I had this whole post written that would have introduced you to my Father, but then I had to delete because my family has this whole concern with privacy. Me, not wanting to be completely ostracized, I decided not to publish that original post.

Your loss. My Dad was a good guy. Everyone who knew him will tell you so. He was a product of his time. Dad knew how to do things. He was a thinker, and a solver of problems. We didn’t have air conditioning in our house and there were times when it was like sleeping in an oven. Dad had the idea to take the blower out of our furnace and use it as a whole house fan. He mounted the blower in one of the windows upstairs, flipped the switch and the cool air came rushing into the house. Genius.

Dad was a man of few words. My Mom was, and is the conversationalist in the family. He was a quiet man. Read 2-3 newspapers daily. Loved reading murder mystery books. Read plenty of magazines. Both my parents were readers. I remember plenty of times when Dad would be reading in his chair, Mom reading in her chair, and me sprawled out of the couch reading.

I would like to go on telling you countless stories of all the good times I had with my Dad. I wish I could, but I can’t. You see, I was a pretty crappy kid. The youngest of the youngest, I was petulant, somewhat spoiled, and didn’t think that anything that came from me had an odor.

It took me many years to find out how wrong that was. My Father and I had just begun to rebuild our relationship when he took sick and died. One of the greatest regrets of my life is that I took so long to express to him, and my Mother, how much I love them.

I have always known that I am not necessarily the child that they would have chosen. I came later in their lives. Both my parents worked long hours, and would have appreciated a child who had more conservative interests. Both my brothers were into sports. I was into music, raising hell, and arguing about everything and anything. Regardless of the fact that I rarely knew my ass from a hole in the ground.

But they did the best they did with me. And I stayed out of jail, and out of trouble as much as I could. It seemed like an even trade at the time.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad. I wish that I had taken my head out of my ass much sooner so that we could have gotten to know one another better. I think of you every day.