#318 In which our hero writes the rare new blog post; not surprisingly to commemorate Father's Day.

Dear Dad,

I’ve been working on a project. It isn’t something I’ve been dreaming of, in fact, it’s not even something I much want to do. But it is something that I must do.

I’m rehabbing the cabin.

For the two people who stumble across this blog in the future while googling “Cabin in the Woods” or some such thing and actually get past the three sentences above, let me explain.

My family owns a small hunting cabin in the Allegany National Forest Reserve. Wait, wait… here, I’ve written about the cabin before:

http://scripturient2.blogspot.com/2008/09/254-in-which-our-hero-discusses-small.html

http://scripturient2.blogspot.com/2006/08/entry-149-in-which-our-hero-talks.html

Okay, all up to speed?

So, Dad, I’m working on the cabin. Things deteriorated in a big way in the last several years. The roof started leaking really badly, there was extensive water damage, and just about everything started getting moldy.

And since I bought the cabin from Mom and Uncle John a couple years ago, it’s my responsibility.

The Scientist can’t be in the cabin at all right now, her allergies and asthma make it a miserable experience. The last time we actually stayed inside (probably eight years ago?) she could barely function. I now understand that the place was full of mold.

To fix this, I basically gutted the place and tore it down to the studs. Tore out the stupid drop ceiling, effectively eliminating where chipmunks could live. It’s a huge amount of work, and every time I feel like I’ve made progress, I look around in despair for all the work yet to be done.

I keep telling myself that this work will all pay off in the future, when The Scientist and our kids can just run up to the cabin—an impromptu weekend visit whenever the spirit moves us. I’m doing all this work now so we can all enjoy it in the future.

Except, that’s a lie.

Well, partly a lie. I want the go up there, I want my kids to have the same fun there that I did. And I certainly want my wife to be able to enjoy it and not be miserable.

But there’s this other thing, too. You loved that cabin so much. The peace and quiet, the opportunity to catch up on your reading, sitting around the fire at night talking with family. I never asked you what your favorite place in the world was… but I would be very surprised if it wasn’t the cabin.

You’ve been dead and gone for more than 20 years now. And since you were cremated, I don’t have a place to go to visit, to pay my respects.

Except the cabin.

I’m not an especially religious man, but if there was one place where I could “commune with your spirit” or what-not, it would be there. Around the fire ring, to be specific.

My effort to remember you, my tribute to you, as it were, is to keep the cabin standing.

 So I keep going up there, alone, to work. It’s really kinda scary up there at night when there’s no one else around. But the being creeped out at night, the aches and pains the following week… they’ll all be worth it.

Because the cabin will go on. As will my memories of you.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I miss you.

Love,

craig.

###

#314 In which our hero writes his annual letter to his father.

It’s Father’s Day. And has been for 23 minutes.

I have often lamented that it is horribly unfair that you died before getting to meet my wife or my kids. You would have loved The Scientist, of this I have no doubt. And you would have loved my kids; not just because they were your grandchildren, but because they are (mostly) polite and well behaved. And after so many years as a teacher and principal, this is something that I know you looked for and expected in kids.

It’s terrible and unfair that you died when you did but, to be honest, your absence in my life isn’t as acute, as painful as it used to be. I’ve grieved and moved on, I guess. After nearly 20 years, I don’t think much about it any more.

That is, until I do.

I went to pick up the girls from daycare last week, and this is where I found Lily:

When I asked her why she was reading under a table, she told me that it was comfortable there. And quieter. I’m not sure I believe her… I don’t think it was either more comfortable or quieter; what I believe is that whenever she has a good book in her hands, nothing else matters.

Lily is a reader. There is no denying it. The kid simply consumes books. In the past I’ve actually not believed her when she told me how much she read. She’d bring home two fairly large chapter books from the school library, and tell me that she had already read both during recess. It seemed like far too much for a 9-year-old, so I flipped through the books, randomly picking out passages and quizzing Lily on what happened.

Without fail, she told me what happened. She had honestly read them. I’ll never doubt her reading prowess again.

