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Last weekend, I went to my hometown. My trip included a visit to the Great Bend Cemetery, where I took flowers and spent time at my mother’s grave. And for that time, my mind cleared and I reflected just how fortunate I was.

My mom was born and raised in Kingman, Kan., by Jacob and Olga Goering. Jake and Olga were devoted to three things: their Mennonite faith, their German heritage and their children, son Victor and daughter Ramona Jean.

Mom had one sibling, Dad had 11. Dad was Irish Catholic.

When my parents met on a blind date in 1950, no one could fathom eHarmony and certainly never entertained the notion of comparing scores on 29 dimensions of compatibility. Their upbringing was worlds apart, but they didn’t need a 10-page questionnaire to discern what a wonderful future they had ahead of themselves.

My parents had complementing and contrasting personalities that found a balance in the mix. While dad built his law practice with his older brother Bob, mom ran a more complicated business called home. She was the yin to his yang: Mom was the nurturing, reassuring presence who managed day-to-day events at 3616 17th Street.

Like all mothers, she was a constant presence. But she was there for everyone else, too. We lived on a lake and constantly had an entourage stopping by to fish, swim or do what today’s kids would describe as “chill.” Everyone was welcome. Our basketball goal saw furious pickup games. Our front yard was an invitation to home-run derbies, and football games would spill over to the adjoining convent grounds. Mom knew not just everyone’s names, but their parents, and in some cases, grandparents. “How’s your mother doing? Is she feeling better?” I heard similar inquiries all the time.

She was a great listener.

For most of 1968, we had three cousins from Alabama live with us and attend our schools while their mother — my dad’s sister — recuperated from a heart attack.

It was 1973, when mom and dad opened their doors to their 19-year-old niece, Kema, who had given birth to a boy in Wichita. She gave him up for adoption. The adopted parents named him Scott. “Your mom and dad let me stay with them at their house after Scott had been born and I had left Wichita. Mona was such a caring parent (yes, she was my parent during that time) and we talked and talked about Scott’s leaving and the chances of ever seeing him again. She did so much to comfort me during that trying time.”

Twenty-three years later, in April 1996, with mom’s help, Kema was reunited with Scott at his home in Dodge City. Kema and Scott have remained very close ever since.

In August 1975, when South Vietnam fell to the communists, our parish adopted five families, 27 in total, who came to our city. One of the children, Huang Mai, had a severe cleft lip and palate. He was a teenager. It hurt mom to even think about how much pain he endured growing up with that condition. She made his cause her cause, dedicating countless hours to his surgical repair, taking him to Wichita and ultimately, with the assistance of surgeons there, helping him gain normal speech and appearance.

Huang learned English, and then went to KU to study engineering. When I was a senior at KU I was entering Watson Library one day. My head was down when another student grabbed my arm and said, “Matt?” It was Huang. We reconnected and he said, “How is your mother? She was so good to me.” I remember calling mom that night and recounting the story. Her reply, was, typically, to deflect any credit. “He had wonderful surgeons,” she said.

On Sunday, my thoughts will return, once again, to Ramona Jean.

(this is a reprint from a column published in 2005)

Over the last 15 years my wife has organized roughly 40 birthday parties with our four children.

Thirty-nine were huge disasters.

This is no criticism of my better half, mind you. Rather, it’s an inevitable fact of all birthday parties. Parties for boys have the largest potential for Titanic-like outcomes, but girl parties have their own “issues.”

Here is my recipe for birthday flops:

10. Raise your child’s expectations. Tell your child early and often: “This is going to be the best birthday party ever. Better than the party with the hot air balloon ride. Better than the party at the riding stable.”

9. Invite the entire class and subdivision. A large turnout will demonstrate just how popular your child really is. Toss them all in the basement and watch time stand still.

8. Pick unusual venues to outdo everyone else. Skating parties can create fun memories when toddlers fall and chip their teeth. Petting zoos can be interesting, especially during goat-mating season.

7. Set aside several hours for the big event. Encourage parents to go shopping and be inaccessible. Accede to your son’s demand that he can open all the presents first, not last. Dead time will encourage the brats to get creative.

6. Serve candy and sodas with loads of caffeine. It’s a potent one-two combination kids love.

5. Coordinate with the Chiefs schedule. Schedule the party during a Chiefs game so dad can give his undivided attention. Let him drink a couple beers to “loosen him up” for when he needs to fill time with a couple makeshift magic tricks.

4. Invite scary clowns. Nothing can freak out toddlers quicker than a strange man with a bad wig, a red nose and shoes that curl up like those worn by the Wicked Witch of the West. Encourage the really shy ones to “go sit on his lap and get a special treat.”

3. Get siblings involved. Brothers love it when their sister steals all the attention. Have ample water balloons, sling shots and BB guns around when they get bored. Use those special candles that you can’t blow out. Converting the cake into one big spitball will add to the special memories.

