I can't tell you how much I love this piece, or how grateful I am to begin my day with it. We've known each other for a long time and yet there was so much here that was entirely new to me -- revealing, tender, appreciative -- and much that reminded me of myself. I hope we can talk more about these things someday. Thank you.
Beth, I'm so glad you like it. I thought a lot over the years about your beautiful posts in the late oughts surrounding your father-in-law's last years. He lived to be 99, as I recall? When we do get together, we can talk about grief, too.
Years ago, a friend referred to his "crime of a happy childhood." Your memories remind me of my own father and his brief career as a member of the Texas Legislature (or the Ledge, as we Austin hippies later called it). And your father's little expressions around the house: I endlessly savor the way my dad would awaken me and my two sisters on Sunday mornings by strolling around and announcing in mock-military tones, "All right you men...Especially you new men."
I can't tell you how much I love this piece, or how grateful I am to begin my day with it. We've known each other for a long time and yet there was so much here that was entirely new to me -- revealing, tender, appreciative -- and much that reminded me of myself. I hope we can talk more about these things someday. Thank you.
Beth, I'm so glad you like it. I thought a lot over the years about your beautiful posts in the late oughts surrounding your father-in-law's last years. He lived to be 99, as I recall? When we do get together, we can talk about grief, too.
Years ago, a friend referred to his "crime of a happy childhood." Your memories remind me of my own father and his brief career as a member of the Texas Legislature (or the Ledge, as we Austin hippies later called it). And your father's little expressions around the house: I endlessly savor the way my dad would awaken me and my two sisters on Sunday mornings by strolling around and announcing in mock-military tones, "All right you men...Especially you new men."
Sweet reveries of a reveille! I think dads deserve this lifelong appreciation we may have for their humor. And guilty as charged: a happy childhood!