Since spending time with my sons and their families, I’m getting to appreciate the saying and the feelings  TGIF brings.  It probably is  sympathy pains I am feeling, but as we all know sympathy pains are real.   Being in The Villages I am far away from the hustle and bustle of families with teenagers,  but now that I am visiting them I am right in the middle.  Well, not quite in the middle…I don’t get up until I hear the garage door go up and my son, Joe  and grandson Damian, leave at exactly 6:10 am, on the button.  Not 6:09am or 6:11am.  Damian is 16 and is working this summer with his father and mother at Landmarker Geospatial, and amazingly doesn’t complain about the 6:10am departure every morning.  It always hurts a little to see them grow up, as there are not a lot of years they can be foot loose and fancy free, although working towards the purchase of their own cars is the foot loose and fancy free that they are looking forward to.  Last Friday, when they returned home after work, I said to Damian, now you must appreciate the meaning of TGIF.  Oh, I have always appreciated  the phrase, we’ve been saying it for years in school.  Well that’s true, and it is also true that when I went to school I had never heard of TGIF.  The first time it surfaced was in 1964, long after my school days, but during my working days.  Hence my association with work.  Of course now it has an entirely different  meaning…living in The Villages when we say TGIF, we grab our coupons and head out the door with friends for dinner, and we haven’t even put in a hard week of work.