2. Leave the dog and the cake in the same room alone.

1. Forget about record keeping. Sort out later who brought which gifts.

Put a fitting end to the day by driving everyone home when it’s over. Depend on the 9-year-old guests to help navigate the cul-de-sacs and dead ends found in most subdivisions.

This will extend the party another couple hours and improve your disposition considerably when you finally get home to pick up the mess.

Technology was supposed to make things better, right? Then someone explain what is now the biggest epidemic: security questions. Follow me here. I had logged into my 529 site to pay my son’s college tuition, so my mood wasn’t pleasant to begin with. Plus I was in a hurry. I was late leaving from work.

I guessed my name and password. But then the site told me they were upgrading the security and I needed to complete security answers. Thirty minutes later I was on the verge of throwing my laptop against the wall.

The idea, one might think, is relatively defensible. You have three sets of questions to choose from, and then answer them as they are correct to you. But since it’s a joint account, I need answers that my wife would know, too. And instead of asking something simple like “what’s your name?” the exercise was decidedly preposterous.

Here were two of the first four questions: “Your childhood best friend’s first name?” And, “Your current best friend’s first name?” Generally speaking when I’m trying to retrieve information from a website that has my money I don’t like a computer asking me questions. Isn’t that what HAL did in “2001 A Space Odyssey”? And asking about best friends 45 years ago doesn’t improve my mood much.

After thinking about it and choosing the name John, I had to type the answer twice — which wouldn’t seem difficult except the letters were replaced with asterisks — something called “masked passwords.” So you type but can’t see the letters. This may shock the nerd-guy who creates these rules but when you can’t see what you are typing mistakes happen. And when mistakes happen I get mad. And when I get mad I write columns.

I finished and got this message: “Security answers must be at least six characters.” News flash. In 1964 everyone’s name was short — Gus, Joe, Tom, Kurt, Bill, Alan, Marty, Tim. Nobody on the planet had names like Hunter or Jeremiah or Alexis.

I came up with something and moved on.

The next round included questions like, ‘What hospital were you born?” followed by, “In what city did you honeymoon?” The last set of questions asked me, “Who is your favorite athlete?”

And, “What’s your favorite hobby?” Who has time for a hobby when you have to answer stupid questions like this? By now I was just picking one and typing things like “who knows,” “who cares” “get me out of here.”

I clicked on “enter” and got this message: “Your second security answer and the retype of your second security answer do not match. Please retry.”

So I have a solution. Fire nerd guy and let me come up with the questions for people like me who can’t remember what we did last week, not to mention a honeymoon that was 26 years ago. Here they are:

• Where were you when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?

• Where were you when President Reagan was shot?

• Where is the nearest pharmacy to your house?

• What day is the senior discount at the grocery store?

• Where is the comfort shoe store?

• What theaters have matinees?

• Why haven’t your children had grandchildren yet?

• When was your last bowel movement?

Bill Gates — call me on the landline.

Pretty much every Friday I enjoy the same routine. I load up Bernie and take her to Red Bridge Kennel for her cut and color. About two blocks from our destination, her tail moves with a force capable of disrupting the Earth’s rotation. When I park and open the car door, she dashes down the stairs to the kennel and waits for another door. When opened, her feet spin on the linoleum floor like Barney Rubble. To bring joy to someone who brings you joy — life has few equivalents.

But a week ago Friday was different. Instead of driving four miles east we traveled 200 the other direction. The time had arrived for Bernie to gain redemption in my hometown. You see, 11 years ago, the last time she entered Barton County, things, well, didn’t go so well. No sooner had our family pulled into my parents’ driveway and we opened the mini-van, Bernie was exploring my parents’ backyard — rich in vegetation with a large lake on the north side of the property. Bernie had darted into the backyard and discovered a hen mallard and her nine baby ducks. Two minutes later there were eight ducklings. Lori dispatched scolding, harsh language and other discipline. And that was just me.

Now I was taking just one passenger. Just before I backed out of the driveway Lori stepped outside. “I guess this is our future. You, me and her” — nodding in the direction of the backseat companion. “Yep. See you Sunday.”

Hollywood loves the outdoor dogs — Lassie, for instance, was famous for running in from the country and then holding a pose for the camera. You never saw him perched over an air-conditioning vent gasping for cool air or getting a blow dry at the kennel. Harold Ensley’s dog Country Squire was the canine equivalent of Michael Jordan for us growing up: Adept at plowing through heavy brush to hold a point on a covey of quail and then retrieving the game once downed. A Wheaten, especially one raised in Leawood, is not at that level. So this trip was fraught with hazard.

