We call the thrice weekly dialysis his “oil change” and whenever the nice lady calls his name in the hospital waiting room and asks how his day is going he always recites some version of “listen, lady, I’m in the fucking hospital…”

I can’t wait to be a funnier version of him.

a summer night in 1976. I had graduated from school the year before and was still trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do with the rest of my life. I had a job at the same place my dad worked. Back then, a lot of dads got their sons summer jobs in the factory.

I had gained experience in QC, machine tool rigging, working various production lines. Now, I was hired in as a Buyer which was front office stuff. My dad was a lead manufacturing engineer on a high profile product line. So we saw each other a lot at work.

Anyways, that summer night, we were alone in the house that evening. We went out for dinner, a clam shop minutes from the house on the ocean. We had a few beers with dinner, left, but kept drinking when we got back home. That night, dad wanted to listen to some music....as usual, it was Armstrong, Teagarden, Dorsey brothers. He told me about growing up in Brooklyn, before the war, and seeing all these guys at a place called the Paramount Theater....

All of a sudden he said, why don't you pick something of yours to play? One of your albums. Whoa, this was was strange. I lived in the basement and had my LPs done there. Brought up the Grateful Dead's "Skull and Roses" album. He was a big Gene Krupa fan and kept commenting on Bill Kreutzmann drumming....I mean, he really liked the music! He had a big smile when he recognized "Johnny B. Goode".

In my inebriated state, I asked dad,,,,"wanna smoke a joint"? In his inebriated state, he said," sure! Haven't smoked T since '38"....his teen years in Brooklyn

It was just a great night to talk, finally, man to man, with him, late into the early morning.

Dad was having issues with his glaucoma effecting his ability to read drawings....he had surgery scheduled for September, but suffered a fatal MI the night before, and he never woke up.

he died when i was 17, and age when most of us hate our parents. i thought i did, and my tears were a confusing shock to me.
he was a drinker, and was very sick for a few yrs at the end. he embarrassed me when i brought ppl home. it took me decades to remember those happy times. and to forgive him.

i always gave him credit for my brains, even tho it turns out u get that from your mom. i hadnt realize how smart she was til late in her life.
and i’ve always had a garden, and gave him credit for that. 11 yrs ago when i started my urban farm, i realized i had so much to thank him for. i’m so much his daughter. he was a great 1st teacher, and told me all the time that i cd b anything i wanted, even a doctor. that was him hoping 1 of his kids wd fulfill his dream, but it was his true feeling that all he wanted was for me to b happy.
i was 1 of the ‘good’ children. there were 7 of us, and some were stars, and some were invisible. i think the dividing line was whether he had hope they might b docs, or otherwise do something great. he died before i cd disappoint him. lol.

a gardening memory that stays w me is that someone once gave him a couple cuttings from a hedge rose. he put them in a mason jar, on the edge of the garage skirt. he probably forgot about them, but we had enough rain to keep them alive. we went to check on them, and discovered the jar had broken, they had fallen into the yard, and were growing. grew into a lovely big bush. red 1s.
i always thought we were both great gardeners, but it was that we had great prairie soil. figured that out when i moved to sandy chicago.