‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ Trading the office for the ballpark

In 1970s Brooklyn, New York, elementary school students had an hour’s break for lunch. This reporter and her sister sometimes walked the ten minutes home, had lunch there, then walked back to school with time to spare. On one such afternoon, our father was home, having taken the day off from his teaching job to do some work on another project. As we were walking back to school, we heard him calling us, turned, and were surprised to see him running to catch up with us.