Our ultimate destination wasn’t my parent’s house. It was 800 acres our family owns 35 miles south of Barton County — Rattlesnake Ranch — named for the creek that runs along the northern-most edge of the property. It is home to two fishing ponds, a cabin and pastoral confines across the road from Quivira National Wildlife Refuge —named after an American tribe Indian that lived in the area when Coronado visited in 1541.

We pulled up early afternoon Friday at the Snake, and Bernie instantly went on a sniff hunt for Bigfoot. It was a rare occasion where she was unconstrained — no cars, fences, streets, other dogs or baby ducklings. She got busy, and I did too. In no time I had three poles out, a folding chair filled, cheap cigar, cold beer and a disabled phone. Experts say that meditation results in changes in brain activity — with a focused attention to internal experiences. That was my feeling — total tranquillity. As the fish were hitting, the quail were sounding off, the shadows grew longer and no one was asking me for money or car keys. I drifted into a transcendental state.

And then Bernie showed up on the dock. She was intensely curious about my worms, eyeballing my minnows, honing in on stink bait in my tackle box and barking loudly with every fish that splashed its way to the dock. She found her way around my poles, lines, hooks and came close to knocking over my beer. I went from Maharishi to Clark Griswold.

Time to move, I said. I grabbed a pole and we walked to the south pond. That’s when I turned to the west and noticed what froze her — roughly 20 large heifers gathered at the fence row, maybe 30 feet away. Bernie tried to bark. It was like her throat closed halfway through the delivery. I was very entertained. I reached down and rubbed the top of her head: ‘It’s OK Bernie.’ Cue the tail wag.

An hour later we were joined by my dad and older brother Tim. A bonfire followed with brats, more beverages and more fish. At dusk the sounds of coyotes filled the air as temperatures cooled, winds calmed and the grill blazed. Bernie found a spot on the concrete porch and entered her own transcendental state. And life was very good.

My wife handed me the photograph. Her expression was a foreshadowing of what awaited me. “We found this in the tub too.” The tub was a large collection of pre-digital photographs Lori had been organizing. I grabbed it, moved to the couch and sat down. It was a photo I took at Cub Scout Day Camp, with second-grader Thomas McCord, standing with his father, Dan. That summer I was the cubmaster for Troop 3096, Day Camp coordinator and chief photographer.

It was June 2001. Our son Robert had finished second grade. Thomas was his classmate.

The day before camp, it rained three inches. Johnson County was in a flash flood watch. No matter — camp was on. For some moms, this was their first introduction to Scouts, and they had their index finger firmly on the panic button. Moms were asking — “Is it safe?” “Are the campgrounds flooding?” “Are you crazy?” And that was just my house. On that Monday morning, as our bus pulled out of Nativity, Indian Creek at 119th Street and Mission Road was over its banks, which forced a detour of the bus route. Moms who sat in their SUVs as the bus made a sharp left had an urgent need for smelling salts. The next two days we got two more inches each day. Camp Naish — thick with trees and heavy vegetation — became the world’s largest mud playground.

The McCord/Keenan tandem’s introduction to inclement weather was just beginning. We returned to Naish in July a couple years later for Webelos camp when the temperatures peaked at 106 degrees, a record high. The maternal panic button was, once again, engaged.

Robert and Thomas played on various teams. In sixth grade someone politely asked, correction, ordered, me to coach the CYO basketball team. This was the castoff team — the rejects from the A to D teams. I loved that class, those boys, but particularly Thomas, whose sweet disposition made him a favorite with pretty much everyone who knew him. But I was partial to him for another reason — he was on a perpetual growth spurt — settling at 6’2” in eighth grade.

This didn’t surprise his mom, Therese — at birth he was just a few ounces shy of 10 pounds and was over the 100th percentile at every medical checkup. “He had enormous feet from the time he was born,” Therese said. My whole family gave him wide berth in the pews at church because when he stepped on your toe you felt it. They finally stopped growing in ninth grade at size 15 . His football cleats were special-ordered and freakish looking. His flip-flops were like boats.

Through all these adventures Thomas coped with juvenile diabetes, diagnosed in first grade. You never really knew it, except for those times when he self-administered shots.

Thomas and Robert were teammates on a baseball team that played in Blue Valley and, yes, they knew that coach too. We won a few, lost a lot more, and along the way had lots of pizza and pool parties where supposedly one parent broke out a Speedo.

But Boy Scouts was the thread that connected all those years, tracing the trajectory from adolescence to adulthood, and they were rich with memories. At Bartle they spent time carving weapons, chasing skunks and hanging out in exclusive tent enclaves. The rest of their time they wasted.

In October, while a sophomore at K-State, we lost Thomas. He died from diabetes complications at age 20. His funeral included photos depicting a life full of adventure, including many of his days as a Scout. To Dan and Therese, the photo of their son as an Eagle Scout is no doubt among their most treasured, but I have my own.

We miss you, Thomas.