Way 41
Unplug the TV and pretend it's broken once in a while. Or hide it.

There were several television sets in the house when they were growing up.

First, in Kansas, and then later, well after the boys' mother was gone, in Florida.

But TV had never been a problem for the Tracy boys. Jeff had never had to get after them for sitting in front of it too much, or fighting over which programs to watch.

For a time, John had had a television in his room when he was ill for the period of about a year when he was seven and eight years old. Even then, though, he rarely had it on, preferring the company of books instead.

Alan had begged to have one put in his and Gordon's room when they were nine and ten, just because, but Jeff had firmly stood his ground and refused. Alan eventually forgot about it because really, when your older brothers were all outside throwing a football around, shooting hoops or kicking a soccer ball between two trees declared the net, why would you want to stay indoors?

There was the swimming. There were the various sports which included baseball on top of the others, and even throwing darts.

Eventually, when Scott and Virgil were already gone from the nest, when John was a senior in high school, Jeff began to notice something.

While Gordon was training hard for the Olympics around this time, and early morning and late evening both found him going at it in the high school's Olympic-sized pool, he no longer joined Alan outside for random hijinks involving boxcar racing or the dune buggy Alan had cajoled Jeff into buying.

No.

Gordon's down time was now spent with the television. More specifically, with the types of old movies that Jeff would never have watched even if they were brand-new.

Horror movies, but not just any horror movies. Gordon was into the most god-awful B, C, D and Z horror movies Jeff thought had ever existed. Terrible ones from the 1960s, 1970s and a smattering of later 80s, 90s and 2000s ones thrown in. Things like Blood and Lace, and Satan's School for Girls. Games with a guy Jeff had always thought of as a tough man's man until he caught a glimpse of what he was doing in that particular flick.

The cheesier the movie, the better. The cheesier the music, the better. Oh, they were bad.

Finally one Friday night around 9:30, Jeff walked by the living room only to find Gordon watching something called Bride of the Gorilla from 1951 and where did he even find these things? He stopped, watched wide-eyed for a moment, and then said, "Why are you sitting here watching this when your brothers are out with their friends?"

Gordon paused the movie, looked up at his dad from the couch, and said, "I see my friends at school. I spend most of my free time training, and no, Dad, there aren't any girls I'm currently interested in dating. So I watch my movies."

He made to un-pause the movie but stopped when Jeff then asked, "How can you stand this stuff? It's awful!"

Gordon sat up from his half-reclined position and put the remote control down on the coffee table. "Haven't you ever just watched something so you could make fun of it?"

"Um…" Jeff thought for a moment. "No."

"Well, I get a kick out of it. It's pretty funny wondering how some of this crap got made in the first place. The music's a hoot, and every now and then you find a diamond in the rough."

"You watch them just to make fun of them?"

"Well, no," Gordon admitted. "I kind of got addicted to them after I started. There's something about them. They're so horrifically awful you can't stop watching. Like when people rubberneck on the highway."

"Ah," Jeff nodded sagely, though he didn't get it at all.

"Come on, Dad, try this one out. I'm only ten minutes into it. I can skip it back to the beginning."

How to make good his escape without hurting his son's feelings? No clear way Jeff could come up with quickly, and so he sighed in resignation and sat down on the couch with his sixteen-year old boy.

"Just this one," Jeff said.

Six hours later, the other boys were all home, it was nearing dawn, and Gordon and Jeff were on Cannibal Holocaust, which Jeff was staring at in abject horror while Gordon grinned through the entire thing.

John had come through four hours earlier and just shook his head at the pair of them.

Alan had raced through the living room, skidded to a halt, done a double-take at the fact that his father was actually sitting there and watching such horrid fare, then shrugged and gone on to his room.

Neither Gordon nor Jeff got any sleep that night.

And right up until Gordon graduated high school and left to his own pursuits, neither of them ever missed a Friday Night Horrible Horror Movie Marathon.

Jeff wasn't altogether sure he was in his right mind watching this stuff with his son. But he'd never enjoyed hours of terrible fiction more in his entire life than he did in those two years' worth of Friday nights with Gordon.

When they were all back together on Tracy Island, the tradition started up again. Only this time, they left it at a double-feature, rather than five or six movies in a row. And Jeff was okay with that, because he was getting too old for this up-all-night crap anyway.

But neither man was too old to spend a few hours together laughing, joking, and just being.

Way 42
Go with your child to school once in a while. Meet the teacher and ask how you can help.

