we're pretty much the precursor to kettle-cooked potato chips.  I really miss these chips and have wished for years that Frito-Lay would bring them back for the masses to enjoy. 2.)  Micro M...

Red Baron vs Tombstone Pizza Taste Test As I discovered in my recent blog post..  Finding Comfort in the Worst Pizza You’ve Ever Had , a pizza doesn’t have to be fancy to bring comfort and good memories. Frozen pizza nights have always been part of growing up, whether it was a late night in college, a quick Friday dinner, or just a snack when nothing else sounded good. Today we’re putting two classic favorites head to head Red Baron and Tombstone to see which one comes out on top in flavor, ease, and nostalgia. From the first bite to the last, these pizzas are more than just convenience food.. they also bring a little slice of memory. Packaging and Presentation Red Baron keeps it simple with that classic red box and logo you know from the freezer aisle. Tombstone goes a little bigger with bold colors and promises of "bold flavors." Both are easy to find and fun to open, but I always get a little more excited about that Tombstone box. Something about it just feels more like...

If you grew up in the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s, you probably remember the same two bar soaps sitting on just about everyone’s bathroom counter: Irish Spring and Zest . Both were cheap, loud, memorable, and built their entire reputations on commercials that drilled their slogans straight into our brains. And because I’ve been on a little “old-school grooming” kick, I decided to go full retro and test them head-to-head again. I used each bar for over a week , real shower use, real Florida sweat, real life.. to see which one actually performs the best in 2025. Spoiler: one of them still holds the crown until someone proves me wrong. Irish Spring: The Heavy Hitter The classic version Irish Spring has always been the in-your-face, hit-you-with-a-green-brick-of-clean kind of soap. And honestly? It still is. What I Tested Daily showers Working outside Sweat-heavy days Multiple hand washes What I Noticed Cleaning power: Irish Spring still cuts through everything! Swea...