She reads everything, but seems to lean toward the geeky side (I’ll take credit for that) and brings home books about monsters and dragons and robots. But she also likes mysteries and comic books and reference books about spiders and animals and more. Lily will also read the back of cereal boxes and pretty much whatever she can get her hands on.

She’s a reader. Like you.

I honestly cannot remember a time when you were not reading something. You had your favorite topics, WWII and Abraham Lincoln, but you read so many other things. National Geographic, of course, and other magazines. You often shared my comic books. But more than anything else, when I think of you reading I think of you with a Reader’s Digest Condensed Novel in your hand.

Every other month a fat hardback book would come in the mail. Each contained four complete novels, each “condensed” (i.e., abridged) for length.

I think about those now, and the entire idea seems crazy. Why would you choose to read a novel that’s had parts of it edited out? You’re not getting the author’s complete vision of their novel! Why would an author ever agree to that? I’m sure the answer has something to do with money.

But the editing aside, it strikes me as odd that you’d want to be surprised by four novels that could be by any author, of any genre. Wouldn’t you rather pick and choose your favorite authors or your favorite types of books?

The answer, clearly, is no. Because you didn’t really care what you were reading, as long as you were reading.

Now that my little nerd is devouring books at an amazing clip, I have something new to lament about your death: all the books you won’t be able to recommend to her, and all the time you two would have spent discussing books. But, I suppose that as long as she continues to love reading like she does, that a little part of your spirit is still alive.

I miss you, dad.

Love,

craig.


EDITED TO ADD: I looked up the Reader’s Digest Condensed Novels to discover that they were discontinued in 1997. However, it seems that only the name “Condensed Novels” was discontinued… you can still subscribe and get four books in one every other month under the name Reader’s Digest Select Editions  -- I think. I just spent the last 10 minutes trying to find information in the Internet about how much it costs and I’ve found nothing. If Reader’s Digest is still printing these things, they sure don’t make it easy to subscribe.

***

#302 In which our hero writes his yearly letter to his father.

Dear Dad,

It’s Father’s Day. This year, I’m struck by how laissez-faire I am about the holiday. But then again, this is my seventh year as a father, so I suppose the novelty is wearing off. On my first Father’s Day (as a father) The Scientist made little girl footprints in paint on a piece of construction paper alongside a poem she wrote for me, as if written by my then 7-month-old daughter. I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I cried.

Seven years later I still appreciate having a day to recognize me as a father, but I’m not nearly as wrapped up in it. I know there are cards coming, because I saw them quickly secreted from backpacks up to the girls’ rooms, the entire time Lily and Macey saying, “Daddy, don’t look!” It’ll be sweet when they give them to me (if they can remember where they hid the cards) and I’ll hug them and kiss them all over… but that amazing and humbling emotion of “wow! I’m a dad!” is long gone.

My first thought is that I’ve finally settled into my role as a father, that I have it figured out. But just as quickly I realize what bullshit that idea is. You never get used to it, you never figure it out, not really. Because just as soon as I learn how to deal with a cranky 2-year-old, then she’s three, with an entirely different set of behaviors to deal with. You might think that I could use this learning to deal with daughter #2, who’s 18 months younger after all… but no. Macey is such a different child than Lily that it takes an entirely different strategy to deal with her.

So I’m constantly figuring out how to address whatever is foremost in my kids’ life at the moment… from best friends to time on the computer to the toy they absolutely MUST have. I’ve realized that I’ll NEVER figure this job called “parenting” out, not completely. It’s the nature of the job that it’s always changing, always evolving.

And I wonder if you ever figured it out.

You certainly had more experience that I. And not just because you had four kids who were considerably more spread out then mine. As a teacher and principal it was your day job to deal with kids. Maybe that accumulated knowledge gave you a leg up so you could anticipate the next stage of your own kids, that you were never blindsided by screaming fits or broken hearts.

Last weekend I came into Lily’s room, where both girls were sleeping (they insist on sleeping in the same room on weekends; I wonder how much longer this sisterly love will last?), both of them with various limbs sprawled, half under the covers and half out, and a weird thought came into my head unbidden:

I must protect these girls.

