Today would have been your 86th birthday, and we would have celebrated it with a joke, as always: You were born on the 27th, and I was born on the 31st. You worked fast!
Anyway, I have alluded to your John Wayne-ness elsewhere on this board, and it made me realize just how much of an influence you were on my life, Dad.
I don’t think I ever told you, but thanks for buying me that snare drum that taughtmehowtospeakinrhythmsothatIcouldconquermystutteringproblem!
Thanks also for buying me my first set of Gretsches, but leaving me your set of Slingerlands with your initials on the bass drum head. I didn’t know to appreaciate that fine wood sound at the time, but I do now. I wouldn’t part with that set for the world, Dad!
Lastly, thanks for bringing me and my mother to the United States for a whole new life, for being my protector, my teacher and my loving dad. Now that I am in your position with my own 32 year old, I often wonder if I am doing the right thing with my advice, and I wish I had you to turn to, but I’m doing the best I can and I know that you were doing that as well when I was growing up.
I have some friends, Dad, that I met this past year and that I have met here on this message board, and they are very dear to me. I think they probably would have liked to have met you, and your open minded-ness!
Hey today was his 86th birthday. You have to remember that relationships with people never end, they just change in nature. People can join with you, leave you or die but the relationship just keeps on going. For example…next year you’ll think he would be 87, well he will be.
That was a touching tribute.
My dad would have been 59 last Sunday. While I sure would give anything for him to come back in good health, it put things in perspective for me when someone talked to me about how she never even knew her father. I am grateful I had a good dad around, even if it wasn’t for very long.
I hear you. I’m thankful my good dad was around until I was 15 years old. He made more of a difference in my life during those 15 years than anything else has, that’s for sure. Because of him I enjoy life, find happiness in almost everything, and have a lot of fun with my now 6-year-old daughter. Because of him and the way he was, my daughter has about 25 different cute little names of endearment, just like I had. I always try to do things that will help her feel confident and proud of herself, and most of all, because my father’s legacy lives on only in my memory, I had the desire and wherewithal to keep a journal of my daughter’s life, and the things we do together, that now is about 75 pages long, starting on the day she was born. God, I wish I had something like that from my dad, but all I have left of him is slowly fading memories. Thanks for an idyllic childhood, dad.
I just wanted to add that my dad was a wizard with a pair of drum sticks. He was a handsome devil and he made playing drums look like the most enjoyable thing in the world. He idolized Gene Krupa, and patterned his playing after Gene’s.
