Father's Day and Summer: Two Favorite Reasons to Celebrate

I'll start with Happy Father's Day! Happy First Day of Summer! Not in that order, obviously, but two of my very favorite days.

My favorite-father memories involve our walks and talks around the neighborhood where we lived in New Jersey, dancing on his shoes nightly when I was small and the stories he'd make up at bedtime. They weren't the greatest stories, but he told them well and I always wanted more of them, so he must have been doing something right.

He told me stories of his childhood, the close relationship he had with his twin brother and his older brother Sam. Stories of how he learned to fight anti-Semitic kids in his neighborhood and how Sam would fight for my dad and his twin. 

He taught me life was kind of like a twin too, with some parts hard and scary and others soft and easy. He wanted to be sure I was able to deal with both.

When my mother was angry at me, he argued on my behalf like a lawyer. (It was always against Judge and Jury, so very hard to win against her; but I truly adored him for trying).

My dad's chest had been badly burned as a while when he pulled at a pot of boiling water on the stove. You could see this when he got out of the shower or when we went swimming. I was very used to it so never thought about it until a friend made a comment. It made me realize there were many things I didn't know about my father's life growing up.

As he and I grew older, I heard more stories, including ones about my father's childhood and Army days. My favorite was about his first night in the Army. He was drinking a mug of coffee and noticed a cockroach at the bottom. He picked up the cockroach, threw it out and resumed drinking the coffee. This story was always told by my father while he was laughing; and always made me laugh, too.

My dad also had a tendency to rhapsodize about nature. He took us to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey at times and just the way he said the words "Pine Barrens" and "beautiful" taught me all I needed to know about the power of the outdoors.

As a nineteen-year-old he went out to Idaho to work in the national park system, and always talked about how much it moved him to sleep under the stars every night. When I think of my father at this point, I think of summer itself; the two are endlessly conflated because the season's gentleness and warmth reflect the same qualities my father had all through his life.

I know you can hear how I miss him in my writing, and I know you can tell how much my character (Ruby) loves her dad in the Beat Street Series if you read it. Today I want to honor the bond between all kids and fathers and to thank mine for showing me how fatherhood (and life) are done; or should be done.

I love you, Dad. Thank you.