I don’t know where this thought came from, other than the fact that it’s always there, rattling around in the back of my head. I want these girls to grow up to be confident, well-adjusted, even bold woman, so I’m always balancing giving them a long leash to make their own mistakes and carve out their own victories without hovering over them, to make sure they are shielded from any possible harm.

And, being that they’re only six and seven, I know the real challenges are yet to come. Dating, cars, sex… ugh, I don’t really want to think about it. Not yet.

I’d love to ask your advice. Ask how you did it with my three sisters. How you dealt with late nights, questionable boyfriends, overnight trips… and all this before the age of cell phones. Because my kids will have phones, giving me the power to check in with them at any time, and even track their location with built-in GPS. And I will.

But, still, I hope to instill in them the sense to make good decisions, so I don’t have to constantly call them or surreptitiously keep tabs on where they are.

Time will tell.

Then again, I don’t really need to wonder what you did, because I already know. You worried. You stayed up late and fretted. Because you did the same with me. If I told you I would be home by 8 o’clock, and didn’t make it in until 10, you were on high alert for those two hours. I couldn’t comprehend, at the time, why you would give me so much shit about it. I mean, two hours? What’s the big deal?

Now I understand.

It was your job, as our father, to protect us. Even when you were giving us as much freedom as you could stand, optimistic in the notion that you taught us to make smart decisions, you worried.

Just like I’ll worry.

So I guess I don’t really need to ask your advice, because I already know the answer. But I would love to swap stories with you.

I miss you, Dad.

Love,

Craig.

***

#290 In which our hero writes his annual letter to his father, 2010 edition.

Dear Dad,

Yesterday was Father’s Day. It really snuck up on me this year. Macey brought home a foam door hanger covered in ink stamps and glitter glue (still wet) early in the week, then I forgot about it.

The actual day was pretty low-key. The Scientist had to work, so I played with the girls and surfed the Internet all morning. We went to the store, had McDonalds for lunch, played outside… just a fairly relaxed day.

Saturday morning I realized that I needed to post my annual letter to you. It got me down a bit that that was my attitude… that I “needed” to post, not that I wanted to.

I’m actually at a bit of a loss as to what to write. It feels like I’ve covered a lot in the past… your sense of humor, the horrible injustice that you died before meeting my wife and kids, and so on.

More than any other single person, you’ve had the biggest influence on the man I am today. So why do I feel my connection to you fading? The obvious answer, of course, is that you died 17 years ago. Couple of years after you died I stopped having bad dreams about you. Couple of years after that I stopped thinking about you every day. I know think about calling Mom, never Mom and Dad.

It makes me sad, makes me feel like a bad son.

But, I don’t imagine that railing against God for taking you or obsessively pondering what you would do in a given situation every day would be any better. Saying, “I miss my dad” feels like a disconnected thing, like I’m talking about a friend I had in grade school, someone I lost touch with a long, long time ago.

But, it’s not like I only have bad or weird feelings about you. The very fact that I’m here, living my life, is keeping your legacy alive. Mom sometimes calls me “Ted,” which tells me that even after all these years, even with the cold connection I sometimes feel with you, that I’m probably more like you that I consciously realize.

And that somehow makes it better.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Your son,

Craig.

***

#273 In which our hero writes his yearly letter to his dead father.

Dear Dad,

Yesterday was Father’s Day. The Scientist had to work, and I had a bunch of stuff to do around the house, so it wasn’t exactly the most festive Father’s Day ever… but I did spend a bunch of time hanging out with the girls.

I am sometimes amazed at how much of me I see in them. Lily looks like me, so there’s no denying parentage there. But more so, she acts like me. She’s timid around strangers, until she warms up to them. She’s sometimes nervous to try new things, and frets about how things will happen, who will be there, if anyone will talk to her, and so on. She’s quick to feel wronged, and have her feelings hurt. She’s emotional and sensitive.

All like me.

Macey acts like me, too, but in a completely different way. She’s pig-headed and quick to anger. She’s more likely to lash out then cry when wronged. She likes to get her own way, and woe be to the person in her way.

This is kinda like me, too. Maybe more like her mother, though.

So it had me thinking of how I’m like you. I know there’s a physical resemblance, because people have remarked on it. I am balding now, just like you did. But more than looks, I think I act like you.

