Happy Father's Day

I wish my father was still around for me to get him a box of chocolate cherry cordials for Father's Day. Daddy passed away in 1979. I still dream about him sometimes.

My father was an auto mechanic who owned a gas station back when gas stations almost always were an adjunct to a full-service repair garage (not a convenience store). Back when those gas stations-cum-garages were open seven days a week till 10 PM. He typically had only one employee, so he worked a lot of late nights and weekends. I didn't know what it was like to have a father with a 9 to 5, weekdays only job.

I remember the smell of Sunoco gasoline, oil, and grease that saturated his work uniforms. I remember how he would lie down on the living room couch to read the paper and fall asleep watching football on TV. It was "his couch" -- us kids could use it when he wasn't around, but when Daddy wanted his couch, you got off it. I remember getting to go in the truck with my father to take the trash to the dump on Sundays. (Yes, our town had an open-burn dump -- I'm talking about the late 50s and early 60s.) He was at work so much of the time, getting to go anywhere with Daddy, even to the dump, was a treat.

I remember how he loved to go to the stock car races at Oxford Plains Speedway when he wasn't working on a Saturday night in the summer. I remember when he got a motorcycle in his 50s, and how my mother (also in her 50s) took up riding with him (as a passenger -- she never went so far as to get her own bike). I remember the letter from my mother telling me he had lung cancer.

I remember the last time I saw him. I had taken a week's vacation during spring break at Cornell, with no specific plans, and then decided on the spur of the moment to fly up to Maine to visit my folks. I was so glad I did that, because four months later he was gone.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I miss you.