"Why do writers write? Because it isn't there."

-- Thomas Berger, novelist

Very few newspapers explore what it means to be a dad in modern-day America.

But beginning in 1999, the Dad Zone became a weekly feature in the Family section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It's been an opportunity to share my life as a father of four with the readers of Arkansas' largest newspaper.

Here are a few samples:

Impatience brings tiny miracle to world early

Bobbing in an undertow of emotion

Grizzly’s diary:This dog has summer licked

It’s not so bad here ... where’s the food?

Nothing Irish in how we observe March 17