I remember how much you hated unexpected delays and hassles. And how quick you were to get angry about them. I’m like that, too; even though I’ve made a concerted effort to be more mellow, to try to just go with the flow and not let it ruin the day. I’ve been somewhat successful in that endeavor.

But on a more positive note, I have your sense of humor. I’ve always been the “funny friend,” which is a blessing and a curse, I suppose. But I laugh a lot, and the fact that my wife can make me laugh—HARD—is proof positive that I’ve married the right woman.

Mom sometimes slips and calls me “Ted,” which means she sees you in me as well. You’ve shaped me in ways that I can’t even imagine. And if I ever have cause to doubt that, I need only look at my watch.

I wear my watch with the strap on the top of my wrist, and the numerals facing down. I’ve never really given it much thought as to why, this is just how I wear my watch. To me it’s just like the fact that I wash my left armpit in the shower before my right… it’s not a conscious decision I’ve made, it’s just something I do, and have always done.

However… this isn’t really the case. I recently came across a newspaper clipping from when I had won some sort of drawing contest when I was 10. In it, there’s a photo of me holding the winning drawing, and you can clearly see my watch. It’s an oversized black plastic deal with, God help me, a built-in calculator. But I’m wearing it with the face on the top of my wrist, like almost everyone does.

You always wore you watch “upside down,” like I do now. I remember asking you about it once, and you told me that you did that because in college you didn’t want to be constantly reminded of the time, so you flipped your watch around so you couldn’t see it as easily.

I’ve also had people tell me that this is a workman’s way of wearing a watch; presumably so the breakable bits were further away from harm for those who work with their hands all day. I guess you could say that I work with my hands, if typing counts. Actually, my watch face is more scratched up from clinking on the wrist rest then it would be if I wore my watch the “normal” way.

I look at 10-year-old me and see that I did make a decision about my watch at some point. And that decision was to wear my watch like my dad did. Just one more way that I’m like you.

And I wonder what little things the girls will pick up from me. The way they brush their teeth? Tie their shoes? Ride a bike? I hope I can continue to be a mostly good example to them. Like you were for me. I miss you, dad.

Your son,

Craig.

***

#263 In which our hero takes his oldest to visit an old familiar chair.

In about 20 minutes I’m going to go pick up Lily and head to the dentist. Last week both girls had their six month check-up; which is actually only the second time they’ve ever been to the dentist. Our pediatrician recommended that we start taking Lily to the dentist around age three… but we never did. Not that we were avoiding it, we just never got around to it. And we’re religious about brushing their teeth twice a day, so we weren’t too worried about it. Plus, The Scientist has never had a cavity in her life, so I’m hoping that this uber-enamel has been passed down to our kids.

I had horrible teeth as a kid. Well, that is to say, I had a mouth full of cavities, completely due to my piss-poor brushing habits. I would wet my toothbrush and basically swipe it across my teeth once, and call it done. Dad would even joke about it, calling me “the fastest tooth-brusher in the west.” Dad had complete dentures by the time he was 35, so clearly outstanding oral health wasn’t his top priority.

But I really want to spare my kids the pain of cavities--the pain I'd experienced so often as a kid--so we’ve tried to instill the importance of brushing their teeth. The five fillings in my molars are a great visual aid. And, of course, good oral health also includes going to the dentist, so we finally got off our asses and had our kids teeth looked at a year ago.

They were really good about it… no fussy or freaking out. In fact, they seemed very interested in the process. Which is fantastic… no need to develop a fear of the dentist now.

And there were no cavities! Each kid got to enter their name into the “no cavity club contest” where they could win something or other.

I was so proud.

Flash-forward six months to the check-up last week. Macey was fine, no cavities. But Lily… Lily had a cavity! Right in her farthest back molar! Dammit! That’s the hardest tooth to reach!

And, unfortunately, this isn’t a baby tooth that’s soon to fall out; she’s going to hold on to this one until she’s about 11. So you know what that means. A FILLING.

So that’s where we’re going in this afternoon. I’m really hoping it’s not a horrible experience. I mean, I can’t imagine it’s fun for anyone to get a filling (well, expect this guy) but I’m just hoping there’s not a lot of screaming and crying. The Scientist made it clear early on that there was no way she could witness her child under the drill, and that I’d have to step up.