Okay, so D.J. wasn't his kid, but Uncle Virgil was more than happy to accompany his nephew to school since Scott was in New York with their father handling a new acquisition for Tracy Corp.

The first of the next generation of Tracys to be of school age, the majority of classes D.J. attended were remotely via two-way video, with his mother Kaya by his side to help with all the things they had little kids doing, like arts and crafts projects, and making sure he was printing his letters and numbers properly.

But the agreement with the private school in Sydney was that D.J. would attend one class a week in person, and usually it was his mother or father…or sometimes both…who went with him. They would spend the day out and about in the city, and then pick D.J. up at the end of his school day, take him out for dinner and some fun, and return to Tracy Island.

Today, however, Kaya had some experiments with Gordon and Kyrano's underwater plants she wanted to be there for, and Scott was away, so Uncle Virgil had volunteered.

And regretted it almost immediately.

"What's an edge-nee-neer?"

"What's a cratty-pillah twack?"

"Do you have a whole island all your own?"

"You don't look like D.J.'s daddy at all."

Virgil was used to his nieces and nephews. He was good with them. They'd grown up around him, and they were used to life on Tracy Island with so many different people. They already knew, were trained from the moment they could speak a single word, to never say anything about International Rescue. And while it could never be guaranteed that one of them wouldn't say anything, the Tracys were banking on the fact that people would just consider it a child's wild imagination if any of them actually did say something about it.

But these kids, this gaggle of twenty boys and girls ages five and six? This was just…it was too much, even for a guy with the patience of a saint.

"Uncle Virg?"

"Yeah, D.J."

"You don't look so good."

"I'm good, Deej. I'm good. What are we up to now?"

"Well, since it's Bring Your Dad To School Week, all the dads who come have to read a part of the book Mrs. Long is reading to us."

"Reading, huh? Okay. Reading I can do. You sure it's okay for me to participate since I'm not your dad?"

"Sure! My friends all like you."

Virgil grimaced. "Fantastic."

Nonetheless, he took the chair in the center of the semicircle of children and the smattering of dads who were there. Mrs. Long smiled at him as she handed him a book called Front and Center about kids needing to line up when they're told, and basically follow what adults tell them to do for their own safety.

Opening the book, Virg saw the teacher swivel her hands around, and realized he needed to show the book to the kids while he was reading it. An interesting feat since it meant he could barely see the pages and they were upside-down to him.

He could do this. This was much simpler than developing a new steam-driven jet propulsion system for a new cousin to their Firefly machine. Sure it was.

Or not.

He got about halfway through the book and realized that for the first time that day, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He looked up to find the children all staring – not at the book's pages – but at him directly, like they were mesmerized.

The weird thing was, Mrs. Long was looking at him the same way. Even the five other dads were watching him intently.

He was perplexed for a moment until he remembered something his girlfriend Maria had once told him early on in their dating life. "You have a voice like velvet, Virgil Tracy," she'd said.

Maybe that was it? He'd never really considered anything about his voice or anyone else's, for that matter, but…why the heck was everyone in the room just staring at him like that?

Ten minutes later, he finished the book and closed it. He placed it on his lap and looked around. They were all still staring at him.

Finally one little redheaded girl…Alexia, was that her name?...whispered, "Wow," like she was completely in awe.

"Wow?" Virgil repeated.

"You're the bestest storyteller ever," another little girl said with wide eyes.

"I…I am?"

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Long chimed in. "Another, children? That is, if Mr. Tracy doesn't mind."

"Another…" Virgil repeated with dread, until he looked at his nephew. D.J. was beaming, so proud that this was his uncle everyone liked so much.

And that afternoon, as Virgil read the class book after book after book, keeping them actually sitting still and quiet for more time than he'd ever thought was possible for kids this age, he realized something.

There was a lot of power in the written word.

And there was a lot of power in sharing those words, those stories, with young, impressionable minds.

Which was how it came about that, once a month for the remainder of D.J.'s Kindergarten year, Virgil traveled with his young nephew to the school, and sat there reading books to the children of his class. Sometimes Scott joined him, sometimes not. But it was Virgil the children wanted to read to them.

Whatever the reason, Virgil found himself looking forward to it more than he ever thought he would. Molding young minds, getting them excited about different things, teaching them. Now he understood a little better why people became teachers.

He never would, however, particularly care for the cutting-and-pasting types of arts and crafts. Especially since he never did quite get that glue out of his favorite shirt. To his dying day, he'd swear that kid William had smeared it all over him on purpose…