esrosedotblog

99

Today is my father's birthday.

We would be 99.

A nice round number.

I miss him.

He is here every day. I know that I have some of his stuff.

I can see it in my kids.

He influenced a lot of people.

When he was a kid he had to quit school in the 8th grade and go to work.

That is what most boys did then.

He made up for his lack of education in many ways.

He learned his math and writing and eventually became a manager of a food market for A&P.

He joined the Navy in WWII when he was 'too old' and didn't have to and learned about the world and life and death and the horrors of war on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as a radar man on a destroyer-escort.

He got wounded.

He came home and brought the War with him for awhile but eventually he and it calmed down.

He had the wisdom of living.

He took every bit of experience and distilled it into the moment when he needed to say or do any particular thing.

He was a member of the school board. He gave me my diploma when I graduated from High School.

He was on the volunteer ambulance crew. He had some great and grisly stories to tell about that.

You would be amazed what people will call an ambulance for!

Well, maybe not.

We struggled the father-son thing like everyone else and eventually love won.

A good ending to any contest.

I was able to be with him at the end, to let him go and to say goodbye.

Well, I thought it was goodbye. But it was not.

Like I said. He is still here. I have a few pictures of him near my desk. I get to say hello on a regular basis.

It was a family joke that he was born on St. Patrick's Day.

We are all krauts. German to the core.

I would always try to find the one or two St. Patrick's Day birthday cards in the drug store.

So, today it isn't just hello. It is "top o' the mornin' to ya'" and "Begorrah" whatever that means and "Happy Birthday"!

Labels: birthdays, family, fathers