Here’s hoping for the best.

###

#249 In which our hero writes another Father's Day letter to his dad.

Dear Dad,

It’s Father’s Day again. So far it’s been a pretty low-key event for me. My wife has to work, so I’m home with the girls. They gave me their gift early: a great t-shirt with the girls’ photo on it giving me the thumbs up. “Thumbs up for daddy!” they told me. They also made a gift in day care… a paper popsicle with “Your a great Pop!” written on the stick. I appreciate the gesture, if not the grammar. Wrapped up with it were three freezy-pops, which are now in the freezer. Macey asks every couple of minutes if they’re ready yet. When I tell her they aren’t, she says, “But I can’t wait!”

Y’know, when I write these Father’s Day letters, they always seem so sad. I mean, of course they are, I miss you still; even 15 years after your death. Actually, the sadness seems intensified lately when I think of how my children would have loved being around you, and the joy you would have taken in them. Because they are cute and well-mannered (and as a life-long teacher and principal, you would have especially appreciated that)… but most of all, they’re really funny. Like you were.

So, instead of letting this become another melancholy rumination on how I miss you, I think I’d relate some of the funny things I remember about you.

The first thing that comes to mind is something that now, looking back, I think is hilarious. Even if at the time it was nearly cruel.

We had just watched The Exorcist on TV. I must have been around 10-years-old or so, and really, what the hell were you doing letting me watch a movie like The Exorcist at 10? I remember sitting in your lap and hiding my eyes at the really scary parts. Good Lord, this movie scares me shitless as an adult, I was beside myself as a kid. Anyway, after it was over I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. And most likely talking to myself, as I often did. So I didn’t hear you sneak up to the (closed) bathroom door, then you suddenly flung it open and screamed like a monster and grabbed me. I fell to the floor in hysterics (and not in a good way). I seem to remember you trying to comfort me afterward, as if you felt bad about scaring me so badly. Which I’m sure you did.

This may have been the defining moment in the evolution of my sense of humor. Because now, as twisted as it seems, I still think scarring a little kid after watching a horrifying movie absolutely hilarious. And, it seems, so did you.

Something else you used to do--and you used to do this all the time--was to come into the house and give me what I thought of as your “principal face.” It was the stern, unsmiling face that said, “Mister, you are in big trouble.” And sometimes, I was. But sometimes, I wasn’t and you were just messing with my mind. Which, again, I find really funny. You came in the door, zapped me with the principal face, and I had a momentary freak-out trying to remember exactly what I did that you found out about, and why I was about to get busted.

Of course, I tend to mess with my kids’ head too. But, I must admit, not with the finesse and skill that you employed.

But really, your sense of humor wasn’t about specific bits--it imbued everything you did. And this, more than anything, is certainly what influenced MY sense of humor. Because I’m funny.

And so are your grandkids.

Thanks for that, Dad.

###

#212 In which our hero recounts another Father’s Day passed.

Dear Dad,

Father’s Day this year was pretty low key. My wife made me a wonderful breakfast of frozen hashbrowns and take-out sausage from our favorite hole in the wall restaurant. I mowed the grass. We played with the girls on the swing set. We napped. Dinner was burgers and hotdogs and corn on the cob in the back yard. A pretty good day.

As usually happens, I’ve been thinking about you a lot this past week. While there are countless happy memories, for some reason I’ve really been stuck on, well, not unhappy memories, but little (and not so little) incidents where I screwed up. Things that I never apologized for, but should have. So:

I’m sorry I stole all those quarters from you. But keeping your coin sorter right out in the open, and unlocked, proved too much of a temptation for me. I never took more than a dollar’s worth at a time, and I probably didn’t score more than $20 before Mom caught me one day… but I still feel bad about it. Especially since I just spent the money on gumball machines and (later) video games. I don’t know if you ever noticed, or if Mom ever said anything to you… but you never said anything to me.

I’m sorry I smashed up the car, twice.

