A shame to have let Father’s Day pass yesterday without posting, so:
- The summer trips he took us on, the Washington, New York, and Chicago; especially New York, though. The blue whale at AMNH, the kid with a stocking over his head sitting next to the lion at the NYPL, the burning building we saw from the top of the Empire State Building, driving down the FDR in the little red Honda Civic, the man wandering around in traffic outside the Holland Tunnel going about how the Twin Towers sparkled in the sun.
- His tolerance and kindness. He always says, there’s some good in worst of us and some bad in the best of us and he lives that philosophy and has passed it on to me. One of the times he wasmost angry with me was when I said something snobby, and he said, “Don’t ever think you’re better than anyone else.”
- He and Cherry having paid for us to go to private schools and college. I came away from NYU owing only $5000 in student loans and had no idea how good I had it. I’m embarrassed now of the entitlement I felt.
- The sharp turn he took, somehow, from the direction of the rest of the family with regard to education (and by extension, religion). To this day he’s most educated member in several generations on either side and almost certainly the only secular humanist.
- That I AM grateful for the relationship I have with my father. There were times we didn’t talk or when I felt such resentment towards him, as with NYU above, so much I took for granted and I’m so grateful to realize that while he’s still here: many people never see what they were given until the parent is gone.
Many thanks,
Me