And so it begins….

Today is the day. I’ve been standing at the side of the literary blog pool much longer than I intended. I was supposed to already be adjusted to the water temperature by now and on my way to having prune hands. Instead, I have been standing just at the water’s edge and dipping my toe in periodically ever since I decided I wanted to go swimming.

All this while, I’ve also been hoping that the water isn’t really as cold as my toe dips have suggested it will be and that I can actually trust the 1o feet measurement painted on the ground next to where I stand. I can swim but I can’t really see all the way to the bottom and who knows if it really is only that deep. Either way, I expected to be in over my head whenever I did finally take the plunge so it’s more of a matter of magnitude to be honest. As I have grown older, my tolerance for being in cold water has also decreased over time and I lack some of the willingness I may have had in my youth to just jump right in and swim even if it did seem cold. Enough with the swimming analogy…. I jump in 3….2…..1….

Welcome to Wootens over Tacos! Late last year, the seeds of this blog were planted over a series of meals my now almost 18 year old son Jack and I had while as the name suggests: eating tacos. These meals gave us the opportunity to have one on one father/son conversations that seemed to migrate rather naturally toward some rather deep topics that have included such things as the concept of time itself and the possibility of the existence of multiverses. We had so much fun with these deep conversations and we began looking forward to our taco talks. We would even hold off things as they would come up from time to time to “save them for tacos”. For me personally, I knew I had a limited window of opportunity for these moments before he eventually moves on to college next year so we started talking about the concept of a blog/podcast to capture these talks even if they ultimately became relevant for an audience of two. We were on our way or so I thought and then COVID hit.

Our taco restaurant was shut down for dine-in eating due to COVID and we lost some momentum. There was uncertainty (and still is) with how long this pandemic would last and how best to combat it. We seemed to need at least the one on one environment those taco meals offered for our talks so our idea was put on hold. This is now happening against the backdrop of Jack’s Senior year of High School which has undoubtedly impacted his outlook on certain things and to a certain degree made deeper topics a little less exciting to talk about when he should be experiencing all the milestone events that come with the Senior year but can’t. The first semester is almost complete now and I simply can’t afford to wait any longer as the time that he will still be 100% living with me under the same roof is slipping through my fingers. This has lead to the action I am taking today.

We will see how this develops and I suspect our concept will evolve over time. I am planning to add some of my own personal blogs that may our may not be directly related to the types of topics we would typically cover in a taco talk. In general, I expect the written portion will be me and we will work toward adding some joint podcasts at some point that won’t actually be recorded over a literal taco meal but will cover the types of topics we would usually cover in them. I see this extending to whatever situation we face in the future and find a method we can use to accommodate those talks even if they become more challenging as he moves off to college. We hope you find something worth your while in these posts and look forward to the journey!