Daniel Rubin: Boys will be boys; Dad should know

Walking into work yesterday morning, the boss asked me how the kids were doing.

I'm a little tightly wound on the subject, I explained, then talked about how this summer they'll probably do what they did the summer before, which is sit for dogs and lifeguard at the pool.

In this economy, such work is a blessing. I try not to think of the girl they grew up with who is heading overseas, where she will be paid to work in a lab and cure cancer or something.

I mentioned how one of the boys had been eluding me for a few days and we learned on Facebook that he's not going to Australia in the fall on a marine biology program that would have him diving around the Great Barrier Reef.

This is the son whose Facebook picture shows him in action, commanding the middle of the field on his Ultimate Frisbee team, looking fierce under his five-point Mohawk.

(Do they assign points to haircuts as they do antlers? They should. It's an impressive headdress, molded in place with Elmer's glue, then promptly shaved down at tournament's end.)

My boss told me about his own son, who'd played lacrosse at Penn and at one point dyed his hair red and blue, as he remembered.

The question he then asked was the right one. Were they happy?

I haven't talked to my other son in a few days, either. Via Facebook I see that he traveled to East Lansing, Mich., Monday night to watch Michigan State get crushed by Carolina in the NCAA final. He seemed to survive the ensuing riot without getting arrested. Apparently he is going to classes as well.

He's walking mutts again this summer because he truly loves it and is kind with them, and if you read my former colleague Michael Schaffer's new book, One Nation Under Dog, you'll learn there's real money in pets.

So, my boss asked, what were you doing when you were your boys' age?

Actually, the summer after my sophomore year in college was the year I began my journalistic career, with an act of deception.

I was living in San Francisco, spending my father's money studying deviant sociology and volunteering for a consumer organization.

My roommate scored a writing gig at BAM (Bay Area Music) magazine. He was about to go interview Dan Hicks, a singer of old-timey Western swing, whose records happened to be my favorites.

Did I know how to take pictures? he asked me.

Yes, I lied.

Back then you had to know something about 35mm lenses to take a photograph useful to a rock magazine, and I didn't. But how else could I meet one of my hipster heroes?

Hicks lived across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County in a house so cluttered that when I made myself comfortable on the couch I sat on a parking cone.

My roommate made sure I never forgot this by putting it in his piece.

As for my pictures, it would take a forensic scientist to recognize Hicks from my work. You couldn't even be sure of his species.

I was never invited along again, but I'd met my hero, fed a little of the hunger for the real world that was beginning to burn inside me, and learned that photography was probably not going to be my passport.

I dug out some of Hicks' music the other night because it turns out he will appear at the World Cafe for free at lunchtime Friday, and I will do my best to show up - even talk my way in, if I have to.

It had been decades since I'd heard Striking It Rich and Where's the Money? It's good to rediscover something you loved.

Which brings me back to my kids and their summer jobs. What I need to understand is that boys sometimes are slow-release creatures, just like their fathers. It will be a joy to have them around while we still can.