Progress. Hah.

This week's objet d'eBay, a postcard sized tintype of a father and daughter, is from a different never-again-to-be-seen-nor-heard day. One well-dressed dad, a quiet, loving daughter. And quiet time together enough to pose.

Having driven, hiked with, kayaked, entertained, medicated, adjudicated, pushed together and separated Things One and Two for the last few days, I can only marvel at this suggestion of serenity. (And no doubt, the wife/mother hovers just out of camera range to change the daughter and serve the father's needs as well.)

Still, my (and probably your) present and future troubles pale compared to those descending permanently on dadland's newest Sisyphus, Calgary "happy dad" J.P. Jepp, new father of identical quadruplet girls and two-year-old Simon. The complexity of his future so boggles the mind, it almost wipes out concern for the short-term challenges facing Manhattan, Kan., (non-biological) father of 16 newborns Rich Vargo.

Polio was cureless and internet porn downloads starring others' daughters unthinkable, but all the father days suggested by that image are worth a ponder or two on one of summer's final lazy, Sundays.

** A wise man pondered, "After I had my first child I wondered what I did with all my free time when I didn't have a kid; and after my second I asked what I did with the free time granted by having only one."