I’m sorry I made you worry. Granted, it wasn’t hard to make you worry, but I should have tried a little harder to be where I said I’d be, at the time I said I’d be. I always figured that if I got there within an hour or two of when I said I would, it was fine. Only now do I understand how much a person can worry about their kids when they’re out of sight… and in the days before cell phones that extra hour or two was an unknown gray time with equal possibility of me being irresponsible or dead.

When my high school football coach asked you to join the coaching staff, I’m sorry I was such a jackass about it. You were considerate enough to ask me about it before hand, but given your life-long love of sports, I know you wanted to do it. But all I could imagine was the hard time I’d get from the other players if my daddy was telling them what to do. You were always the best coach for me, I know you would have been outstanding in the role. But you passed, just because your selfish son objected.

When you lay dying at home, I’m sorry I didn’t visit more often. I lived the closest of us kids, but I just didn’t make the effort. I know that you hated anyone making a fuss over you, and in a strange way, I think you were happy that I stayed away. But that’s not why I didn’t come. It was because I was scared to death of you dying, and if I didn’t have to see it, it was less real. So you slowly wasted away from the strong, vibrant man I always knew to a frail, jaundice shell who could bared get out of bed, and I was horrified every time I did come home to see how far you had fallen. I should have come more often, should have spent hours talking to you, learning everything I could from you. There’s so many questions I’d like to ask now, but at 25, I was too young and too stupid to even know what to ask. And now it’s too late.

Finally, when the funeral director asked if the family wanted to be there when they closed the casket, I’m sorry I didn’t step forward. I was the man of the family now, I should have. But it was hard enough seeing your lifeless body laid out, waxy and strange. Funerals are such strange things… they pulled the partition across the room, neatly separating the living from the dead; then closed the casket where no-one could see. Like the closing of a lid would be tougher to take then seeing the corpse of your loved one. My mother and sisters made no move to witness this final closure, and I sat stone-still in the wooden folding chair, afraid to be the only one to move. Just before the partition clicked closed, it flashed through my mind that I should get up and watch, even if no-one else would. But the idea of being alone in the room with your casket, even for a moment, was too much to bare, so I did nothing. I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger.

And, of course, I’m terribly sorry that you never got to meet my wife and daughters. They’re the best; you’d love them. I’m lucky to have them. Just as I was lucky to have you as a dad. I miss you.

Your son,

Craig.

###

#197 In which our hero receives a most unexpected gift in the mail.

Something rather cool, and a little spooky, happened to me last week.

But first, a little background. My father had two brothers and two sisters. Everyone is gone now except my Uncle Max (the youngest) and my Aunt Irene (the oldest). I’ve only met Irene a couple of times, she lives out on the west coast and has never been anything but nasty to me anyway. But we used to visit Max all the time.

When my grandfather (that is, my father’s father) was still alive, we’d go to visit fairly often. He lived in a dirty little coal-mining down outside of Pittsburgh, and it took about two hours to drive there. Mostly it was just Dad and me. We’d visit with Pop-pop, who was (by the time I knew him) a shuffling old blind man. But he always had pound cake in the cupboards and orange soda in the fridge, so it was cool. Dad and Pop-pop would sit at the table, Dad telling his father about the latest happenings with his kids, Pop-pop smoking his pipe. I’d often go and play along the nearby canal or watch Pop-pop's gigantic console TV.

My Uncle Max lived in the house directly next door. His son was a couple years older than me, but we’d hang out sometimes. Sometimes Max would come over, but usually we’d visit Pop-pop, then go next door and visit Max and his wife, my Aunt Dee.

When Dad died, Max really made the effort to keep in touch with me. But, I was 24, living on my own, and was busy with lots of other things, like my crappy job and my not-yet-out-of-the-closet live-in girlfriend. So I didn’t do much to reciprocate. I suspect that Max promised Dad that he’d take care of me.

It’s been 14 years since my father died and, sadly, I haven’t done much to keep in touch with Max. And Max is really my only connection with Dad’s side of the family… I don’t talk to any of my cousins on that side. Not out of maliciousness, I just… don’t, y’know?

Anyway, I do send Christmas cards, and that usually ignites some new back and forth communication. Max sent me a letter, with his email address. He complimented me on my family, and told me that my father would be proud of me. He always says that, and at this point I don’t really know if it’s just a platitude, or he really means it. I choose to believe the latter.

