And I Miss Him...The Old Man

I'm raising and early Father's Day salute to my father, John.

The Furey Brothers, a kickass bunch of Tinkers if every I heard them, ripped my heart out and threw it on the ground one night in Kinsale Ireland many years ago. The song "The Old Man" was being sung and the lyrics just about did me in (that and about 700 gallons of Harp.) It was my first trip to Ireland, a place my Dad always wanted to go but never had the chance to visit. His parents arrived somewhere before the turn of the century. He was the youngest of five and his dad, my grandfather Charles, died of a ruptured appendix around 1932 when Dad was nine. My grandmother Mary died the year after I was born. Family legend has it that the day my Dad was getting married to my Mom (a confirmed old bachelor of 38), my grandmother threw herself in front of the door crying, "Johnny, don't leave me." She was, by all indications, a little nuts. Anyway, Dad made up for lost time. Within seven years of his marriage he had moved out of Manhattan, bought a house on the Isle of Long, had six kids (six!!), learned to drive a car, push a lawnmower, plant rose bushes, and host some pretty swingin' bbq's for all the relatives from Queens and the Bronx. That's him with me (the pudgy one on the left) with my older sister (by 15 months) and one of my younger sisters (by 11 months). It was Easter. I remember those little pocketbooks! They contained a handkerchief and a couple of pennies.

I always thought my Dad looked so content in this picture. He had his three little girls around him, his lawn was green (is was a rare event) and the sun appeas to be shining. Judging from the ages of us chickettes, my brother Jack was an infant asleep inside the house, my youngest sister was a bun in the oven, and Teddy V wasn't even a glint. Dad's standing in front of our house, the one he got the mortage on through the GI Bill. His house. The only one of the five to ever own their own property. He looks good in his blue suit. He was a mailman...all that walking kept him fit...until the trucks came along. He looks happy, less stressed or tired than I remember him looking in later years. He's smiling at Mom who took the picture. She adored him. So did I. He loved music and history and movies...all my own passions. He died of a heart attack when I was seventeen and truth be told, he broke my heart.

So yeah, every once in a while I get a drink on, get a sniffle, and raise one for the Old Man. He deserves it. Happy Father's Day.

"And I never will forget him. For he made me what I am. And though he is gone, memories linger on...and I miss him, the old man"