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Sunday, February 17th, 2008
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9:33a
Today is Dad's birthday, and although he's no longer with us, I still think of him a dozen times a day. Stuff he said, good advice, things that made me laugh; stuff he liked to do. Things that made him crazy--for instance, somehow whenever I started a lawnmower, there was about a 1 in 4 chance that the cord wouldn't rewind, and he'd have to spend a couple of hours fixing it. Maybe that's why we always had more than one mower: after I'd break one, he'd stomp out and start the other one himself and tell me not to shut it off till I was done. I think about how he was always singing in the garage so his voice filled the house; how he actually wore holes in the buttons of TV remotes because he flipped channels like a maniac. No one could stand to watch TV with him--unless a John Wayne movie was on, when he'd leave the remote alone. Every time I go to a small town library, I think of all the time he volunteered to his library board, and the way he always had a huge stack of books by his chair. And whenever my disorganization catches up with me, I think about how he wrote all sorts of things down in notebooks. I have his notebook titled "How to Lose 100 pounds," which he did, and kept this record of; and another titled "Louisville," which includes exact directions for going from his house in northern Illinois to my house in Louisville, KY, including what rest stops were nice and when to get into the right lane for each exit, back when I was teaching at U of L. I think about him every time I freak out at a scratch on my car. I think about him every time I suck it up and do the right thing rather than the easy thing, and know without a hint of doubt that I'll be so glad I did.
Happy birthday, Dad. I don't know what you're doing today, but I'm celebrating all you gave us while you were here, and all you still give us. Later I'm going to put on your giant blue winter-TV-watching chamois shirt and pop in one of your John Wayne tapes. I figure you'll stop by ;-)
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