I emailed him a month or so ago, and never heard back. So, I did my yearly family duty, I guess.

But last week I got a small package in the mail from Max. In the past he’s sent me articles clipped from the newspaper that he thought I’d find interesting (often about comic books--Max is a big flea-market guy, and he wants me to give him all my comics so he can sell them at a profit; to which I say, um, no thanks). But this was a padded envelope and was surprisingly heavy. I had no idea what it could be. I opened it up, and there was a short letter inside. And something else.

My father’s stop watch.

CRAIG: Enclosed you will find a stopwatch your father gave to me several years ago. I was cleaning some drawers and found it--forgot all about the stopwatch. Took it to a jeweler--it is no good. On the back of the stopwatch you will see your father's name. Thought you would like to have it. Tell you wife we said hello and give Lilly [sic] a hug from her uncle Max.

To see the significance of this stopwatch, you have to understand how important sports were to my father. He managed to go to college on a football scholarship and he was deeply involved with all sorts of sports from that time forward. He refereed middle school football and high school basketball. He ran the clock for high school volleyball games. He umpired baseball of all levels. He announced the high school football games. I spent many cold fall evenings up in the tiny announcer’s booth precariously perched above the bleachers. Long after my dad died they torn down that crappy booth and replaced it with a roomier, better insulated one. And they dedicated it to the memory of my father.

And, he helped time countless track meets with the stopwatch I was now holding in my hand. His name was crudely scratched into the back… probably to assure that it came back right before he lent it out to someone he didn’t know very well.

Strangely enough, I had been considering buying a stopwatch to time the radio spots I’ve been writing recently. I don’t know why I hadn’t just bought one, it’s not like they’re expensive. But I put it off. Now I didn’t have to.

Funny thing, though… even though my Uncle Max said the watch was “no good,” it works perfectly for me.

Thanks Dad.

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#135 In which our hero writes a letter to his dad.

Dear Dad,

In one hour Father’s Day 2006 ends. It was a good, if unremarkable, day. The Scientist had to work, so I spent the morning playing with the girls. Later we grilled steaks and went for a walk. That was pretty much the entire day, expect for the parts where I got the girls laughing so hard that they got the hiccups, or when The Scientist made me laugh that hard. And I got two Dane Cook albums. The Scientist has a remarkable gift of buying me presents that I in no way ever indicated I wanted, but still enjoy quite a bit.

It’s strange… Father’s Day hasn’t really been important to me since you died. That was in 1993, of course, when I was 25. Since then, it’s been a non-holiday for me. If anything, it was a painful reminder that I had lost the ability to just pick up the phone and call you whenever I wanted. That sucked. And it still does.

You always said you were proud of me, but honestly, at 25 I hadn’t accomplished shit. I was working a dead-end customer service job at a newspaper. I was coasting. One of my biggest fears is that you secretly considered me a failure.

I never made this clear when you were alive, but dad, you are my hero. You were born in that little shit-hole town outside of Pittsburgh. You literally lived on the wrong side of the tracks. You also lived next to the canal, which wasn’t exactly luxury waterfront housing. The white trash lived next to the canal. White trash, punks and losers.

Your father, my grandfather, was a rag-man. Your mother died when you were young. At one point, pop-pop couldn’t afford to raise you and your four brothers and sisters, and you all had to go live in an orphanage. But despite that I never heard you say anything bad about your father, and I never saw you treat him with anything but the utmost kindness.

I have a couple faded photos of you as a kid… man, you look like a punk. And apparently you were. God knows you should have started work at a steel mill, drank beer after your shift with the guys, and lived next to the same filthy canal where you were born.

But you beat the odds. Lied about your age and joined the Navy at 15. You were stationed at Pearl Harbor several months before the Japanese attacked. But you retuned from the war intact and went to college. Managed to get a football scholarship to a small PA school. Became a teacher, and eventually, a principal. Moved to a tiny Ohio town, got married and had three girls. Then, seven years after you thought you were done with kids, mom unexpectedly got pregnant again. You finally had a boy.

