Our Father

Today was Father’s Day and so what else is there to write about, well actually a lot, but for Dad this is the only thing today.

I will start by telling you that I had a great Father’s Day. I got to watch two Red Sox games, the baseball I have watched all year, I watched The Fugitive, I told you that being able to download movies from Blockbuster was very dangerous, I hung out with Bella the whole time, she even made breakfast this morning…just wanted to see if you were paying attention. I had a chance to text my Father friends, or friends of mine who were fathers, to wish them a good day.

As for my Father, I spoke with him this morning, and then about half a dozen times after that, I also tried to give him his Father’s Day present, with my littlest sister, actually youngest, not littlest, she is seventeen, and something like 5’ – 7” tall, and an actress, a topic for another day. Anyway, I spoke with my Father and he was just starting to load the crock-pot. I was hoping to tell my sister of our crock-pot days, but did not get the chance, so here goes. When I was in high school I had moved in with my father and we were just a couple of bachelors living in a bachelor pad, and no this is not an understatement. To give you an idea of the time we are talking about and just how bad an idea this was, to start 8th grade my father took me out to get some new close and yes I did in fact go to school for the first day in a rust colored corduroy leisure suite and a very flammable and very loud polyester print shirt, complete with the seventeen inch wide collar, not my finest hour.

The house had a space we very cleverly called the pit because there were three brick steps, painted white of course, leading into this living space. The pit was a large square space with deep pile carpeting, and amazing sound system, an open fireplace in the center with a ceiling vent and just a screen around it, and just to the left of the stairs was the entrance to the steam room. Like I said bachelor pad, I only wish I had truly realized how cool this place was at the time, but as the old man says to Jimmy Stewart, “ah, youth is wasted on the young.”

Anyway, back to the crock-pot. My father and I were not exactly the nuclear family, but every once in a while he would make a concerted effort to do more traditionally things such as sit down meals, and the crock-pot was his favorite approach, or at least the one that I remember most. It is memorable because it is actually amazing we lived through the process, or at least when I think about it now it seems that way. Pops would start out with the chopping of, honestly, whatever was in the fridge, but usually, with some planning, there were carrots and potatoes, and a meat substance, onions and so on, and then after all the chopping all the ingredients would be “loaded” into the crock-pot and turned to low. I would ask roughly one hundred times over the next three days, plus or minus, mostly plus, if it was ready and the answer was the same every time, not quite. Three days??!! It was a process, and quite amazing, but to his defense, we never got sick, and it was always very good, of course my patented answer, to this day, was “its ok.”

I know now, what I definitely did not know then, most of what he did was “ok.” I have mentioned before that it is turning out that everything my father ever said was true, and/or accurate. It never seemed that he was as much of a dad as a pal, and I have given him a pretty hard times over the years, but as it turns out, when I look in the mirror these days I see him, when I listen to myself, or worse yet my sisters listen, they laugh at how much I am sounding more and more like him, and most of all he was not a pal all those years, but my best friend. We have gone at it quite a bit, but only because I was so stubborn and so frustrating that he just did not know what else to do.

When I was applying to schools I refused to apply to Brown University, why, because my father wanted me too. I dated women that, as I have said before, were a challenge because he warned me about them. I have taken trips in snowstorms, changed jobs, gotten in fights, just to prove him wrong, and each time he has been there for the aftermath, and he has been right. It is just dumb luck that I am still here for all the stupid things I have done in doing battle with this man I am turning into. The difference between us however, is that he is smarter, funnier, wiser, and more patient, and much, much more.

I have accounted for at least 80 % of his grey hairs, but it has been a fun ride. At least I no longer call him at 2:00 AM just to wake him up. Thanks pops.

Thank you also to the man that said “you need to pay for five nights stay…and their horses,” to the Coach that once told his assistants to follow him once he was done and then proceeded to calmly speak with his team, building to an amazing crescendo and then spun and walked away, waiting for us to be far enough away before asking “how was that,” with a wry grin, to the man that gave up a fortune, and early retirement because he wanted to “cook” for people not just fling pizza and make cappuccino. Thank you to all the friends to whom I sent the text this morning, truly an amazing bunch of dads, and people.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.