So tomorrow is Father's Day, and for the past 36 years that has meant ME being a father. But earlier a FaceBook (tm) memory came up -- a picture of probably my 6 year old self, safely hugged in the arms of my Dad, in our kitchen on Long Island. He was SO handsome and jaunty -- holding his pipe in one hand, and me in a hug in the other.
My last FD with him was 1982, and I don't recall it. I was working as a sales clerk at Jordan Marsh in the Town Center Mall in Boca, and enjoying the fact that in those seasonal days in South Palm Beach, there was a shortage of young men and a surfeit of young women -- particularly at the retail store, as well as Boca Hospital, the venue of my OTHER summer jobs while home from UM.
Dad had a heart attack -- probably late June -- and recovered, seemingly. He was home for the week of July 7, and then died July 14th, while getting a haircut after his doc, Heller, had pronounced him fine that very morning. So decades have passed.
But oh, I still miss him so. Those years were SO easy -- Dad was the family mule, and I was just along for the ride. He used to proclaim that HE was the family psychiatrist, and would solve all crises of life for his 3 kids. I now know that was, in due respect, a fool's errand.
Man was he fun. He never got to go to college after he returned from the WW II army stint -- he was working 3, then 2, then finally 1 job to support his young family. And so when I went away to university, he lived it SO happily vicariously through me. He wanted to know what the professors taught, what the parties were like, and whether the co-eds were indeed more, um, liberal than the young girls of his era. They were...
My Ds and Wifey and son in law all praise how I am as a Dad and grandfather, and I accept this praise. Indeed, as I near 64 my MAIN identity as a man is how I have taken care of my family. I'm humble about any professional accomplishments, but not who I am as a father, father in law, grandfather, and friend, along with being, I guess, an above average husband.
Still, I SO miss Hy, and fantasize about long talks I would have had with him as I aged. Precious few of my friends still have living Dads -- Norman is one outlier -- Max turns 98 this Fall, and though he had a few health blips recently, is still VERY much with it, and the true patriarch of his family.
My late suegro Richard loved his family. Unfortunately, I never had a single conversation with him -- he would talk AT me, and I would endure him. Things became comical -- in later years, when we would go for a meal, I would tell the host or hostess to have a tall vodka waiting for me when we sit, so that I could down it to deal with his verbal onslaught, and the inevitable embarrassing encounters with the server -- whether banging on the table if service was slow, or the comical requests of my mother in law since the tea was never hot enough. So Fate didn't give me a relationship there, but there WERE other mentors -- my friends' Dads took me in -- the closest being Mike's Dad Ed, who shepherded my career along wonderfully -- getting me 2 jobs, the last of which led to my true success. Ed died at 63 like MY Dad did.
Today we're attending Ed's great grandson Teddy's first birthday party. Ed died before Chris, his second grandchild, was born -- and Amanda was just a baby. I know Mike feels bereft like I do.
But we're BOTH living legacies to the leaders of the band. It's funny -- Ed was a professional drummer -- played during HIS army stint, and later at Miami Beach shows. My Dad had a beautiful voice, too, and missed out advancing on the Major Bowles show that launched the career of a skinny kid from Hoboken.
So music was part of what Hy gave me, but more importantly, the lesson of what it is to be a man -- someone who takes care of his family.
Dad did that for all of us SO well. I just wish he was around longer so we could compare tales of the trade. Happy Heavenly FD, Dad...
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