Following an overnight flight to meet my father at his latest military assignment, my mother, eight noisy and shoving siblings, and I arrived at Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. “Do you have any weapons or illegal drugs in your possession?” the customs agent asked my weary mother.

“Sir,” she said while separating my brother and me, “if I had either of those items, I would have used them by now.”

— Jim Risdal