My 13 year old son has been spending quite a bit of time at Hershey Park with his friends since school let out. Because we live 10-15 minutes from the park, he, like many of the kids, has a season pass.

During a rain delay in his baseball game yesterday, he and some of the guys from his team were talking about going to the park today. He asked me on the way home whether he could use his own money to buy a ticket for a particular friend on the team, whose family couldn't afford the ticket (a day pass runs about $46). I told him that I'd buy his ticket.

My wife and a couple of the other moms got the idea that a season's pass is about as much as three tickets, so they decided to chip in and surprise the boy with a pass. She and the group of friends took the boy to the sales office pretending that that was where his ticket was waiting.

My wife just called me to say that he had no idea why he was asked to sit and have his photo taken. When he realized that he was getting a season pass, he burst into tears.