Y’know, given your hard-knock life, people would have given you a lot of slack if you were a poor father… but you weren’t. You were always there for me, and for my three older sisters. You never missed one of our games or band concerts or plays. I remember that one time when I was 17 and you and mom went on a cruise, a family reunion on mom’s side. I was old enough to leave alone for a week, but it meant you would miss one of my games, basketball, I think. I know you felt terrible about it, and apologized at length. It was the first one of my activities that you ever missed, and it may have been the first of any of your kids’ activities you missed.

People tell me I’m funny, and this is all because of you. You loved to laugh, and loved to tell jokes. Now, I always thought your jokes were corny and dumb. So you didn’t teach me jokes really, but rather how to laugh at things when I could. I could make you laugh sometimes, and that was the greatest thing.

I was strangely proud that you were the principal of one of the elementary schools in town -- even though I never had you as a student myself. Your school let out an hour later than the high school did, and sometimes I would drive up to your school and just hang out with you after I was done for the day. I’ll never forget how you could walk into a gym packed with kids waiting for their buses -- loud, spastic, out of control kids -- and immediately quiet them down. But the thing is, you wouldn’t say a word… you’d wait until one kid noticed you, then he’d tell his buddy, and within moments, word spread that you were in the room and it would be silent. With just a look, you transformed 400 rambunctious kids into neat and ordered lines of perfect students.

“How do you do that?” I asked. You would just smile and say, “They know I’m not kidding around.”

This apparent fear that kids had of you always confused me. When the three elementary schools fed into the one high school in town, the other kids quickly figured out that I was your son. “Does he beat you at home?” I was asked once. Many times I’d hear, “Your dad gave me a serious whipping at school!” This, of course, when spanking was still acceptable. I would always ask, “Did you deserve it?” And the answer was always, “Yeah, pretty much.” Other kids seemed to have a little fear of you, but also a lot of respect. Kids know when an adult is fair or not, and you were always fair.

I was never afraid of you… not that you would beat me, that is. But I was afraid of disappointing you. And I know I did on a couple of occasions. I only hope that you weren’t disappointed in me when you died.

Used to be that when the subject of religion came up, I would say that I didn’t really believe in God or any of that stuff, but I didn’t like to say that out loud, just in case I was wrong. But I have a different attitude now. I want to believe -- I need to believe -- that you can see me, even now.

Because dad, I’ve done something with my life. I have a career, and I’m really good at it. I’ve achieved great things with the hobbies in my life. I have a wonderful wife that you would really like. I try hard not to rail about how unfair it is that you’re gone, but it hits me hard when I think of you not being able to meet my wife. I can almost hear the long discussions you’d have about science and the cancer that eventually killed you. You would have loved her.

And, of course, I have two wonderful little kids who will never know their grandfather. That may be the worst part of this all. However, both of my girls have a little patch on their heads where the hair grows white. Just like you did. I’m not one to believe in guardian angels or the like… but maybe, just maybe, this is a sign that you are looking out over my girls. I’ll let down my well-developed sense of skepticism and sarcasm just this once to believe that.

I miss you dad. I miss talking to you for hours on the phone. I miss the letters you wrote. Because God knows you were the King Champion of letter writers. To this day I tell people that you wrote me every week I was in college, and that each letter as at least eight to twelve pages long. Do you know that I threw all those letters away? They were just dispatches from the homefront, how the boy’s football team was doing, what was going on at the park. Now I wish I had saved them. Every banal word of them.

I know you loved me, but you rarely said it. I’m not sure why, it was probably just a generational thing. Instead, you would write me letters. Even before I left for college, you’d write down your feelings and slip the letter into my sock drawer. I’d read them, but we’d never really talk about it. Looking back it seems like an odd situation, but I think the key here is that you told me that you loved me, even if it was in a secret letter. Now, I wish I had told you that I loved you a little more often.

So it seems fitting that I’d immortalize you in the same fashion -- a letter. The only difference now, of course, is that I no longer have the option of saying “I love you” to your face.

I hope you can read this, dad. I hope you can see me. And I hope that you know, beyond all space and time and distance, that I love you very much, and I miss you very much.

Your son,

Craig.