In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd share the reasons why my own Dad is the greatest father that ever lived. If you don't believe me, I will send him over to your house to beat you up. (Don't worry. Once he shows up at your front door, he'll probably talk your ear off, charm the heck out of you, and then trap and skin all the fishercats in your yard.)
My earliest memory of Dad is of him lifting my sister and I up to touch the ceiling. This was amazing, of course, because not only was he the world's strongest man to lift us up that high, but he also helped me verify what I had suspected for a long time: that was a tiny stain, not a very patient spider, on the ceiling. Even back then, he was teaching me things. (I hadn't really believed Kim when she told me it was a spider to begin with. Really, I didn't. I did NOT! Moooooommm!)
It was Dad who helped me find my first car. I wanted a little MG. My father was a man of few words. "Hell, no!" he said. Then he found me a Ford Granada the size of a bus. It was this car (and the pepper spray Mom made me carry) that likely saved my life when my brakes failed in the downtown Bronx when I was 21. Dad was right. It was better to mow down bystanders with my hulking metal tank than to have a little sporty car that would have crumpled like a Kleenex as soon as I tapped that first pedestrian. (As I told the courts, repeatedly, my brakes failed. It's not like I could have avoided running over those thirty-six people foolish enough to be walking on 123rd Street at noon.)
As I get older, I still find myself relying on Dad. Recently, I took my car to a mechanic to get an estimate, because it was making a funny noise. The guy quoted me $2400 to fix it. Then I brought it to Dad, who happens to be a master mechanic. (I didn't bring it to him first because he's awfully busy and I didn't want to take advantage of him for the 3000th time in my life.) Dad fixed it for a total of $88 in parts. That's right. My Dad is the coolest dad ever!
Besides being able to rebuild engines and install brakes before breakfast, Dad can also split a cord of wood, shoot coyotes, and evaluate his stock portfolio, all while sitting at the kitchen table. I have seen him help a cow give birth, reel in a tuna from the shore, and catch a snapping turtle the size of a manhole without breaking a sweat. He can whip up dinner for four from just a moldy head of cabbage and a deer's bladder. (It won't be a particularly tasty dinner with those ingredients, but my point is, nobody will ever starve with Dad around.) Most importantly, I have seen the women on Mom's side of the family start going gray at 19, and I have Dad's coloring. This one gift alone from Dad has kept Lady Clairol away for almost 40 years now.
I love you, Dad. Thanks for teaching me how to cast a line and to understand the NYSE and NASDAQ and for your blond hair. And for teaching me, at four years old, that even when the world looks like a scary place full of spiders, you'll be there to show me everything is okay.
Happy Father's Day!
My earliest memory of Dad is of him lifting my sister and I up to touch the ceiling. This was amazing, of course, because not only was he the world's strongest man to lift us up that high, but he also helped me verify what I had suspected for a long time: that was a tiny stain, not a very patient spider, on the ceiling. Even back then, he was teaching me things. (I hadn't really believed Kim when she told me it was a spider to begin with. Really, I didn't. I did NOT! Moooooommm!)
It was Dad who helped me find my first car. I wanted a little MG. My father was a man of few words. "Hell, no!" he said. Then he found me a Ford Granada the size of a bus. It was this car (and the pepper spray Mom made me carry) that likely saved my life when my brakes failed in the downtown Bronx when I was 21. Dad was right. It was better to mow down bystanders with my hulking metal tank than to have a little sporty car that would have crumpled like a Kleenex as soon as I tapped that first pedestrian. (As I told the courts, repeatedly, my brakes failed. It's not like I could have avoided running over those thirty-six people foolish enough to be walking on 123rd Street at noon.)
As I get older, I still find myself relying on Dad. Recently, I took my car to a mechanic to get an estimate, because it was making a funny noise. The guy quoted me $2400 to fix it. Then I brought it to Dad, who happens to be a master mechanic. (I didn't bring it to him first because he's awfully busy and I didn't want to take advantage of him for the 3000th time in my life.) Dad fixed it for a total of $88 in parts. That's right. My Dad is the coolest dad ever!
Besides being able to rebuild engines and install brakes before breakfast, Dad can also split a cord of wood, shoot coyotes, and evaluate his stock portfolio, all while sitting at the kitchen table. I have seen him help a cow give birth, reel in a tuna from the shore, and catch a snapping turtle the size of a manhole without breaking a sweat. He can whip up dinner for four from just a moldy head of cabbage and a deer's bladder. (It won't be a particularly tasty dinner with those ingredients, but my point is, nobody will ever starve with Dad around.) Most importantly, I have seen the women on Mom's side of the family start going gray at 19, and I have Dad's coloring. This one gift alone from Dad has kept Lady Clairol away for almost 40 years now.
I love you, Dad. Thanks for teaching me how to cast a line and to understand the NYSE and NASDAQ and for your blond hair. And for teaching me, at four years old, that even when the world looks like a scary place full of spiders, you'll be there to show me everything is okay.
Happy Father's Day!
Here's Dad, standing atop the wood he split approximately two weeks after open heart surgery.
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