Trading Places

After 8 years of relatively faithful blogging during which I logged over 1600 entries, I was 1 for August, 1 for September, and O for October and November until now.  As Charles Dickens might say about the past 3 months, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”  The best of times has involved my son and his wife, our two exuberant, joyful and joy-inspiring grandkids and friends and relatives that shine the brightest when things seem darkest.  The worst of times was watching the rapid decline in my father’s health since August, punctuated by his funeral on what would have been his 85^th birthday, October 30.

I have now officially replaced my dad as the senior member of my immediate family.  It was an honor I did not seek and one my father fought hard to retain.  A few times near the end, my dad viewed me as the enemy.  Though his weight barely reached triple digits when he finally succumbed, he was still strong enough, feisty enough and frustrated enough to take a swing at me as I was helping him back into his bed not long before he died.   Winston Churchill once observed “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.”  A close second might be having your father (or anyone else, for that matter) take a swing at a part of your anatomy that rhymes with “guts” but is located due south of there without effect.  Even in his weakened condition if my father had worn a 15½-34 size shirt instead of a 15½-31 size shirt Frankie Valli might now be calling me up asking “How the heck do you sing so high?”

I loved my dad a lot but he was a notoriously hard man to please.  He got a lot of free meals at restaurants.  “Always shine the heel of your shoes just as well or better than the toe” he told me when I was a kid.  “When you do something, what people can’t see is just as important as what they can see!”  A man with that attitude is a good man to have working FOR you but a very hard man to work for.  One spring a few years ago Dad asked me to help him put up his purple martin houses.  While we were putting them up he commented “I’m not as stout as I used to be, but when I get to heaven I’ll be strong again!  If I don’t like my house when I get there I’ll be strong enough to remodel it!” 

“Dad” I said, pondering what he had just said, “If you get to heaven and don’t like your house there I think you might want to just keep your mouth shut.”

Maybe not.

Maybe heaven for him is remodeling his heavenly abode and having every tool he could ever imagine for the job and all the lumber is Grade A with no knotholes!  Dad always seemed happiest when he was building something or refinishing something or restoring value to something others considered worthless. 

I’d say that is a pretty good legacy.

And remember: that’s now coming from the oldest surviving nut on my branch of the family tree.

My Dad Being Assisted by Several Present-Opening

Specialists at his two-week early Birthday Party.

He Died a Week Later.