No Fatted Calf

My son has returned home from a foreign land! Let us slaughter the fatted calf and invite all the villagers for a feast and a celebration!

Or perhaps just take him out for Mexican food.

Boy, how things have changed since Old Testament days. Think how many events were once public displays of joy or sorrow, but are now private, even solitary episodes. Think what this has done to the human psyche. What was once shared by all is now unknown to all but a few.

Take my son's homecoming yesterday. He returned from an 18-day trip to Europe. This was his first solo adventure, save for a three-day road trip in Northern California a few years back. He toured 27 museums, had a little romance in Paris with a French-Canadian, stayed at a hotel in the Red Light District of Amsterdam, and used his Spanish more than he ever has in So Cal. He found the French much friendlier than he had expected, and they said he was a good ambassador of the United States. He was 21 and traveling through northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. And he returned safely and happily to his native land. Certainly a cause for a feast and a celebration.

But I was the only one who met him at LAX. (No villages accompanied me.) He and I drove back to Long Beach and had a late dinner at Linda's Mexican restaurant. A private celebration. No fatted calf.