Father and elementary school teacher Keith Bauman, 33, had the startling realization last Wednesday that he had become the spitting image of his father at his age, if by age 33 Bauman’s father had started balding already, never played in a band, or enjoyed spending his Friday evenings huddled around a board game.
“When you’re a kid, you always tell yourself that you’ll never end up like your parents,” said Bauman. “But then one day you’re standing in front of the mirror tying your Snoopy necktie and you realize that you ended up just like your old man. Without the honorary doctorate degree or houseboat in Naples, of course.”
Bauman reported that the realization dawned on him while playing catch with his son last weekend. Bauman stated that he began to gently lob ground balls to his five-year-old son Aiden “the same way [his father] used to after he would come home from business trips to Bangkok, Cairo, or Vera Cruz.”
“I see so much of myself in Keith. He inherited so many of my better qualities,” said Bauman’s father Chris. “My accounting skills, my love of grilling, an appreciation for a nice camping trip—all essential parts of a perfectly adequate existence.”
“But thankfully he’s not quite as reckless as I was in my thirties,” Bauman Sr. continued. “There is plenty of fun to be had without going on a 48-hour Quaalude-induced bender with Steven Pinker.”
